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Inappropriate topic move?

  
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
21:22 / 13.11.04
The Thought Experiment I proposed got moved to the Creation. I believe fairly strongly that it doesn't belong there.

Here's the relevant part of my post there: More generally, I'd like to ask that the meta-commentary be removed (including this) and, preferably, that this thread moved back to the Switchboard, which is for "politics", which this is, "activism", which it may also be, and "current affairs", which it obviously isn't - although it exists as a response to a discussion on current affairs and I hope it casts a mirror up to those things. The Creation is for 'collaborative or individual creative projects', which this simply is not.

I'd also like to suggest the creation of a secondary thread for discussion of the primary. I'm aware that Flyboy, for example, thinks the construction is biased - which it may be. Anyone who doesn't like the premises is welcome to participate, start a counter-thread, or ignore the whole thing - but the move to the Creation puts the thread out of the proper frame and has effectively killed it.

The forum definitions don't mesh perfectly - perhaps it's time to look at them again.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
06:41 / 14.11.04
Wow, it's deja vu, again.
 
 
Grey Area
07:00 / 14.11.04
See, the problem I'd have with moving the Thought Experiment to the Switchboard is that to me it still looks more like a creative project than a political analysis. You're pooling your thoughts to build a 'what if' universe, based on reversing an established fact. About the only political element in there is that you're negating the survival of a politician...the exercise would be just as valid if you had asked what would have happened if the cotton gin or the steam engine hadn't been invented, or if Marie Curie hadn't been allowed to continue her studies.

Basing an entire political discussion on fictional conjecture about the past is ultimately pointless. The past has already happened and cannot be changed. I would have seen any discussion about the effects of assassination resulting from your thread as a side-effect.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:46 / 14.11.04
Certainly I'm unsure about the activist element in the thread is - that is, what activist goal is being promulgated or activist position advanced within the thread.

I think what we have here is thread-starter's rights vs. forum rights. The starter of the thread has the right to place the thread wheresoever he or she wants. Generally, that's where the thread stays. In some situations, it is decided that the topic or the form of the discussion would make the topic more suited to another area. The most common example of this is topics being moved from the Head Shop or the Switchboard to the Conversation, say.

Now, this process is handled by the moderators, and like all such processes requires a proponent and votes. A sufficient quorum of Switchboard moderators agreed that it should be moved and no Switchboard moderator (at least that was online during the voting process. So far, one Creation moderator has expressed sympathy for the idea of moving it back to the Switchboard, and I am the second Creation moderator to express ambivalence about doing same.

So. I don't believe that the topic move has been demonstrated as "inappropriate", nor that the Switchboard was the thread's "proper context". I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise, and it is of course possible that I will not be around when any such move is voted on anyway, but I'd appreciate being told *why* this thread is about politics (rather than, say, history or creative writing) and/or activism, and why it fits into the Switcboard, where no such alternative history threads to my knowledge exist as a proper context, rather than just *that* it does so.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
10:32 / 14.11.04
About the only political element in there is that you're negating the survival of a politician...

Hardly. This can be seen as the exploration of current political realities through their antecedents - something woefully missing from much political discussion - as well as an attempt to understand the future consequences of our actions through contemplating the alternate past.

the exercise would be just as valid if you had asked what would have happened if the cotton gin or the steam engine hadn't been invented, or if Marie Curie hadn't been allowed to continue her studies.

Indeed it would which isn't surprising, since you've picked two things with massive political consequences.

The past has already happened and cannot be changed.

Unlike the present and future, which are entirely informed by it. Examination of the past - even through counterfactuals - is central to comprehending and hence acting in the now.

I would have seen any discussion about the effects of assassination resulting from your thread as a side-effect.

Well, that would be perverse, given that the thread is predicated on trying to guess the effects of an assassination, and that I had hoped we might see a series of possible timelines being explored, any of which might be better or worse than our current one, which might give us some insight into assassination, blowback, and altruism. Or not. That's why it's called an experiment.

Certainly I'm unsure about the activist element in the thread is - that is, what activist goal is being promulgated or activist position advanced within the thread.

Flyboy would tell you it's my desire to advance some kind of weak-kneed neo-capitalist liberalism or something. I'd say I was agitating to get people to think about the inutility of violence in politics.

I think what we have here is thread-starter's rights vs. forum rights.

