TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
He left of his own accord. I ran into him over at DT months ago. Though it been a while since then.
Discipline around low effort posts or poorly sourced posts
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
solarz
Brigadier
Because we had a member, Jura, who did nothing but post articles with no commentary, and did this on almost EVERY thread, in order to amass post count. We're talking about articles that show up on google and yahoo news. It ended up polluting the forum with a ton of junk.
Both AF and BD feel strongly about Trump. And left on their own accord after failure to resolve their difference with other Mods and the webmaster.
The whole reason why this thread was created was to allow the community, other moderators, and the webmaster to chip in their own thoughts.
If you have your own vision for what you would like this forum to be or if you have disagreements with proposals from myself or others, you are free to express them.
I literally ended in the opening post of this thread:
-- to see the reception of my concerns and ideas.
Whether that is defined as "consensus" or not to you I suppose depends on your own definition.
Mostly everything else that you described has already been mentioned in either subsequent replies from me, or from other people, in regards to the baseline level of "bias" and pro-China sentiment this forum has, the reason why simple posting of articles without commentary can be undesirable, and the fact that moderating decisions are often a matter of a moderator's own judgement and there won't always be consistency.
As for seeking to enforce the rules in all sections of the forum, there are two primary issues I see:
1. Limited moderating power. This isn't just about the number of moderators that can be raised but also the quality of moderators that can be raised.
2. The geopoliticization of everything. PLA watchers are much more likely to be interested in China matters, and more likely to be pro-China as well. This has been stated on many an occasion already. Given the real world realities of geopolitics creeping into almost every domain from economy, industry, technology, pop culture and media, unless all of the other sections of the forum are closed down leaving only the key military sections, I don't see what other solution there is.
Now, I personally care more about keeping the most valuable parts of the forum (the key military sections) insulated from poorer quality discussion and off topic political discussions, than cleaning the entire forum of it because that is impossible.
That doesn't mean the back and forth arguments in other sections of the forum are desirable, nor does it mean there aren't also some lines that will result in punishment if they're crossed (spamming, outright personal attacks or threats to one another, gratuitous use of swear words and expletives etc), but it does mean I personally think they can be more hands off if it means more attention can be focused on maintaining the quality of the military sections.
If one has significantly different feelings about the above then one is free to convey it.
But in my experience there are many other military forums on the internet that operate similarly and there will always be varying degrees of bias towards the majority userbase of any given forum. As far as SDF goes, I think we are fairly tame. Even compared to CDF -- which is in many ways much of an informative club but also much, much more exclusive and certainly pro-China -- SDF has a much wider variety of backgrounds and different views.
If one is expecting this forum to not have a majority pro-China stance on many issues with forum's norms a reflection of that, then I think one has to realistically assess just what the rest of the other nation specific military forums on the internet are like. The latitude given to other pro-XYZ-other-nation/political-entity here is quite a bit larger, but it's not going to be evenly divided between all of the different political stances and backgrounds. That's just a reality of the userbase here.
However what can be achieved IMO is to make the most qualitatively valuable part of this forum more disciplined and to make the other sections of the forum still adherent to certain rules and red lines.
SDF has been a great source for checking up on PRC military developments. For that, I have been perfectly fine with just lurking and staying out so as to let the prominant members do their magic. A degree of Pro-China spin is no problem. There are things for PRC to take pride in. There are things to not like about the US or Japan. But the mentioned geopoliticization of everything triggered my gradual entry into the boards. Its no good to just watch an esteemed board become a platform for geopolitical agenda. So I risked stepping in for defending agaisnt what could possibly end up being a propaganda board in cyberspace against Japan.
If the mod team is being overloaded and if the valuable key military threads are in danger of geopoliticization, as a lurker and not an active poster, I would recommend suspending the other parts of the forums board. Keep alive the idea of returning of those other sub sections but reactivate on a gradual step by step process. So for example, shut down the Taiwan thread, the history thread, the JSDF thread, and other notable hot spots. And then after a few month break, reopen one of them... say the history one. Then after another month, reopen the JSDF one. And so on. So then after those supplementary sub threads have been opened for awhile, keep alive the idea that those sub sections can be shut again if things get difficult to moderate again.
If the mod team is being overloaded and if the valuable key military threads are in danger of geopoliticization, as a lurker and not an active poster, I would recommend suspending the other parts of the forums board. Keep alive the idea of returning of those other sub sections but reactivate on a gradual step by step process. So for example, shut down the Taiwan thread, the history thread, the JSDF thread, and other notable hot spots. And then after a few month break, reopen one of them... say the history one. Then after another month, reopen the JSDF one. And so on. So then after those supplementary sub threads have been opened for awhile, keep alive the idea that those sub sections can be shut again if things get difficult to moderate again.
The converse is that this forum inevitably attracts users who are of a pro-China persuasion -- I would hazard to say the vast majority of the userbase who are interested in the PLA are of that bias.
The aforementioned geopoliticization of everything means everything is becoming geopolitics, and the geopolitical views of the userbase will reflect it.
I myself lurk on and have accounts on a number of different forums of different nations and backgrounds, but I know I may hold opinions contrary to the majority of the population there.
