for $1500 i volunteer as tribute. i could give a **** less about politice, anyone or their opinion. i won't moderate **** unless they post stupid **** (highly likely). just won't give a **** about them being mad about it either. definitely want the money up front.

I was not referring to the politics forum in isolation, more on the whole site and for some time before you started modding there, and if you don't recognise my name there, then maybe think why?

That's the thing. It could go either way.

Do any of the forums allow us to argue about the poor acting skills of crisis actors being paid to pretend to be corpses?

I think it's spelled 'Kaffee' in the credits. Though if you're trying to out yourself as emulating the crazed Col. Jessep played by Jack Nicholson, that's up to you.

I was just making a joke. That's why I put the thing in there. I think it's others itt who are actually accusing me of emulating COL Jessup.

I absolutely agree that moderating politics is a hopelessly pointless task nobody should want

Which brings me back to my original point: shut it down or let it fly. If the slightest personal insult x2 is gonna get you banned at a time where disinformation and tribalistic toxicity are at all time highs you’re not encouraging polite discourse, you’re encouraging bad faith trolls poking people til they get caught in a trap

I don’t believe browser’s decision making to be based on political bias, I think it’s based on a naive outlook at how people in 2024 should engage each other. And that naivety favors, by design or indirectly, the bad faith actors and punishes people who call out bad faith

Not sure if the forum/mods etc are cool with it....especially the guy that has to agree to step down and never mod politics again. But fine by me.

Complaints about the moderation are fine, but it is ridiculous for anyone to suggest shutting it down. If you would really prefer that to the current forum, you have a very easy way to emulate that - just remove your subscription to the sub-forum and pretend it doesn't exist. Why punish those who like the forum as is, (even if it's just a few) by removing something you can easily ignore?

Also, no one has ever been punished here for "calling out bad faith". I have done that plenty of times before. I just didn't add meaningless insults and profanity to the calling out. It's pretty easy to do.

After all the deletions and bans in the politics forum, this is our emissary to ATF to lodge a complaint? If one of your proposed solutions is to shut the forum down, then just GTFO and don't come into the politics forum.

To anybody that cares, OP's posts are not representative of the current complaints among politics regs. Anybody can read the moderation thread there and get a better idea of the things posters are unhappy about. https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...hread-1831564/

FWIW, I don't think it is constructive to be a dick to Browser in ATF. He is a nice and decent person who clearly has a different moderation philosophy than people on 2p2 are used to, gets attacked for it, and then feels that he needs to double down to assert authority. I think that a lot of mods would probably react similarly if they felt that they were being disrespected every day. I cannot speak for everybody in politics, but when I type out my complaints in the mod thread, I am hoping that he can at least see our POV and maybe lighten up somewhat. I think if we are going to publicly come at Browser, we should do it in politics. Even though he dares us to come to ATF at least twice a week, I don't think it is cool to air our dirty laundry over here for everybody to see.

If you cannot rebut what you believe are factually incorrect statements without calling someone ****ing pathetic and an idiot, that is not a moderation problem. It is either a problem with the weakness of your argument or your vocabulary, or your willingness to adhere to this website's rule number 1, which is no personal attacks, and attack the argument, not the person.

And to expect mods to be able to determine which statements are factually correct or incorrect in every post and every thread on every subject and mod accordingly is absurd. It's up to fellow forum members to rebut those. They just have to do it without the name calling and gratuitous insults like you would find on an elementary school playground. It's really not a big ask. But apparently it is for you, as you couldn't even create this thread's title without resorting to name calling.

I appreciate your comments. I would take exception to one statement though. I don't double down to assert some sense of authority. I simply enforce the rules as I see them. And as I have stated many times in our mod thread, and the reason I have encouraged people to come to ATF to surface their views, is from my perspective this conflict arises from the site rules themselves, and only the higher ups can approve any changes to those.

Here is rule number one, and the first guideline from the 2+2 rules page:

These are pretty straight forward rules. And I don't see how, when you disagree with someone, calling him a ****ing moron, an idiot, insulting his parents, calling him low IQ, etc, etc, is anything but a violation of those rules and guidelines. It certainly isnt attacking the argument rather than the person. It certainly isnt kind, respectful or civil.

So the problem from a mod perspective (or at least this mods perspective) is expecting a mod to let some level of personal attack go by while taking action on others. That's like before the boss goes into a meeting telling the secretary to "hold some calls"( an old Mel Brooks line.) And it implies there is some master list ranking insults by severity. Is calling someone a moron higher or lower than calling him a ****ing moron? Where does low IQ fall? Racist, fascist, transphobe, homophobe, etc. Obviously each poster will perceive insults as having differing degrees of offense.

