Forget Post Removal , Mods Are Going To Posts Ban And Ban Hammer

[Schmoe]

saw these two threads on ats,

You should be aware by now that we are short staffed and stretched thin. That coupled with the staff abilities being hamstrung by a previous administrator and a most contentious political environment have caused a reevaluation of moderating strategy. Post removals are having no effect. Warnings and in-thread admonishments are having no effect. Short term post bans are having minimal effect, and only while the post ban is in place.

Effective immediately, anyone failing to adhere to the requirements we have shared, to the point of absurdity, resulting in a Political Trolling post deletion will generate a lengthy post ban, length to be determined at staff discretion. You can reasonably assume it could last until after the US election. This is not negotiable or up for discussion.

As a reminder, new accounts are no longer being activated, so circumventing a post ban with a new account is no longer possible, and full account bans are permanent.

Please proceed accordingly.

Important if Actively Posting

From this moment forward, the following rules apply throughout all of ATS:

[1] Politically inspired name calling of an ideological group is not allowed: examples: "Libtards," "kamalalaa"," "Repuglicans," "Drumpf" etc.

[2] Alterations of a politicians name, or any other high-profile political figure, for disparaging political effect is not allowed, including within member avatars and signatures.

[2a] Avatars designed exclusively to denigrate a politician or political figure, using derogatory wording or photo-manipulation, is not allowed.

[3] Posts that attack other members.

[4] Posts that stray from the discussion of the issue/topic and focus on the political affiliation of members are not allowed.

[5] All other politically-charged trolling and sniping intended, in the opinion of our staff and topic participants, to derail discussion away form the issues are not allowed.

In the event we encounter the above infractions, you risk the removal of your entire post or thread without warning or recourse.
You also risk a temporary POSTING BAN. For starters.

YOU are responsible for your own posts
No one else. No one is forcing you to reply to others who may push your buttons.


Reaffirming Our Desire For Productive Political Debate (Redux)

now i can see the back and forth between members, or some of the shit that was posted during the hack / crash/ or deliberate sabotage by lets just say owner and his helpers post removals or bans.

but the site is is all but dead, and trying to run it like it is a thriving web site like it was, doesn't make much sense. 
plus it also seems to me that mods target certain people, while they let at least one spew all kinds of bullshit and use half ass covered insults, down right threats, and antisemitic rhetoric, hate filled speech for the west especially for the UK U.S. and NATO with down right lies and people pointing it out with facts and very seldom do they remove his post or threads. 

come on man, you haven't heard from the owner for almost 2 years, no management other than the mods, who are short handed and only have the ability now to  remove posts, threads, temp bans, and perma bans. no new members can join cause the email part is down and they can't even do the resets they were doing.

it's obvious that someone wants the site to die or just doesn't care what happens to it. why ban people for making fun of slo joe, cackling kam a la, ol farty, woketards, libtards, dem cultist, or calling people out for what they are. and who's is deciding, just the super mods? i've seen a coupe of mods and one super mod, post political trolling and baiting posts that are just as bad as everyday members that have never been removed and may not agree with the 30 to 65 members or so that have come back after the sabotage.

it's just a matter of time now and your doing just what the owner or the ones behind the scenes wants.

You know, I kinda agree with their rules as stated... for the most part. Generic name-calling of an entire demographic gets on my nerves, too. Things like "Libtard", "Demon-rat", "Repuglican" and the like just gets on my last nerve. It displays a sophomoric lack of ingenuity, originality, or creativity on par with kids in a schoolyard. It has no place in conversations where the grownups are talking, and just sounds like a bunch of children talking about each other's moms.

I always let them stand here, however, so that the reader can gauge the poster's intellectual horsepower, and act accordingly. For me, it always makes me question their objectivity on everything else they have to say, based upon their inability to objectively label their opponents. It calls into question the veracity of the rest of their post, in other words. I.E. if they can't even think straight in their labels, what ELSE are they not thinking straight about in their posts?

Singling out specific politicians with re-naming concerning attributes they legitimately have, like "Slo-Joe", "Heels-up Harris", "Orange Man" and the like don't bother me at all. It's an "if the shoe fits..." sort of situation for me.

But calling Trump "Drumpf" never made any goddamned sense to me at all - what they hell are they trying to say? What kind of slur is that? Looks more like a case of dyslexia and misspelling to me. It just never has made any sense to me, even though I've heard Leftists around here (as in where I live) do it, too. Not a damned one of them has yet been able to explain to me WHY they do it, other than that it's just something they read somewhere on the internet when they were getting their daily talking points and marching orders. That put them in the "they're not hitting on all cylinders" bin for me, because they are not thinking originally, just repeating what they are told to repeat... they are not thinking on a level above that of a parrot, in other words. "Bird-brained" seems to apply.

The problem is that the enforcement is subjective rather than objective - it's an "officer's discretion" situation. That doesn't sit too well with me, because it tends towards uneven application - "laws for thee but not for me", which is a hallmark of the Left in the US at least.

With that said, I don't know how they are handling it. maybe short term post bans until what's left of the Staff can discuss matters in the back room before a final disposition. if they're doing it that way, then I don't think unequal enforcement is such a problem... so long as all political viewpoints are represented in the discussion in that smoke-filled back room. That would tend to be a little more even handed, as staff could serve as a check on one another. if they're doing it that way, I'm fine with it.

If, however, it's just arbitrary and subject to one individual's discretion, then that's a problem, because most people are unable to apply rules evenly and across the board. they'll develop natural animosities, and act on those without any restrains applied.

I also don't know what goes on in the back room over there. Why are they short-handed? Can they not create new mods when attrition takes hold? Are there more back-end problems than the general public is aware of? Or is the problem that they are just not creating new mods to replace the ones that leave, even though they have the ability? OR is it just that they can't find anyone interested in moderating what is increasingly being perceived as a dying site by the membership? Maybe they just can't find members interested in moderating? Which of those alternatives is factual will have a bearing on the final assessment and disposition of the site.

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Agreed.  Whenever I read a "libtard" or "republicunt" I imagine a "hyuck" coming from the person who typed it