Mod bias

My colleague Silver Bear just started a thread over on Reddit about a really heavy political situation involving a veteran struggling with PTSD who was essentially kicked out onto the street by the local Churches.

It’s honestly pretty sad that Robert Hall7 locked the thread just because things were starting to head in a direction he didn't like.

Why does the administration just sit by and allow this kind of undemocratic, unchecked power from the moderators?
I truly believe this forum should be an open space for everyone, not just a select few.
Moderators should be setting the standard for everyone else, not the other way around.

Why did I close the thread? Because we have a dedicated section for politics on this forum, and this was about Churches. Silver Bear could have just dropped the link over there. If he’s unhappy with how I handled it, he knows where to find me. That’s all.

What on earth does the existing thread about Community Centers have to do with this specific, clearly defined case we're discussing right now?😕

If we follow that logic, there’s really no reason—and frankly, no capacity—to ever start a new topic or address a specific subject again. Every single discussion could just be lumped into one massive, bloated mega-thread, where everything is connected by vague links like state government, federal taxes, or Churches... eventually, any new post mentioning a single relevant term would just get swallowed up by those giant, consolidated threads.

What is the point of having a forum at all then? Just compile a list of all those broad categories and forbid anyone from starting anything new; we might as well just submit questions to a static FAQ instead.🙄

Melissa Sanders33 said:Why did I lock the thread? Because we have a dedicated section for political discussions, and this topic was about Churches. Silver Bear could have just posted the link over there instead. If he wasn't happy with my decision, he could have reached out to me directly. That's all I have to say about it.

That doesn't feel right to me. This is just a slice of everyday life, and the Church is merely one part of the larger context here. The whole point of the discussion was much broader than that.
I don't want to presume I know what your political leanings are, but it feels like the crackdown came from that angle. It feels like there's an unwritten rule that you can't criticize Churches—at least, that’s how I interpreted the message being sent.
Staying completely neutral isn't easy, and I get that these kinds of situations happen.
But I felt like I had to speak up, and I promise you, Silver Bear doesn't even know I'm saying this.
This is entirely on me.

You’ve got it completely wrong. Everyone has the right to share their opinion as long as they follow the forum rules. I’m just a neutral observer and reader, doing what I can when I can.

Melissa Sanders33 said:I think you've completely misread me. Everyone has every right to share their thoughts here as long as they follow the forum rules, and I'm really just sitting back as a neutral observer, reading along whenever I can find the time.

Aha... okay.☕I see what you mean.