A discussion on the rules.

P. Breathnach

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Ive been diligently reporting every post I have seen with any variation of the word "scum" in it... my pet peeve.

Did you report this one?

Well, there's three new mods here now who need help from you guys. I knew (had a slight idea) of the workload that would be involved, so please, use the report button anytime you see fit.

As Gandalf said:

If you think it is dodgy or substandard, report it.

Rebelheart

Will somebody allow us to include a poll with our post rather than having to annoy moderators?

The vast majority of fora on Boards.ie appear to allow contributors do this.

oscarBravo

Rebelheart wrote: »

Will somebody allow us to include a poll with our post rather than having to annoy moderators?

The vast majority of fora on Boards.ie appear to allow contributors do this.

We've consciously chosen to turn off polls. Polls are a useful way to do a quick headcount for various different purposes across the site, but on the Politics forum they're more likely to be used as a points-scoring exercise. ("See? Most people agree with me.")

The purpose of the forum is discussion, not popularity contests. I don't see us allowing polls anytime soon.

Rebelheart

oscarBravo wrote: »

We've consciously chosen to turn off polls. Polls are a useful way to do a quick headcount for various different purposes across the site, but on the Politics forum they're more likely to be used as a points-scoring exercise. ("See? Most people agree with me.")

The purpose of the forum is discussion, not popularity contests. I don't see us allowing polls anytime soon.

Well, I only wanted to get the general view on the success of Irish negotiations with the ECB/IMF, so there's really, really, really no need for paranoia on this issue. It's, at best, childish, particularly given that fora across Boards.ie can allow such a simple function without reading things into it.

At any rate, the vast majority of posts on the Politics forum, and very many posts on other fora, are already used as "point-scoring exercises". Even when a poster is agreeing with somebody they are storing up "points" for their next battle, or being thanked by people as part of the general "points-scoring" shenanigans. Why, therefore, is a poll being singled out as something unique in this regard?

And for God's sake: if you're so against "popularity contests" in this forum, please cut the hypocrisy and disable the "thanks" feature.

oscarBravo

I was just explaining the reasoning. No need to read too much into it.

You may not agree with the reasoning; so be it. Like I said, I don't see it happening.

Apart from anything else, there seems to be a vBulletin bug that breaks the "first unread" function in threads with polls, which can make it very hard to follow busy threads.

You should be able to get a general view on whether people believe the negotiations were successful by reading their posts on the subject. Hopefully, posts will flesh out the reasons why people believe they were or were not successful, which provides a lot more insight and opportunity for discussion than a yes/no poll.

Kiki10

It very hard to describe an insult. What is acceptable to one is unacceptable to others. People often use, been insulted as a method of silencing a point of view. its like a soccer player going down anytime some one looks at them. I think there must be a cut off point where personal stuff is off limits unless its the issue of the debate. Language is dependent on age, I hate profanity's but I will use them where required. Its interesting to think that in Hebrew there is few insults so Israelis use Arabic to swear at each other.. in a roundabout way insults have eased integration of two different peoples??

CnaG

Kickoutthejams on Fintan O'Toole's petition:
Cut out the Gender Quotas stuff. We had to close a thread on the subject already as it got so out of hand.

This is the thread where we can comment on moderation, no? I'm fairly new to the politics board, but this particular warning seemed a bit, well, I don't think it's the right tact for the thread. The discussion has already started, and thread is meant to be about discussing FOT's petition. #6 (gender quotas) is part of that.

If mods were concerned with #6 becoming an issue, shouldn't the intervention have come 3 days ago when Red Alert said (in the very second post on the thread) "I don't agree with Point 6, but otherwise it's all good", inviting discussion of #6. Which posters were doing, fairly civilly (though more stating their opinion rather than actually discussing it) until The Corinthian described it as 'crap' (post #32). After that it was 'Absolutely obnoxious, disgusting anti-democratic, sexist nonsense" (#33), 'a joke' (#41) and just plain 'ridiculous' (#44).

In this sense, the moderator's comment seems reasonable. Those descriptions of #6 were provocative. Fair enough, tell everyone to back off. Maybe even lay down some guidelines for the thread, but cut out the discussion of #6 completely? A bit heavy handed, no?

Also, it's been three days since the gender quota discussion started on the FOT thread, provocations about #6 flying left, right and centre. But it's only when TRunner got involved (within a day of it) that there's a mod warning. I had a look at that other thread on gender quotas too, TRunner's one which is closed. I hadn't seen it before, and it did go in circles a bit, but why close it? Are gender quotas now a banned topic on politics? If a thread to discuss FOT's #6 is started so as not to derail/'hijack' (TC - #46) the original thread, will that too get closed down?

