Vote on Adopting "No Thread-crapping, etc" Rule (A Mod Sponsored Community Poll)

[RabidMongoose]

I think the Canadian Navy one is from January. If it has stopped, that's great and it won't be an issue going forward and nobody will need to be policed. Win-win.

(I am confident no mods would think the native American comparison made by several posters related to similar arguments made about Argentinian natives would be deemed off-topic. In a thread about whether Obama is a good president, it would be extreme to say that someone else couldn't bring up Abraham Lincoln or a widely-liked foreign president to make a point about what it means to be a good president.)

I'm hoping that the moderators look into these issues more carefully. Moreover, there were other off topic issues in the thread about the UK-Argentina conflict, like about some islands that aren't anywhere near the area in question. It was quite odd. So I think that there will be need to be a significant amount of policing needed.

I am pretty confident that in the end the moderators will clean this place up, especially the personal attacks and thread crapping.

 

[Infohawk]

. Moreover, there were other off topic issues in the thread about the UK-Argentina conflict, like about some islands that aren't anywhere near the area in question. It was quite odd.

Heaven forbid that in a thread about the territorial claims to an island someone compare and contrast claims to other islands in other parts of the world!

 

[dank69]

Misinformation is basically stating something as fact instead of opinion and yet not having any way of proving/confirming/verifying the statement.

Example:

Obama is great

This assertion is unprovable, if a member wished to challenge the assertion they might post "prove it, links please". If the response is unsatisfactory then a mod would get involved, again requesting/requiring validation of the statement.

...

Really? The statement 'Obama is great' would be challengable? How does one prove that Obama is great? The statement is an implied opinion. I think you have to be really careful here. Using such a tight leash would make a lot of normal discussion challengable.

'This new law will be a good/bad thing.' - Prove it
'IMO this new law will be a good/bad thing.' - Okay

I fear 'IMO' is going to be used to a pretty annoying extent.

 

[Infohawk]

Really? The statement 'Obama is great' would be challengable? How does one prove that Obama is great? The statement is an implied opinion. I think you have to be really careful here. Using such a tight leash would make a lot of normal discussion challengable.

'This new law will be a good/bad thing.' - Prove it
'IMO this new law will be a good/bad thing.' - Okay

I fear 'IMO' is going to be used to a pretty annoying extent.

Maybe a better way to look at it would be to say that some things are clearly subjective opinions and other things are clearly factual and can be proven or disproven. So maybe any comments about "Obama sucks" without IMO should be okay but things like "Obama is a Muslim" would be disallowed even if you say "IMO Obama is a Muslim."

I agree the implementation needs to be considered carefully, but overall I like this idea and it fits in with the other ideas in the category (besides logical fallacies).

 

[RabidMongoose]

Heaven forbid that in a thread about the territorial claims to an island someone compare and contrast claims to other islands in other parts of the world!

Actually, as far as I can tell, there wasn't really a dispute with the islands that were brought up in an off-topic fashion. Thus, it was a purely made up situation. Made up things like that are pretty off-topic and even 'comparing and contrasting' to issues that haven't even been brought up or are unrelated in any way to the current dispuse are off-topic, or else people can start coming up with all sorts of random and unrelated 'compare and contrast' scenarios for every single thread.

If an issue is about countryX and countryY, then I don't see how landZ, which has no relation to the issue, should even be brought up in the discussion to any meaningful degree. It's completely and 100% off-topic. Otherwise, the no off-topic rule can easily be negated through repeated discussion of 'hypotheticals' that are completely unrelated and meaningless.

For example, in the case of the Canadian navy, I think that most people would say that a 'compare and contrast' of the Icelandic navy would be pretty off-topic.

 

[woodie1]

I think this can of worms is gonna keep the mods very busy. I voted yes just to see how this will shake out.

 

[CanOWorms]

And I might as well cut to the chase, my motivation for voting yes is to stop the longstanding problem of many threads being derailed into a discussion on the European monarchies or discussion of all the evils of certain European countries, but mostly the UK in topics that have nothing to do with those issues. Examples of threads were those discussions aren't relevant are threads about the Canadian Navy or threads about the BP oil spill.

When was the last time any of that happened?

I recall a thread dedicated to monarchies several weeks ago which provided a very interesting discussion. Monarchy may have been mentioned in some threads in relation to cultural or legal reasons for a particular situation. I think that is normal and not a derailment.

