US Shootings - numerous threads.

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

Is there really any need for a thread each time somebody in the USA is shot by a police officer. Same with mass shootings.

They’re really overtaking the front page of CA lately and sadly, I don’t think they’re all gonna lay down their arms just for me Just saw another poster say the same which prompted this post.

Should they all be combined in one or two mega threads?

I don’t know that anyone starting a thread hasn’t already answered the question for themselves as to whether or not what they wish to discuss fits into an existing thread or deserves a thread of its own. They’ve obviously decided it deserves a thread of its own, that differentiates it significantly enough from all the other mega threads which tbh I don’t really have any interest in so I ignore them.

I don’t think they’re taking over CA any more than I think threads on other topics are sometimes accused of taking over CA - if there’s interest in a thread, it gets legs; if not, it dies on its arse and disappears from the front page of CA pretty quick and you’d have to follow them to know when there’s a new post if you’re still interested in the thread.

These things tend to go in cycles so I’m not too concerned about CA being clogged up by any one particular issue or issues which I have no interest in. They might well be current affairs, but because I don’t care all that much for the topic, I’m not giving the thread any attention and it doesn’t distract from my reading of or contributing to threads on current affairs topics I’m interested in.

Gatling wrote: »

Could do with a super thread , being it's almost a daily occurrence ,most of the threads have very information in them anyway ,other than they are innocent unamed innocent people even when they are armed and trying to kill someone ,

Perhaps only one megathread about compo culture, one about travelers, one about the Dail, gender identity, public sector jobs, the government departments, RTE, taxes, etc. and then CA/IMHO will only be 12-24 megathreads total. Fair?

Leg End Reject wrote: »

The problem with megathreads is that several posters might simultaneously discuss separate events. It could become very disjointed.

Incredibly, since the topics being criticized here don't always have uniform overlaps.

I just went and perused the list of threads on the forum as far back as the end of february, to about the 12th page of the forum.

Of those roughly ~220 threads that have been active since the end of february, I saw only 9 threads that were apparently about the US and involved a shooting:

Andrew Brown Shooting
US Police killing of 15 yo black girl Makiah Bryant MOD NOTE IN OP
Derek Chauvin murder trial (George Floyd)
US Police killing of 13 year old Adam Toledo
Minnesota officer shoots dead another innocent black victim
Another mass shooting in the USA - 10 killed
(Yet) Another School Shooting - USA
American police officers abusing 5 year old child...
Man kills 8 in multi-venue attack

If I missed any within that time frame let me know.

All of which were started by uniquely different users, FYI, so it's not as though it's one or two individuals pushing some sort of agenda. You can also hopefully see that the overlaps are basically just guns, as you could be dealing with an officer involved shooting incident, or a school shooting, or a court trial, etc. - on closer inspection, one of the 9 involves no shooting at all, but officer conduct toward a child and a second of course deals with the murder of George Floyd by a chokehold to the knee - not a US shooting. So, that basically leaves 7.

I would argue people aren't overwhelmed or inundated by dozens of threads which seems to be the du jour of arguing that such threads appear every other day. Rather there appears to be much recency bias; the reality of it is shooting cases have been happening with much greater occurrence now that more people are becoming vaccinated and the social distancing etc. is all returning to pre pandemic norms. You didn't see many school massacres in 2020 because school was simply not in session. That is no longer the case and the rate will return. Just because users see the same thread two days in a row, it does not mean there have been 2 new shooting threads, it just means they've glossed over it twice.

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

There’s another one! The title of the thread is “Issiah Brown incident”. Who’s that then? You have to click into the thread to discover that it’s yet another thread on American cops.

I have no interest at all in any of those threads. They’re not the current affairs that I want to read about. But they seem to purposely omit putting USA in the thread title for click bait reasons. If they added the location to the incident then I’d have the opportunity to just scroll on without opening.

Yeah, the tag would be a great idea - "USA Cops Shoot Again" or similar. I've no interest in them either so could just ignore them.

+1 to trying out regional tags in the CA/IMHO forum.

A certain camp on this issue appears immune to the proper channel so I'll facilitate for them:

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Can we have all these USA police shootings just dumped into the one thread where they can all be easily ignored?