It just seems a bit like no-one can be bothered to keep an eye on the conversation and, rather than attempt to, they just say don't discuss it at all. I really think better guidelines are in order here, rather than an out-and-out 'cut it out' kind of thing.

Just my humble opinion.

P.S. the post directly after kickoutthejams calls #6 PC crap - just to point that out.

Kiki10

CnaG wrote: »

Kickoutthejams on Fintan O'Toole's petition:
Cut out the Gender Quotas stuff. We had to close a thread on the subject already as it got so out of hand.

This is the thread where we can comment on moderation, no? I'm fairly new to the politics board, but this particular warning seemed a bit, well, I don't think it's the right tact for the thread. The discussion has already started, and thread is meant to be about discussing FOT's petition. #6 (gender quotas) is part of that.

If mods were concerned with #6 becoming an issue, shouldn't the intervention have come 3 days ago when Red Alert said (in the very second post on the thread) "I don't agree with Point 6, but otherwise it's all good", inviting discussion of #6. Which posters were doing, fairly civilly (though more stating their opinion rather than actually discussing it) until The Corinthian described it as 'crap' (post #32). After that it was 'Absolutely obnoxious, disgusting anti-democratic, sexist nonsense" (#33), 'a joke' (#41) and just plain 'ridiculous' (#44).

In this sense, the moderator's comment seems reasonable. Those descriptions of #6 were provocative. Fair enough, tell everyone to back off. Maybe even lay down some guidelines for the thread, but cut out the discussion of #6 completely? A bit heavy handed, no?

Also, it's been three days since the gender quota discussion started on the FOT thread, provocations about #6 flying left, right and centre. But it's only when TRunner got involved (within a day of it) that there's a mod warning. I had a look at that other thread on gender quotas too, TRunner's one which is closed. I hadn't seen it before, and it did go in circles a bit, but why close it? Are gender quotas now a banned topic on politics? If a thread to discuss FOT's #6 is started so as not to derail/'hijack' (TC - #46) the original thread, will that too get closed down?

It just seems a bit like no-one can be bothered to keep an eye on the conversation and, rather than attempt to, they just say don't discuss it at all. I really think better guidelines are in order here, rather than an out-and-out 'cut it out' kind of thing.

Just my humble opinion.

P.S. the post directly after kickoutthejams calls #6 PC crap - just to point that out.

the mods here are unpaid so its probably unfair to ask them to be more detailed in there interaction. This entire forum has no importance in the real world bar light entertainment & academic research. I think a lot of people at all levels here take this whole topic too seriously.

CnaG

Kiki10 wrote: »

the mods here are unpaid so its probably unfair to ask them to be more detailed in there interaction. This entire forum has no importance in the real world bar light entertainment & academic research. I think a lot of people at all levels here take this whole topic too seriously.

See, I think you're actually wrong there. Can you take politics too seriously? Probably yes, but saying what goes on here has no importance at all is unneccesarily dismissive. After all, people are just as likely to form and solidify opinions during discussions here as they are in the 'real world'. About things like gender quotas.

I take your point about the mods being unpaid. Why bother intervening at all though, if not going to do so in a constructive manner?

Lockstep

CnaG wrote: »

Kickoutthejams on Fintan O'Toole's petition:
Cut out the Gender Quotas stuff. We had to close a thread on the subject already as it got so out of hand.

This is the thread where we can comment on moderation, no? I'm fairly new to the politics board, but this particular warning seemed a bit, well, I don't think it's the right tact for the thread. The discussion has already started, and thread is meant to be about discussing FOT's petition. #6 (gender quotas) is part of that.

If mods were concerned with #6 becoming an issue, shouldn't the intervention have come 3 days ago when Red Alert said (in the very second post on the thread) "I don't agree with Point 6, but otherwise it's all good", inviting discussion of #6. Which posters were doing, fairly civilly (though more stating their opinion rather than actually discussing it) until The Corinthian described it as 'crap' (post #32). After that it was 'Absolutely obnoxious, disgusting anti-democratic, sexist nonsense" (#33), 'a joke' (#41) and just plain 'ridiculous' (#44).

In this sense, the moderator's comment seems reasonable. Those descriptions of #6 were provocative. Fair enough, tell everyone to back off. Maybe even lay down some guidelines for the thread, but cut out the discussion of #6 completely? A bit heavy handed, no?

