Thanks for the info kryo. While I respect and trust your analysis, I firmly believe that if there was a reaction, there was something to cause it. Sometimes things said can be very demeaning, especially when shared publicly. Moderators tend to have that trait - it is both how they maintain order (weeding out unnatural conversations given site context) and it is also their downfall in that they truly believe themselves of ordain authority to dismiss anyone or anything they feel like dismissing. And that can be quite rude.

Anyways, from one of the posts above, it sounds like some of the "doodoo" was thrown by private messages.

When politics are involved, people can tend to get over-invested in the discussion and see malice where there is none. That's part of the reason we discourage such posts in the first place.

A good case in point. I for instance, may find malice in the fact that you disregard my posts noting the validity in causality - results are subject to causes. And yet I am being told such is not true, when it most clearly is. Only when you attempt to diagnose  insanity, or quantum mechanics, is such not true. And given his track record in the community, I highly doubt Mr. Weebly has gone insane or realized his particles-of-being occupy two places at once, as it were.

Is it normal for Stardock moderators to dismiss points made, on the premise that they believe themselves so right that all others must be wrong? And I say the above and ask the latter purely in hypothetical curiosity, with all due respect, given the circumstance and topic of discussion.

I can't speak to the precise content of the specific private discussions in question here, but (and this is a general statement only) when you deal with these sorts of things you find very quickly that if someone has already made up their mind that they've been wronged, regardless whether truly or not, they will take offense at even the most politely worded response if it's anything other than an acquiescence to their demands. And that is before bringing in a subject like politics, where even otherwise reasonable people can become unreasonable.

There was no evidence of misapplication of moderator privileges in regards to public forum postings, so absent full access to private discussions which I am not (nor should be) privy to, I'm inclined to believe the incident proceeded as experience shows similar cases tend to do. Regardless whether the moderator in question handled the private discussions softly or bluntly, the posts were moved in accordance with forum policy and would not be moved back, so the outcome would likely have been the same either way.

kyro, thank you for the further information regarding this mess.

harpo

agreed, thank you very much for your replies on this topic. I also appreciate your cordiality, which is truly noteworthy given the subject matter and overly direct questions.

Unfortunately, many tutorials and guides were held by a sole individual. Maybe one day he will return

http://soase.x90x.net/

Odd. Just tried the link and it works fine for me.

Works for me here as well.

FBI proposing laws? 

CISPA: your privacy and rights. 

Well, just don’t act surprised. Where’d I put the tar and feathers?

 That's a funny looking pic of a personal computer

Recent, ALL POLITICAL, posted by a moderator in personal computing

Never had an issue with moving a post, just the attitude behind it.

The liberty Judge has been axed was moved

my reply after digging for half an hour to see if it was deleted...

my responce

Should obviously read 

 NO POLITICAL threads in the 'everything else' forum. UNLESS POSTED BY A MOD OR A MOD AGREES,

because it seemed to me, there was a political thread in everything else almost every day.

EDIT

New I read this somewhere

Also read that as long as they stay civil, they should be OK and everyone in my threads always are.

I agree Myfist, sadly unbiased treatment of political content isn't a guaranteed right of these private forums. I think we'd be better of not discussing them at all. It would be nice if I could chose to only see threads from the Sins forums, or other game forums only, but such is life.

A few points.

- Doc is a volunteer WinCustomize moderator, not a Stardock employee. Outside WC, he is a normal user and has no special powers or privileges.

- Those posts are in the Personal Computing category, not the general Off Topic category, and they discuss laws and government action as regards computers and the internet in general. Which is reasonably appropriate; there is no Politics - Internet category.

- It's also important to note that the forum category hierarchy differs from site to site. On JU and WC, Personal Computing is a root category of its own. On Sins, it's under "Life the Universe and Everything" with the OT category as a sibling. On GC2 and Elemental, it's under the OT category (now "Everything Else"). And the hierarchies can change at any time at Brad's choosing.

- Because of this, it should be clear that the posted no-politics policies are intended to apply to the specific general off topic categories they are posted in. IIRC your post was in one of these such categories, which leads to...

- I vaguely recall however they did generate complaints from people who did not post, which is another important point.

I'm surprised this thread has come back alive.

As for politics, I think that it's better to not discuss on the Internet.