Not to sound mean, but those have SFA relevance to current affairs on an Irish site. And I know this thread will descend into this: a handful of the same posters that will take over and have an endless back and forth.

It's tiresome.

Why no objection to the thread about Nigerian officers killed, then? Surely that has even less relevance to current affairs on an Irish site.

Only a handful of incidents in the news make it to the forum: Ahmaud Arbery's killers are in jail now and the citizens arrest law they cited to defend their actions was repealed; the high profile trial of a florida officer charged with 67 counts of planting meth on innocent motorists is streaming; there have been at least a dozen mass shooting events, including one where the killer took his life after killing 6 at a birthday party.

I don't see the purpose in continuing to bump the threads in protest on the forum, not only is it off-topic and "threadspoiling" which is just another euphemism for a particular case of trolling, but it continues to place these threads at the top of the forum where they really grind your gears. We had a great example the other week re: the killing of a man in a parking garage where the cop has been charged with murder thinks to a post-George Floyd reform law, https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058183978, nobody ****posted on the thread, it went up, it got a couple replies, and it went about its way not bothering you again, none the wiser, no oppression, everyone happy.

Beasty locked another one, started by Hawley:

Thread closed

OP, I'll be banning you from the forum if you continue starting threads like this

IMHO, this seems like an overreact, I thought the problem was being mediated here in Help Desk. Beasty, your current last word on that was,

"If posters do not want to discuss some of the topics in the forum there is no requirement to post or indeed read threads"

So banning people from, or threatening to ban them for starting threads ie. US threads seems like a sudden reversal of policy, making warnings that seem to indicate nobody should be starting 'threads like this' is as clear as mud - one was locked the other week that just had the mod note attached "And another..." another was locked today because Beasty himself appeared to be upset by it:

Back on the front page for no good reason

The 'reason' being a user made a contribution to the thread: news came out about one of the officers and their use of force record of behavior, they shared that news and commented on that news. That would be a decent reason to post/bump to any thread, and this was not an old thread by any means. The other week, Beasty says 'don't like it, don't post in it' now he says 'I don't like it, I'm locking it?' I thought we would have at least had a discussion about it here, like we were doing, before making sharp pivots in policy like this. I would have thought there would be more thread warnings referring people to Help Desk re: threads that make people upset when they see them, ie. US threads. What is the point of Help Desk if the users with the complaint don't engage on it, and if they aren't engaging on it, why are the mods working silently on their behalf in contradiction to what they've said in the recent past? I report threadspoiling posts, but I never see anyone warned or directed to bring it here, instead they are probably all spamming reports because there is not one clear enough signal either way what the mods are deciding to do. Like, if a guy gets tazed to death by police while he's in shackles, obviously I don't think that discussion should be effectively shut down under threat of bans.

Beasty wrote: »

The pair of you are starting and bumping threads for the sake of it. I'm getting to the stage of banning one or both of you if you continue like that - it's winding others up, and essentially trolling.

I’m not doing any such thing. What is trolling is people who bump those threads to spoil those threads. I’ve reported them and thankfully mods delete most but not all. Suddenly without a card etc. being warned of being banned for talking about US policing?

You’ve done a complete 180 from 3 weeks ago, without really explaining why. The only thing winding people up here are the mods not able to clearly state their mind, to be perfectly frank. Make policy. Standing policy from 3 weeks ago was don’t post if you don’t like it. Now you’re telling me the policy is if you post in it you get banned. You’re banning whole topics, now, something that was recently spoken out against in Feedback.

If you don’t want US threads in CA/IMHO just say so. There are plenty of “bumped” threads that you don’t take an issue with - eg. Sweden and BLM/WLM. You want a megathread make a megathread. Put tags on. Threatening to ban people for talking about topics you said were okay to talk about just the other week is not how to handle this at all.

Beasty wrote: »

I just do not want to see threads continually started and bumped by 2 individuals, that focus on similar US topics

My "180" is down to the behaviour of the two of you. You've basically pushed it too far

I haven't pushed anything, and if this is going to be about me I'd like to see your documentation of when I have supposedly bumped posts.