Please can we not go there. That's so not the point. Ultimately, I don't care if you trample this in the mud - "it's only a model", as the man said. However, it seems to me that to shove it in the Creation because it's an awkward fit in the Switchboard is basically an execution. Whether or not it's exactly 'right' for the Switchboard, it's 'wrong' for the Creation, which simply isn't a place where anything political in inception gets discussed. The Creation is effectively an artist's forum, and this is not art. Maybe we need a 'History' forum or a 'Conjecture' one.

Putting the thread in the Creation is a value-judgement. It says 'this thread has no practical political content'. That's simply not the case. Haus, if you're against putting it in the Switchboard, that's one thing. If you're ambivalent, that's quite another - I would hope that, in cases of uncertainty, a thread gets the benefit of the doubt.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:21 / 14.11.04
Hmmm. Can we do this without being rude, Spin? I don't think it's likely to help. All this "hardly", "indeed", "perverse" - bullying is not likely to advance your case. Other people have opinions that may not be yours, which does not make the opinions or the people bad.

Now, ambivalence does indeed incline towards the benefit of the doubt, or alternatively towards taking no action. Whose benefit? The benefit of the thread starter, or the benefit of the moderators who decided that it would be in the interests of the thread and of Barbelith to move it?

You are free to tell me that thread-starter/moderator is "so not the point". However, if that is not the point then I don't see entirely what the point is, at least of this thread. A moderator is free to propose that the thread be moved back if he thinks it is appropriate so to do - I imagine Grant would be happy to - and the other moderators can vote on it. Your opinion on where it should go can certainly inform their decisions, but none of us is the boss of Barbelith, and that recognition includes acknowledging that sometimes things happen in a way we don't want them to happen.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:52 / 14.11.04
Apologies, all. I'm a little grumpy about this and I'm trying to keep a lid on it, but obviously I'm not doing terribly well.

Other people have opinions that may not be yours, which does not make the opinions or the people bad.

I felt - mistakenly - somewhat curtly dismissed by GA's analysis, most especially Basing an entire political discussion on fictional conjecture about the past is ultimately pointless. Obviously I don't agree, so I spent a moderately significant amount of time researching this thread and putting it together. Flyboy thinks the thread pushes my agenda - which implies that it is activist, which in turn implies that it should be in the Switchboard, which is for activism.

I think we can't know exactly what kind of thing the experiment is until it's over - I didn't mean it to be self-fulfilling, rather I generated a timeline according to a fairly shallow analysis of what might happen, hoping to inspire people to participate and thus create a more measured set of possible outcomes. I was hoping to make people engage with the nasty human complexities and thus challenge ideologies (and each other) with posited realities. In that sense, Flyboy's right: my agenda was to force people to think in terms of the kind of pragmatism-based solution-making which I favour - or at least recognise the difficulties in creating a Grand Design even from something so overtly simple as a righteous assassination. Or just to dive into the blue of another possible world and discover what we could learn about the one we have. But history is politics, and anything which brings a new way of looking at current affairs is a Switchboard thing.

Now, ambivalence does indeed incline towards the benefit of the doubt, or alternatively towards taking no action.

'No action' would have been to leave the thread where it was, which is precisely my point.

Whose benefit? The benefit of the thread starter, or the benefit of the moderators who decided that it would be in the interests of the thread and of Barbelith to move it?

The benefit of the thread, which is within the remit of the forum as defined - certainly more than it is within the remit of the Creation - and the benefit of those such as Loomis, who were interested and who then lost track of the thread when it vanished to somewhere they didn't think to look for it. I love the Creation, but it's a backwater of the main board, not frequented by political posters.

You are free to tell me that thread-starter/moderator is "so not the point".

Actually, I wanted to avoid discussions of 'rights'. I believe that particular framing gets us into a whole other discussion which we don't need.

Your opinion on where it should go can certainly inform their decisions, but none of us is the boss of Barbelith, and that recognition includes acknowledging that sometimes things happen in a way we don't want them to happen.

A good thing, much of the time - but I think this happened almost by default. I believe it profits no one that the thread be in the Creation, and might profit a few of us if it were in the Switchboard; I can see no downside of it being there. I believe your ambivalence and that of others should mean that the thread remain where it began. If you aren't sure, the thread - not me, but the discussion which was taking place and is now not - should get the benefit of your uncertainty.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:08 / 14.11.04
What I am about to write is... kind of difficult to put in to words. So forgive me if it's garbled.

