Penis in a Petri dish (1 Viewer)

[neo o]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/12/1031608275394.html

In other news, the new forum rules hardly do anything to combat spam but only encourage unoriginal, boring and tired topics like this one! Killing this forum entirely, while an effective way of controlling spam is in my mind rather counter productive.

The following policy is now in place:

- All threads must start with reference to at least one news item (either by providing a link to a legitmate news source, or by quoting the article)
- Any threads that use the same, or extremely similar articles may be collapsed or deleted. Similar threads that discuss a topic in different ways, citing different articles, will remain open at our discretion.
- Any threads that are not attached to a news item may be closed or deleted.

Thank you
The News, Current Affairs & Politics Forum Moderators (McLake, anti & flyin')

 

[spin spin sugar]

oh my god those rules are ridiculous... they're actually laughable

 

[Generator]

I'm sure that the final point allows for a degree of leniency to be applied (so you would assume). Still, if that's to be the way of the forum, then it's name had best be changed.

 

[Rafy]

Not all topics worthy of discussion here have an article to go with it. Many topics are genral discussions on say a particular political, social, or moral issue that may have been an insight of the poster designed to promote discussion and debate, not due to a newspaper article.

Take the recently opened "Labor's Future" thread. That has no article attached but is it any less worthy of discussion? I think not.

Such a rule destroys the discussion here. Not all News, current affairs and politics comes from articles. Point 2 however, i completely concur with.

 

[spin spin sugar]

Take the recently opened "Labor's Future" thread. That has no article attached but is it any less worthy of discussion? I think not.

exactly why it's laughable.. it would be nice to see a mod response to this

 

[neo o]

I'm sure that the final point allows for a degree of leniency to be applied (so you would assume). Still, if that's to be the way of the forum, then it's name had best be changed.

"News". Short, sweet and to the point.

 

[leetom]

"News and Politics" is still valid, while omitting the "Current Affairs" will keep UWS trash like hiphiphooray out of our forum.

 

[Rafy]

Indeed. This forum is running quite well how it is. I see no need for anything to change.

 

[neo o]

Not all topics worthy of discussion here have an article to go with it. Many topics are genral discussions on say a particular political, social, or moral issue that may have been an insight of the poster designed to promote discussion and debate, not due to a newspaper article.

Take the recently opened "Labor's Future" thread. That has no article attached but is it any less worthy of discussion? I think not.

Such a rule destroys the discussion here. Not all News, current affairs and politics comes from articles. Point 2 however, i completely concur with.

I am afraid I have to close this thread as it violate the new policy that threads need to stem from specific news stories (which annoys me as this thread should be interesting). If you can tie it to a news story then please PM a link to me and I will re-open the thread ...

Do I laugh or do I cry?

 

[Rafy]

Yes i saw that thread was just closed.....

How so very sad....


As asqy said, this is just simply moderation to appear to be moderating. No beacuse the moderation is required.

 

[neo o]

The News & Pols forum has become a "spam scapegoat" for the inner echelon of the BoS bourgeois and has been defeated by the inner workings and politics of the BoS elite. I suppose that if more moderators posted here, more frequently, maybe we could be like the Chinese forum or the L&R section and escape any moderation what-so-ever?

leetom? Comrade Nathan? Up for some revolution?

 

[Rafy]

Well seems some common sense has prevailed and the thread reopened.....

We can only hope such unneccesary interferance is discontinued.

 

[McLake]

exactly why it's laughable.. it would be nice to see a mod response to this

The idea here is to stop the rampanant appearance of lots of articles on the same topic, and the appearance of so much spam in this forum. I realise that spam can easily be generated by posting random links, but I am hoping this will cut down on it.

I'm sure that the final point allows for a degree of leniency to be applied (so you would assume). Still, if that's to be the way of the forum, then it's name had best be changed.

It does. It is just a justification for closing random threads tha cause flame wars about religeon or politics

Not all topics worthy of discussion here have an article to go with it. Many topics are genral discussions on say a particular political, social, or moral issue that may have been an insight of the poster designed to promote discussion and debate, not due to a newspaper article.

Take the recently opened "Labor's Future" thread. That has no article attached but is it any less worthy of discussion? I think not.

Such a rule destroys the discussion here. Not all News, current affairs and politics comes from articles. Point 2 however, i completely concur with.

