Charles Anthony

Folks, Please avoid thread drift.

No. It was never acceptable. Patience is a virtue.

Perry Mason is a step above a game show, I will give you that much. Earle Stanley Gardner crafted my young naive mind. We appreciate that what passes off as "common knowledge" to some folks is not evident to others. You do not want us judging posts based on nonsense. Is the point of a post clear? or not? Is a poster genuinely intending to share "facts" in a discussion? or not? We intervene on the side of clarity. If a post is unclear and if it is obvious the poster is intending to set up a wild goose chase, then we encourage folks to be clear.

If you encounter a post that you believe should be deleted, Report it to mod staff, ignore it and move on. If you respond to a post that you believe should be deleted, what would you have us do? more work?? If there is a 3rd scenario that matters, please let us know. Do you object to the rule? Would you moderate differently? We permit a lot of rehashing but we have our limits. We dismiss some rehashing as trolling as opposed to rehashing that intends to foster discussion. It is not so much WHAT you say but how you say it.... or not. Add this to the flow charts: discussion =/= game show No. You are going to have to identify a specific example. The only thing that matters is that mod staff agree upon defending Greg's mandate for the forum to foster polite and focussed discussion. If you encounter a post that you believe should be censored, Report it to the mod staff but please do not wait for a public flogging. Yes. Mod staff intervenes when members do not follow the rules. -- to whom? Simple: thread drift can stifle a topic. Difficult: thread drift is subjective. We appreciate that normal conversation drifts and we appreciate that what constitutes "on topic" is up to debate. We are willing to debate incidents. Regardless of the inherent subjectivity, practice is objective: If folks ignoreported that which they believed was thread drift trolling, then there is no problem of acceptability and subjectivity does not enter into the equation. SHORT VERSION: You all have to learn to move on.

No. They belong on the "Things that should be reported and ignored. Things that should not be posted." bench. Yes. No. CORRECTION: Posting "This is thread drift." is not allowed --- regardless of whether the mods concurr or not. We demand that members report such claims and or their perceived-requests for moderator intervention. In the event that they are wrong, such posts add clutter. In the event that they are right, such posts do NO GOOD but can only provoke a reply which will defacto be more off-topic clutter. We are not going to foster a lose-lose etiquette. You ask too many questions. How about you answer mine: Do you disagree with our approach? Would you moderate differently?? In the event that you disagree, I would be interested in a challenging reason why. As of yet, I have not encountered any interesting objection from anybody. We do better with our Canadian touch....I am not sorry you bumped into us. I learn a lot from everybody's posts. This is classic "The gift that keeps on giving!" or better yet, call it rocket science...sorry for the Global reference. --- I suspect folks need the following clue spelled out: If 100% of a post is SOMETHING THAT SHOULD OTHERWISE HAVE BEEN REPORTED TO A MODERATOR AND IGNORED, then we tend to delete it. If 1% of a post is SOMETHING THAT SHOULD OTHERWISE HAVE BEEN REPORTED TO A MODERATOR AND IGNORED while the other 99% of the same post is on-topic furthering the discussion, we tend to leave it. Add those to your flow charts.

After having to moderate 3 separate lines of thread drift, I have decided to close this cluttered thread. Try again. Anybody interested in continuing any and or all of the topics discussed in this thread is welcome to start a new thread but will be expected to put more effort into starting the discussion with a clear focus and a better title.

Guys, Stop the thread drift.

Guys, Please avoid thread drift.

Folks, Please avoid thread drift.

I reviewed this with Greg and he is not concerned.

I want to avoid discussing any particular case. Forgive me if I speak in generalities. Let whoever sue for libel. Better yet, whoever is welcome to join the forums and protest. Do you want mod staff to decide what is out of bounds? As long as discussion is polite, we are cool with it. If you believe something should be censored, report it but do not reply to it. We are letting you folks decide what is out of bounds but we are only giving you 1 tool to express it: ignoreport it. If everybody ignores something that is out of bounds or trolling or just plain boring, then it will go away. Has anything changed?

Nothing has changed. There is no agenda beyond fostering civil Canadian discussion. Did you think there was action to exclude people from participating? Why? What leads you to wonder so? Here are different ways of expressing the same directive: If you do not like a citation/reference/source offered by a fellow member, feel free to say so but you will be expected to explain why in a civil manner ACCOMPANIED BY AN ATTEMPT TO FURTHER THE DISCUSSION. Drive-by dismissals of sources will be deleted. SHORT VERSION: The essence of your post must be on topic. The topic is not the citation/reference/source in question.

