It seems that after 20 years of people on this site getting along pretty, pretty well, now they can't. It's probably a reflection of what's happening in the real world.

In terms of this site, a theory about why has been presented:

Of course opposing theories have also been presented. The theory that this site has allowed, or even encouraged, hatred and bigotry. And that is what "will sink the entire 2+2 website."

Think it's time to try and have a separate conversation about the whole thing.

I don't normally moderate the conversations in this forum that much, but this will be an exception. If two people just start calling each other names, for instance, those posts will be deleted. I'm not threatening other punitive measures, just requesting the posts be civil and substantive.

You want serious replies to that post? Makes me question your judgement and biases sir.

Trump.

Just sayin'

And, 1998 was the Magical Year the Two Plus Two Net Version was Founded. We Haven't Seen Quite Nothin' Like This.

Quoting a stupid post like that doesn't really help discussion. I mean who is this very vocal and very radical left wing who has usurped 2+2, Mat? lol. You can go to politics and find these very dastardly left wing people fighting amongst each other.

The problem you have is you have plain old bad mods on your site. Some of them are bigger trolls than regular posters.

Agree with Mr Baseball. The problem I've seen is the people in question refuse any sort of grey area in the world.

If you like Toothsayer or any of his posts, YOU are a racist bigot. Lol that's a leap.

If you think the google programmer was probably unfairly let go because the issue is a bit more complex, you're a minsogynst scumbag for sure and must be outed.

There is literally no middle ground, no nuance.You're either on right side of the discussion, or you should be shunned from society and ganged up on (or at the very least these forums). It's messed up man. And this is coming from a left leaning Canadian that is probably as far from a Trumper as you can get. 2p2 has sections now that feel like Evergreen College frankly. And when the mods or people who influence them think that way, you get what's been happening on the site.

Bring it back to toothsayer. BFI is clamoring for his return. He was already exiled from Politics. But it seemed to me that a fair number of people wanted him banned from the entire site.

Who are the bad mods in this case? And what should they have done differently?

I don't believe that's anything new.

I don't think moderators as posters in politics is a good idea.

Sure it's fine in other forums , but people expect a sense of fairness when they invest a good amount of there time debating something they are passionate about.

What I want is to keep the politards and politarding and all their witch-hunting name-calling Khmer Rouge Year Zero cleansing and purging bull**** contained/quarantined in the politics forum, which is what it's there for.

mrbaseball sure is being very vocal and screaming louder than others about how offended he is in that post.

This is the problem with people who pretend they’re sick of all the politics. They’re not sick of politics, they’re sick of being confronted with ideas they don’t agree with. They prefer that their viewpoints be accepted as the norm and try to shame others who have differing viewpoints. Just a different version of "spot the racist" where the racist is just anyone who disagrees with you. (See also the post above mine)

Judging by that BFI thread, Zeno and augie

Citation needed

Has anyone called you a racist bigot yet for defending TS's posts in BFI?

Like that idea....

It happened almost immediately in the other subs. I mean within minutes...

+1

Someone like you would never name call and witch hunt though. No sir.

It COULD be ATF though.

It's more than confrontation. It's the requests that posters be banned from forums other than politics that has me concerned.

We'll just keep using toothsayer as an example. Am I wrong that you and many others wanted him banned from the entire site? If I'm wrong about that, then I'm less interested in the topic. I'm totally fine having people vehemently disagree with one another.

Right now I just want a solid 8 hours sleep

Was Tooth racist or not? That's the question. At least he was insensitive.

He once told there's "dregs of society". Will not forgive that in the first place. He was not talking about "serials", btw, but "non-serials"

I want posters who use of sexual power insults like cuck to be called creepy. So that's what I did. That kind of behavior is just miserable.

I see that rafiki has an expired infraction for racist posting, I wonder why this topic is an issue for him...

I wanted him banned permanently when chezfront was going strong and he was posting long diatribes about the low intelligence of the negro or whatever racist garbage he was frequently peddling. After that forum closed he fell off my radar. (Well, before it closed, because he and wil made chezfront so unreadable I stopped going there almost entirely)

The bad mods were the ones who kept giving TS passes for some of the more vile stuff he posted. For example what David quoted from the RGT thread into the politics forum.

But it really isn't about TS or anyone in particular. You occasionally see posts in ATF where there are clear examples of mods being trolls instead of resolving issues, or in some subforums some individuals are given preferential treatment in ways that allows them to get out of hand.

To me the problem is mods are given tenure instead of rotated.

Regarding the general political leanings of various members on the site, it's probably just shifted a bit. ACism was all the rage five to ten years ago, then Bernie had a good run, was robbed by a center right dem of the nomination, and Trump became president and is in effect enacting an ACist agenda, and people see how horrible it is.

So though there is more left leaning conversations and desires, there is far fewer ACist garbage on the site, which iirc was also bit disruptive ... to put it mildly.

I think it's probably wise to keep politics posts in politics. I'll admit I'm a semi-big offender on this. Another forum I'm on doesn't even bother moderating their politics subforum and has a password you have to type in that is 'thickskin'. It is of course completely unreadable flaming garbage being flung back and forth between the two sides.

At this point in history we've hit an all time high in close mindedness politically on both sides. Conservatives are just as whiny as liberals and do the exact same thing as we've seen in our politics forum when they get control. This is a result of the culture and nothing else.

We probably should start banning people for overtly political content outside politics is what I'm trying to say.

Hey politics moderator, you and your crack team are doing a bang-up job. It's great to see gems like this: