Current politics and this forum

I think it would help if the provocative posters and people who repeatedly offend other posters got a short ban once in a while. Paul Spragg wasn't slow to act and hand out bans on the old BF forums, including one to yourself Jason if remember right?! Here however, at least one provocative poster has been allowed to continue making offensive posts with no sanction when he was quite clearly annoying many people and spoiling other people's enjoyment of this place. There is nothing wrong with free speech, obviously, but people who continually cross the line need to be sanctioned. Brexit and Trump are not going to go away for a good few years yet, my opinion is you need to nip things in the bud and penalise the people making offensive posts, as opposed to locking threads which penalise everyone. Most of us can discuss things sensibly.

Perhaps a separate sub-forum under "General" for politics?

I've seen some forums institute a policy on this kind of thing that's seemed to work in the past. It hasn't even necessarily been politics related. If there are posters who cross a line on a certain subject all the time they get banned not from the forum itself, but from discussing that certain subject. So if it was someone who was a DC fan on a film forum and they were constantly trolling Marvel fans but were well behaved otherwise they'd be allowed to post, but not about DC or Marvel. And if they broke that rule then they'd get banned. So it was sanctioning them, but giving them the opportunity to display a little self censorship. It seemed to work because it weeded out the people who were just looking to troll from the people who for whatever reason couldn't be rational or reasonable on certain topics.

OK, there is a lot in your post to respond to and some of it is not simple, so here's my best attempt.

The forum has rules, and the moderation team enforce those rules.  We try very hard to fair to everyone, and to recognise that each of us as individuals with their own beliefs and morals, sympathies and bugbears - but not to let those things make the decisions for us, we work collectively and all bans, warnings etc are made only after everyone on the mod team has had chance to have their say.

We don't ban people because we don't like them, or because they annoy us, sometimes I wish I could, but we don't and I'm glad we don't, this forum is not my or even the mod teams fiefdom, it is the forum of all its members.

I base my own moderating activities on my own fairly long experience as a member of various forums, and having both witnessed and been the victim of moderators who either the power has gone to their head or who believe that they believe is right and just and correct is the only version of right and just.

One of the specific incidents that inform my beliefs and behaviours as a moderator is indeed the incident where I was banned for a while from the Big Finish forum.  A very odd experience indeed, since when I wrote to Paul Sprag to ask why I'd been banned, he informed me that he didn't feel that I had done anything wrong, but as I was one of the people involved in a complaint, I, the complainant and one other person who merely happened to be posting on thread at the same time all got banned, and when I pressed Paul further for "why" I had been banned, his explanation could best be summarised as "because we didn't know what else to do".

There has been a number of posts here recently that I have feel are either designed to provoke the most outlandish response or come from a mind whose morals and sense of human dignity is so far removed from mine I struggle to relate to them.  And then, when one of these posts is reported, I must make a call, as must all the moderators, on wethter the post is a troll, or is it for real, and we tend to err on the side of caution, and if there is doubt in our collective minds we will decide the post is for real.

Once we have decided a post is for real, we have to check does it break any other rules, and again, we often err on the side of caution (and don't think I'm talking about one poster here, or one side of the argument, I am not) and let things stand.

But we do hand out bans and warnings even if we don't publicly comment on those.

Now, if you feel there is a post that breaks our rules report it, if you feel our rules don't do what they need to, feel free to start a discussion on (a) new rule(s), if you feel you want to become, and have the time to devote to being a moderator yourself, feel free to offer your services, new moderators are appointed from time to time, and given that our work load has increased recently, it may well be (no promises here, we've not talked about it, its my thoughts only) we increase the mod team so that we can deal with things faster than we currently do.

But the long and short of it is, we enforce the rules, as dispassionately as we can, and we do so collectively.

Helpful reminder: you don't actually have to read or post in any of those threads.

Actually, for the sake of your own mental health, that's probably your best course of action.

Yes, it was about you no question. However, my general point was, locking a thread penalises everybody who posts on that thread, a short ban for a person making a provocative/offensive post enables the discussion to continue. Avoiding the thread is a wishy-washy answer, as you might have an interest in the subject being discussed but still find some posts deliberately provactive or offensive. A 48 hour ban, or a week, (or even a thread specific ban) for an individual poster beng offensive seems more reasonable to me than locking a whole thread thereby shutting discussion down on that topic for everybody.

I am not trying to be provocative/offensive, I'm trying to show everyone on here, what a lot of people who voted for Trump thinks. That our values are different than others, and though we may value a lot of the same things, our priorities are what I think separates us more than anything else does.  Many may disagree with me, but I think that conservatives seem more local minded, while liberals seem more world minded(if that makes any sense.)

Now this will probably sound smarky/cheeky, but if you don't have the opposition posting, then the posters are just patting each other on the back, instead of trying to figure out why the opposition thinks as it does. If we don't communicate, we aint gonna get anywhere, much like Washington for the last 20 years or so.

Point of fact: I know people who voted for Trump as a means of voting against Clinton. They don't like his policies any more than his most staunch opponent, they're just glad that Hillary didn't get in.

All this talk of banning and punishing is all getting a bit troubling......people seem to be wanting revenge.

please remember it's fine to be offended, upset & outraged, disagreements are good, we are all different. its just not right to victimise, bully and deliberately hurt.

i dont know what I would do without you guys, and the thought of banning because people disagree is troubling.

i makes me think we are entering an era of only "I love you" posts.

But i do love you guys, just worried you guys might get pissed off and shut things down.