Indeed.

Care to let us know how it relates to forum moderation?

Chillrob of all people worrying about threads being on topic?

Just curious. I don't know what the point of the post is supposed to be.

Hi everyone. Unfortunately some personal things came up that kept me from logging in at all for the last few days. So I havent seen any of the comments or pm recently. I will be back within 24 hours with the time to go back and take a deep dive into some of these threads.

Thanks

ok I got 24 hours to get some trolling on

Cliff notes:

lol

we are an autonomous collective

Browser is like my favorite granny who babysitted us but spent all of her attention cutting coupons and watching Murder she wrote in the den that she didn't notice the mess in the other rooms.

My grandmother was obsessed with Murder She Wrote. It was required watching at her house or if she came over to visit.

Wreckem has been temp banned for his trolling in the cost of trans visibility thread. Schlitz has been temp banned (for a much shorter time) for his over the top responses to wreckems trolling. Just because you are responding to someone who has crossed the line doesnt mean you can cross the line yourself.

I started my catch up reading with the visibility thread as it was current and shorter. I deleted a bunch of posts that were trolls, off topic, or both.

A suggestion. Stop wasting your time wringing your hands about "oh dear, I would love to answer your post but I cant because of browsers no catch all thread policy". Im just going to delete them as off topic trolling, and if they continue the poster will receive appropriate mod actions. If you want to keep crying abiut a decision you dont like do it in the mod thread. Dont do it in a subject thread.

IMO the cost of visibility thread is actually a good example of why single issue threads are better then a catch all thread. The OP was on a very current and relevant topic--the seemingly huge overreaction and backlash to a relatively minor endorsement on a site probably no right wing leaning people had ever seen or heard of.

Why such a huge backlash occurred, what was the appropriateness and effectiveness of the corporate response and what are the ramifications of this event for future marketing relationships with transgender spokespeople are interesting questions to discuss. And certainly more than enough to keep a thread going.

But what that thread doesnt need is off topic transgender issues like "what is a woman" getting rehashed again, or any other of the "transgender issue greatest hits" diverting and diffusing the very specific and pertinent subject of the OP. It is much easier to follow the conversation and responses when a thread stays on topic.

That's why we are going to continue to have issue specific threads as we do for every other group. Imagine someone started a thread about using famous athletes for marketing financial instruments and people inserted posts about whether this or that athlete was really that good, or should retire, etc, simply because the group under discussion was athletes. It would become an unreadable collage of various topics completely unrelated to the OP.

So again, if you just cant bring yourself to move on, then cry in the mod thread, not in subject threads.

I'll be moving on to other threads, though probably not as quickly as some of you would like. From a quick read of mod thread and post report comments I would anticipate more deletions and bannings are coming up.

Thanks.

This is a clear double standard. That is, regardless of the merits of this argument, you are ONLY applying it to trans issues. Maybe lots of topics would be better if they were more on topic. Maybe not. But you don't seem to be even processing the fact that you are exclusively making this 'look how great on topic threads are!' style argument about trans issues. Trans people and the issues affecting them should be treated equally, not given special restrictions.

Also, you deleted the trolls. You can still delete the trolls in a normal thread like all the other threads on this forum. So it is ridiculous to use an example of the trolling "what is a woman" to justify your double standard policy. Stop letting the trolls win.

This is extremely misleading. There is precisely zero other threads on this forum to which you have ever applied this policy. The "every other group" is completely hypothetical. Heck depending on what you mean by "group" it is just false as say the Canada thread or the UK thread don't get broken up. Regardless, the de facto outcome is the policy is only ever applied to trans issues and this sleight of hand thing you do where you pretend it is a much more general policy because in some never-before-happened hypothetical where someone wanted to make a thread about issues affecting, say, the jewish community you would block that to is largely irrelevant. That would also be silly, but since it hasn't happened and hasn't motivated your actions, it doesn't save you from the clear double standard you are implementing.

Just treat trans people the same.

I agree that there is a double standard being applied and that we have plenty of omnibus threads.

That being said, Browser's intentions are good here. I think he's wrong and that having half the front page filled with trans threads is a worse look for the forum than having one thread-- but still his intentions are good.

You should really let it go. It's a horse that's been beaten to death.

Hey browser was the one who started his return by going on a new diatribe about it. It’s my solemn duty to point out how bad his arguments are

I do agree he has good intentions here. He is just misguided. Treating trans people equally is important and not something even people who are ostensibly allies do well.

Uke, I honestly don't understand why you keep on about this. I see the merits to both ways of doing this, and while I personally lean towards separate threads if the topics are truly distinct, I wouldn't be bothered if there was a "catch-all" thread. But what seems really odd to me about your objection is that in general, posters tend to consider what you're advocating for to be the less respectful way to handle things - that combining everything into one thread is minimizing the issues.

It's also a little silly to insist that no other topic is treated this way. Found on the first page now:

Critical Race Theory- what’s it really mean ?
What is your definition of racism?
Screenwriting teacher says it’s ok to use racial slurs in scripts

Gun control
Is this ATF overstepping with new pistol brace rule change?

Supreme Court Strikes Down Affirmative Action
The Supreme Court discussion thread
Schumer Argues Against 9-0 Decision

Of course there are a lot of catch-all/containment threads, but multiple threads on a topic isn't exclusive to transgender topics. And you'll see this in many forums - it's very much a judgement call which topics are worthy of their own thread, and which ones belong together.