This can be seen as the exploration of current political realities through their antecedents - something woefully missing from much political discussion

Unlike the present and future, which are entirely informed by it. Examination of the past - even through counterfactuals - is central to comprehending and hence acting in the now.

it may have been wrong to say that after Auschwitz you could no longer write poems. But it is not wrong to raise the less cultural question whether after Auschwitz you can go on living- especially whether one who escaped by accident, one who by rights should have been killed, may go on living. His mere survival calls for the coldness, the basic principle of bourgeois subjectivity, without which there could have been no Auschwitz; this is the drastic guilt of him who was spared.

Some things are so big that they are passed on. This thought experiment of yours, it's your game and your toy but some of us don't have that luxury, for some of us the events that were put in to motion in the 1930s are carried through the family. So you need to ask yourself in all seriousness, do you think you are capable of pulling a thread like that off in a forum that details serious politics? Because you might see it as activism, as a thing that can change the world but I see something that trivialises a recent event that is intensely personal, an event that is constantly undermined by the myth that people put on top of it. A myth that you are happy to buy in to as the very basis of the thread shows. There is a part of me that wishes this was forgotten like so many other massacres because it's so misrepresented and toyed with. For the generations who were actually in internment and concentration camps it was healthy to speak about it but it's far more difficult for the people who had to deal with it afterwards. We're the clean up crew, we're the people who are angry and we're the people who feel this nonsense, the people who feel like you're idly musing about ending our very existence.

Examining the past is central to acting now, you're right about that but that examination has to be the right one. Proposing idle thoughts on what would have happened if Hitler was killed is not the right examination, it's rather like playing a jigsaw puzzle but it's not playing a jigsaw puzzle with a picture or even an idea. You're playing with my grandmother's guilt. So this thread does not deserve a place in Switchboard and I'm asking you to keep it where it is. This is your game, don't try and build it in to something effecting unless you've thought about the myriad ways in which it will effect.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:18 / 14.11.04

'No action' would have been to leave the thread where it was, which is precisely my point.


Well, no. "No action", for me as an individual moderator, would be not to agree or veto the move in the first place. That is, to allow those with a stronger opinion to vote on whether to move it or keep it in Switchboard. Certainly, once it *had* been moved, "no action" would not be to restore the original position, which had already been altered. It would, again, be not to vote or veto. This is how moderating works in these circumstances, IMHO, and, although I know this is a tricky issue, I think the argument that a moderator who is ambivalent has to take steps to undo a previous action that had been agreed by two other moderators as an obligation is a dead rubber. Universally applied, that position leads to chaos.

If there is a convincing case for moving it back, and I can see arguments for keeping it in the Creation, putting it back in the Switchboard, putting it in the Head Shop (as a theoretical exercise) and putting it in the Conversation, then that case can be proven, surely, by it being moved back - Flyboy, after all, who proposed the move in the first place, is not a moderator of the Creation and has no power to veto. After that, I for one would suggest that everyone cease and desist from moving to move it again, at least until we have a chance to see what happens next.

On a related note, if Grant or anyone else plans to delete the metadiscussion, could they archive and repost it, possibly in this thread? Ta.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
16:01 / 14.11.04
All I'm going to say at this point is that I certainly wouldn't propose the thread to be moved out of the Switchboard again if Creation moderators think it belongs there: not because I'm convinced it belongs in the Switchboard, but because a) the moderation system really will be shot if moderators of individual forums keep trying to push threads back and forth, disputing the decisions which the moderators of other forums have made (this issue may well arise one day in a more serious form, but I don't feel strongly enough about the thread in question to force the issue now), and b) I do believe that the thread will get the appropriate amount and type of response it deserves in the Switchboard.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
16:54 / 14.11.04
Hmm. 'sa tricky one.
Personally, in my *ideal* Barbelith (which, like my ideal world, is not ever going to, and probably should never, exist), the Creation would be the perfect place for it- I'd love to see more of this kind of stuff there (and yes, I am too lazy to put it there myself, so I'm not casting stones), because I don't believe art and politics are that easily separated. For that reason, I agreed the move.

However, I love the Creation, but it's a backwater of the main board, not frequented by political posters. kind of sums up the problem of putting it there. Technically, yes, it fits the remit of the Creation. In reality, people who'd be interested may not notice it there.

