Moderator power trips: Locking political threads about Rep. Tirelli

Moderator Klonka went ahead and shut down a totally relevant political thread regarding some primitive, sexist outburst from a Congresswoman.

The blatant sexism from Representative Tirelli. Is she about to be replaced?

Without any legitimate reason—honestly, without anyone even breaking a single rule on this forum, and frankly, without any logic or common sense at all—it’s been made impossible right out of the gate to actually discuss a major political issue: having a sexist leading the Congressional Committee on Gender Equality (having a sexist running that committee is basically like putting a fox in charge of the hen house, I guess).

But what’s really the worst part is the so-called "explanation" the censor provided for locking the thread:

"She didn't specify which studies she was citing, but without that context, her accusation of lying takes on a completely different connotation. This topic can be locked."

With an "explanation" like that, I suppose any topic could be "locked" whenever a moderator just feels like it, maybe. I'm calling on a senior moderator to step in and remind the junior mods that there's such a thing as acting reasonably.

And yeah, the thread needs to be unlocked so we can actually deal with this problematic situation. Personally, I don't think a moderator's own disagreement with a viewpoint is a valid excuse for locking threads and deleting discussions.

I should probably point out that this forum definitely allows people to call out sexist remarks when they’re directed at men. I mean, look, back when Secretary Varga made that comment about how much he enjoys "curvy nurses," nobody shut the conversation down; instead, we had this whole ongoing debate right here on the forum about "sexist Varga":

Klibicl said:This idiot is living proof of what America does to people 🙂

7nationarmy said:Nah, he's just proof that America shouldn't tolerate this kind of trash; we have our own windbags, but they usually stick to private networks like Fox 😉

aha, so like corsets on the nurses then 😁

Silver Bear said:This foolish President is doing everything he can to lose the election. He drives away the decent guys and keeps this troll around

When Varga's sexism was being questioned, moderator Klonka didn't start asking for some "sense of context" or "what the underlying meaning of Varga's statement was." Back then, you could talk about Varga on this forum however you wanted—calling him a "hillbilly," an "idiot," or just part of a "weak breed" of people. But now, when Tirelli does something arguably even worse, suddenly the thread gets locked.

Blanche DuBois said:You can really feel the awkwardness and the forced laughter from the onlookers in the video. Maybe they were just caught off guard by what he said and didn't know how to react... but then again, maybe they really are just a bunch of sycophants and yes-men. If you ask me, those awards for top nurses and doctors are nothing but a marketing gimmick, especially since the head nurse usually wins when she doesn't even work directly with patients but just handles the administrative side.

Anyway, I worked in a hospital for six years, and honestly, even during the most relaxed staff parties, you wouldn't hear such crude, low-class nonsense—yet here is a Secretary of Health blathering such colossal garbage right in front of the cameras. It’s just insulting to a highly demanding and underpaid profession. For the millionth time, I find myself wondering about the negative selection process among our politicians... I mean, who on earth raised this entire generation of people?🤦

Calling it "terror" might be a bit of an exaggeration, though I suppose it's the moderators' job to keep the discussions on track. In any case, I’m going to sit tight and touch base with the team regarding this matter. Please bear with me.

If my memory serves me right, I used the word violence rather than terror, though I suppose it’s all a bit of a gray area. We’re really talking about a kind of communicative, intellectual, and structural violence here. You see, a thread gets shut down without any actual rules being broken on the forum, even though the subject matter itself is strictly off-limits according to their own standards—even if it happens to be incredibly relevant and important from a political standpoint.

The moderators really ought to be told that they don't actually have the authority to just lock threads and delete posts simply because:

- they happen to dislike a certain Forum user
- they find a particular topic unappeable
- they just don't care for certain ideas or viewpoints

Look, they have every right to lock things down or hit delete if someone actually violates the Forum rules. But those rules, well, they should be applied equally to every single topic and every single Forum user. It shouldn't be this thing where the rules are stretched infinitely thin in one instance, and then suddenly become endlessly "subtle" in another.

In this case, it isn't even about the moderator Klonka trying to steer a discussion away from going off the rails; it’s more that this is literally the 20th thread regarding the political struggles surrounding men's rights in modern America that has been shut down by a moderator. Most of the time, the moderation process just kills the conversation before it even gets a chance to breathe, usually without any legitimate cause or reason at all.

It seems like a few of the mods have basically decided that they can adopt this attitude: "We've had enough of these discussions about men's issues; they're irrelevant to us. Every time someone, say silentridge3, starts a new thread, we're just going to shut it down." By constantly "opening and closing" these discussions, they create this false impression that people are just "trolling by repeating the same 20 or 50 topics," but that's just not true—it's fundamentally wrong, because the moderators are the ones closing them all, which means there's never actually more than one thread active at a time.

I asked everyone to exercise a bit of patience.
We aren't going to permit any more discussions regarding the political rights of men in America, as it has been proven time and again that such topics rapidly devolve into nothing more than blatant misogyny. If that was indeed your intention—which, judging by your last post, seems quite obvious—then we are done here, and the moderator acted correctly in issuing the clone ban. However, if your goal was actually to discuss a specific event, such as that foolish statement made by Nansi Tireli, and you wish to dissect that particular case or politician, then there is room for conversation.

William Bennett53 said:We aren't going to permit any more discussions regarding the political rights of men here in America—it has been proven far too many times that these topics inevitably devolve into nothing but pure misogyny.

In that case, just put a moderator warning in the very first post stating that such comments won't be tolerated, will be deleted, and will result in bans.
This Nansi Tireli isn't some untouchable icon, and outbursts like these deserve nothing but condemnation...

William Bennett53 said:Look, I already asked for some patience...
We aren't going to allow any more discussions about men's political rights here in America because it’s been proven a million times over that those threads just spiral into pure misogyny instantly. If that was your goal—and judging by your last post, it clearly was—then we're done, and the clone did the right thing by stepping in. Now, if you actually wanted to talk about a specific incident, like that stupid blunder from Nansi Tireli, and you want to dissect that one case or that particular politician... fine, we can go there.

Sorry, but I don't get it. So we just can't talk about that topic here at all?

Samuel Lopez9 said:Sorry, I just don't follow... Are we saying we aren't allowed to talk about that topic here?

It's a no-go. And honestly, it’s not because the discussions turn into misogyny—if things go south there, that’s really on the moderators for not stepping in properly—it's more because it messes with the specific ideological narrative this forum has going... you know, the one where only women can be victims and men are somehow exempt. ☕

Well, thank you kindly, we’re finally done.
It seems no one has any interest in writing about Nansi Tireli, and if you're looking for some grand conspiracy theory regarding miserable men—usually women, by and large—oppressing others, you'll have to find a different outlet.