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Post by olddog on Mar 1, 2013 23:42:54 GMT -5
thank you, steev, you hit the nail on the head!
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Post by steev on Mar 2, 2013 0:35:05 GMT -5
God knows I pound enough, I ought to hit it occasionally.
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Post by MikeH on Mar 30, 2013 6:39:18 GMT -5
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Post by MikeH on Apr 1, 2013 17:42:05 GMT -5
Any particular reason these two threads are locked?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 1, 2013 18:43:33 GMT -5
I locked the threads to discourage a political debate about monetary systems. I'd prefer that those sorts of discussions happen in other forums.
I recognize that we have plenty of discussion about politics on this forum. They are usually related to something along the lines of "How are we arranging our gardens to cope with bad choices by politicians which may bring down the financial system." I consider those types of discussions to be in harmony with the newsgroup charter.
I feel that this forum is like a home on the web, or a family for many of the participants... We like to tell our family about things that are important to us. If the Cyprus thread had been started by a stranger I would have deleted it as off-topic, but because it was made by a respected collaborator I left it intact and only disabled the ability to reply directly to it. If it had been posted as part of a preexisting thread I wouldn't have taken any action.
Once the Cyprus thread caught my attention, then I reviewed recent soapbox threads and figured that to be consistent I aught to close the Greece thread also.
I also did my typical and reviewed the posting histories of the participants in the Cyprus and Greece threads, but I didn't find anything out-of-sorts there, so no reason to send the dreaded "Personal Message From The Moderators". At least I dread writing them.
Reviewing the Greece thread again today, I see that there are a few comments within the thread about how the Greek financial problems are related to farming. I'd reopen the Greek thread if we want.
Quirky wishy-washy moderator!!!
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Post by MikeH on Apr 1, 2013 19:17:43 GMT -5
We have 6 pages of a preppers thread which is acceptable but observations about what is going on in Greece and Cyprus is not acceptable. I'm confused. Where's the line so that I don't step over it?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 1, 2013 19:47:49 GMT -5
I'm opening a soapbox thread for discussion about how gardening and/or farming and/or food and/or homesteading are affected by fiat currency and the financial crisis in Greece, Cyprus, Europe, the usa, etc.
Posts about monetary policy in general will be deleted as off-topic unless there is a tie-in with gardening, farming, homesteading, genomes, etc...
New or pre-existing threads related to these topics will be merged into this thread.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 1, 2013 20:34:48 GMT -5
We have 6 pages of a preppers thread which is acceptable but observations about what is going on in Greece and Cyprus is not acceptable. I'm confused. Where's the line so that I don't step over it? This is a gardening, farming, homesteading forum. "Homesteading" is one of the main discussion topics for this forum. The prepping threads are right on topic. Posts that are not related to plants, gardening, farming, homesteading or the gardeners, farmers, and homesteaders that visit here are off-topic even for the soapbox. I become irritable when a post consists of only a link and some quoted text from a web site. [That's the quickest way to catch the attention of the moderators and single the post out for extra review.] Almost always when I receive complaints from forum readers, it is about that sort of post. I consider such posts to be spam, but I don't usually take action or mention anything to long-term participants making those sorts of posts unless it becomes a habitual way of posting. [In this case, it's not a habit, and I would have taken no action regarding the Cyprus post if it had been included in a pre-existing thread, but I considered it too far off-topic for a thread of it's own.] If the link and quoted text is accompanied by a personal review or analysis of the article then I consider it a valuable contribution to the forum if it's regarding plants, gardening, farming, or homesteading.