Also, it's been three days since the gender quota discussion started on the FOT thread, provocations about #6 flying left, right and centre. But it's only when TRunner got involved (within a day of it) that there's a mod warning. I had a look at that other thread on gender quotas too, TRunner's one which is closed. I hadn't seen it before, and it did go in circles a bit, but why close it? Are gender quotas now a banned topic on politics? If a thread to discuss FOT's #6 is started so as not to derail/'hijack' (TC - #46) the original thread, will that too get closed down?

It just seems a bit like no-one can be bothered to keep an eye on the conversation and, rather than attempt to, they just say don't discuss it at all. I really think better guidelines are in order here, rather than an out-and-out 'cut it out' kind of thing.

Just my humble opinion.

P.S. the post directly after kickoutthejams calls #6 PC crap - just to point that out.

The reason that a warning was given after Trunner's post was that was as soon as I became aware that the thread was descending into another flame war over gender quotas. One thread was already derailed and a separate thread became one of recycled arguments between the two posters in question.
We moderate in our spare time and the sheer amount of posts in the Politics forum means we can't be everywhere at once. We're reliant on users reporting posts to see where we're needed. Once a user reported that the thread had become a rerun of an epic dual (and the posts came to my attention) I posted in the thread. Had I been aware of it before, I would have warned against derailing the thread into gender quotas as soon as it started veering in that direction.
I know you'd like us to deal with posts as soon as they are made (I would too) but we're unpaid volunteers that can't be viewing every single thread for fun. We intervene as soon as we become aware of things, not as soon as they are posted.

Noone is saying "No discussions on points 6". What is being said is "Cut out these endless repeats of gender quota arguments". Discussing it in a general sense is grand but as you've seen, the gender quotas thread became completely stale with all sides reporting posts, claiming personal attacks when the other poster was just disagreeing with them. Posting about #6 is fine, but turning it into Gender Quotas Flame War 2.0 isn't on, which is where the thread was going.

Dear Santa,

This Christmas, I don't want any presents. Instead, please remove ":rolleyes:" from the politics forum, so condescending and patronising posts decrease by approximately 47%.

Yours,

Papa Smut

kaiser sauze

Papa Smut wrote: »

Dear Santa,

This Christmas, I don't want any presents. Instead, please remove ":rolleyes:" from the politics forum, so condescending and patronising posts decrease by approximately 47%.

Yours,

Papa Smut

:mad:

:rolleyes:

:pac:

P. Breathnach

I think there is something wrong with the rules in this forum when infractions are given for this: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69622768&postcount=62 and this http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69613629&postcount=41. Mild, but unpleasant abuse aimed at a group seems not to be tolerated if the word "scum" is used.

But this seems to be accepted as being within the rules: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69611319&postcount=32. It seems you can accuse an individual of causing the deaths of others, and wish harm on that individual.

Wolfe Tone

Guys, I guess this is the place to say it, but why dont we have a "poster of the year" type dealey? Like on the soccer forum, would be a bit of a laugh!

Eliot Rosewater

You're not getting it Mussolini!

Seriously though, peoples' opinions of other posters are based a lot on their own political opinions, and thus it would be impossible to find some "poster of the year".

Wolfe Tone

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

You're not getting it Mussolini!

Seriously though, peoples' opinions of other posters are based a lot on their own political opinions, and thus it would be impossible to find some "poster of the year".

Not true, works well in the soccer forum where everyone is literally divided into teams, I even voted for a pool supporter!

Maybe not "poster of the year" but perhaps ones for people like donegalfella who seem to put a deal of effort into the post, would illustrate the type of standard to aim for and stuff. Just a thought.

later12

Something I have noticed recently is posters writing a large chunks, or chunks of their posts in bold type. Should this be against forum rules? If everybody did it, it would make a thread extremely tiresome to read, in my opinion it's as bad as typing whole paragraphs in capital letters. It only seeks to catch attention in a way that it could (usually, in my experience) never manage through written expression or in light of the merit of its logic.

the use of bold in the above paragraph is just done to illustrate what I mean, I'm not actually talking anybody down but you can see how it reads. If nothing else it certainly isn't conducive to a calm and logical discussion.

oscarBravo

I'd certainly rather people didn't do it. Apart from anything else, it's one way we signify moderator instructions on-thread, and having non-mods posting like that is obtrusive.

Sully

Didn't think this would fall into the category of a rule but this is where GuanYin has pointed me to request that we have a new topic (as we always seemed to have and other political sites do) to discuss each opinion poll that comes out. Reporting the post isn't right and my short explanation on thread was removed.

Anyway, polls for December 2010 and January 2011 are done for two different companies and produced a different set of results. Having them merged in together as they are now makes it hard to follow. Personally I would like to discuss January and Decembers separately and the same with each new poll that comes out. Its a different discussion, not the same one.