Another user, not me, bumped a thread I started. Apparently upset with that user, you locked the thread I started.

I made 3 threads in this subject area since this topic was brought up in Feedback. 2 involve police killing someone in their custody, another involves a police department using seized cash for secret surveillance projects. 3 of which I felt were pretty over a line of being especially noteworthy given their circumstances.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=117145650
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=117164513
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=117216783

If you want to compare me with user Hawley, they've started 15 this past month.

All I see here is a mod guilting by loose association. If there's a topic up about policing I'm likely to be interested. That's not me bumping things to wind people up like you've suggested. In fact if I was guilty of this wouldn't I have bumped this one: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=117096598 - I think the fact I did no such thing demonstrates against your accusation about me. Again though, if you want to accuse me of necro'ing threads it's your burden of proof. I've been clear in my posts about this, and my reports about this to the contrary that I think as you did a few weeks ago, that if people don't like it they shouldn't bother trolling it.

Again: couldn't you have tried actually directing people to Help Desk? Mods have been opaque to all sides of this. Just for the most part quietly deleting threadspoil posts but not telling those upset posters who spam report/threadspoil etc. where to go (ie. Help Desk) for their complaint and to get them to engage with and read what was said here, from an Admin and a forum mod, about not engaging with threads simply because you have disinterest in the subject.

If you were warning a specific user not to post so many threads in a short time that would be one thing, but you signaled a user was about to be banned plainly for raising topics in a certain subject area, which seemingly applies to everyone now who wishes to even update a topic down the road. And when asked about this, rather than a clarification a double down, you lump me in for sticking my neck out with threats of a ban for talking about policing. Unreal.

edit: I think Staff should review this entire incident. Essentially it feels like I've been retaliated against for using Help Desk to discuss a forum issue: raised the issue now included in another user's threat of a ban.

Beasty wrote: »

I am very much seeing you as the lesser of the problems here Overheal, but as you chose to raise the point I felt it necessary to highlight that I think you were contributing to the problem.

I had already looked at some of the "stats" here. In those 3 weeks the pair of you have, between you, started about one in five of all new threads. About one in six of all the threads started were by one of you and focussed on US topics - mainly police-related.

And to be clear there is no ban on US topics (I reckon there are about 18 open threads on US topics that have been posted in during that 3 week period), but in the case of the other user they would often pop up in one of those threads maybe 24 hours or so after the last post, bringing it back to the top of the forum.

You're not talking to the pair of those are you you're talking to me, and it's smokescreening to lump 2 people together as "the pair of you" like we are some kind of cohort, or even like we have the same opinions on many of these threads. The past 3+ weeks: that user started 14 threads on this area. I started 4 - and you've only had any issue with one of those 4 threads, and that was because this other user, Hawley, posted in it, which apparently got everyone's pants knotted.

I think I've in the past, reported close to a dozen BLM/WLM posts that were that same basic shtick though or worse, a bump of the thread just to remind people it exists, and through inaction mods have signaled "carry on" despite many of the posts being arguably hate speech, which I have reported as such, without visible action. Similar comments are made from circles about the Sweden thread being bumped by @Biko in the same manner @Hawley bumped my 1 of 4 threads. And Biko puts decidedly less effort into some of his bumps, usually just a one liner quote block and a URL. No bans threatened, no action threatened. If some user interested in a subject happens across a new news article, Andy Ngo video, etc. they obviously have been allowed to continue.

Perhaps please be clear about what the "problem" is you think I am contributing to? Because I've clearly demonstrated here against your 2 points: that I necro threads (false, with examples) and that I start too many problematic threads (false, with examples). If the real problem is "too many police threads" then again, again, again, I entreat you to actually establish a remedy, such as a megathread, or actually communicating with forum users about policy, ie. directing them in a clear and concise manner how to take their concerns here to Help Desk, for example. We've had 3 threads on this, I think? This one, and by extension 2 in feedback about the banning of topics and topic threadbans. If the problem is "I care too much" about policing, without being a troll, bumping posts, following the forum charter etc. then to that I say you are overstepping.