The demise (or otherwise) of The Polite Discussion Board

[Mike4]

As I mentioned earlier, a downside of having PD is the bad feeling spills over into discussions on other boards.

An upside of having PD is it boosts the 'whole-site' post count which advertisers like and generates revenue for TLF.

It would be interesting if anyone in TLF Towers could say how the post and visitor counts are holding up in the few days since PD was hidden. Tumbled I suspect, judging by the reduced content of "New Posts" in "Quick links".

[AsleepInYorkshire]

A'm nae the maist articulate one here (my broad Buchan accent can be a bit limiting) would just like to extend my sincere appreciation to the moderators, they work tirelessly, are very professional (in my opinion) and I hope the LF discussion board continues well into the future.

Hope this message is nae oot o' place.

Fit a braw thing tae spik aboot ye loon. Thanks.

Sherry at this time of the day - faultless

AiY

[Clariman]

An upside of having PD is it boosts the 'whole-site' post count which advertisers like and generates revenue for TLF.

That is not an issue for the site. There is no way that Stooz or I would choose to keep it for revenue generating purposes. That way of looking at it never enters our thoughts.
C

[csearle]

The site is here because we collectively love it - as a home from home. It has that quality, PD or not. C.

[Calcarius]

Personally I think it important to keep PD open, it's a great way for me get to know the personalities of the anonymous posters that I pay attention to as regards investing. Some posters I follow avidly and although not necessarily always agreeing with their investing opinions I still respect them, although I seem to be at the other end of the spectrum as regards topics on PD.

The one change I would make is that Mods should not be able to contribute to a post they are actively moderating

[csearle]

The one change I would make is that Mods should not be able to contribute to a post they are actively moderating

We have a kind of unwritten-rule to do this anyway. It would be interesting to see if there was a way phpBB could remove a moderator's rights from threads where a moderator has contributed. I suspect not because sometimes that contribution is only to do with moderation. C.

[JamesMuenchen]

I think that maybe PD morphed into something other than it was intended to be.

When it was set up, it had a banner along the lines of "high levels of moderation". It was supposed to be Polite.

But it is clear from this and other threads that it is viewed by users and mods alike as a place where there is a lot of abuse and you need to have thick skin. Someone called it a sewer and implied its function was to keep the nasty stuff out of sight.

I think if it just did what it says on the tin it would be fine... polite discussion with high levels of moderation.

[Mike4]

I think that maybe PD morphed into something other than it was intended to be.

When it was set up, it had a banner along the lines of "high levels of moderation". It was supposed to be Polite.

But it is clear from this and other threads that it is viewed by users and mods alike as a place where there is a lot of abuse and you need to have thick skin. Someone called it a sewer and implied its function was to keep the nasty stuff out of sight.

I think if it just did what it says on the tin it would be fine... polite discussion with high levels of moderation.

But isn't this the root of the problem? To keep it polite requires levels of moderation higher than Team Mod can reasonably deliver.

A few posters cannot moderate their own posting behaviour there so it had to go.

[mc2fool]

The one change I would make is that Mods should not be able to contribute to a post they are actively moderating

We have a kind of unwritten-rule to do this anyway.

Really? And how about the opposite, that mods shouldn't moderate or action reports for a thread they have contributed to (as a normal user), is there a kind of unwritten-rule for that? 'Cos if so, some mods haven't read it...

[csearle]

Really? And how about the opposite, that mods shouldn't moderate or action reports for a thread they have contributed to (as a normal user), is there a kind of unwritten-rule for that? 'Cos if so, some mods haven't read it...

Yes that conversation went on a long time ago. I have had a few PMs from moderators over the years asking me to take a look at threads they have contributed towards because they felt too involved to intervene (Mel was great at this - very "konsequent" as the Germans would say).

Everyone is human though and in the heat of the moment might do something that they really shouldn't, just because they can. If that has happened I can only say that I am very sorry.

Chris

[JamesMuenchen]

I think that maybe PD morphed into something other than it was intended to be.

When it was set up, it had a banner along the lines of "high levels of moderation". It was supposed to be Polite.

But it is clear from this and other threads that it is viewed by users and mods alike as a place where there is a lot of abuse and you need to have thick skin. Someone called it a sewer and implied its function was to keep the nasty stuff out of sight.

I think if it just did what it says on the tin it would be fine... polite discussion with high levels of moderation.

But isn't this the root of the problem? To keep it polite requires levels of moderation higher than Team Mod can reasonably deliver.

A few posters cannot moderate their own posting behaviour there so it had to go.

So a few mods can't control a few posters? I don't believe that.

I believe that if the boundaries are made clear and transgressions are dealt with by deletions and suspensions then it would probably take less moderation effort than it does at the moment.

[SalvorHardin]

So a few mods can't control a few posters? I don't believe that.

I believe that if the boundaries are made clear and transgressions are dealt with by deletions and suspensions then it would probably take less moderation effort than it does at the moment.

It can be a surprise to some as to how invested some people can be in their posting on internet forums. These people require a lot of moderation, more than is cost effective. Much more efficient to ban the "only post on PD" types from TLF and shut down PD. My foes list contains several of these names.

At a TMF London social in 2010, one of the full time staff said that on sweeping through the accounts one day they found a single poster who had registered over 600 different accounts and used them all. After a brief period of "whack-a-mole" an outright ban was implemented. This wasn't an isolated incident.

TLF is fundamentally an investment and personal finance website, not a site for "Let's slag off anything political or economic that I don't like", which is what PD is. And sometimes overspills to other boards.

There are plenty of websites that already cater for these people, let them Foxtrot Oscar to these.

