What would you like to see be done here?

[SDS]

50 minutes ago, Taro T said:

 

For the most part, the talk of "repealing" Section 230 isn't about doing away with section 230, but rather clarifying how/whether the social media companies should continue to recieve exemption from libel liability as if they were ISPs when they now are effecting editorial policies as if they are publishers which do not enjoy an exception from libel liability.

 

Right now, they are having it both ways.  They claim they are merely conduits but also they now effect editorial control.  That's not right.  And Paj has said they will be promulgating new regulations based upon existing laws.

but what you just described is me and having moderators. Or any website that provides any moderation.

[SoCal Deek]

This entire topic is not about civility to me. Although it's of course better to be civil. The problem with this forum is simple. It's been infected with a host of left wing Trump haters who NEVER offer anything to debate and discuss, other than their blind hatred of the President.  (which seems like an odd way to spend their time)  I'd be more than thrilled to have a legitimate discussion with any of them on issues of substance, but it's impossible. All I ever get back is childish hate speech.

[SDS]

41 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  Reading through the most recent responses SDS wants a low effort and painless solution to his problem and there is not one.

Low effort part is geared towards me and the other people who volunteered to moderated bills for him, not a political one. Although I have been here in recent weeks, I just know from my own life that this is not sustainable for myself. 

 

it should be noted in all of this time that no one came to me and said hey I’d like to lend a hand. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[shoshin]

9 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

This entire topic is not about civility to me. Although it's of course better to be civil. The problem with this forum is simple. It's been infected with a host of left wing Trump haters who NEVER offer anything to debate and discuss, other than their blind hatred of the President.  (which seems like an odd way to spend their time)  I'd be more than thrilled to have a legitimate discussion with any of them on issues of substance, but it's impossible. All I ever get back is childish hate speech.

 

SDS banned a bunch of the left meme-posters. Who else is left?  

[daz28]

9 minutes ago, SDS said:

Low effort part is geared towards me and the other people who volunteered to moderated bills for him, not a political one. Although I have been here in recent weeks, I just know from my own life that this is not sustainable for myself. 

 

it should be noted in all of this time that no one came to me and said hey I’d like to lend a hand. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I feel for you brother.  Not only is it very time consuming, but having to babysit people on top of all your own personal problems is very taxing. Very very rarely does self-moderating work.  I hope you find a solution for you and everyone's sake.  

[shoshin]

9 minutes ago, SDS said:

it should be noted in all of this time that no one came to me and said hey I’d like to lend a hand. 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

I'm the guy in my world who volunteers for everything, and you make a good point: Setting aside that those who remain would be in an uproar if selected, I can't imagine wanting to moderate PPP. 

 

To me that begins to suggest the answer to your initial question, not to channel Sr. Marie, but "If you abuse the privilege afforded, you lose the right to it."

 

(Followed by confiscating the privilege of straws in the cafeteria due to spitballs.)

[The Frankish Reich]

18 minutes ago, SDS said:

Low effort part is geared towards me and the other people who volunteered to moderated bills for him, not a political one. Although I have been here in recent weeks, I just know from my own life that this is not sustainable for myself. 

 

it should be noted in all of this time that no one came to me and said hey I’d like to lend a hand. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Same here. Once the election is over, I doubt I'll have the interest. I actually drop off precipitously on the football side when the Bills season is over too.

As far as rules and the need for mods, this can be self-policing in theory as long as people:

- don't automatically respond with a quick "you're an idiot" or "fake news" to everything they disagree with. If people want to post, they should have something substantive to say.

- don't accuse others (or link to accusations of others) committing criminal offenses unless they've actually been charged with crimes. In other words, no calling people a pedo or other outrageous things. This is what got me into disputes with the conspiracy crowd -- you simply cannot separate those links from the underlying conspiracy theory that so-and-so is a child trafficker/pedophile, etc. As I've noted, that's the kind of stuff that can bring down an entire forum.

[BuffaloHokie13]

26 minutes ago, SDS said:

Low effort part is geared towards me and the other people who volunteered to moderated bills for him, not a political one. Although I have been here in recent weeks, I just know from my own life that this is not sustainable for myself. 

 

it should be noted in all of this time that no one came to me and said hey I’d like to lend a hand. 🤷🏼‍♂️

FWIW, my questions that you answered earlier were direct products of me working through potentially setting up the club you suggest. I imagine there is probably a subset of posters that prefer someone other than me, but I doubt there is a consensus answer there unless it is you, who would prefer to be distanced from this. In any event, if there is something I can do to assist definitely let me know here or in PMs. I'm not the most active poster in the dungeon, but I do kind of enjoy it down here.

