Hi Oldborn, I have moved your post in the crank thread to the moderation thread in the About the Forum area.
If 4 mods are saying "stop", giving hint after hint that "this is the line - back on topic please", and a line is drawn, it is not ok to go "but one more thing....".
You have been with us long enough to know that you can always raise "one more thing", but in the appropriate area [where I have moved your post to now].
If we let you do it, someone else would be entitled to do the same, someone somewhere will want to have the last word on that too, and we are back where we started, we keep going off topic with a thread we are trying to get back on topic. That's the repeating experience that we have, hence our uncompromising stance on this.
Also, if a mod wants to reply to the (valid) concern you raise, we would be taking it further off topic too, and in a potentially unfair way, since we have removed people's ability to reply. You probably wanted to come back to that, or anyone else would, ....etc. See our problem?
A line is a line for that reason.
I get you are not trying to cause trouble, but for us, thus post, where it was placed, is. Not a big one, but an unhelpful one. It keeps creating work and derailment in a thread we are spending far too much time on already. And we are really trying to get it on track without having all mods revisit the same thread several times a day for trivial issues (in essence a long-running private spat between a handful of people), and without having to get serious with people. We tried that for days now. It will stop there, we have had enough.
Regarding your concern:
Since all mods are active posters and on the whole volunteers (Susan is the exception) with a keen interest in the subjects discussed (Susan stopped being the exception), we are fully aware that we have a problem when we get involved on substance and are simultaneously drawn into moderation issues raised with us.
We try our best to sidestep this, and usually mods flag up to other mods behind the scene if they fear they might be in danger of being too closely involved, or even being seen to be too closely involved, especially when it gets "hotter than normal", or one of us becomes the issue. For minor issues we kinda expect everyone to be mature enough to understand the dual identity we have and deal with, so mods do intervene on issues they are involved with too. Still, in the past, mods have also asked other mods to step aside on a particular issue or from dealing with a specific poster too. We do our best to be decent and fair with the powers that we have.
You are speculating what prompted Martin to step aside as a mod in that thread, but you are not privy to all the reasons why mod after mod finds themselves dealing with that thread, visible and invisible. And maybe not aware of the backfround to it either. It is giving all mods a lot of work at the moment, for days on end now, and it is caused -on the whole- by 2 people only, who are struggling to agree to disagree, and whose dislike of each other is becoming an issue that affects the tone of that section, and the way this forum operates (visible and invisible).
After a long period of being drawn to it, and dealing with it softly softly, and a lot more "it" than you can see, we [now excluding Martin] have had enough.
"And now everyone is afraid to write anything and topic sucks"
Well don't blame the mods, you can thank the spat between some of the participants for that, for ignoring forum rules, actively drawing in mods (rightly and wrongly), and not taking "please move on" and "this is an soft/private reminder that you went too far" into account before firing off yet another insult or baiting post.
That no-one has brought up something substantial on a topic that specialised, hours after we instructed to make only on topic posts, is hardly proof that people kept back by fear. It can't be that hard to raise a pressing argued point well, if all you got to do is refrain from insults and blatant baiting (this baiting issue affects exactly 2 people in that thread, who have a long communal history spanning several sites, and who have -again- been reminded (and so far reminded only) why we instructed them to avoid the personal conflict and concentrate on arguing the case isntead.
With over 600 posts that have already been made about a very narrow issue by very very few people (5 or 6 regulars or something?), who probably have said the same key things in 599 different ways... maybe it has simply run its course a bit until someone raises a new point of substance?
Every once in a blue moon mods draw a sharply worded red line in the sand in a thread, always aiming to get a thread back on topic after heavy derailment, and when it happens it is, indeed, an instruction, not a suggestion. It is meant to be functional and constructive, to stop the disruption.
I get why people don't like it when it happens. I wish people would also iunderstand it is not what we like doing either. But from time to time it is the only way that works, to draw a line that applies to all, just to get some folk to step away from the things that keep disrupting the thread over and over. It is what happens when being subtle with some key players is falling on deaf man's ears.
If you are blaming someone, instead of singling out the mods, maybe the deaf ears also play a role in this? We are also falling over ourselves trying to resolve the disruption fairly for all (visible and invisible), and aiming to avoid the need for more consequencial interventions. We won't keep doing it that way if it fails to work. Which is a statement that -in that thread- affects some people far more than others.
I hope that that addressed your concerns to some degree.
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