And as for personal agendas... can anyone honestly put their hand on their heart and say they never start threads to further their own?

As for moral objections- they're equally valid (or otherwise) wherever the thing ends up, as far as I can tell.

Like Fly says, if it's moved back to Switchboard, I'm not gonna kick it out.

I think the thing is that the fora aren't mutually exclusive- the edges are very blurry, so for example a thread on opera (yes, I do intend to start a decent Wagner thread when I can get my shit together) could be both "...and Theatre" and "Music", seeing as how it would seem to be missing the point to ignore either the music or the staging. I tend to see them more as being there to help posters find stuff they'd be interested in/have something to contribute to, rather than being a cast-in-stone set of rules to post by. If that is indeed the case (which it may well not be) then disagreements such as this one are inevitable. And shouldn't be such a big deal.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
18:43 / 14.11.04
With all respect to Anna, while her response may be germaine to whether the thread should continue it's not actually in any way connected to where the thread should go. Where does alternate history go on Barbelith? I would agree that it probably shouldn't be the Switchboard, I also agree it doesn't fit too well in the Creation either, though arguments to keep it out of there purely because the Creation is a ghetto that no-one looks at don't strike me as particularly deciding criteria. As it's a thought experiment I would think it would either be the Creation or the Head Shop.
 
 
sleazenation
20:26 / 14.11.04
I already voiced my opinion that it should have remained in the switchboard in the thread itself - I still think it fits that forum better than its current location. However I really doubt many mods would move a topic back where it came from after it had been moved at the request of a fellow moderator.
 
 
Lord Morgue
02:14 / 15.11.04
Does the present board programming allow for a thread to occupy two areas at once, on display and receiving input from both?
Flyboy, maybe you could have asked the posters involved their opinion on being moved to Creation before making the request? Could have avoided the raised hackles we're seeing here. Maybe a poll of some sort would be more equitable.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
05:21 / 15.11.04
No it doesn't.

And if Moderators have to ask the people involved before they moderate them, and if the people being moderated have a vote in the matter, then the entire moderation process becomes unworkable. What happens the next time we have a troll? Do we PM them saying "Do you mind if I delete your 20 empty threads and the five posts in which you repeat your homophobic rubbish?"
 
 
Lord Morgue
05:50 / 15.11.04
Hardly the same situation as a troll, now.
And I don't think a friendly "heads-up, I'm going to move this topic, any objections?" would make the board UNWORKABLE. I'm assuming, of course, that anyone gives a FLYING FUCK on this board what ANYONE ELSE THINKS.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
08:03 / 15.11.04
Well, there was a For the sake of transparency - I've asked for this to be moved to the Creation because it's essentially a collaborative, speculative fiction exercise, correct? followed by some in-thread discussion- it wasn't just suddenly shifted without warning.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:07 / 15.11.04
Lord Morgue has a point, albeit one expressed in the least helpful way possible. However, such a request inthread might have spun the thread off into three pages of meta discussion on whether and why to move it. Spin's "topics moved" list, which never really got off the ground, could do with a revival - regrettably, the board software also does not allow for "sticky" threads. On the other hand... Flyboy, if I follow the chain of events, notified that he had *moved* to move the topic. That means that somebody else still had to *vote* on it - during which interval people could note that it was under moderation to move, ensure they followed it to the Creation, or asked another moderator to veto the action.

So... generally I ask "Anyone mind if I move this to forum x?" in the thread, and if there is no demur move it along. If there *is* demur, then it goes to a discussion, but there very rarely is. This thread is only problematic because, in essence, it is, as a collaborative creative exercise by Barbeloids, a Creation thread, but the creator believes that the Creation does not contain the necessary members or elements to make it flourish.
 
 
sleazenation
09:36 / 15.11.04
I think it is problematic to suggest a topic change forum in a thread *after one has already moved that the thread change forum* because it sets the clock ticking - conceivably moderators - who will see the action flagged could agree to it before anone else has much of a chance to see the suggestion.

And then we have the problem that moderators often seem more inclined to agree moderation request than decline them...
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
11:50 / 15.11.04
Right.

1. I believe this is a dead issue because I frankly don't think the topic will pick up again even if it moves to the Switchboard. I don't say that out of spite, I promise, but just because threads have an initial momentum and a time and a place, and this one is past that point.