 

Thanks for everything and being willing to work through this. 

[SoTier]

Maybe what some posters ought to consider is NOT posting every retort that they've typed.  Let some of the bull manure just go by.  

[Taro T]

2 hours ago, SDS said:

but what you just described is me and having moderators. Or any website that provides any moderation.

 

2 hours ago, SDS said:

but what you just described is me and having moderators. Or any website that provides any moderation.

 

Realize that having typed that out as briefly as it was stated that it could come across that way.

 

Was simply trying to clarify to whomever post it was in response to, that though 45 had A tweet shouting "repeal 230," that many (most?) people that want to see changes to how Section 230 gets enforced DON'T want to see it repealed.  But merely see a bit more fairness shown by the 800# gorillas that essentially have become monopolized communication conduits.  Also, would definitely want to see what's proposed before endorsing anything (many "solutions" could wind up far worse than the current "problem").

 

And also expect that if Big Tech does continue to mess with ~1/2 of their product (let's facevit, the advertisers are their customers) somebody else will come along and take that product from them by not messing with them, so there may be no long term need for adjustments to regulations nor new laws needed overall.  Plus, looks like Twitter might find itself facing lawsuits for violations of campaign finance laws, so who knows where this all leads.

 

Hope this and the other post didn't detract too much from the purpose of your thread.  Apologies if it did.

 

And haven't proposed any solutions to your original Q's of this thread, because really not sure what the answers are & flat out don't have the bandwidth to help implement them anyway.  

 

The suggestions the old-timer have made seem reasonable.  If you are looking for thoughts from a different perspective, maybe reach out to Kelly the Dog or TPS for their thoughts on the issue.  They were very active on this board in the past and neither would ever be accused of being right wing.  (And not making that suggestion to create even more work for you; simply making it because nearly all the lefties offering you advice have never seen this place when it wasn't perceived to be "a right wing circle jerk."

 

Thanks again for this site & SS.

[Backintheday544]

3 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

SDS, here is where your issue lies.  Better to have a club for like minded people to speak in their own echo chamber.

 

I think this board is pretty cool because it's pretty welcome to outside ideas. Yea, some posters are stuck in molasses but overall people here at least talk. It does lean more conservative, which makes sense because Buffalo does and that's great because it allows more ideas to get out.

[RochesterRob]

17 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

SDS, here is where your issue lies.  Better to have a club for like minded people to speak in their own echo chamber.

  You guys could have your own club if civil discourse was the goal of all its members.  Why do you need a branch of a sports board?  For that matter you could have your own site that includes discussion of Bills and NFL football.  Most of the lefties here want to throw their nonsense around here to draw attention and even possibly collect a paycheck from a political organization.  If this place goes to clubs I guarantee within a month most of the lefties will move on.

[Backintheday544]

3 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

I doubt that will happen.

Is it left wing bomb throwers who got us here, or is it the right wing conspiracists who dominated PPP until a week and a half ago? Is there any room for spirited yet civil conversation when a bunch of people actually believe that other posters are supporting baby torturers?

 

 

We saw that play out not too long ago. One poster started a thread about why he should vote Biden. Many people offered good reasons to. His reaction was to start a new thread about why he shouldn't vote biden. His response: 

 

"After starting a thread looking for reasons why I should vote for Biden, I was really hoping to hear valid reasons from Biden supporters on why I should vote for him. Instead I got no valid reasons to votr for Biden, only the same old excuses on why you would. Mostly, orange man bad. That's not a good enough reason to me.So after a lot of consideration, I am going to, over the course of this thread, give you reasons why I will not vote for him. Starting with this."

 

If you read the actual thread none of it is Orange man bad.  Then proceeded to discuss reasons that really are applicable to both candidates.

 

I think what we've seen recently here is a difference of people willing to have discourse vs people who can't be honest with themselves about the current state of events.

 

 

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

15 minutes ago, Backintheday544 said:

 

I think this board is pretty cool because it's pretty welcome to outside ideas. Yea, some posters are stuck in molasses but overall people here at least talk. It does lean more conservative, which makes sense because Buffalo does and that's great because it allows more ideas to get out.

 

...BUT neither side ever gives it up in this political climate of extreme polarization.....it's the old Nixon (yup, HIM) mantra of "always attack..never defend"....is it reasonable depending upon who you support that both candidates are 100% WRONG on EVERY issue?.....partisanship clearly defined......CASE IN POINT: my relatives are avowed, dyed in the wool staunch Dems....EVER considering or actually VOTING for a Republican, ANY Republican is blasphemy and treason.....how can you have constructive dialogue with that mindset?.....any suggestions??..........

