As I have been stripped of my moderator privileges, I will no longer be here.
Farewell, and take care everyone.
https://www.foodtalkcentral.com/t/inappropriate-posts-about-covid-19/11331/2
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Say it isn’t so, Joe!
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WTF…can we get some context?
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Oh, no! 
I’m so sorry about this. I hope you’ll reconsider.
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Please don’t go. You are such a great presence here.
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Arguing against the shelter-in-place orders in the LA board topic about which restaurants are open for takeout and delivery is being a dick, which is a violation of the terms of service.
People were flagging those posts. I deleted some and ipsedixit restored them. His response to a direct-message complaint from one user was that he didn’t want to censor people because of their views. So I revoked his moderator privilege. This is about obnoxious off-topic posts, not freedom of opinion.
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I will post here exactly what I wrote when someone requested that a particular poster be banned.
This is going to be my last post, as I simply cannot have what @robert said go unanswered
It’s a personal failing of mine. No doubt.
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Thank you for everything @ipsedixit don’t know what else to say but your contributions here have been impressive.
Hope you can come back after things cool off.
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Fuck 2020
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HI @robert,
This particular subject that caused this blowup is touchy and hard to moderate. I agree with you that the posts from the particular user in question absolutely feel off, troll-ish with the shelter-in-place mandate and could be considered outrageous.
But if they are stating their opinion (about dining out), even if most of us disagree, as long as they aren’t personally attacking other people, it’s just their opinion on the subject, right? (I’m not defending them, BTW, just observing.)
If this board is only posting opinions we agree with, then how could it be anything but an echo chamber? It’s not really having discussions from multiple viewpoints.
But, as you said, yes it could be considered simply “Off Topic” and not about food. But then multiple people on our board have discussed aspects of COVID-19 that aren’t about food as well. If during these times, we want a place for people just to talk, then letting folks talk about COVID-19 and how it affects them could be something temporarily allowable.
In the FTC Guidelines you list:
“Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.”—“Desiderata,” Max Ehrmann (1927)
It feels like you and @ipsedixit should’ve discussed this civilly between yourselves as moderators and come to an agreed upon mutual decision.
You are the owner of FTC, but Board Moderation should have checks and balances (that follow agreed upon FTC guidelines). Otherwise, we could get to a point that you flag / delete / ban anything you disagree with, at your whim. If we don’t have a balanced approach, this is going the way of our old board.
Thanks.
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Ipse, where you’re wrong is that basically the entire rest of the board was counterbalancing alkie’s bs, then he’d post the same thing again and again and it would continually derail the entire point of the threads (and the board in general). If someone’s posting the same thing over and over again in a place it doesn’t belong, it just makes the board a less pleasant place to be. We’ll miss you a lot, but I don’t think you’re in the right re: moderation.
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sure but what if alkie already made his/her point, and followed up with repetitive inflammatory sarcastic troll posts? especially when they’re completely opposite of what health professionals are advocating?
maybe the entire thread could have been moved to off topic
Hi @blimpbinge,
Oh I agree. I’m with you, @bruins and most of the board members who were shocked by that poster’s posts. Yes, perhaps the whole section of thread could’ve been moved to off-topic to talk there instead. It just seems like one mod stripping our other mod of their duties, and now we have 1 person in control of everything is not a good idea. Surely the mods could’ve discussed this amongst themselves in private to see if an agreement could be reached?
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Agree.
Also agree that multiple mods would be helpful; it works very well on another board I frequent…
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Indeed! maybe internal discussion would have been better.
I’m going to default to “please move things like this to off topic!” where users can continue to freely post and discuss wildly differing viewpoints
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The other board I’m on actually has a section called “off-topic landfill” where the mods put all posts that are wildly off-topic.
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I was going to discuss the matter with ipsedixit, but that direct message he posted above was so far off from the site’s terms of service that it seemed pointless.
Exactly.
I agree my post was off-topic and inappropriate. But to be fair, I was responding to a “the sky is falling” post that also wasn’t about food. The theme of that post was: “life will never return to normal, we may never eat out again, coronavirus is so horrible, woe is me.” Most people on this board have such horribly pessimistic views. I do not, our president does not, and most people in America do not. It’s hard to read so many gloomy posts that I think are divorced from reality and driven by media sensationalism.
My post stated an opinion that the media is exaggerating the coronavirus problem. That is not a troll statement; it is an opinion I hold very strongly. And although that opinion is not shared by many on this board, 62% of Americans agree with me according to this Pew poll. Americans See Multiple Threats From the Coronavirus – and Concerns Are Growing | Pew Research Center.
Anyway, I won’t post policy opinions on this board any more. I’m not trying to cause trouble. I’m just trying to be positive in a sea of negativity.
I hope ipsedixit will please come back and that robert will allow him to be a moderator again.
I also apologize that some of my posts had a sarcastic tone, which was inappropiate.
Alkie’s most recent posts (last 3 days or so) have all been trolling. Alkie needed a timeout.
I support robert’s decision to remove the troll posts.
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