Banned threads, WHY!!!!

[Brumby]

I would also seek to correct that I'm seeking an environment to retain valuelable PLA watchers, not China watchers.

It is interesting that you are making such a distinction. PLA watching is about military matters. Once you open up to politics, China watching becomes the operative word. In my view you are being somewhat contradictory in thought. The distinction is about primary and secondary and if the intention is to retain PLA watchers, politics is really secondary. You seem to be making the assumption that somehow PLA watchers would be interested to migrate beyond their primary interest.

 

[Blitzo]

It is interesting that you are making such a distinction. PLA watching is about military matters. Once you open up to politics, China watching becomes the operative word. In my view you are being somewhat contradictory in thought. The distinction is about primary and secondary and if the intention is to retain PLA watchers, politics is really secondary. You seem to be making the assumption that somehow PLA watchers would be interested to migrate beyond their primary interest.

I think I already described my thought process in the previous posts, where I think the most valuable PLA watchers tend to be of a pro-China inclination.

So I am saying to retain those users for their input for PLA watching threads, I think it would be beneficial for the forum if the norms and rules were altered to allow discussions that those individuals would likely also be interested in partaking in. That way they'll continue to use this forum in a general manner, including of course participating in the primary PLA watching military subsections.


The idea is that allowing political topics will create more engagement and retention of pro-China PLA watchers, and will cause increased engagement and retention in the forum overall -- i.e.: increased engagement and retention for the PLA watching military threads as well.

 

[Zool]

Its probably good to give context to what people mean when they say 'Politics' in relation to SDF. We debated this about 5 years ago and Webby had weighed in:

We all have political views and feel very strongly about them. Sure it would be nice to "create" more political content, attract more users and readership by allowing full political discussions with all their glory... but then we would be steering away from our purpose.

We already have some geopolitical discussions taking place. If you need to make a point, to support your argument, you are already doing that with political analysis of the situation/topic. Even with just limited geopolitical engagements we saw issues flaring up and users getting emotional. I just cannot waste my time in arbitrating political cat fights among members and sometimes within mods.

With that in mind, I've decided to keep status quo in place. You know the rules, follow them and respect each other as you want to be respected.

My view was that @WebMaster understood some geopolitics would come into play when discussing, say, the building or expansion of islands in the SCS by the PLA and why that was happening and for what purposes they would be used (with various Pro-China or Pro-US perspectives) etc. Which in those type of world events, not unlike the conflicts in Ukraine or Syria, will have some geopolitical context that discusses what is happening and why, rather than just and only the military hardware involved.

Versus the type of politics that is blatantly uncalled for and adds nothing to a military board, like Liberal vs Conservative, Obamastan, Drump or racial baiting White vs Black vs Asian. This is the garbage Webby did not want to waste time on and where SDF has run into some issues of late (not a knock on Deino or Siege - they need more help!).

Anyone who can hold a fair and reasoned discussion with the semblance of looking at multiple sides of the argument would be an asset to the mod team. Bltizo fits that imo, as I think most long time members and Siege and Deino would agree. Hopefully Webby swings by soon to help right the ship. P.S. Bltizo - apologies if my last comes across as an over enthusiastic compliment; better than a backhanded one though, no?

 

[Klon]

I think I already described my thought process in the previous posts, where I think the most valuable PLA watchers tend to be of a pro-China inclination.

So I am saying to retain those users for their input for PLA watching threads, I think it would be beneficial for the forum if the norms and rules were altered to allow discussions that those individuals would likely also be interested in partaking in. That way they'll continue to use this forum in a general manner, including of course participating in the primary PLA watching military subsections.


The idea is that allowing political topics will create more engagement and retention of pro-China PLA watchers, and will cause increased engagement and retention in the forum overall -- i.e.: increased engagement and retention for the PLA watching military threads as well.

What rule changes, specifically, do you support? And how would they help with your stated purpose? Is there reason to believe that these individuals want such changes or that the current situation is too limiting?

 

[Blitzo]

What rule changes, specifically, do you support? And how would they help with your stated purpose? Is there reason to believe that these individuals want such changes or that the current situation is too limiting?

The posts up to this point have been a continuation of what was started at the beginning of the thread, the context is all there to make sense of what we're talking about now.