2. I suggest mods consider the possible ways to avoid a repeat of this discussion, because I genuinely believe there is an awkward gap in the structure of the board evidenced here, and it's a pity, because this kind of creative/research-based musing is something Barbelith might do very well - but as I say, I think it deserves a little more respect than a hoof in the arse to the Creation because it's 'fiction not fact'.

3. I have PM'd Anna a response to her post here. I trust she will feel less angry with me when she reads it.

4. Given the objections Anna has raised, I'm not prepared to pursue the thread strongly unless others are significantly engaged with it. Possibly it would be better in any case to re-cast the discussion in less quasi-playful terms.

5. I thank you all for taking time to argue about this, and apologise again to anyone who feels abused by the thread or by myself.

Thank you.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
13:19 / 15.11.04
sleazenation And then we have the problem that moderators often seem more inclined to agree moderation request than decline them...

A 'problem'? Really? How? And how do you know this to be the case, seeing as we still don't have the log of moderation requests that was suggested a few iterations ago...
 
 
grant
16:49 / 15.11.04
I'd really like to see the Creation be more than "fiction," (with the quotes).

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and delete the meta-commentary in that thread, thus am posting it here:
Piracy Funds Flyboy
(prev. Two Words: Fly Boy)
12:12 / 27.10.04
For the sake of transparency - I've asked for this to be moved to the Creation because it's essentially a collaborative, speculative fiction exercise, correct?
Edit Post


sleazenation
13:42 / 27.10.04
I read it more as an attempt to play around with the idea of the effects of assassination while attempting to avoid the ghost of godwin... While it could certainly fit in the creation there is a strong element of current affairs motivating it.
Edit Post


Piracy Funds Flyboy
(prev. Two Words: Fly Boy)
13:49 / 27.10.04
But what point does it make about assassination, other than that assassinating a dictator does not automatically or necessarily change things for the better, which is an uncontested truism?
Edit Post


sleazenation
15:15 / 27.10.04
Like stone soup it is what people bring to it - its attempting to pull people into exploring the consequences of assassination.
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Piracy Funds Flyboy
(prev. Two Words: Fly Boy)
15:35 / 27.10.04
Except that Mink has imposed much narrower limitations than that - he's not content with just "Hitler dies", because then people might make things pan out in a way that doesn't illustrate the point Mink wants to make.
Edit Post


sleazenation
16:21 / 27.10.04
Like I said - it's a thread that depends on what people bring to it - If you think it will do nothing other than than make a point that you think Mink is attempting to make, then that is what you'll see in it. Although I think you would have to admit that the scenario you outline above has a strong political element that has a place in the switchboard.
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Anna de Logardiere
(prev. Bush Lost Anna de Logardiere)
17:33 / 27.10.04
This thread upsets me in the same way that Martin Amis' Time's Arrow upsets me.
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Loomis
12:52 / 28.10.04
Maybe it technically belongs in the Creation, but clearly it will get much more response in the Switchboard. In fact it took me ages to find it after it disappeared as like many people I rarely read this forum. I checked the Headshop and Convo, but then I saw something shiny and wandered off and forgot about it till today ...
Edit Post


Tannhauser Schuster-Slatt
(prev. Bush loses the Haus keys again)
16:48 / 28.10.04
Could I suggest that further discussion about the thread be moved to another topic, either a META topic in the Creation or a "should this have been moved?" topic in the Policy?
 
 
sleazenation
18:26 / 15.11.04
Flowers -

When I said 'moderators often seem more inclined to agree moderation request than decline them...'? I used the conditional phrases in there because it is something I have observed annecdotally. Specifically I have noticed that request I have not touched because I do not feel strongly on one way or another usually seem to get passed. As you note, since we lack access to logs to track back decision that various mods have made then the best information we have available is annecdotal evidence - hardly conclusive proof, but then again I never claimed it was.

Even if the stats bear out the notion that mods are more likely to agree requests than dismiss them it is not necessarily undesirable, depending on what those requests are, but it is probably something that is worth keeping in mind...
 
 
Spatula Clarke
20:08 / 15.11.04
You can also see examples of mods being a bit too quick with the agreement when things like this happen, along with the more frequent occasions where you get a proposed fix to a piece of HTML that doesn't actually fix the problem, but has already received one vote in favour despite this.
 
  
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