Let's keep politics off SMC

[Jim Becker]

That makes him the best candidate of all

That's what I wanted to say, but it could have been construed that I was working on the campaign...

[Don Baer]

That's what I wanted to say, but it could have been construed that I was working on the campaign...

Now thats funney Jim.

[Rob Littleton]

Isn't a Bush wood?

Is that a political statement or a stupid one :-)

I think very STUPID.......

hehehehe, don't shoot me, it's my sense of humor.....

I know, Im working on it

[Andy Hoyt]

Uh, not that it necessarily makes him a bad candidate, but isn't he, like, dead?

(http://www.paulsen.com/)

I was about to write something intended to be humorous regarding the "dead" factor and relate it to a certain incumbent who appears to suffer the same condition. But after a second thought, and not wanting to sound in anyway politcal, I decided to write this instead.

[Jerry Clark]

The drywall thread should have been moved to Off Topics anyway-- it is not wood related! My 2 cents worth

[Bill Lewis]

There used to be a saying that there are three things that you do not discuss in polite conversation, Politics, Religion and Sex. The TOS rules out the first two, so...... ok, i"m not going there either.

There are often off-topic discussions that crop up in this section, and the moderators do what they can to move them when appropriate, but it is really the responsibility for each individual poster to properly place his or her post in the correct section. Why make it any harder on the moderators, this isn't a full time job for them. It only takes a day or two, or three away from the creek to become really backlogged in unread (or unmoderated) posts. Even though they do a great job, sometimes a few posts can get by them. I spoke with Aaron on a related topic at the past spring get-together held at Keith Outten's place, and I got the impression that they were going after the blatent, and pretty much not sweating the small stuff. However, I was encouraged to report to them posts considered inappropriate, or misplaced.

Every individual has the ability to report a topic to the moderators if they think it is inappropriate, or misplaced. All you have to do is click on the litte "warning sign" on th upper right of each post. Possibly, if we all did a little more of this, we may have more members thinking (and I'm NOT pointing fingers here) first about Where they post, as well as What they post.

I pretty much spend most of my time here GW&PT or in the OT section, and I would guess that there are many people who pretty much stick to a single forum or two like me. I am glad there are other forums as well and there are people that participate in them. Otherwise that finishing question that I may have one day would get lost in the volume in no time at all.

Come to think of it, this topic should really be in the OT section as well, it has nothing to do with WW or tools.

[Craig Zettle]

Yes Bill that is true that we should put our posts where they belong.

For instance, my post on screwing up a cement job I just did I put in off topic, knowing full well that most of you guys won't see it, because most of you don't go anywhere but here. But I wanted to do the right thing. As it turned out, I got some good advice anyway. But that is the chance you take.

[Dale Rodabaugh]

I frequent another site,dealing with old trucks.Every once in awhile things get really heated with politics.I am retired and have very strong political views.I never post anything political,but if someone posts something against my views I will post my opinion.I did not read the drywall thread,so I have no idea what political jabs was in it.I have never read any political stuff on this site,and it is a plkeasure to just read things about woodworking.I dont give a damn about how you feel about the present administration,pro or con,I just dont want to hear about it here.I hear this crap every time I turn on the TV or radio.I have many friends with different political views than mine.We get along just fine cause we dont discuss them.So I say talk politics elsewhere and talk woodworking here.

[John Stevens]

There used to be a saying that there are three things that you do not discuss in polite conversation, Politics, Religion and Sex.

Yup, with very few exceptions I’ve regretted the political or religious conversations I’ve gotten into. Too easy to offend or hurt, and almost never does anybody learn anything positive.

economics is political [snip] And for a lot of people, economics (AKA politics) is a major-league Religion.

<O

Yup, the more you learn about economics, the more you see the connection with politics. It’s one thing to gripe about prices--no different than griping about the weather. But take the next step and call for the government to regulate--or not regulate--how people run their businesses, then you’ve just started a political debate that can get ugly really quickly. I’d rather not have that here.

[Lee DeRaud]

Based on a quick (and very unscientific) scan of the data:
There are 30+ participants on this thread so far.
There are 30+ participants on the "drywall" thread so far.
There are only about 4 participants common to both threads.

Not sure either group is getting its point across.
For that matter, not sure either group has a point at this point.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled whatever.

[Aaron Koehl]

Politics are prohibited by our Terms of Service-- there are plenty of arenas for it, but not SawmillCreek. There is also a lot of subjectivity in what constitutes politics, but ultimately it is up to our moderators and I to take action.

The most effective remedy to an offending post (political, religious, obscene, advertising, etc) is to click "Report Post" which will alert our moderators. This will send us an email and we can then choose to take action. We rely on our members to be self-moderating--we all get out of line from time to time. Only when posts are silently reported can any action be guaranteed..

I promise it's much more effective than any other method!


Also, we do the best we can to move threads (like this one) to their proper forum. (SawmillCreek-related posts go to the Support Forum.) We catch most of them and silently move them. I strongly urge anyone who doesn't do so already to use the "New Posts" link at the top of the screen..

[Lee DeRaud]

Also, we do the best we can to move threads (like this one) to their proper forum. (SawmillCreek-related posts go to the Support Forum.) We catch most of them and silently move them.

Just my opinion, but I'm not sure "silently" is the best approach: it lacks any "behavioral reinforcement" that might help to prevent the problem in the future. And silent thread deletion certainly leaves way too many questions unanswered.

[Don Baer]

Just my opinion, but I'm not sure "silently" is the best approach: it lacks any "behavioral reinforcement" that might help to prevent the problem in the future. And silent thread deletion certainly leaves way too many questions unanswered.

I agree with Lee on this one. On another forum where I am one of the managers, we delete the contents of certain threads but always leave a "Moderator Note" giving a reason for the deletion. Just a thought.

i..e "Thread was deleted because it contianed a commercial"

[Aaron Koehl]

We do give notices on deleted threads. What I said about Silently Moving had to do with putting the threads in the proper forums.

On another note, any threads moved to the Moderator's Forum are there specifically because they violate our Terms.

Pretty simple system, I think.

[Lee DeRaud]

We do give notices on deleted threads. What I said about Silently Moving had to do with putting the threads in the proper forums.

On another note, any threads moved to the Moderator's Forum are there specifically because they violate our Terms.

Pretty simple system, I think.

Only reason I mentioned it was that there were a couple that disappeared in the last two days with no notice. When a thread gets moved from one forum to another, there is usually a "moved thread" placeholder left in the forum it came from.

"Silently moving a thread to the Moderator's Forum" and "silently deleting a thread" look pretty much the same to a non-moderator.