Thank you to those who have commented that we do a good job. Moderating a forum is a barrage of never-ending negativity, so positive comments are well appreciated.
Allow me to explain how LTG works, because it may not be obvious to everyone.
First, there are very few rules. They can be summed up as:
- No politics
- No religion
- Don't be contentious
- Don't cheapen the experience
Really, only the first two are "written" rules and they have been here forever. The second two are guidelines set in place (mostly) by me since I took over as admin.
By far, the problem threads that gets locked are due to politics. Using the gas price thread as an example, discussing the price of gas in and of itself is not an issue. The problem is that the cause for the price of gas is and always has been political. Here in March of 2022 those reasons are war in the Ukraine and inflation, both of which are not allowed. Posting a thread about the price of cereal in the grocery store would also likely devolve into politics.
The "don't be contentious" bullet is usually triggered by threads like Covid. Is covid inherently political? No, but a discussion about Covid will degrade into a discussion about mask mandates, vaccines, and lockdowns, all of which are political hot topics. Sometimes it's also triggered by people just not being nice to each other, though that's pretty uncommon here. Another example would be if someone posted a thread about a new gun they bought. I have many guns, and there is no specific rule against posting about guns, but guns are a hot-button political topic and a thread on that subject will likely get locked.
The last bullet, "Don't cheapen the experience" is sometimes referred to be me as "don't turn LTG into Facebook". What's meant by that is that while this is indeed a miscellaneous forum, I will not tolerate threads with videos of people fighting, or where someone does something stupid and its caught on video, or any type of thread that I might describe as, "I think this thing/person/rule/law/whatever is stupid - who's with me?"
Overt swearing is on that list for me, too. I worked with Navy veterans for years in my youth and I can swear with the best of them, but this is not the place for that. I've lightened my stance a bit on that recently, but this is not the place for it.
For what it's worth, I also consider many misogynistic posts to be in that category. Maybe it's because I have two daughters, but my tolerance for such things is small. This tends to be a gut-reaction kind of thing, and the "line" has moved over the years. Things that would have been OK to post on LTG 10 years ago are absolutely not OK today.
If you want a Facebook-like experience, go to Facebook.
If you want to post all the profanity-laden nonsense you can think of, go to 4Chan
If you want to post political things for discussion, Reddit might be a better choice
The primary driver for all things the moderators (including me) do is this: LTG is a better place than most places on the Internet, and we try to keep it that way.
In my mind, I think the issues arise *because* this is such a friendly place, and that camaraderie makes people feel like we're all a bunch of friends sitting around a table in a bar having a good time. I think that's great, but this is not a bar. Think of it more like a dinner party where you don't want to embarrass your significant other. The Internet today is a cesspool of hatred, misogyny, vulgarity, and ignorance. The mods are the front line against that incursion and so long as I'm "in charge" we will continue to work to keep those forces at bay.
Oh - and while I'm on the subject, I've had people complain that sometimes a thread shouldn't be locked, but rather the offending users within the thread should have their posts delete and those users should be warned/banned/whatever. There's some merit to this, so let me say that the simple truth is that sometimes locking a thread is just easier. It's exceedingly rare that we ban someone (aside from blatant spammers) and general consensus among the mods is that we may delete a post or lock a thread and then PM the user(s) telling them that they should behave. This is the more "human" approach which works on small forums like LTG.
The mods are all volunteers, and none of use read every post or thread. Sometimes we check in, see a report of a problem and act on that problem then go back to work. It's not always perfect, and that leads me to:
Finally, if you have a problem with a post, a thread, a member, a mod, or even me, use the report button that's on every post. Or PM me or the mods. If you have a problem with me, I suggest you PM
@fronobulax as he's my unofficial "who watches the watcher" appointee. Frono is a good egg.
P.S.: "Freedom of Speech" is a constitutional amendment that prevents the US government from silencing dissenters and it has no bearing on private forums such as this.
[Edit] - I have posted a very slightly altered (grammar and links) version of this post as a sticky in the Forum News forum. That
post is here.
