I do find the obsession with “keeping on thread” on SE23.life to be a little weird and I don’t see what it adds. Conversation doesn’t follow a linear pattern and is all the better for it and so I don’t see why forums should be any different. I mod on a quietish allotment forum and we rarely split topics or insist that people keep to the thread - it just isn’t human nature. Splitting off threads often leads to out of context issues and I really don’t see the point unless it gets totally off track.
Which leads on to why things get moved or split to the political section? So annoying when you are involved in a thread and it gets moved to a section to which one doesn’t have access.
What is so political about police policy anyway?
There seems to be an insistence, as on this thread, that mods know the intention of the OP or the point of the topic. For example.
How does anyone actually know this - it is just an assumption surely.
It’s a hard balance to strike, and a policy we’re trying to refine as we go along. The main reason for trying to keep things on track and move political discussions is to be found in the sad fate of many local forums when political debate from a few members begins to dominate. It drives other users away until the forum becomes an echo chamber for a few people having the same argument over and over again. It doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a slow and insidious process, but inevitable if the moderation is not very proactive.
It’s a false division really, but we do want the forum to be predominantly about local issues and to be a resource, not a place for general conversation.
We try to weigh up the needs of the people in the thread today with the needs of those that come later and try to make sense of the site through thread titles and categories.
If we keep threads aligned to their titles and categories, we get the benefits of a forum - its lasting, organised, searchable, shareable body of content. For this, we need members to stick to certain conventions, guided every now and again by helpful moderators like @RachaelDunlop. If we lose this “culture,” we don’t have a forum anymore - just a chatroom.
We don’t suffer major issues at the moment on SE23.life, but we’re being pro-active - establishing a culture where members (not just moderators) help keep things neat for the benefit of everyone. This culture will be important as the site gets busier.
The forum software is good at displaying links between topics after a split / new linked topic. As a reminder - here’s how to reply as a linked topic - it’s neat - give it a go
As Rachael mentioned - politics has been a problem for other local forums. It creates spirals of conflict between people who otherwise might have co-operated happily on local issues. A majority of SE23.life members supported the separation of political conversation when we started this forum, and as far as I know, this sentiment hasn’t changed.
I share your annoyance about the access problems, though, which is why I have made two important changes in the last couple of days:
People can now opt in or out of Politicos themselves by visiting the group page and clicking a button. Much easier and more inclusive than the manual opt-in process before.
If a non-Politico clicked on a link to a Politicos topic they used to get a cryptic error message. Now they get an informative message, with instructions on how to join our opt-in groups.
But I did find the latest episode a bit much. An veiled political OP and as soon as somebody says something that disagrees with this, it is regarded as political.
Very good point @RachaelDunlop. I’m bored having the same arguments over and over again with people who seem incapable of listening or understanding. It makes my post worse because I’m trying so hard to help people understand somebody else’s viewpoint. But I regularly ask myself why I bother and I think I’ll probably have to tag out for a while.
I would urge moderators in particular to read a ‘A powerful blog of flouncing off Twitter’. And I know others with even more upsetting stories about their time on Twitter, but that’s another story.
“Someone’s wrong on the Internet. Duty calls” is a syndrome only affecting opinionated geeks with an OCD tendency… Or so I thought until I saw this from my mother a few minutes ago:
There’s the problem right there. For all of us, ‘listening and understanding’ really means ‘changing your mind and agreeing with me’. Which is why things go around in circles. Don’t want to go around in circles? Don’t engage in debate with a person who has expressed no interest in being persuaded by your rhetoric, nor is under any obligation to do so.
Allowing entirely free flowing conversation kills local forums. Fact. Our moderation here is far from perfect but we are trying our best to shape something new.
There were two points but the do overlap. Political threads and sticking to the topic.
I have no interest in talking politics per se but like it or not it creeps into every day life and everyday topics - crime threads and strike threads are two current examples. When it does I think there is some merit in letting it go a little rather than just getting mod warnings or splitting off. However I agree that having made the decision to make politics private (which is a good idea) then you are duty bound to stick with it and it is a difficult balance to get right so good luck!
This is exactly why I don’t sub to politics - I can pretty much guarantee that every person you are talking too/arguing with feels exactly the same. Just because people disagree with you and continue to do so does not make them incapable of understanding - they just have a different opinion.
Keeping topics on thread is where I differ in opinion - I prefer a free flow of ideas as long as they are relevant to the original post - I don’t want a chat room or completely free open conversation but I do think we can be a little more relaxed and what complies with sticking to the thread. Over zealous modding can kill a forum quicker than “Allowing entirely free flowing conversation”… Not that I think mods here are going that way and I appreciate what Chris and the Mods are trying to do here.
I do try to let conversations go where they will and offer a steer only when things look like they are getting political or personal. If someone says something potentially contentious but no one reacts, I’m not going to draw attention to it by jumping in with my hobnail mod boots on. I’m constantly reading, watching and weighing up the mood of threads and mod as a last resort. It’s just that sometimes the last resort comes sooner than expected.
I agree and for me personally I think that I will refrain from posting in future as a local forum should not be controlled with an iron fist just because a topic is in the opinion of a moderator not sticking actually to the script.
Hardly an iron fist, there are 4 moderators, all with very different ideas and backgrounds. We want threads to flow however, politics turns people off and bores others hence it is an opt in category. Better to make an area for a few to enjoy than to bore the many.
Can you give me examples of where you think the modding here has been heavy-handed? We aim to be exactly the opposite and I would genuinely like to see where you think we’ve got it wrong. As I said above, I only redirect people back on topic if the conversation is getting overtly political, because we were clear from the start (with the backing of founding members) that political conversation would be confined to Politicos. I try to get things back on track to avoid thread-splitting, which I think should only be done if there is a very clear case that a new topic has emerged in the conversation and creating a new thread will help others find the topic.
It has been unfortunate that there have been two topics very recently that have got a bit heated and have required some mod intervention. Before this week I could count on the fingers of one hand the times I had made comment specifically as a mod. There were some modding comments made recently that we reviewed and felt in retrospect were wrong. These were removed, with a clear explanation as to why.
i agree that politics bores many including myself. However, a non political thread may still attract such views and sometimes this may bore the majority as you suggest but the alternative is that the moderators control the open part of the site and restrict the flow of the topics. I understand that there was some concern that the site may become too political and hence the deliberate decision to create the opt in section. However, lets not think that the majority of people dont have any political views.
Perhaps I do not know my way around the forum properly but it seemed to me that the stabbing thread was in effect closed after I made a comment on stop and search rather than the thread being continued in the politico section.
Actually maybe I am getting confused as perhaps the stabbing thread was not closed and I misunderstood the redirection link. If so, then I take it all back
We never just close a thread and delete posts. Never. Sometimes they get merged or split, but rarely if ever have we actually deleted anything, and we always provide a reason or a redirection link (and if we don’t, please pull us up on it. You can ‘summon’ the mods by tagging us @moderators in any post).
I can neither confirm nor deny what happened to your post on stop and search as I never stray into Politicos. Perhaps someone else can provide a pointer. EDIT - MY MISTAKE, IT’S STILL IN THE ORIGINAL THREAD.
It IS frustrating that a user’s posts can disappear off to Politicos where they may not care to follow them, and we have scratched our heads over this often, without finding a good solution.
I think @chipcity was suggesting the “Stabbing” thread was closed but this isn’t the case (at least not from a technical point of view). There’s no new stop/search topic as far as I can see?
Great news, and normality resumes. There is only one locked thread to my knowledge and that covered public Houses and kids. That one is best left where it is.
