If you’ll forgive me, I believe it is time to close this thread. There is little left to be said here—most points have already been exhausted, and several times over at that. Furthermore, I see we have begun to attract those self-appointed moral guardians who insist on interjecting with "back in my day" anecdotes. We ought not to persist, if only because any debate regarding moderation within a topic is counterproductive; such disputes invariably derail the discussion and are virtually never tolerated anywhere else on this forum.
William Bennett53, you possess enough experience within this community to understand exactly what kind of discourse is required here. I will reiterate my point, but please, let us not test our collective patience again: we require clarity and documentation. For every accusation, provide a link. If you claim there is bias in moderation, provide a link. If you wish to propose new discussion threads without first presenting documented evidence of prior grievances, refrain from doing so.
Listen, everyone, if we’re looking to dive into legal regulations, then this belongs in Law. If the goal is to debate potential harm or impact, perhaps Natural Science would be a better fit. Regardless, this isn't quite right for the PŽK section. The moderator has already explained why they don't feel this topic fits under Politics; until their stance on Politics changes—assuming there's even a reason for it to change—you'll need to find another home for this discussion.
None of them really strike me as "wow," though I suppose I’d say Bottas’s looks the best so far. When you look at the more diverse field, there is some pretty intense competition between Grosjean’s, Ericsson’s, and those two from Red Bull.
rustywalker42, I won't even bother commenting on the pricing regarding bans and those pointless red cards because they are utterly trivial. When you actually look at individual bans, you almost always find that it isn't about a fundamental disagreement over an issue, but rather something far more petty and decidedly unprincipled. However, since you mentioned wanting to view this topic through a broader lens, I will weigh in on a few other points raised.
First, I actually agree with the idea that grouping discussions into massive, monolithic threads often serves to dilute the conversation. These mega-threads are nearly impossible to follow; if you aren't glued to them constantly, there is zero chance you’ll catch something interesting that was discussed five or ten pages ago. An alternative would be smaller, more focused threads centered on specific events rather than on the personalities involved. For instance, if Milijan Vaso Brkic, acting as the number two in the nation's largest political party and its ruling organization, sends two distinguished intellectuals and professionals away—if they don't feel secure here, they should probably just go live somewhere else—that ought to be its own separate thread. This would benefit not just the regulars, but the community at large, as we all know far more people lurk on the Forum than actually post. Not to mention, it would make things much easier to Google. The problem, however, is that such an approach would require significantly stricter moderation than what we currently have. A thread like that would likely devolve by the second page into deep-dive medical analogies, exhaustive analyses of every actor's track record, citing old news clips to prove who the media loves or hates, or rehashing old grievances about where someone stood in the '40s versus the '60s, or whose grandfather fought for which side in the civil wars... The moderators would be drowning in work, off-topic posts would be deleted constantly, threads would get locked, and everyone would start screaming about censorship. Or, alternatively, we'd just end up with five or six identical threads where nobody keeps order, and we lose clarity instead of gaining it. That said, if some kind of consensus could be reached on this matter, I would gladly support it.
Secondly, I think it is intentionally permitted to call a politician a scoundrel or use coarse language against them, whereas such remarks wouldn't fly if directed at forum members or specific social groups. And that is perfectly normal. Public figures have public actions, and we can allow ourselves to be a bit rougher with them. One could argue the opposite—that an insult toward Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Frljic, Pusicka, or Glogosk should be treated as an insult toward me, you, lonebadger6, Blankica, or Gufi—but that would lead to the total sterilization of the Forum. What cannot be allowed, however, is being able to tear into Frljic, Pusicka, or someone similar while being prevented from doing the same to Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Reiner, or Glogosk. But I suppose even children understand that, so I won't labor the point. Forum members, on the other hand, are our peers and fellow debaters; they aren't public figures and aren't subject to that same level of scrutiny, which is why we protect them. We also protect social groups because insulting a group is inherently improper; groups aren't monoliths, and even if someone knows a dozen examples that confirm a stereotype, we won't allow that stereotype to be typed out as an unpunished slur against the whole group.
Does this way of looking at things lead to a decline in membership? Or does the cooling of discussions and the weakening of the user base stem from an entirely different set of reasons (Facebook, one generation of users aging out while another remains uninterested, the sheer abundance of online platforms, debaters getting tired of mindless stories about fascists and partisans, the availability of pornography and other ways to find excitement, or perhaps frustratingly unreliable servers and the lack of technical explanations as to why Tapatalk still doesn't work...)? I don't know, and I leave those contemplations to the admins and the owner. Personally, I am driven away from the Forum by the endless debates over historical factions and these stupid technical glitches. But perhaps you or someone else is being pushed away by something else entirely. 🤷
(Please excuse any technical glitches; I'm typing this on a glass surface...)
Let’s be clear: we aren't turning this into a general debate regarding how Politics is moderated. Please refrain from veering off-course into grievances about warnings or bans. We already have a dedicated thread for those issues, and you are more than welcome to start one for any specific incident you feel warrants attention. However, we simply have no room here for vague, unsubstantiated complaints such as: "I'm being perfectly polite, yet I'm being censored because the mods can't handle true pluralism," or claims that moderation prevents people from expressing views against political opponents or religious groups. Nor will I entertain complaints regarding the blocking of links to extremist or hate-speech websites. Moving forward, I won't be deleting posts; if the conversation drifts into these generalities, I will simply lock the thread.
Just one small point, which might seem trivial but actually carries some weight: comparing the page count of that massacre in Paris to what happened yesterday doesn't really prove the forum has changed over the years. The Paris incident was relatively recent, and since then, nothing about the forum’s structure or essence has shifted. Of course, that doesn't account for this ongoing headache with the servers or Tapatalk, but I think we’re all well aware of how much of a nuisance that has been—it’s just as frustrating for me as it is for the rest of you.
If this is intended to be yet another general discussion thread regarding the moderation of the Politics subforum, we might as well close it right now; such threads simply won't be tolerated. However, let us assume for a moment that the agenda might be different, and we shall allow it to remain active for a short while—provided, of course, that the sentiment expressed in my opening sentence remains firmly in mind.
Alonso was absolutely gutted once Lewis Hamilton made that switch to the hard tires... If they were running cars in the same colors, you could practically smell the drama coming off the track in Singapore...
By the way, it’s actually quite refreshing to see Renault back in their signature yellow. Perhaps now the marketing gurus will finally start taking them seriously again!