[The Frankish Reich]

18 minutes ago, Kemp said:

 

It makes sense that you liked it better when almost everyone agreed with your personal opinions.

 

2 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  FIFY.

Really ... who are these people who like it when everyone agrees with them?

I know I'm not the only person who enjoys a good argument. The football side is all about that. We should draft A; No, you idiot, we should trade down and draft B and C. Josh Allen is a top 10 QB; no, you moron, he's had exactly 4 good games. Etc, etc.

Then all of a sudden it comes to politics and no one can handle someone who disagrees?

 A "club" of totally like-minded people has a very boring clubhouse. My wife was in a book club like that once. Everyone gushing about how whatever they were reading was the most wonderful book ever. Without the excessive wine consumption it wouldn't have lasted more than 2 weeks.

[New Improved DC Tom]

10 hours ago, bdutton said:

 

There were a number of new posters that posted childish memes and repetitive mindless arguments that was the equivalent of spam and not interesting or compelling content.

 

As I've said occasionally over the years, "The board's not anti-liberal, it's anti-schmuck.  Stop being one."

[New Improved DC Tom]

23 hours ago, SDS said:

 

The moderation here has almost been non-existent., so it certainly wasn't biased. DR had 55k posts in here. C'mon, man.

 

I am not aware of a single person whose viewpoint was suppressed. I personally acted on member v. member events. Any other suggestion isn't true. 

 

Want to reinforce and confirm this.  

 

Jesus, if this board was moderated, I'd have been kicked off long ago.  And anyone paying any attention could see that my behavior was more...circumspect, shall we say, on the main board than on here, for just that reason.

[New Improved DC Tom]

8 hours ago, shoshin said:

 

I'm the guy in my world who volunteers for everything, and you make a good point: Setting aside that those who remain would be in an uproar if selected, I can't imagine wanting to moderate PPP. 

 

To me that begins to suggest the answer to your initial question, not to channel Sr. Marie, but "If you abuse the privilege afforded, you lose the right to it."

 

(Followed by confiscating the privilege of straws in the cafeteria due to spitballs.)

 

I did moderate PPP, some 20 years ago.

 

It's a thankless task.  You get blamed for being partisan no matter what, even when dealing with people whose expressed intend is to disrupt discourse (and yes, that was happening in 2003, just as it is now).  And even back then, there were people who were too immature to know how to disagree constructively, and that has only gotten worse, both here and in general society, in the past couple years.  It is absolutely useless it is to try to moderate people who believe disagreement is a blood sport, and their feelings absolute fact.  

[Just Joshin']

No easy answers here or the problem would be solved.

 

Stating the obvious this is a Bills site and the best Bills site.  PPP allows some one stop shopping so you can be your Bills fix and see some non Bills discussion. PPP is a nice to have but I come here for the Bills with a side of PPP.

 

The issues in PPP are driven by a few posters.  I suggest zero tolerance - we all know who these people are not because of a different POV but the way they act.  Their behavior would not be accepted in a civil society and should not be here.  I use the ignore function to weed those folks out of my sight. 

 

Moderation with a light touch but severe penalities would be my suggestion.  Bad posters are like porn, you know it when you see it.  When you see it, ban it.  Ignore other offenses that would be an issue in the main board but take out the trash in PPP.  Getting rid of 2% of the posters would clear 95% of the problems.

 

 

[3rdnlng]

12 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

No denying I'm new to PPP. I don't think I ever posted here until this summer.

My understanding is that it started out with a diversity of opinions and what we could call spirited arguments.

More recently it became dominated by posters of a certain political philosophy or mindset. Those with different opinions were considered interlopers and typically were shot down. In other words, over time PPP began to function not as an open forum, but as a club -- effectively invitation only because disagreement was not tolerated.

If it is a club in practice, then it might as well become a club in name and in structure. 

Me? I have no interest in communicating only with people who think like me. So I have no interest in a club.

Horseshit. We had posters that continued to post the same memes over and over or copied and pasted (in one instance) the same sentence 10 f'n times in a thread within an hour. Posters who made it obvious that they were only interested in bringing this place down. It simply became unbearable here and nobody would do a damn thing about it. This is why people are moving on. It's not the moderation because there always will be some disagreement with that but the issue is the avalanche of crap posters who invaded this place.