 

[Jura The idiot]

was now briefly thinking about the situation:

the easiest would be to establish like Hyde Park Section and let it be, BUT move there (or outright remove) any fishy posts Mods noticed elsewhere;

such section would of course cover controversial topic like the SCS; bans on Chinese companies; Chinese rare-earth elements threat; and so on and so forth

just to show some 'freedom of speech' contributions:

#7 jimmyjames30x30, Yesterday at 3:22 PM

You need to learn to calm down. You need to go read "On Protracted War" by Mao Zedong. Regardless of what you might think of Mao, that is a great piece of political writing.

#118 styx, Yesterday at 9:25 AM

Sell the bonds ban, rate earths disrupt apple. Its war, there will be casualties, but its essential to cripple america.

 

[Jura The idiot]

... do you know if that Webmaster is even alive??

I will look into this, we had something similar before. Post by: WebMaster, Apr 6, 2019

You just need few more, maybe 10 or so more for avatar to be enabled. Keep posting, eventually everything will be enabled.

PLEASE CONFIRM DEAD OR ALIVE

 

[Klon]

The posts up to this point have been a continuation of what was started at the beginning of the thread, the context is all there to make sense of what we're talking about now.

I had read the thread. Maybe you could summarize and clarify your views, so that whatever it is you're advocating would be described in some detail in one post and not vaguely developed over several pages. For example, does this part mean that "country bashing" would be allowed?

Under current rules, country bashing is of course not allowed.

However, in other forums, country bashing of certain nations or groups are normal and contained in political subsections. There are other military forums for other nations I visit now and then with the understanding that there's going to be country bashing of country A or country X in certain threads or subsections, but that's fine, I just don't visit those political threads and stick to the ones that are useful to my interests.

 

[Blitzo]

I had read the thread. Maybe you could summarize and clarify your views, so that whatever it is you're advocating would be described in some detail in one post and not vaguely developed over several pages. For example, does this part mean that "country bashing" would be allowed?

Allowed only in a subsection of the forum, yes, though even then there would be some limits (i.e.: like no swearing, and any such bashing would have to be tangential to the actual topic of a given thread rather than the purpose of a thread).
I imagine it would require members to have a certain number of posts before they can view and participate in that subsection as well.


As for summarizing my views, I suppose my views are derived from the recent closing of various trade war threads where emotions have run a bit high causing them to be shut. It's been correctly pointed out that political threads often result in emotions being high and causing things to become a bit unruly.
My suggestion is that the forum can look at putting all of those threads in a dedicated subsection, and anyone who wants to participate can participate there and anyone who wants to ignore it can ignore it. I consider that to be an alternative to simply blocking political threads (and increasingly trade, tech related threads as well), given the increasing "geopoliticization of everything" that we've been seeing and the relevance and interest of that to much of the userbase.

This if course is from my experience lurking in some other forums where they have good functioning military discussions about their military of interest while also still having political threads with a fair amount of country bashing.

 

[solarz]

Its probably good to give context to what people mean when they say 'Politics' in relation to SDF. We debated this about 5 years ago and Webby had weighed in:

My view was that @WebMaster understood some geopolitics would come into play when discussing, say, the building or expansion of islands in the SCS by the PLA and why that was happening and for what purposes they would be used (with various Pro-China or Pro-US perspectives) etc. Which in those type of world events, not unlike the conflicts in Ukraine or Syria, will have some geopolitical context that discusses what is happening and why, rather than just and only the military hardware involved.

Versus the type of politics that is blatantly uncalled for and adds nothing to a military board, like Liberal vs Conservative, Obamastan, Drump or racial baiting White vs Black vs Asian. This is the garbage Webby did not want to waste time on and where SDF has run into some issues of late (not a knock on Deino or Siege - they need more help!).

Anyone who can hold a fair and reasoned discussion with the semblance of looking at multiple sides of the argument would be an asset to the mod team. Bltizo fits that imo, as I think most long time members and Siege and Deino would agree. Hopefully Webby swings by soon to help right the ship. P.S. Bltizo - apologies if my last comes across as an over enthusiastic compliment; better than a backhanded one though, no?

Agreed. This is the most succinct summary of the issue. While politics are unavoidable in many discussions, we don't need politics for the sake of politics.