I understand that some people are ashamed of monarchies, but that is something those posters should manage. If we're talking about why a certain country does something a certain way, surely we are talking about culture. Monarchy without a doubt is a huge part of the cultural development of many countries.

For example, if we have a thread on legal issues such as property law and why something is the way it is, of course monarchy should be discussed as it is the major influence for legal development of property law in many countries. Likewise, if we're talking about the US, then it should be no problem for someone to talk about western expansion in the United States for reasons why something is the way it is.

 

[Infohawk]

When was the last time any of that happened?

I already answered that question. Last month right before the mod initiatives started. If it's stopped in light of all these mod initiatives, great. Hopefully the rule gets passed so the off-topic trolls don't feel it's safe for them to start derailing.

I recall a thread dedicated to monarchies several weeks ago which provided a very interesting discussion.

It's ridiculous that you bring that up because the whole point of that thread was to give the off-topic accounts a place to focus their obsession:

The morality, legitimacy of the history of the monarch, should it be there? Is it ethical / moral? Why does America not have one? Is it better or worse without it.

Use this thread to discuss that.

Note the bold.

Clearly nobody's saying that someone can't discuss the monarchy in a topic on the monarchy. Why would you even think that's a risk? Just like it's to discuss the UK in the Falklands thread. The problem is when people are trying to talk about Canada's Navy or the BP oil spill.

For example, if we have a thread on legal issues such as property law and why something is the way it is, of course monarchy should be discussed as it is the major influence for legal development of property law in many countries.

That in of itself would be fine. Doesn't respresent the kind of off-topic tangents I'm talking about. If the regular bashers start talking about the "queen whore" it's clear their motive is not to enlighten us on the history of the common law.

 

[CanOWorms]

I already answered that question. Last month right before the mod initiatives started. If it's stopped in light of all these mod initiatives, great. Hopefully the rule gets passed so the off-topic trolls don't feel it's safe for them to start derailing.

I feel that the most flagrant violation of off-topic trolls is the discussion of posters of P&N rather than actual politics and news. Those don't generate any debate or points of discussion. If someone accidentally goes off topic, it can spawn a debate directly related to politics or news.

It's ridiculous that you bring that up because the whole point of that thread was to give the off-topic accounts a place to focus their obsession:

Note the bold.

Yes, it's a thread created to discuss a topic. That doesn't mean it's supposed to monopolize the topic. It just but one of several opportunities. It's not as if someone should be able to create a thread entitled "Criticism of Islam" and then expect all of it to be confined to a single thread.

Clearly nobody's saying that someone can't discuss the monarchy in a topic on the monarchy. Why would you even think that's a risk? Just like it's to discuss the UK in the Falklands thread. The problem is when people are trying to talk about Canada's Navy or the BP oil spill.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. In general, I believe that Canada's navy and the BP oil spill are worthy of discussion.

That in of itself would be fine. Doesn't respresent the kind of off-topic tangents I'm talking about. If the regular bashers start talking about the "queen whore" it's clear their motive is not to enlighten us on the history of the common law.

I don't see how talking referring to the head of state of the UK as the "Queen Whore" is any different than other mean-spirited names for other world leaders. People have all sorts of names for Obama, Bush, Ahmadinejad, etc. Are you suggesting that we cannot insult world leaders?

 

[RabidMongoose]

Clearly off-topic is a serious issue. I think that many people think that they are never off-topic. It's probably an ego thing.

 

[Infohawk]

Wow that was a quick edit by rabidmongoose. Can mods see edits that happen within the time limit where no edit is shown?

 

[RabidMongoose]

Excuse me? This thread is about off-topic issues. How is my comment about off-topic moderation off-topic?

The issue that I'm trying to bring up is that many people seem to think that they aren't off-topic. This is something that will need to be addressed.

 

[Craig234]

Big difference between 'thread-crapping/trolling' and 'off-topic' which can be good or bad. No reason to bundle them in one vote.

 

[Capt Caveman]

The fact that troll threads like this and threads that are outright untrue are allowed, I don't see why threadcrapping wouldn't be allowed.

 

[JSt0rm]

Big difference between 'thread-crapping/trolling' and 'off-topic' which can be good or bad. No reason to bundle them in one vote.

Probably best to leave to a all in one judge, jury and executioner and not think about it. What in the world could go wrong?

