Capitalism -v- Socialism

Victor

I've found that since, well .... forever, too many threads have been dragged into a Capitalism -v- Socialism (or Bush -v- Iraq or whatever) slanging match, completely off topic and just boring 90% of us utterly senseless. I suspect an amount of this is baiting or trolling, but a lot of it is peoples selfish inability to stick to the topic at hand. Can or should these people be reprimanded for this behavior.

Latest example: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=912765#post912765 While this has a small element of Capitalism -v- Socialism (or rather Agressive -v- Assertive), it is largely off topic. Kensian (or another other random thought) has nothing to do with the EU Convention.

Sand

People tend to interpret and judge any particular question/issue via the idealogy of the "camp" they come from - its just a case study to have the rules and philosophies applied to, so that a agreeable interpretation can be drawn. An increase in crime is a result of mainly poor law enforcement to some, and mainly social inequity to others depending on their viewpoint.

Its not really surprising that threads then boil down to which particular set of tools yeilds the best result/interpretation. Theres probably isnt even a chance of reconcilling views from two opposing views in a lot of cases. Threads arent about solving problems anyway - usually just discussing them by putting your own view out there.

Id imagine the workload moderators would have to pick up if topics were going to be heavily policed to keep them where they should be would be quite heavy and probably a good deal unpopular because people would have different interpretations of whats on and off topic. More hassle than it would be worth I think.

Victor

Originally posted by Sand
An increase in crime is a result of mainly poor law enforcement to some, and mainly social inequity to others depending on their viewpoint.

There is a third way - instilling a need to follow the rules, by both the community and it's leaders and that is what is needed in this case.

shotamoose

I think I agree with Sand :eek: in that I find arguments about Capitalism v Socialism in the abstract a tad dull, even though I've been dragged into them before. I find using the opposition is actually a useful way of thinking about all sorts of things, and obviously it's been one of the defining Big Arguments of history, so there should be no surprise that it keeps cropping up. There's no inherent reason why it should always descend into drivel more than anything else. And anyway, that's when the mods have their chance to shine

bonkey

Originally posted by Victor
I've found that since, well .... forever, too many threads have been dragged into a Capitalism -v- Socialism (or Bush -v- Iraq or whatever) slanging match, completely off topic and just boring 90% of us utterly senseless.

...
Can or should these people be reprimanded for this behavior.

Fair point, and fair question.

Here's my take on it.

As a moderator, I try and ensure that a thread is not being hijacked by one or two posters heading off topic.

If there are only two or three posters active on a thread (as is very often the case), and they start heading off on a tangent...who am I to stop them? No-one else is participating in the discussion, so I see no problem in allowing a reasonably organic discussion thread continue within reason. Should I favour the reader over the poster? Should I say "sorry guys...can't take the discussion that way, because someone else who hasnt posted yet might want to come in on-topic" ???

If there are multiple people involved with a thread, and it heads off topic to the interest of only a small number of those people, then I take a second stance. I decide if I have an issue with it going off thread. If I do, I say something. If not, then I wait and see if anyone reports the thread.

Guess what. I can count the number of reported posts since this forum started on the fingers of my left hand, without resorting to anything other than base 10 arithmetic (off-topic - never trust a man who can count to 1024 on his fingers).

Adding in PMs about specific issues that were not generated from the "Reoprt this Post" button, I'm up to needing my right hand as well for the counting, but still working in base 10.

My conclusion from this is that one of the following scenarios must be correct :

1) People don't care that topics are going off topic
2) People care that topics are going off topic, but not enough to do something about it. After all - thats the moderator's job.
3) People care enough to complain eventually, but not in the manner is clearly supplied to them.

I do quite frequently see posters asking if we can go back on-topic, and generally I keep an eye on the threads direction after that. Funnily...the people who request that we get back "on topic" are usually just as likely to head off on a different tangent as they are to remain on topic after a couple of posts...showing that it wasnt the "off-topicness" that was the problem, but the direction that had taken.

The last time the moderator's tried to get people involved in how we run this forum, we put up a set of proposed rules "for discussion" as a sticky topic. After several weeks, we had a sum total of 1 response. I'm working from memory here, but I think that response came from the person who afterwards became our third moderator - Swiss. So, other than the current moderators, not a single person offered commentary on the proposed rules, not even to say "nothing to add, good job". We had 0 feedback.

