Quote:
Originally Posted by RayPowers
It won't be a productive thread. It will just be 100 posts exactly like the one's in the other thread with people saying "pay your taxes" and the other people saying "Mind your own business."
That doesn't mean its really against the rules however. I'm going to let Palimax say, since this is mostly his experiment and I'm just lame enforcer guy.
This is a good example of how most moderators go way overboard in the conduct of their duties. Here, a moderator openly admits his prejudice against a topic, and the discussion of that topic. And, given his way, would squelch the discussion of that topic before it even got off the ground. In this particular case, the mod states he won't squelch it unless directed to; but the very fact he would prefer to is telling.
Interestingly, the topics most mods seem inclined to curtail the most, are usually the ones most popular with the members of the forum.
This is likely due to the inordinate amount of time these overzealous mods spend reading the forum; and the fact that the typical forum is actually very self-moderating. Moderators are virtually superfluous. Basically, they have little to nothing to do, and they spend a lot of time here just looking for something to do. So they have to make stuff up. They have to nitpick. They have to make up rules, and then enforce infractions against them. Otherwise, they would be completely bored to tears.
In the course of this perversion, they rarely get anything right. For instance, right here is this thread under all our noses, I was criticized by three people above who accused me of trolling (first one, and then two more piled on after I responded.) But none of them provided any justification. None cited a single specific reason or even demonstrated any specific knowledge of what I had written when they made that accusation. In other words, they precisely met the definition of trolling which they had accused me of. This is, of course, a very common tendency, and is known in psychology as projection. It is a tendency in a person to accuse others of something that actually matches their own behavior.
Anyway, because these real trolls were generally in support of the moderators actions; the mods said nothing. But when I responded in a logical manner, requesting justification, a mod quickly jumps in and advises to take the discussion to PM. So they leave in public posts that supports them, regardless of how nonsensical or unfair they are; and then require any fair objection to them be taken private.
This is a typical moderator action. They are not fair. They are not open. They are prejudiced, narrow minded, biased individuals, who ply their own agenda, at the expense of open and fair debate and discourse in the forum.
The unfortunate thing is that it is the members of the forum who suffer at the hands of these mods, rather than be assisted by them, in the rare, but occasional event when they might actually be of some use.