I think some of you folks need to grow a thicker skin. In my personal opinion, most of what I read is filled with craziness and bitterness. You would not want me deleting posts based solely on our opinions in that regard. Please explain. Are you able to see that members have other members on Ignore? The software is not set up in such a manner. --- because the poster is attempting to defend his argument. Calling somebody "stupid" is nothing more than a trivial off-topic attempt to inflame and intimidate. The intelligence of a person is rarely the topic of discussion. Take the subjectivity out of the equation and the 2 situations are different. This is nothing more than rocket science. How in the world would you ever craft such a study? Do you know of any mind-reading technology? I do not. This is nothing more than rocket science: you all have different opinions to express and you get offended easily. Amen.

Folks, Please avoid thread drift.

It is not a big deal for me. Charles Anthony Jr is still at the top of my baby names list. It certainly is the best basis but it is not the only basis. I can think of others. All I am saying is that Aug91's OP is sufficient justification for this exception. In other words, Aug91's OP whacks the ball out of the park. I aint sprinting around the diamond for your entertainment. I aint answering any of those questions because my thoughts are unfit for print. Please respect that and move on.

--- you misunderstood my question. I re-opened up your post anyways. I believe your post is obviously inappropriate and trolling. I will re-phrase my question. I am asking about a hypothetical situation whereby you post something. We think your post is fine. You think your post is fine. A complainer thinks your post is trolling and posts a drive-by public announcement such as "BC-chick is obviously trolling here!" in the forums instead of ignoreporting it. What do you want us to do with this public complaint? Sure. Forum Rules and Guidelines Please do not call-out anybody a troll in the public forums. We do not want to tolerate that. If you think somebody is a troll or is trolling, press the [Report] button associated with the post to alert us. We want to hear your explanation and your complaint. if we disagree, we are willing to discuss your claim privately if you are serious about discussing it. If you call somebody a troll in the open forum again, you risk temporarily losing your posting privileges. It's a clunky analogy, but as always I certainly appreciate yet another reference to American political and popular culture. I seriously doubt that the mods expend as much effort or thought on the matter.True. We strive to make quicker decisions. On occasion we disagree on how to intervene or even if an intervention is necessary. I do not like that analogy. I forget how the joke goes but the punchline is A terrorist is an other man's freedom fighter. To understand our moderation, you all have to start with the following basic axiom: THERE IS NO AGREEMENT AMONG YOU ON WHAT IS TROLLING AND WHAT IS NOT TROLLING. Approximately half of you agree on allegations of trolling while the other half of you disagree. If you do not recognize this fact, you will never understand moderation nor will you ever be content here. We mods rarely agree on the underlying politics/morality of your exchanges nor do we agree among ourselves. We focus on your delivery. When we read your posts, we read to understand your arguments. We read not to be swayed nor reinforced. We read to put ourselves in each of your shoes. We tend to see substance in most of your posts even though you may inject some trolling. Despite any slings and arrows sent your way through the Report function, we see the merit that you yourself see in your own writing. Yup. At times, I find it tough because my own personal definition of trolling is much stricter than the MLW definition. If I owned MLW, I would deem many more of you to be trolls. I would dish out longer suspensions and some of you would have been permanently banned long ago.

We deem Aug91's OP to be sufficient justification for this exception to the Queen's English here at MLW. Correct. That is exactly what I am trying to get across. Why is this such a big deal??

No. There is no "ergo" here. You are trying to apply some illusion of logic where none exists. This is an exception to a rule. This is not a derivative of logic.

No.

I will make you an offer. If you answer my question, I will re-open your post so that all can see what is clear and what is unclear. What would you want the mod staff to do if somebody called you out for trolling and the mod staff disagreed with the complaint? i.e., the mod staff believes that you are not trolling.

--- because we disagree with your assessment and we disagree with your delivery. It is that simple. --- because you should not do that. What you did was against the rules. It is against the rules to call somebody a troll. If you believe somebody is trolling, the proper procedure is to report it, ignore it and move on. You did not do that. What would you want the mod staff to do if somebody called you out for trolling and the mod staff disagreed with the complaint? i.e., the mod staff believes that you are not trolling. Your allegations are false. None of that is happening here. This is the real deal.

Thank you for this OP, Aug91. Folks, If you want to address any of the living Bushes as BushJr, go ahead. If you want to address any of the living Trudeaus as TrudeauJr, go ahead. Without any other mitigating factors, we reject any prejudice that such use of generational suffixes is automatically derogatory or pejorative. Simple: we are making an exception to this rule and we are at VERY MUCH at peace with it. Life will carry on without anybody ever even thinking of asking to see birth certificates for any of these dudes.

Folks, Please avoid the personal banter. None of you are the topic of the thread discussion.

Guys, Please stay on topic and keep your personal problems to yourselves.

Folks, This thread is temporarily locked. This is some of the most astonishing thread drift that I have ever encountered. Anybody who wants to continue this same topic while we figure out what to do with this mess is welcome to do so. Call it something like Stephen Harper knows a lot more.... and we will merge whatever can be salvaged from this thread.