I'm not reading 5 pages of discussion here. I see politics mentioned in the opening post and wanting posts moved to some other thread. Also known as moderation. I'm just going to give some advice I learned from years of having to moderate forums myself and the mistakes I made along the way.
How to run a forum that discusses hot button issues
It's really simple. You encourage users to
ignore posts and people they do not like. It's simple. That's it. Other than reminding users of that the moderators should do the following; Only delete posts that are against the law and would get the website owner in trouble.. What kind of content is that? Easy: Pictures of minors, direct threats to people/places. Content showing animals being tortured/killed.
Those are the three things that are illegal. There are other things that can bring heat. Like posting copyrighted content or links to it (e.g. latest movie airing in theaters) but those aren't technically illegal and you don't have to remove them until whomever owns the copyright sends a request.
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Why is this the best way to moderate forums?
Happy you asked. If the above is followed to the letter by the moderation team it prevents users resenting moderation or claiming the moderators are supporting one side of whatever debate is happening today. Moderation must remain impartial and usually it's best they do not participate in such threads at all. Which is hard for moderators to do because moderators typically moderate forums they're active in. So if they're going to participate in them it's even more important that they follow the above guidelines strictly and separate their personal feelings about the topic and their duty as moderator. Moderators must be held to higher standards because they're leaders of the community but more importantly they keep the community safe. It's kind of like how the police are supposed to be like that instead of jack boot assholes.
If you're going to go into a forum that discusses politics and world events you must go into them with a thick skin. You're going to get offended. That's just part of it. Let's also be honest. Many people are going in there because they want to debate with the other side of whatever issue they strongly believe in. Well that and to see there are people that think the same way they do because they want their opinions echoed back to them. They want to feel like they're in the right and anyone that disagrees is in the wrong.
I feel strongly about many things myself I know a lot of people here disagree with. I have posted many long posts in the past trying to explain my position. I know some of them probably made some people angry. But my hope is always that maybe I can change someone's mind or at least find some common ground with them. Since we're all here living together and we have to share this planet with each other. I've been called a conspiracy theorist many times in the past. Even when I had some proof to back up my claims. That's fine with me. Sometimes it takes time to get people to see truth. Or maybe I'm wrong. This is why debate is useful to everyone. Maybe some minds get changed and it means we can live more peacefully together in the future.
Now there are some cases where someone is posting things incredibly off topic and it's nicer to split those posts off into another thread and kindly direct the person to discuss whatever it is there. But this isn't the same as moving posts just because they made someone mad. Soft censorship is still censorship. Plus this encourages division of people. Which is always bad and the goal of modern politics and the media machine. Which is why so many heated debates about nothing are so popular these days.
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What's the best way to deal with posts and people I dislike?
I'll tell you a little known fact. Many people aren't aware of it. On your keyboard is a key labeled "page down". If you push that key you can scroll right past a post you don't like. If you don't want to use the keyboard most modern mice have a scroll wheel that does the same thing. If you don't have one of those there bar over there ---> is designed so you can click on it and drag it down.
Using this little known option allows you to enjoy reading a thread without reading things that upset you. Another cool trick is to not go into threads like that at all or maybe even the forum itself. There are plenty of other forums and threads with very interesting discussion you might enjoy in them. Give them a try sometime.
I'll stop being a smart ass you get my point. The best thing to do is to ignore stuff you don't like. Let those people have their space. Another thing you can do is stop replying to such posts. 9 times out of 10 if people stop getting replies they will vanish from the current thread and future threads. This is the best way to deal with this. Both online and in real life. I believe the Amish call this shunning.
Whatever you do never call for censorship. Even soft censorship. We have to have freedom of speech. It's what makes us all better people. We don't have to agree on everything to get along. If you censor someone today for something you dislike in the future soon you'll find yourself getting censored for something you feel isn't breaking any rules and you feel should be read by others. We have to be adults. The moderators aren't supposed to be baby sitting threads making sure no one is getting offended. It's a politics and current events forum. It's impossible for someone not to be offended by something.