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Post by MikeH on Apr 2, 2013 2:05:41 GMT -5
Now I'm thoroughly confused. I guess I won't post much here until I figure out where the line's are.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 2, 2013 9:34:07 GMT -5
Now I'm thoroughly confused. I guess I won't post much here until I figure out where the line's are. I think that you already understand. 1 post running afoul of moderation out of more than 700 ain't bad. The rules are simple: 0- Don't quarrel. 1- Post about things that are related in some way to plants, animals, food, gardening, farming, homesteading, or typical social interactions such as weather, new grandkids, birthdays, illness, etc. 2- Links to web sites are appropriate if they comply with #1, and especially if they contain a critical review about the contents of the linked page: For example; "I agree with the author for these reasons... I disagree with her for these reasons...". Another example; "Dr. Smith found 17 strains of cold-tolerant tomatoes, here's links to the reports." 3- Posts from long-time participants which consist only of a link and quoted text from another web site are tolerated if they comply with #1. 4- Soapbox is the most heavily moderated portion of the site. If the only place that a post fits is in soapbox, then it may be too far off-topic for this forum. ----------------------- I field complaints over and over again along the lines of "Can't you do something about xyz poster? All xyz ever does is post links." We all have search engines and news feeds, if we were interested we could find the linked information in a few seconds if it hasn't already come across in our news feed. The internet is inundated with advertising. Posts which consist of only a link and some quoted text look so much like advertising that most readers (including this moderator) find them annoying. But annoying the moderator isn't sufficient cause to get a post moderated: It needs to be annoying AND off-topic.
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Post by bunkie on Apr 2, 2013 12:42:48 GMT -5
...Reviewing the Greece thread again today, I see that there are a few comments within the thread about how the Greek financial problems are related to farming. I'd reopen the Greek thread if we want.... in the original post in the Greek thread, it talked about people moving back to their families' farms due to the economy. i figured it was a good example of what might happen here. farming, gardening, all the same thing, imo.
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Post by davida on Apr 2, 2013 12:46:48 GMT -5
Joseph,
Thank you being a moderator for the forum. We appreciate your efforts and your calm and logical approach.
David
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 2, 2013 18:44:36 GMT -5
in the original post in the Greek thread, it talked about people moving back to their families' farms due to the economy. i figured it was a good example of what might happen here. farming, gardening, all the same thing, imo. Correct. The Greek thread started out very much on topic, and continued on topic with discussions about farm subsidies, and farmer's giving away food, and bartering at the farmer's market, etc, intermingled with about half the posts related to GDP, or taxes, or law, or bankers without tie-in to the purpose of this forum. People like to chit-chat, so I normally don't pay much attention to off-topic posts. The Greek thread seemed headed more and more off topic, and spawned another similar thread, so I re-opened them both under a new title which includes a reminder about the purpose of this forum.
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Post by petitvilaincanard on Apr 3, 2013 16:15:15 GMT -5
Now I'm thoroughly confused. I guess I won't post much here until I figure out where the line's are. I think that you already understand. 1 post running afoul of moderation out of more than 700 ain't bad. The rules are simple: 0- Don't quarrel. 1- Post about things that are related in some way to plants, animals, food, gardening, farming, homesteading, or typical social interactions such as weather, new grandkids, birthdays, illness, etc. 2- Links to web sites are appropriate if they comply with #1, and especially if they contain a critical review about the contents of the linked page: For example; "I agree with the author for these reasons... I disagree with her for these reasons...". Another example; "Dr. Smith found 17 strains of cold-tolerant tomatoes, here's links to the reports." 3- Posts from long-time participants which consist only of a link and quoted text from another web site are tolerated if they comply with #1. 4- Soapbox is the most heavily moderated portion of the site. If the only place that a post fits is in soapbox, then it may be too far off-topic for this forum. ----------------------- I field complaints over and over again along the lines of "Can't you do something about xyz poster? All xyz ever does is post links." We all have search engines and news feeds, if we were interested we could find the linked information in a few seconds if it hasn't already come across in our news feed. The internet is inundated with advertising. Posts which consist of only a link and some quoted text look so much like advertising that most readers (including this moderator) find them annoying. But annoying the moderator isn't sufficient cause to get a post moderated: It needs to be annoying AND off-topic. -steps on soapbox- personally I find xyz links very useffull. Finding the links is not allways easy and quite some work. I'm happy with xyz doing the work for me,specially because he's good at it. And indeed they are allways on topic. The fact that some people think it's annoying could be considered as off topic. -steps from soapbox-
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Post by MikeH on Apr 9, 2013 18:09:02 GMT -5
WTSHTF it can come in many forms, one of which is financial system failure. Looking at what is happening elsewhere is useful in helping folks figure out what is happening closer to home and how one might deal with it prep for it.
I don't consider these types of posts to be off topic.
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