I also understand that the userbase their in other forums will hold views that are counter to mine and may fundamentally insult or be offensive to opinions I hold or politics that I have. But I also respect that myself, being someone of a different background to their forum and community -- especially if it is a forum that is specific to a given nation -- am very much a minority and a guest to their community and I think they have a right to their own space to discuss their own politics and geopolitics.
So I make deliberate effort to ignore and actively do not contribute to or even view the threads and sections of a forum which are more political in nature, and certainly try to avoid going there and posting things which might offend their sensibilities because that just raises the blood pressure of everyone involved for no good reason.
I understand that my presence on other forums and learning from their national military discussions is a privilege and that there are certain things I will avoid saying and not express opinions on as I am a guest there, and they have a right to their own biases.
1. So this specific question is basically one of whether SDF should have the same rights and spaces as many other similar forums of different national military forces or backgrounds -- or putting it more specifically, should the majority userbase who hold a pro-China stance here have the right to discuss geopolitical and political matters in the various non-military sections of the forum -- versus should other individuals here who hold different political stances here who might be offended by or have contrary views to the aforementioned majority userbase have the right to advocate that those sections and spaces be closed.
2. The other question is whether shutting down of the other sections of the forum outright will improve, reduce, or not change the quality of the military sections.
In my opinion, to the first question, it would be quite a big call to shut down the other non military sections of the forum. Putting it bluntly, if other forums are able to discuss non military matters with their own majority userbase biases, I think it would be somewhat unequal for this forum to not allow its majority userbase to discuss similar matters with their own biases as well. That doesn't mean it will be unmoderated and the wild west, but it does mean simply closing it off would rather unfair in a forum to forum equality pov.
But this also strikes to the question of how much does the "Sino" part of "Sinodefence" matter here.
To the second question, the burden on the military sections will likely increase because the pent up discussions and the realities of the geopoliticization of everything means it will leak out into the military sections instead, and I wouldn't be surprised if moderator demand and the quality of discussions there deteriorate as well.
As much as there have been spikes in Chinese chauvinism, it still doesn't compare to western chauvinism or even begin to approach how bad the Indian forums are.
Spikes in Chinese chauvinism is interpreted as a major threat because of several key reasons which are Chinese being typically more hands off and quiet, traditionally passive, no history of being this vocal and "aggressive", and because China is in focus in multiple ways and is not only the traditional punching bag but also widely accepted as such due to past passivity. It's not considered "normal" for Chinese to hold such aggressively nationalistic positions and be this vocal about it in a public forum so it's sort of taken as both a threat and faux pas. WRT some others e.g. Russians or Indians or Iranians etc (no relation), they are either already accepted to be a certain way or they are totally ignored - Indians. No one cares that much about Indian chauvinism even though they would make Hitler blush with feelings of inadequacy. Well no one cares in the west. Pakistanis always did and now Chinese too.
Spikes in Chinese chauvinism is interpreted as a major threat because of several key reasons which are Chinese being typically more hands off and quiet, traditionally passive, no history of being this vocal and "aggressive", and because China is in focus in multiple ways and is not only the traditional punching bag but also widely accepted as such due to past passivity. It's not considered "normal" for Chinese to hold such aggressively nationalistic positions and be this vocal about it in a public forum so it's sort of taken as both a threat and faux pas. WRT some others e.g. Russians or Indians or Iranians etc (no relation), they are either already accepted to be a certain way or they are totally ignored - Indians. No one cares that much about Indian chauvinism even though they would make Hitler blush with feelings of inadequacy. Well no one cares in the west. Pakistanis always did and now Chinese too.
Certain members only interest in banning not military topics. It is obvious that they aren't interested in how to improve this forum but to eliminate any discussion that they deem pro-China. However, I would like to remind certain members that the purpose of this thread is to discuss how to restrict off topic and meaningless discussion in the military threads.
Indeed that a forums that is focused on Sinodefense is going to attract Pro-China users and that they will want to express that.
The sticky point about that is the nature of specific examples of Pro-China voicing. The sort of posts that are bluntly just like "you're opinion does not matter" or "Japan's opinion does not matter".. things like that break done intellectual and potential for enlightening discussion. Of course being saying that, depending on the topic at hand "you're opinion does not matter" may actually be valid. It goes case by case on that judgement. I would submit that in the Taiwan thread a flat out "Japan's opinion does not matter" is not logically valid.
What makes it difficult is that actaul PRC policy itself is very controversial and so Pro-China users will make whatever argument, logical or not, to stamp down on opposition. Again, its very slippery slope here because of the case by case reality of it. An overhead principle/guideline of forum moderation is not nimble enough to navigate through the case by case nature of each topic and each post by each poster that brings with themselfves an air of position. Literally even the meaning of the same exact statement but said by diferrnt posters can bring out different meaning behind the literally same exact sentence even.
If a principle of other forum boards have their established bias with still all variety of threads available, then yeah, I think SDF very well will go the same way that the asia and china defense section at PDF ended up turning into. The static will wash out quality and the custom and behavior molded for the purpose of preserving that quality.
The non-military threads get sucked into the matter because if moderators are being burdened with the non-miltary stuff, then their ability to moderate the military threads still takes a time cut. So the mods get overloaded anyway unless they are able to recruit a bigger body of mods.