Politics Café.

K-9

K-9 wrote: »

That my view of it, unfortunately it never really took off. It could well be the forum is too divided or set in its ways!

Well seems I got that one wrong, the cafe seems to be thriving and it isn't just flooded with Irish Water stuff.

Irish Economy looks like it could be moved back to the main forum.

FreudianSlippers

K-9 wrote: »

Well seems I got that one wrong, the cafe seems to be thriving and it isn't just flooded with Irish Water stuff.

Irish Economy looks like it could be moved back to the main forum.

It started to pick up when I started posting there. Love me or hate me, my milkshake posts bring all the boys to the yard.

Permabear

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K-9

Permabear wrote: »

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I did bring up the suggestion of merging some forums with the politics mod team again, but we've had manpower issues the last few months. I'll bump it up again in the next couple of days.

gandalf

K-9 wrote: »

we've had manpower issues the last few months.

It might be prudent to ask the admins to reassign a few mods on a temporary basis because my spidey sense is saying that you are going to have a very busy couple of weeks with the whole Russian situation.

Crann na Beatha

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Permabear

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K-9

There's probably some truth in that but it might be more suited to our own discussion on the rules thread. More defined demarcation might be needed!

Permabear

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gandalf

Actually Permabear I think the main forum would be fine if there was enough manpower to enforce the rules expediently and consistently. The problem from my perspective is that when this doesn't happen it becomes a very frustrating place to engage in. If you look at the Ukraine/Russian threads a "user" who has an agenda can derail a thread and it can be hours before it is dealt with by a mod.

If as stated there is a man power problem then really the mods should make a request in the mod forum for some of the mods to stand in on a temporary basis until the mods all have enough time to cover the forum again or until the long term absentee mods are replaced.

Permabear

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Scofflaw

Permabear wrote: »

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Just to make the point that creating the Politics Café was done as part of a general effort to stop the black hole of AH sucking the entirety of Boards into it...

Permabear wrote: »

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Since there isn't actually a numeric limit on the number of mods, not removing disengaged mods doesn't prevent the taking on of new mods, although it may create the illusion even to the mod team of there being less need for new mods.

As to taking on temporary mods, the problem with it is that unless they're regular Politics posters, there's a question of whether the balance between time spent getting used to the forum and the extra manpower is a good tradeoff. And if they are regular Politics posters, they're usually fairly well entrenched in one side or other of a lot of the usual debates.

This isn't a problem unique to Politics - as a CMod I see it pretty regularly across all forums.

However, things have moved forward another notch or two recently, I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear

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Scofflaw

Permabear wrote: »

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I know, but removing Sceptre from the roster feels like abandoning history.

Understood. I do appreciate that point. I think it's much better to build a team of active, engaged mods who will be with the forum over the longer term.

Now we just need to find suckers. Suckers with clean records who are simultaneously sane enough to mod politics and insane enough to agree.

Easy peasy.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Absolutely.

That's good -- I'm pleased to hear that, and will look forward to developments.

Well, I'm hoping to promote the idea that having got the Café up and running, we demarcate the two rather more sharply by vigorously upping the standards in the main forum.

"Vigor et severitatem - solum adultis".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Timberrrrrrrr

Scofflaw wrote: »

I know, but removing Sceptre from the roster feels like abandoning history.



Now we just need to find suckers. Suckers with clean records who are simultaneously sane enough to mod politics and insane enough to agree.

Easy peasy.



Absolutely.



Well, I'm hoping to promote the idea that having got the Café up and running, we demarcate the two rather more sharply by vigorously upping the standards in the main forum.

"Vigor et severitatem - solum adultis".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Do such suckers.....I mean posters exist?

Scofflaw

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Do such suckers.....I mean posters exist?

We have cautious hopes...very cautious...

cordially,
Scofflaw

Timberrrrrrrr

Scofflaw wrote: »

We have cautious hopes...very cautious...

cordially,
Scofflaw

if you manage to find one let me know, i have a holy grail i would like to find and feel you could be just the man for the job in helping me :pac:

Permabear

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gandalf

Permabear wrote: »

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And thats what a certain type of poster is counting on especially if they realise there are gaps.

This is not the fault of the active mods, it should be noted. Some mods in recent years have gone above and beyond the call of duty. But we have regularly seen a couple of mods trying their best to manage a main forum and seven subforums, which is difficult even without the recent effort to encourage an influx of AH posters via Politics Café.

I've been there myself. I modded Politics for years and there was nothing worse than being stretched thin.

I agree totally the mods who are around are doing too much. Setting up the Politics Cafe and dumping in threads from After Hours without adding additional mods is a serious error. I think that they should add a couple of the After Hours mods to the roster of the Politics Cafe to help out at the very least. They don't need to know the ins and out of the main Politics forum as the charter in the Politics Cafe would be very similar to After Hours (don't be a dick).

If history is any indicator, neither of those things will happen. Temporary mods are never taken on. Long-term disengaged/absentee mods are rarely ever removed, even if they show up for five minutes once every other month.

They have happened in the past. It happened in Politics and Soccer when I was there. Admittedly it was a long time ago and in one case it was a couple of Admins who weighted in.

I have always said that if a mod is absent more than a couple of months they should be removed. It gives a false sense of cover.

Permabear

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K-9

Permabear wrote: »

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It was just a suggestion, I think you are aware the discussion on the rules thread often veers off topic.

Plus one thread in the cafe is hardly being fond of locking threads, unless you've other examples?

Wouldn't want to give readers the wrong impression, that open feedback thread is going years.

gandalf

Permabear wrote: »

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It could also act as a feeder for mods to step up to the main politics forum. Kind of like a Politics Mod 101 Boot camp

Permabear

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Scofflaw

Permabear wrote: »

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To be fair, the point at which it was shut down was the point at which everyone likely to want a say had likely had it, the majority had supported keeping it (I don't, personally), and we were down to such gems as this:

Good luck telling our republican friends that they have to discuss Northern Ireland in the "International Politics" section.

That probably wasn't going to go anywhere happy after that.

gandalf wrote:

I think that they should add a couple of the After Hours mods to the roster of the Politics Cafe to help out at the very least. They don't need to know the ins and out of the main Politics forum as the charter in the Politics Cafe would be very similar to After Hours (don't be a dick).

I like this suggestion.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear

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Scofflaw

Permabear wrote: »

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You had made your post in favour of closing it, and the thread wasn't a 'general discussion' thread but a straw poll. The opportunity to persuade other posters that they should change their minds wasn't on offer to anybody.

Not everything is a dialectic.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear

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Scofflaw

Permabear wrote: »

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She posted her rationale, you posted your rationale. Nobody prevented you posting your rationale, which could have been as long as you liked, nobody deleted it or left an argument against it before closing the thread. It was the loose discussion starting after that post which led to the thread's closure.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear

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Scofflaw

Well, I think at this stage I'm just going to say that your points are noted, but that further pursuit of them seems pointless. Which would be, I suppose, the point at which I might close the thread, were it not cunningly in Feedback...

cordially,
Scofflaw

curses, foiled again!