I realise that, and hence point 3 is not defenitive. And in relation to the thread you have mentioned, I belive that it SHOULD stay open, at keaast for the moment.

Why the hell is there a fuss over modding in the politics section?

It ran pretty well without wacktackular mods dropping in now and then and flexing their powers rather unconvincingly.

Thankyou for calling me "wacktackular"

Again being the nature of this forum it would be hard to actually mod this if you don't ever post in this forum.

Oh contrare, the best mods for this forum have little to know interest in posting here. If the mods are too biast, they will just close threads they disagree with.

You won't get one.

Oh wont you?

 

[McLake]

Do I laugh or do I cry?

Well seems some common sense has prevailed and the thread reopened.....

We can only hope such unneccesary interferance is discontinued.

That was ne feeling a bit over zealous. Please understand that I get many, many BoS emails a day, and tend to do some things on auto-pilot. This action has been revocked.

 

[McLake]

Why on earth would they do that?

Maybe stop and think for 3 seconds.

I thought all mods were power hungry (no, I am not going to be dragged into a debate on that).

Sorry, yes, badly worded, they might, not they will. The point is that you need mods who won't get pasionatly invovled, as they make become biased in thread debates to the point where they abuse their power, such as deleting posts that flame them.

 

[Rafy]

I thought all mods were power hungry (no, I am not going to be dragged into a debate on that).

Sorry, yes, badly worded, they might, not they will. The point is that you need mods who won't get pasionatly invovled, as they make become biased in thread debates to the point where they abuse their power, such as deleting posts that flame them.

If that happened, I would see it more as a result of a flawed mod selction proceess than anything else....

 

[McLake]

I would just like to make another point clear here as well, the majority of existing posts DO include a reference to an article. This will not be a major change to the day to day life of this forum. Those threads that are not linked, and are not just spam, are likely to stay. I repeat, this will not really change anything. It is just nice to have a policy in place, feel free to ignore it.

But please continue to argue why this is a bad idea. I can always revoke/modify the policy.

 

[McLake]

If that happened, I would see it more as a result of a flawed mod selction proceess than anything else....

Mods are not androids, they do have opinions, and some times they let themseleves get out of hand. Preivous mods of this forum have had this problem. I hope that I don't, at least atm.

 

[McLake]

I dont believe anyone of the members that post often in this forum have actually ever wanted any threads to be closed. Even if they are loosing. Most of the members in this forum do conduct wide ranging political debates and would have no interest in locking any threads or ending in any threads. Otherwise why would we be here? For the atmosphere?

This is certainly true. But there are ocasionally spammy/flammy threads. We could, as mods, let them die a natural death. But the problem here is that this is an HSC site, and so a certain level of decorum must be maintained.

That is the nature of the people who actually waste there time on this forum. FOR THE OPEN DISCUSSION. That is the point. No one wants to close threads. Spam threads are left to die. Rather than mods (not you yet) coming in and ramdonly locking threads.

Thank you. I would like to point out that I have never (until tonight, although I revoked it) interfered with a thread that I have not been asked to by another member, and always then I have read it myself before touching it. I am clearly having an off night, blame exam stress. Everone has bad days, I am sorry.

As for your policy....it has to be a bit of a joke.

'must'

'legitmate news source'

...its inconsistant with itself.

point one is a 'must' point 3 is a 'may'...

point 2 is fine.


- All threads must start with reference to at least one news item (either by providing a link to a legitmate news source, or by quoting the article)
- Any threads that use the same, or extremely similar articles may be collapsed or deleted. Similar threads that discuss a topic in different ways, citing different articles, will remain open at our discretion.
- Any threads that are not attached to a news item may be closed or deleted.

You are quite right. Let me reword that.

 

[McLake]

Thoughts on this UPDATED version?

The following policy is now in place:

- Threads should start by referencing at least one news item (either by providing a link to a legitmate news source, or by quoting the article). Any threads that are not attached to a news item may be closed or deleted at our discretion.
- Any threads that use the same, or extremely similar articles may be collapsed or deleted. Similar threads that discuss a topic in different ways, citing different articles, will remain open at our discretion.

Thank you
The News, Current Affairs & Politics Forum Moderators (McLake, anti & flyin')