From having no recourse to only secret deliberation it sound swell

 

[RabidMongoose]

Also, what will be the punishments for violations of this issue? How exactly would it be enforced? Or is this the topic of a subsequent poll? Sorry that I have all of these questions, but I figure that it's better to get more questions and concerns out instead of leaving it all private.

As an example, say a poster goes off topic in a thread. Is that poster banned from the forum and if so for how long, is the poster banned from posting in that thread again, is the poster just warned, etc.?

 

[JSt0rm]

And how can a normal debate flow without some divergence? Who will enforce how much is too much.

Its fucking idiocy.

 

[ericlp]

And how can a normal debate flow without some divergence? Who will enforce how much is too much.

Its fucking idiocy.

My thought exactly. Sometimes it's a good idea to bring different pieces to the puzzle ... Other times not so much. I just think it will create a lot of confusion where it's allowed in one post yet, someone starts talking about this or that same thing in another post and the OP doesn't like this guy, BAM! vacation time!

I think that if passed it would bring open a lot more questions than answers. I think this a loop hole from hell.

I voted no.

 

[Murloc]

I voted no because such a rule would be too subject to the subjective sensations of the mods. There's no way to enforce such a rule.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Absolutely not as things stand.

Before you consider such an action there will need to be a rule about provocation and trolling on the part of the OP?

You will need to ban most religion threads. Then you will have to do away with insulting thread premises. Allowing people to troll and then punishing them when they get called on it?

Bad idea, at least as things are permitted now.

Besides this is a political forum, not a technical one. These are emotional topics as well as rational and in the history of political discourse it is always been so and should be. The subjects discussed can markedly change how we are required to live and not something like video cards which can be talked about in terms of specs and we all know how even that can be difficult to handle.

Will "Is God a Rapist" threads be allowed to exist? What objective standards will there be to prevent provocation?

Please eliminate the forum before you adopt this.

 

[SNC]

The problem\solution is being portrayed completely back assedwards. The problem is not people who post an off topic or flaming post, it is the reaction of the others involved in the thread. You are asking a few to moderate a forum for you because you cant do it your selves. Is it so hard to ignore a thread that has irrelevant information? When reading a tech manual or political paper on an ad supported site, do you contact the admin of that site to complain about the intrusion of the ad or do you make a decision to either continue to read or find a less annoying site to read it from? Is calling someone an idiot for thread crapping any better than the initial crap in the first place. Ignore the crapper he will go away. If you give someone else the ability to remove posts based on the content of that post, what happens when you have a point somewhat off topic but relevant in a twisted obscure way in an attempt to show that something is possible? How is every mod expected to know everything about everything and everyone?


Yes there are some people that post shit, but you don't need a mod to point them out or remove their posts.

If the mods are right leaning you will end up with all derogatory posts from the left removed. Ready for that? I for one glean as much information from a flaming off topic poster than I do from an on topic one.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Clearly off-topic is a serious issue. I think that many people think that they are never off-topic. It's probably an ego thing.

Actually there are many people who if you talk about anything British will think its open season on the monarchy. Why? Bevause it`s british.........even if the discussion was Britsh contraceptive devices.....or British restaurants....where exactly does the Monarchy fit into the discussion? duh...

 

[shortylickens]

The problem is (and always is) in politics when you are discussing something and more importantly, disagreeing, its very difficult to officially declare when someone is genuinely trolling or crapping. At what point do you tell people their heated argument is no longer appropriate and they are punished?

And of course as already pointed out above, what about the numerous times when the OP is trolling the whole damn forum with a new thread instead of a new post?

 

[shortylickens]

Also, what will be the punishments for violations of this issue? How exactly would it be enforced? Or is this the topic of a subsequent poll? Sorry that I have all of these questions, but I figure that it's better to get more questions and concerns out instead of leaving it all private.

As an example, say a poster goes off topic in a thread. Is that poster banned from the forum and if so for how long, is the poster banned from posting in that thread again, is the poster just warned, etc.?

I would love to see people banned a week at a time from P&N. They will either learn their lesson, or get bored and stop trolling for good.
At the very least it gives one week of fresh air and the rest can get some good discussions in.

Of course realistically it means half the regulars will be gone at any given time, but thats cool too. If they really care about a particular issue, they can post in the thread a week later. By then tempers will have cooled. Again, the ultimate benefit is more intelligent discussion.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Why the hell would anyone vote no on this?