I have to disagree on the facts. I have been in this forum for a number of years and topics that are of public interest which also may involve a degree of politics had been allowed. When discussions became too emotional they were locked to allow members to cool off. Such intermittent attempts at moderation in my view serves a vital purpose of circuit breaking while allowing some degree of discourse due to the nature of public interest.
I think you need to sustain your argument that such attempts are not sustainable. If it is an issue of moderation resource then that would be part of the consideration in allowing or disallowing the thread and that includes for how long that remains locked. It is a moderation decision.
I have been here from the beginning when there is only discussion board not forum. In the early days, there are more attempts to warn and ban members. It is only after the fact that moderators couldn't handle the endless flame wars that they decided to lock threads up and banned members. More recent years, locking threads have become more common tactics. Understandably, they preferred locking threads because of resource consideration.
I am aware of your position because you have stated it more than once before. I disagree from the standpoint from personal observation on members and what they tend to post. There are a handful of members who are primarily more interested in advancing certain political views rather than on military related topics. You know because they are very active in political related threads and less so in military topics.
The question is what is meant by "for the benefit of SDF"? Is it a traffic driven site or is it a site for military related matters? What you are advocating is to change the core of SDF's constitution to include political matters as a norm rather than as an exception.
When we are involved in military discussion, you are not even here yet. Many of us have discussed so much about Chinese military that there isn't much to contribute anymore. Chinese military forum and China Defense Forum used to have many military experts that debate about Chinese military and development and war scenarios and hardware comparison. Most topics have been covered many times already. When SDF came along, it focused more on hardware and technical specifications. After some flame wars, SDF banned military comparisons discussion, india and Pakistan discussions, and then military scenarios discussions etc. For most observers and amateurs, there are not much to contribute after SDF banned many types of discussions.
As for why SDF allowed some political discussions, it isn't my concern. I just felt it is irritated that moderators can't take the heat by locking threads without much leeway.