GuanYin suggests having them altogether and just change the topic title. I disagree and think this change should be reverted so that we can discuss them separately. I think there is room for separate discussions on separate political issues.

Appreciate peoples thoughts and the political mods thoughts also.

GuanYin

Both polls were carried out by Red C research.

Having a thread for every poll that is carried out is a non starter.

We have the same policy in US Politics, I don't believe the main forum should have a different one.

nesf

I don't think we should merge polls from different months.

Sully

nesf wrote: »

I don't think we should merge polls from different months.

Its just my view that different months, even from the same research company, are a separate discussion. A month is a long time in Irish politics, not sure about the American system, especially in the current climate. Id personally prefer to discuss them separately and not have them jumbled up as its confusing, in my view. Its not just about numbers - the documentation released after I posted it gives much more detailed information which would be different then previous polls.

On the other hand, sometimes you may see a couple of polls in the same month and discussing them in one thread I would be happy with as they can be interesting to compare.

Eliot Rosewater

Just a quick question for the Politics mods: how recent should a post have to be to report it? I sometimes see posts 2 or 3 or 4 days old that merit reporting, but is it a little late/silly to report them then? Especially given the heavy work load ye have anyway?

nesf

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Just a quick question for the Politics mods: how recent should a post have to be to report it? I sometimes see posts 2 or 3 or 4 days old that merit reporting, but is it a little late/silly to report them then? Especially given the heavy work load ye have anyway?

Reporting stuff that's under a week old is fine. We might not action it but it will be noted etc.

Fitzerb

GuanYin wrote: »

MOD:

In your opinion. Because until there is a legal statement which charges all Sinn Fein members with being IRA terrorists, that's exactly all it is, opinion.

And I'm quite aware that often, popular opinion is the truth, just as I'm aware that it often isn't.

In this case, for the sake of debate and discussion, if you are going to make such accusations I EXPECT you will link to the actual documented charges and convictions against all individuals.

I'm quite fed up with the mudslinging on both sides of this particular divide. We will be looking at better ways to moderate these threads.

In the mean time, those employing hyperbole, rumor or conjecture as fact will be admonished.

I have no problem adhering to that rule on the basis that you apply that rule to all others. I can prove Martin Mc Guinness was a member of the IRA , I can prove Martin Ferris was a member and ther are many other less prominent SF memebrs who were found guilty in the courts of law of membership of the IRA. However I accept your point that there is no proff that all SF members are IRA no more than all FF members are corrupt. But as a mod you seem to all that muck slinging to carry on. No problem with you applying the rules but its important and in the interest of fair debate that they are applied in a fair and uncensored manner

GuanYin

Moved to the appropriate thread.

Fitzerb wrote: »

I have no problem adhering to that rule on the basis that you apply that rule to all others. I can prove Martin Mc Guinness was a member of the IRA , I can prove Martin Ferris was a member and ther are many other less prominent SF memebrs who were found guilty in the courts of law of membership of the IRA. However I accept your point that there is no proff that all SF members are IRA no more than all FF members are corrupt. But as a mod you seem to all that muck slinging to carry on. No problem with you applying the rules but its important and in the interest of fair debate that they are applied in a fair and uncensored manner

I have no problem applying the rules equally to all sectors, I will say that we require the forums help in doing so.

If you see a post that you feel is taking liberties with fact, ask for clarification in a polite way. If the poster does not follow through, report the post for our attention.

I may only nudge them on thread, but we won't tolerate that style of posting for long.

Fitzerb

GuanYin wrote: »

Moved to the appropriate thread.



I have no problem applying the rules equally to all sectors, I will say that we require the forums help in doing so.

If you see a post that you feel is taking liberties with fact, ask for clarification in a polite way. If the poster does not follow through, report the post for our attention.

I may only nudge them on thread, but we won't tolerate that style of posting for long.

Thank You

Bottle_of_Smoke

Remember last election there was this really petty carry on of calling political parties by a derogatory version of their name. "Feel and Fail" etc.

Can this crap be banned outright? It isn't big, funny or clever. Just immature and embarrassing.

P. Breathnach

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Remember last election there was this really petty carry on of calling political parties by a derogatory version of their name. "Feel and Fail" etc.

Can this crap be banned outright? It isn't big, funny or clever. Just immature and embarrassing.

I share your dislike of such silliness, but I fear the bus has already departed: we have had months of similar stuff playing on the names of politicians. I briefly considered citing examples, but the inevitable responses would be that the particular cases were justified.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find proper political discussion here.