My biggest problem with your objection, though, is phrasing like "Just treat trans people the same", because it's inaccurate and also easy to infer from it that you think browser is intentionally treating transgender people unfairly, even though it seems you don't given your statement that you think he has good intentions.

All that said, standalone threads on this topic likely need to be managed closely as they tend to veer off on to the same ground more than many others. The first one that comes to mind is the Biden Title IX thread which IIRC left the title topic behind more than once. A catch-all thread actually tends to make a mod's job easier.

Bobo, I think you confused my position. I think trans issues should not be treated differently from other threads. This is bedrock core value. So I am not advocating that they have to be in a single catch-all thread, I'm saying this option should not be blocked by moderator fiat for only trans issues. If something analogous to the gun control/ATF thread happens that's totally fine. But it should be up to what is organically created by the community, not a one particular option blocked by moderator fiat. None of your examples of multiple threads are there because the moderator forced it to happen this way.

I've clarified the bad intentions, but I use this phrase because it is the core of the issue. It isn't really whether omnibus threads are better or worse than heavily moderated forced on-topic threads. It's that trans issues are being treated differently. That's wrong.

That seems a very odd distinction. No one is advocating for there to be a catch-all supreme court thread, nor for there to be a catch-all racism thread. There is only one catch-all thread anyone is busy advocating for. Perhaps if someone was to make a big thing of needing to merge those three supreme court threads I listed, browser wouldn't be in favour of that either.

Anyway, I suspect this is one on which we'll have to agree to disagree, and I'll say something I don't say often - I'm with Luckbox on this at least:

As no other thread on the forum has a requirement that threads be forcibly on-topic at all times otherwise the thread will be closed and/or posts deleted, it makes sense that the only topic anyone is advocating for treating equally is the one topic that isn't treated equally. Both the supreme court and racism threads are great examples of threads with all sorts of twists and turns and off-topic tangents and sometimes thousands of posts. None of that is allowed for trans issues. If people end up in one thread, 3 threads, or a big number of threads, all of that is fine; the only thing that is not fine is to force an option for trans issues and only trans issues.

My ask isn't something crazy, even if tiresome, it is just to treat trans issues the same as any other issue.

A suggestion (and old one, but likely lost given browser's week away). Why not just put it to a simple vote? I'm not exactly popular, I'd likely lose, but if the community is clamouring for many trans threads then let the community say so in a vote. This ensures a strong mandate for continuing the double standard.

Obviously it's just going to vary by topic. It makes sense to have one thread for British or Canadian politics regardless of how varied the discussions may be. A supreme court thread could theoretically make sense too if we had a few constitutional law experts who wanted to talk about every decision.

Im not going to go down the rabbit hole on this again. But I do want to clarify one key point. We dont have catchall threads for any other ethnic or minority group. So I am treating transgender people as a group the same way as every other group of people.

Just imagine that someone started a thread about how black home owners have consistently faced discrimination in the form of appraisers who come up with a lower value then they do for a similar house owned by white people. In fact, for the actual same house. There are numerous examples of this and lots of info to habe a specific thread.

Now there is a police shooting of an unarmed black man. Again, a topic thread worthy and can have a robust discussion about it. I dont think anyone would say it would facilitate the conversation of black people facing police violence by putting that discussion in the same thread as the one about housing discrimination. No one would say (I hope) what we really need is a black issues thread so any time something comes up that concerns black people we know where to put it.

IMO that would be ridiculous. So treating transgender people in a different manner by stuffing all of their issues into a single thread is actually doing them a disservice. And fir all the dire warnings about having dozens of threads about transgender issues covering the front page, it just has never happened. Not even close. We've had months since the rule went into effect and the predicted deluge of trans threads never happened. Just like the mass exodus of straight military personnel after the repeal of dont ask dont tell never happened.

I think having one thread about racism towards African Americans would actually be a good idea.

This seems debatable. We are in fact up to like 5 or 6 trans threads now. The only reason it didn't happen all at once is because we (somehow) resisted the urge to create a bunch when your policy went into effect. In another 6 months we'll likely have another 3 or 4 more at the rate they're being created. If you consider that acceptable then that's of course up to you.

This is silly. Any threads about issues affecting other minorities are not subject to the same requirements about forceably being on topic to a narrow OP. A thread about some aspect of racism isn’t under constant risk of its posts being deleted or the thread closed if it strays too far from the OP. Only trans issues. The issues isn’t requiring one thread - if people want multiple ones they should make them - but it is only on trans issues where one cannot make a larger thread whose topic meanders.

You’ve tried to defend your clear double standard by suggesting in a never-before-happened hypothetical about, say, Jews you would treat it the same way. However, the de facto reality is this is only leading to moderation restriction on one issue.

Just treat trans issues the same as every other thread.

I suspect the new rules have a suppressive effect as it is much harder for tangents and minor stories to develop into discussion under the constant threat of moderator action. Of course, losing Cuepee and lagtight as antagonists is probably a larger effect, but my sense is engagement is down quite a bit. It is odd that browser sees that as evidence his edict is working.

Not that this really matters for my objection. We should treat trans issues the same as any other issue regardless of whether it does or does not suppress discussion.