No reply news item on contentious topics?

Post Reply New Topic

It may not be the topics themselves every time.  It may only be the contentiousness that arises over them.

Specifically the topics that have previously resulted in banned thread(s). I propose the when such a topic comes up the OP prior to posting in the Moderator Attention thread or via PM to a moderator be allowed to request that there be no replies. It can not be expected that all members will know about or remember this procedure or that members will know that a thread about a topic was previously banned. In those situations moderators will continue to do what they have always done lock new threads about previously banned topics. What this new proposed procedure would do is add a tool to stop trouble before it starts. This tool should at first be limited to the news section and the news item driven autism politics section.

For those not clued in the trigger for this post is the twice banned threads about Amy Cooper the “Central Park Karen”. For example if her current suit against her former employer is settled that would 1. Be of high interest to many members 2. Any thread about the topic would probably degenerate. That topic would be a good candidate for a no reply “thread”.

One counterargument is that members will find out about the topic eventually. Not
necessarily true. Some topics of major interest to WP members are not of interest to the general population and thus receive minimal coverage that could be easily missed. Many of us are so wrapped up in our interests we are oblivious to well covered news. As much of a news hound as I am I have found out about a number news items of big interest to me from Wrong Planet.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 10 Aug 2021, 1:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I think I know what you are referring to. Unfortunately I can see that topic turning into a insult match because someone cannot handle a different opinion. Why not just do something about that user than banning a topic in general? Plenty of members here have gotten a time out.

We seem to give certain trolls a lot of leeway, when they insist on being openly insulting it's treated like 'aw shucks that's just Trollie McTrollface and you know how he is'.

Yes, we know he's incapable of abiding by the ToS he agreed to, so maybe it needs to be enforced with the troll facing repercussions for consistent breeches because it only takes a few trolls to make this place become just as toxic as it was last summer.

A variation of my proposal is giving members the privilege of asking in the moderator attention thread that an locked thread be unlocked for an “update post” followed by an immediate re lock.

And I know many members have left this forum because of these trolls but yet me and you and fnord get accused of being bullies here. But ironically some of those trolls have left this forum too also making the same claim that they were being bullied here and getting called a Nazi. How ironic.

To me, abortion is the most contentious topic out there. Civility is not possible.

Hmm, while I can see the objective of a read-only thread, I'm not sure about the viability of the idea.

One immediate concern is that a read-only thread would simply get discussed on another thread instead, essentially creating a duplicate thread - and we don't want to go there.

There are other practical difficulties with controlling the thread and maintaining it as read-only: owing to differing time-zones and general availability, having a moderator unlock a thread to allow for a news update can't be reliably synchronized so inevitably, posts would be made to the temporarily-opened locked thread.

So really the only way would be to create the thread, then PM a moderator to lock it - with the understanding that responses would also get removed as it's locked.
Update could then only occur by PMing a moderator with a "ready-rolled" post (ie. layout/formatting is your responsibility) to plant onto the thread.
I'm currently doing this on a single thread which receives very few updates, and did the same for a similar thread many years earlier.

But Wrong Planet is a read-write forum; maintaining locked threads is almost a contradiction in terms.
The whole layout here is geared around discussion, with fixed news items (usually Autism-related) reserved for the front page - which is exclusively maintained by Alex.

I wouldn't much appreciate having to update multiple news threads and I doubt the other moderators would either so unless easy and practical ways can be found of addressing the update frequency/method and the read-only/separately spawned discussion thread issues, I'm afraid I'd have to vote with a thumbs-down.

I dunno, I think Mikah and I were largely civil even while acknowledging that our approaches were irreconcilable.

We have to learn how to interact with each other despite our differences. Yes, it gets contentious at times. But "read only" topics rather defeats the purpose of forums like this, yes?

I'd like to think we can sort this issue without restrictions of this sort.

Actually, it's animal abuse, and not even close, at least when it comes to members physically threatening each other over dissenting views. I was actually surprised to discover that it's not even particular to WP, I've seen the same thing happen on right wing gun boards, with older rural types taking a much more utilitarian view of their animals than the younger urban members, with some truly vicious fights breaking out over the difference. Abortion, immigration, trans stuff, those can get heated, but it's the animal people who make the really crazy threats.

I think there's a few topics, usually ones where the suffering of others and how to manage it is being debated.

Eh, those can get heated, but I've never seen the kind of graphic physical threats that animal abuse threads bring; throats should be slit, eyes should be gouged out, people should be stomped to death, etc. I think the term triggering is overused, but I think it fully applies to those threads, as previously normal and rational people can be the ones saying the craziest stuff in them. I've been absent here for a while, so perhaps there hasn't been one in some time to illustrate just how vitriolic they can get.

I'd definitely include those as a subset, but I'd say that's the theme ties the most divisive and vicious topics together.

I agree it should be up to the member to have the post ready for the moderator to copy and paste to unlock add a reply and immediately relock. The proposed privilege should only be used for an update that something is concrete in some way such as Amy Cooper’s suit is thrown out of court or hypothetically Christian Cooper has another confrontation and gets arrested. The privilege should not be used to for multiple breaking news updates or something like daily trial testimony recaps. Again this proposed privilege is only for topics whose threads have been locked.

That all said I understand you moderators are understaffed, overworked, and doing this for free and thus are reluctant to add anymore complications. Maybe the idea should be mothballed if or until such time as the moderator situation improves.

For the purposes of this discussion I'm using "read-only" to refer to a thread which is locked to prevent responses, not for some other moderator rule-enforcing activity which remains as "locked".
(who said this wasn't getting complicated? )

But a locked thread is off limits, per the site rules, so recreating it couldn't be permitted.
I've stretched that lately after locking two threads on the Amy Cooper issue by allowing further discussion only after the case has been resolved.

Then there's the unaddressed issue of a read-only topic spawning a separate thread (or threads), where it gets discussed anyway - therefore adding further complications and defeating the purpose of the read-only topic.

I'd also refer back to VegetableMan's comment earlier - open discussion of an issue is always better than boilerplate pasting "look but don't touch" articles which would otherwise be up for discussion.