Now dont get me wrong....Victor has a point. There is a problem here. The thing is that its not a problem I'm convinced the moderator's need to do anything about. Not yet, at any rate. Not while there is an unused system in place to deal with this problem.

<edit>
Having just reviewed the thread that Victor took it upon himself to complain about in-thread and here, I have locked it - since I left it mid-yesterday, it has gone off the deep end.

I have yet to receive a single PM or report about this thread...not even from Victor.
</edit>

jc

Victor

Originally posted by bonkey
Guess what. I can count the number of reported posts since this forum started on the fingers of my left hand, without resorting to anything other than base 10 arithmetic (off-topic - never trust a man who can count to 1024 on his fingers).

Don't trust me then, I could make 1,048,576 if I added in my toes, but don't make me loose track I was under the impression that Gandalf was dealing with such reports on a day-in, day-out basis.

Originally posted by bonkey
Adding in PMs about specific issues that were not generated from the "Reoprt this Post" button, I'm up to needing my right hand as well for the counting, but still working in base 10.

I suspect I have used it more than once. Perhaps we are a little slow to use the report button.

Originally posted by bonkey
Now dont get me wrong....Victor has a point. There is a problem here. The thing is that its not a problem I'm convinced the moderator's need to do anything about.

Quite possibly not, but in my opinion it is soemthing the posters need to deal with.

Originally posted by bonkey
<edit>I have yet to receive a single PM or report about this thread...not even from Victor.</edit>
But it's on-topic (in a curious way) and I've been off-line

Éomer of Rohan

I cannot believe I am writing this but I am going along with Sand. Political ideology is inextricable from the way the world is viewed today. That is the point of politics and it has always been how people were divided into political camps; democrat, republican, green or tory whig or SF/UU/DUP/SDLP or whatever. I say if any action on this matter is to be taken, there should be first a vote of all the regular contributors to politics.

Éomer of Rohan

And while I am on the topic (no pun intended), would it not be fairer to allow threads tom develop in any given direction; surely they should only provide stimuli for debate and higher arguments? Especially I think we should consider that;

If ANY poster wishes to change the course of a topic (to vary it from or restore it to original posts), they can do so simply by altering the focus of their argument; I don't think this is a case for moderators given that, as 3 people out of five have so far stated, our political beliefs and how those interact are fundamental to our debates.

I apologise for I acknowledge that I am one of the people that Victor aims at, among others (Sparks, Sand, Biffa, Bob the Unlucky Octopus to name a balanced few - NB simply reiterating that many posters engage in this), but I would say that a poster who would rather discuss something that we passed earlier in a thread has only to bring it up again plus relevent details.

bonkey

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
If ANY poster wishes to change the course of a topic (to vary it from or restore it to original posts), they can do so simply by altering the focus of their argument; I

They can also start a new thread, with a link in the old pointing to the new thread and explaining what its going to be about.

This allows the original thread and the new direction to co-exist peacefully, which is why its our preferred choice, and lets face it....its not really that much harder.

but I would say that a poster who would rather discuss something that we passed earlier in a thread has only to bring it up again plus relevent details.

Absolutely - in another thread

And, as I've just clarified to Eomer in a PM, there is no issue with people taking content from locked threads to continue discussions as long as they bear in mind why we locked the original thread

jc

Éomer of Rohan

I can accept everything that you have written here; and thank you for taking the time to PM me that stuff. As regards judgement calls though, I would reiterate the point that much of what the right and left deal with (whether or not these political viewpoints are relevent to modern society Corinthian lol ) is based on their political views and therefore to many threads come examples that substantiate these views - a favourite of mine being the USA and a favourite of the right wing being Kosovo and what they consider a successful US intervention. These examples necessitate diversions to some extent - and it is exceedingly hard to draw the line, though I DO agree that the specified thread had drifted considerably. I would also ask for a formal rule (if there isn't one; Bonkey told me what the rules were but probably not all of them) that at least one warning has to be given by a politics moderator before a thread can be locked. I think the previous thread could have been salvaged.