[PinkDalek]

It looked to me that my count decremented by about 150. That seems too high to be the result of posts of mine being individually reported and deleted, at least overnight! But it is too little to indicate that every post I have ever made to PD has been removed.

That is why I concluded that some topics had been removed in their entirety, but not all. But of course I am just speculating here, and wondering if any other Lemon also had a decrease? (I am fairly certain I am not the culprit here).

I may be misunderstanding your 150 but if you look here memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=397 you see Total posts:8876

Clicking on Search user’s posts shows Search found 5483 matches.

The bulk of the difference no doubt having arisen from the (temporary?) closure of PD (other reasons would be as discussed in the previous thread G referenced).

Edit: Any chance of the Subject title being changed to "The demise (or otherwise) of Polite Discussion".

Yours ever,
PD
ps ... and, yes, I know that change could be misconstrued, so clearly not a serious early morning suggestion.

[GoSeigen]

You miss the point XFool. It isn't that everyone has to agree with one political view. It is more fundamental than that. The question we are asking ourselves is "what reason is there to have any purely political discussion on this site at all?"

We only have it, because we brought it over from TMF and we have done our best to make it a more positive place than its predecessor was on TMF (LoST) but we have struggled to do so.

An important reason it existed on TMF was to have a place to banish politics to. If it weren't there the politically inclined would post all over the other boards. Even here threads are often moved over there, a moderation policy which is much less severe and disruptive than simply deleting a thread (which annoys those who have made thoughtful and sometimes time-consuming posts).

Having said that I don't have a solution to suggest but would just say, the board is reasonably hidden already: I'm a regular visitor to TLF but had no idea there had been a spat in recent days.

GS

[seagles]

The thing is, I'm wondering if this is a permanent change i.e. political discussion is just too risky for the survival of TLF due to legal liabilities, or if it is a temporary moratorium while something behind the curtain gets resolved.

Hand on heart Mike, I sincerely hope it's the first decent step in a long time that this site has taken on returning to the tag-line at the top of the page, and the one I signed up for back in November 2016 -



Cheers,

Itsallaguess

I would second this. If you advertise the site as per banner then what are the forums that are not related fo this here for? There are plenty of other places on the internet for "off topic" discussions.

I understand people's reluctance to go elsewhere for their non investment posts but I would prefer this site to be honest to the header.

But, I will abide by whatever the bosses decide. Thanks to them and moderators.

[swill453]

An important reason it existed on TMF was to have a place to banish politics to. If it weren't there the politically inclined would post all over the other boards.

Yes, any subjects have the potential for taking a political aspect. If PD ceases to exist, then there will need to be a decision as to whether politics is completely banned everywhere.

Take the pandemic for example. We have a whole slew of topics on it in a self-contained forum, plus one in PD for the political aspect. Discussion on the subject can naturally turn to why we are where we are. If the answer proposed is that it's because of, say, government failure, there may be nowhere to discuss this in a the absence of PD. This would seem an unnatural curtailment of discussion to me.

Maybe there's a place for limited topics within forums to allow some political discussion? Though I can see this may cause additional work for the mods so it may be a non-starter.

Scott.

[GrahamPlatt]

I like the variety of boards on TLF; computers, the snug, science, dak.. there are loads of things that aren’t simply financial, and if it were to retreat to be only that, that would be a massive, damaging loss. Despite being an “early adopter” of TLF, It’s only lately that I’ve become aware of Polite Discussions - when a thread I’d contributed to disappeared, I inquired why & was told it’d been sent there. So I subscribed to PD just for that. Can’t say I’ve been especially shocked at the content of that board, but I’d certainly not notice the loss if it was to be permanently closed. Just so long as everything else remains the same.

[redsturgeon]

On the subject of actively moderating a thread in which one has been taking part, I can understand the issues involved and generally as has been said it is avoided. However as in most things in life "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".

There are often instances where something can be moderated very simply in a thread in which one has been participating to either fix a spelling or grammatical error or because something is a clear and egregious rule breaker. On many boards there are only two active mods, on some only one. It would not make sense to slow the process to ask either stooz, clariman or me (we all have global mod rights) to step in for those instances. So we make exceptions for those based on our best judgement.

If something could be seen as biased or controversial then the custom and practice is for advice to be sought from other mods or admin before making a call on moderation but this is not a rule.

In fact we moderators act mainly on the basis of using our own best judgement at all times and as far as I am concerned that is the only way it can work. Many moderator decisions are not black and white and one moderator's actions may differ from another's (see quote above), one may chose to delete, another might move a post and yet another might chose to edit and add a "mod box" all action might have their merits. As users of the site you just have to trust that we have the best interests of the site at heart (and stooz and Clariman must trust us too).

It may not be perfect, but what is, and it seems to have worked so far to get us to where we are today.

For those who suggest that more moderation is the answer, or more consistent moderation, or deletion of any political posts or banning of any discussion that is not purely financial...be careful what you wish for.

John

[johnhemming]

or deletion of any political posts or banning of any discussion that is not purely financial...be careful what you wish for.

I am with John on this. It is difficult to draw the line. You can draw the line at mention of the names of politicians or political parties, but there is a massive interplay between political policies and finance.

[Clariman]

I like the variety of boards on TLF; computers, the snug, science, dak.. there are loads of things that aren’t simply financial, and if it were to retreat to be only that, that would be a massive, damaging loss.

Stooz and I both feel the same way as you ... as does Redsturgeon, so we don't plan to remove those community style boards. In fact, we want it to focus on being a positive and helpful community. There are many other places on the internet where keyboard warriors can go - TLF does not need them here.

It is a question of ethos. As I said earlier, we brought a great community spirit over from TMF but we have brought some other stuff too. Time to let go of the other stuff.

C