An organization's ( or in this case website's) actual standards are what is allowed to occur around it, despite whatever the written policy states. If a company has a policy that says everyone must be at work by 9am, but no action is taken against those who repeatedly show up at 10am, then the actual standard is 10am. In cases like that the written policy needs to be changed to 10 am to avoid confusion as to what is allowed and what isnt.

Mods enforce the standards set by company policy. If the policy is no personal attacks and attack the argument not the person, then posters who personally attack or insult the other posters should expect mod action, from warnings to short bans to longer bans. If that is an unacceptable level of moderation, then the rules should be changed to reflect the actual desired culture of the site.

But imo, don't expect mods to just ignore the rules and guidance completely, or worse yet, ignore "some violations". Either expect the rules to be enforced, or change the rules.

My man, you banned one guy for calling you an "asshat." You banned another for a small dick joke. You banned a third for saying "**** off" to you. You banned a fourth because you labeled his complaints regarding your moderation as trolling. "Double down" was me putting it nicely...

Your characterization is incorrect, but it's because you are falling into the same trap that many do. You take the last post prior to the ban as if it were the sole post involved rather than the straw that broke the camel's back. And you can't see the mods notes and posters violation history or warnings given prior to the ban that comes into play as well. As I have pointed out many times, two very similar posts can result in very different mod actions. One poster may get a warning while a repeat offender may get a significant ban. As mods we cant possibly go into all that detail, nor should we, for every poster we take action against.

And you are making the same point that there is secret info that is informing your decision-making, when we all see the progression of posts that leads to your banning people on flimsy pretexts.

I don't really feel comfortable arguing with you in ATF about this stuff. I'd rather this stuff be kept in house, but that's me.

I agree we are just repeating stuff we have gone over in the politics mod thread, so I'll stop with this. It deals with how posters often have a misperception of what actually occured and then bring it into a later discussion as fact.

You just stated in this thread that I banned a poster for calling me an asshat. While I fail to see why you wouldnt think that was a personal insult, here is, in part, my actual response to his post:

Clearly I did not ban that poster for calling me an asshat. You have posted false information in this ATF thread. Were I to follow the OP's position on posting falsehoods, I should ban you for that alone. But instead I rebutted it, while somehow refraining from calling you a ****ing moron or an idiot for posting that false information.

I couldnt edit my above post, but you actually also posted incorrect info about the number of posters banned. The asshat poster is the same poster later banned for trolling. So your claim of 4 posters being banned would be incorrect even if I had banned the guy for the asshat comment.

Wow. I certainly didn't see this development coming. I can't imagining paying anyone $1500 to moderate the Politics forum on 2+2, but if you are willing to do it, I'm sure someone will take the money.

this post is an insult and should be banned.


ban the poster right with it! WTF is this??

... AND??? you got a problem with this? its just common sense.

you constantly misrepresenting the situation is hideous and you should get banned for trolling. I feel bad for browser, you are lying nonstop.
this thread is about nothing. browser never did anything wrong there.
op is nuts.

libs are just mad they are losing their ****! they let it all out on browser.
too bad they dont have a point whatsoever. just ban em browser and be done with it. you dont have accept insults in by these guys

Even op title is an insult! how can you let that stand? Op is a liar.

Thats right! Im standing up for browser!
bc this is incredible!
BEFORE Browser, we had 3 active mods, who were all protecting each other! now we have one, which is Browser.

They are bullying Browser now, and they have no right to do that. They dont have a point, so they resort to lies and lies and lies!
Browser needs a wingman, a co-mod, who puts an end to this crap-

As a reminder, we have a new site-wide rule of "no insults"
browser is simply enforcing these rules.

I desperately wanted to avoid responding to this thread and just washing my hands of the politics experience but my god this is a stupid post

Your expectation is that I treat obvious trolling with legitimate discourse to elevate trolling to legitimate discourse. Somehow you see nothing wrong with this. And somehow you think it’s more of a sin that I insult trolling but the trolling itself is perfectly fine

Therefore I give you this challenge: lozen spewed a lot of pure bullshit which was factually called out and disproven by bobo. Instead of banning lozen for continuing on with his nonsense because you’re not an arbiter of truth you banned me for a week for calling him pathetic or an idiot or whatever I said to him continuing to push his lies and talking points

What would it take to ban lozen for willfully being a provocative troll if he keeps getting fact checked and keeps pushing his ****? Why should exasperation with his act be treated as the cardinal sin of the forum?

My man, you asked me to make this thread. Don’t sit here and ‘woe is me my job as a politics mod is so thankless and hard how could you make this thread and not appreciate me?’ now that I did. I could give two shits if you’re a mod there or who is and frankly I think you suck ass at it

I'm in for $1500 upfront to a charity, like one that supports voter registration, and another 2-3 or three greens who are willing to jump in.