At the risk of upsetting the moderators

[Jughead]

@Chief_Seadog

With regards to the Marshmallows thread; If it had been in the Professional Mariners Forum then yes it should have been shutdown as being fairly well non-maritime related. But since it was in “Scuttlebutt”, such topics are allowed.

Not knowing any better I started it in the Professional forum but someone moved it. No problem. I now know better.

[john]

@Jughead

Any mention of climate change is inevitably political and degenerates as we’ve seen to warring camps.

Use the search bar, we have had dozens of posts on climate that didn’t degenerate.

@Jughead

Not knowing any better I started it in the Professional forum but someone moved it. No problem. I now know better.

It probably would have been deleted in any section of the forum.

@jbtam99

I’m curious now too. Spam threads like “Norway is Awesome” stay open, but active discussion threads are being closed? What gives @john?

We don’t read the forum hoping to catch someone in a violation of the forum rules. In fact I can’t remember the last time I closed a thread because I noticed a violation.

But we do close threads based on reader feedback, spam reports and PM’s sent to the moderators that make a compelling case for closure.

[Jughead]

@john

It probably would have been deleted in any section of the forum.

Why? I was responding as I said to an article in your daily email.

[tomahawk]

Many thanks for the explanation… I thought it may be something to do with the subject.

Sadly, anything to do with climate change has a habit of becoming political. Then it becomes heated and sets up two waring sides who degenerate into yah-boo. On my favourite forum (which is based about a boat owning community) there is a sub topic for climate change, as well as Brexit… No one really bothers with them.

[DeepSeaDiver]

I must have missed the Marshmallow thread. Go figure.

[Kennebec_Captain]

Good article about moderating.

…It’s an inescapable truth that for some people, the most interesting way to participate in online discourse is to kick holes in the conversation. Others—many of them young, but some, alas, old enough to know better—have a sense of entitlement that leads them to believe that their having an opinion means the rest of us are obliged to listen to it. Still others plainly get off on verbally abusing others, and seek out conversations that will offer them opportunities to do so. And so on and so forth: the whole online bestiary:

The rest is here:Teresa Nielsen Hayden (2005): Some things I know about moderating conversations in virtual space