There are 7 moderators listed for the Politics forum:

VinVega, Dead, heimerSWT, bfrank, nemein, sfsdfd, Venusian

The following moderators have not moderated in quite a long time. Will they be replaced at any point?

sfsdfd last posted in any forum 1/20/2006
bfrank last posted in any forum 7/6/2007
heimerSWT last posted in Politics on 11/10/2006.

That leaves VinVega, Dead, nemein, and Venusian. Of those 4, only one is moderate to liberal. Two are conservatives. I don't know enough about Dead's politics but I'd say he leans to the right as well.

Not to be a dick or anything, but hey.

Why don't you 'enlist'?

They wouldn't have me. Are you kidding?

I don't see a problem. The moderator's politics haven't affected their ability to moderate that forum one way or another.

Oh, I don't see a problem either. The mods do a great job in there. There is an overlooking of some right wing posts but no big deal. I'm mainly wondering about the mods who don't actually mod.

If you think they do a great job there, why are you calling them out based on their alleged political bias? Why post this thread?

Chanster does have a point...

Let's remember CRM114 did say ".... but hey"

Talk about a list of the last people I'd call out for implied political bias. These are some of the most reasonable low-key moderators we've ever had.

das

Yeah, they put up with a lot. Don't like how they suspended me for "namecalling" in response to some jerkoff calling ME a name, but they do a fairly decent job.

Two are conservative? I thought they were all libs!

politics forum on the internet... srs srs bsnss

Wow and I thought the Libs ran the place.

If you've never been in the Politics Forum... the mods there do a great job. It's pretty thankless -- it's probably one of the busiest forums on the board, with lots of heated emotions and some really snide comments thrown around. But the mods do pretty well.

But if you truly haven't been in the Politics Forum... then you don't understand how important it is to maintain a balance between left-wing and right-wing, Democrat and Republican. Right now, there is one moderator (VinVega) who I would say is pretty liberal (though even-handed), and there are four moderators (neimen, Dead, Venusian and X) who are pretty strenuously conservative. Although, to be fair, many of them have done yeoman's work in keeping the forum relatively fair and balanced.... there have been cases in the past where right-wing posters have gotten away with bloody murder, while left-wing posters have been kicked off for nothing more than repeatedly posting rhetorical questions. It is important, if for no other reason than just the perception of fairness, that there be some kind of balance.

It is a tough, thankless job... and I really think it would be beneficial for there to be some extra hands in the Politics Forum to help keep everybody in line. Not to mention the idea of rewarding some long-time strong posters in that forum who have shown they could handle the job. Now... I do have some ideas. Some names that I could throw out. Three people immediately come to mind -- a true liberal, a stated conservative, and someone who probably started off as a rabid right-winger, but has since gone a long way toward really seeing both sides of the issue.

Just to make it interesting... anyone have any guesses of whom I'm thinking about? (Hint: my name is not in the mix.)

I used to be a lot more liberal until I started reading this board actually (and when I moved out of NYC). Now, I think I'm center left. I see the other side of the argument, but in my personal politics, I can't see myself voting for a Republican any time soon.

As far as the Politics forum is concerned (and moderating in general) I try to take a Laissez-faire approach. The veterans there generally know the limits and I leave it to the posters to tell me the temperature of the water with the report this post to the mods feature, but I will step in with the mod stick when I have to if I see something out of line.

As far as the balance of the politics of the mods I can understand your interest in getting things on a 50-50 footing (my personal opinion is that DVDTalk is fairly weighted with Libertarians, not so much Republicans so you see a lot of economic threads and free market threads), but the most important thing in my opinion is to leave your politics behind when moderating and I think our mods do a great job of that. I wouldn't be opposed to adding another mod (considering bfrank's and sfsdfd's inactivity), but that's really not my call.

Yes, all I'm asking is if 3 of the mods listed who no longer mod the forum will be replaced at some point. I thought my post was pretty clear.

chanster - I think the moderators in the political forum do a fine job. That doesn't change the fact that we have lost (seemingly) 2 left-leaning mods. Just wondering if they would be replaced at some point.

Crystal.

Honestly NC, I agree with Vin, I figured he leaned to the left, X to the Right, but the others I thought were Libertarians. I really cant see that the Right gets any advantage. There is more than enough Bush Bashing going on over there. I only hope if Hillary is the next Pres, that they will have the same allowances.

Two possiblities I would guess would be Classicman or Jason F. Either of which would be fine and probably do a good job.

Classicman would probaby have to chill out on those who generalize the term Socialism.

Classicman? No, no... I don't think that would be a good idea.

You guessed right about JasonF -- I think he'd make an excellent mod. As for the other two... the "stated conservative" would be wendersfan, and the "one-time rabid right-winger" would be Rockmjd23.

Geez. I'd hate to see your idea of punishment.

das

I think I should remind people that choosing moderators doesn't work through a nomination process by members.

Right. It works through how many naked pictures they send to you?



You should make me a mod, X. I know nothing about politics so therefore I would be totally neutral.

I would be awesome as a Politics Talk moderator.


Wait. No, I wouldn't. Not even close.

Wow, I appreciate that but I think I'm already on enough people's ignore lists.

hmm. I wonder how Rockmjd23 will respond when he reads this.

Bandoman for Politics Moderator!!!