#21 ·
driftingdriver said:Take a look at your profile; there are twelve pages of warnings there. You’ve been collecting them from just about every moderator on the site. Isn't that just proof that the problem isn't with the moderators, but with you? You wage this personal crusade under the guise of "enlightenment" and trying to influence the masses, and you don't care how blunt you are—telling it like it is regardless of who gets hurt. It’s pure Machiavellianism, really. It seems no moderator is ever good enough for you unless they happen to be standing on the exact same side as you.
Lately, you’ve been getting those warnings from me and the observers, mostly because we are essentially the only ones systematically moderating the politics section. That’s why we’re constantly being hauled before the Attorney General; it's simply evidence that we’re doing the dirty work.
The rest of the mods are basically inactive. Some have checked out completely, while others might eventually drift back. As it stands, the politics section only has two mods who are actually active on a systematic level.
If you attack us active mods from every possible angle and orientation, doesn't that just prove we aren't biased?
Personally, I’ve been labeled as everything from an American sympathizer and a communist to a fascist or a religious zealot... you name it. All of it packed into one person. But honestly, those labels say much more about the people throwing them than they do about me. Of course, we also have to account for the silent majority, those people who are slowly returning to the politics section after it was hijacked by extremists—just a tiny handful of people representing every possible color, fighting their holy wars and peddling their indoctrination. That’s why most people stay away. My mission is to bring that silent majority back to the political discussion. So far, I think I'm succeeding; more and more of that quiet crowd is showing up.
Maybe the silence from everyone else created a false impression. Let me correct myself: all the moderators here are failing at their jobs. It’s primarily due to an incredibly poorly defined discussion policy, compounded by their own personal shortcomings. I personally remember some of my own bans, and I can say with certainty that, by any reasonable standard, I deserved less than 10% of them. The rest is nothing more than moderator autism and sheer laziness.
2. examples:
Even if you can spot a clear "political orientation" from the moderators—which is my main gripe here—it isn't actually the issue for me. I don't care about their personal stances. The real problem is when they start handing out bans based on twisted or idiotic criteria.
The core issue here is simple: the criteria are garbage. They allow trolls—professional agitators—to act out and provoke endlessly without facing any real consequences from the moderators. These mods hide behind technicalities like, "Oh, they didn't technically insult anyone." Sure, they didn't use a slur, but they’re clearly talking out of their asses. In any society, whether it's a real community or an online forum, people should be allowed to call out scumbags directly without all this performative outrage. You should be able to say, "You're a provocateur and you're full of shit," and leave it at that. That shouldn't result in a ban or a warning; it's just honest human communication. If some self-proclaimed "participant" shows up only to smirk and mock everyone, and someone responds with, "Cut the crap and take your nonsense elsewhere," that shouldn't be sanctioned. Period. The argument that we should just ignore them or maintain "civil discourse" is total nonsense. When these spineless types start peddling their fairy tales and lies—claiming Marshall was flawless, that the US was founded on crime, or spinning endless webs about religious groups and historical atrocities—it is perfectly natural to shut those provocative little pests down. They never stop until you kick them out the door. These provocateurs get a free pass to stir up trouble, while anyone who tells them to go to hell—exactly where they belong—gets banned.
And you, along with the rest of the moderation team, clearly lack any sense of irony or humor. It’s a black-and-white worldview. You'd probably even label a publishing house in Chicago as "cartoonish" if it were named after some pre-war Communist—take the old joke about a certain leftist who couldn't decide between two political paths and said, "I'm like Buridan's ass." The response was instant: "Why Buridan's?" Meaning, you're just an ass. That kind of irony is standard communication, yet here, it would be sanctioned because the mods wouldn't even grasp the point. My second grievance is that labeling someone a "troll" is completely unjustified. I can't tell if this comes from moderator malice or a simple lack of basic education. There have been times I've received warnings for harmless, humorous remarks that weren't provocative or malicious in the slightest. These were mere digressions that actually held meaningful connections to the topic, yet the mods dismissed them as "trolling." Pure stupidity. Real conversation is impossible without tangents that aren't strictly tied to the subject. If those tangents use associative nuances, handing out warnings is wrong. This points to one of three things: a hostile attitude from the mods, their own ignorance, or a total failure to understand basic social culture.
That's it. Based on my own posts, I don't think I've even "earned" 10% of those bans. Everything else is just moderator malice or pure mental deficiency.