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We can't break ourselves into little in-groups with our own little spaces on public forums be it in real life or online. We need to share spaces together. Otherwise we're divided. Which has been the point of everything that's been happening lately in the world. We don't have to agree with each other but we do have to get along.
Honestly this is my best advice for everyone posting in the politics forum: Stop watching mainstream media news. Stop following the trending feeds about those things on social media. Stop consuming the rage bait. It's designed to distract and divide you and it's doing a great job of it. I rarely see anything outside of things they promote in the MSM posted in political forums now. It's all about what the president did today or the latest scandal or some rehash of some bullshit they've been talking about for years. It's like a soap opera on repeat with them. What team are you on? Red team? Blue team? Nazi? Commie? well I have news for you. You shouldn't be on any of those teams. You should be on team
"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore".
The people in power are terrified that regular people will stop engaging in these useless debates. They're terrified you'll stop following the party lines they've laid out for you and following the paid off politicians they promote within them. They're terrified that one day we all might stop watching their television news programs and stop paying attention to the same information coming through our social media feeds. They're terrified people will stop coming to their jobs and slaving away in exchange for paper money. They're terrified everyone will stop paying taxes. They're terrified that real protests will start happening against things that actually matter instead of these controlled opposition theater operations they're pulling with their hand picked leaders they've paid off. They're terrified that you'll join hand in hand with your neighbor that likes guns or is pro-abortion and work together to usher in a better future for yourself and your children.
They're terrified actual leaders will start to appear inspiring people to do something instead of these actors they keep promoting like the current guy on the news everyday with the bad spray tan or whatever the fuck he's doing to turn his skin that color. He's the same as the old boss and the next new boss will be too. They're all hand picked. But I digress.
We have to learn to get along even when we disagree and are steaming mad at each other over some words. Think back to childhood: Sticks and stones.
When moderators get too involved with boards that have this type of discussion it never ends well. Feelings get hurt. Accusations get thrown around (some justified for sure) and I've seen it kill off entire forums that were very active. Just let people say their peace and if you know after a few sentences that you're angry about what you're reading scroll on past. I'm sure there are one or two other posts from other users that are more to your liking and maybe you'll want to reply to. Or get really angry and fire off your reply to the person you don't like. Just don't be surprised when he replies back in kind.
Whatever you do don't censor him or try to enforce any kind of rule to "improve the community". It's a politics board. It's supposed to be one of the worse boards on the site. That's the nature of politics. At least the politics most people want to discuss these days. I haven't looked in there in a long time but I'm willing to bet there are no threads about bills Congress is attempting to pass unless they were talked about on MSM. They pass hundreds of those every month. Well they debate them at least (or say they do anyway). But out of those 100+ they're currently considering on most political discussion forums the only ones you see are the ones MSM and mainstream social media are ranting about today which have always divided the population. Those people don't read them either. They only get blurbs from the same new sources they follow. No one goes to docs.house.gov and gets the text of the bill and sits there and reads through it. Usually not even the people that are supposed to be getting paid to do it and voting on it. You could be spending your time reading some of those and posting a summary in a new thread to make other people here aware of them instead of reading the same tired takes that make you angry in the long running debate threads. I know reading the bills and laws are hard. They're designed that way on purpose. Full of legalease and link to another bill that modifys another bill that links to yet another bill. I read them. At least I try to read them as often as I can.
You know what I've discovered? The people I know IRL that watch the news the most and rant about it the most often do not read the bills. They don't know anything about them. Even if you pull up the text of them and show them they refuse to read even a paragrah and they think you're lying when you try to give them the gist of what the bill says. They trust whatever talking head they follow on the TV or internet more than a person they know IRL that's reading the text of the bill right in front of them. Like I said; We're divided and we're divided because of the media outlets.
I stay out of the politics forums myself. I know it isn't worth my time. It's the same reason why I don't follow such things on social media and I do not watch the news. You're not "staying informed" when you do those things. You're watching programming and believe me it's programming you. Its only purpose is to divide and conquer the general population.
I also don't know how that forum is moderated these days. But my hope would be the mods follow the above advice I've laid out.
Edit: spelling and formatting