Banned threads, WHY!!!!

Brumby

Major
I believe that certain rules have become outdated.
It is not a case of whether the rules are relevant for its time. It is meant to define what can and cannot be discussed consistent with the objective(s) of the forum i.e. military matters. If the aim is to broaden the scope then it is the decision of the forum owner - not the members. Politics have been around since the dawn of time, the instruments might have changed in shape and form but the pathway does not change.
The world is not what it was five or even ten years ago, and not allowing certain domains of discusison on this forum given its userbase will likely prove more troublesome than otherwise.
Previously simple topics like economy, trade, and technology -- even consumer technology -- is now only one degree of separation away from high level geopolitics.
The issue is enforcement and moderators do have a life outside of SDF. The active moderators are already stretched and opening up the scope for discussion will only add to their workload. Frankly some members here cannot engage in a political discourse in a mature manner. Political discussions is simply an avenue and opportunity for country bashing. There is no substance to their post and a very twisted opinionated view using words like "rape" and "kidnapping".

I think the question going forwards will inevitably be what kind of political discussion will be allowed.
There is only one type - political. The simplest is entire exclusion.

In some other forums it is normal for the predominant userbase to talk about politics in a pro-"their background" and anti-"opposing nation/adversary" manner, with the result that individuals from the "opposing nation/adversary" background tend to not particularly contribute.
The problem is it requires a certain level of maturity and unfortunately it is generally lacking in this forum. There are plenty of evidence found in the locked threads.

Whether that would be detrimental or beneficial to the majority of SDF users is something worth considering.
I personally have no issue with the idea of political discussions but I do have pity on the workload of the moderators. You first have to solve the issue of moderation resources.
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
It is not a case of whether the rules are relevant for its time. It is meant to define what can and cannot be discussed consistent with the objective(s) of the forum i.e. military matters. If the aim is to broaden the scope then it is the decision of the forum owner - not the members. Politics have been around since the dawn of time, the instruments might have changed in shape and form but the pathway does not change.

The issue is enforcement and moderators do have a life outside of SDF. The active moderators are already stretched and opening up the scope for discussion will only add to their workload. Frankly some members here cannot engage in a political discourse in a mature manner. Political discussions is simply an avenue and opportunity for country bashing. There is no substance to their post and a very twisted opinionated view using words like "rape" and "kidnapping".


There is only one type - political. The simplest is entire exclusion.


The problem is it requires a certain level of maturity and unfortunately it is generally lacking in this forum. There are plenty of evidence found in the locked threads.


I personally have no issue with the idea of political discussions but I do have pity on the workload of the moderators. You first have to solve the issue of moderation resources.

I agree that the rules are meant to define what can and cannot be discussed with the goal of enabling whatever objectives of a forum are meant to be.

For the purposes of this forum, I believe this forum is used to discuss military matters -- primarily Chinese military developments, which the subcategories are for -- air, naval, ground etc.
But there are also other subcategories like "strategic defense" and "member's club room" where other topics revolving around geopolitics, technology and so forth are also relevant. Given contemporary events, I think it is rather unreasonable and resource consuming to make it such that politics are unable to be discussed at all.

Other forums instead have dedicated subcategories/subsections where those discussions can be contained to.

Naturally, depending on what particular bias the userbase of a particular forum has, there will be more or less country bashing towards one or another in the political threads

But IMO, so long as political discussions are above a minimum standard of rhetoric and kept to a specific subcategory within the forum and not allowed to permeate outside of that section, then it will not be detrimental to the overall goal of this forum which is to track Chinese military developments. There are more than a few other military forums that have dedicated political subsections while also maintaining very healthy military exclusive subsections and threads as well.

However that will very much be a decision that the webmaster and senior moderators have to make, and I personally do not expect such a path to be chosen. This is merely my input based on having seen how some other military forums have operated (and IMO successfully so).
 

Brumby

Major
There are a couple of things I want to follow up based on what you said.
Naturally, depending on what particular bias the userbase of a particular forum has, there will be more or less country bashing towards one or another in the political threads
"Country bashing" is not allowed under forum rules for obvious reason because that would just inflame the conversation. I do have a narrower understanding of its meaning and is important to discuss it in order to address your view that it is an inevitable outcome. Politics is simply pursuance of policies relative to a certain preferred worldview. In other words, it should be a debate of ideas that underlined policies and worldview. Any criticism or defence should be restricted to policies and worldview and not attacking the country or its people. Sadly, if you refer to the comments in the locked threads they are rich in country bashing and rarity regarding policies difference discussion.

But IMO, so long as political discussions are above a minimum standard of rhetoric and kept to a specific subcategory

I would be happy to hear your definition of minimum standard. The forum already has a set of "do not" rules. The problem is posters can't even respect the basic "do not". I am reproducing for you below , the second paragraph of a new thread that was started when the regular one was locked. Highlighted in bold are examples of basic "do not".

This is especially true now that the US has finally figured out that the commie yellows can actually master technology and pose a competitive threat. I think that the present circumstances has shown everyone that the US president has enormous latitude for unilateral action, especially when "fuck China" is how Congressmen greet each other in the hallway now. Does any of this call for capitulation? Far from it. Even if you are a coward, capitulating is useless when the only thing your enemy wants is your blood. Fighting is the only chance you have.
The comments are nothing but political rhetoric with emotions hardly contained. Do you think this forum is ready for political discussions when this type of language and emotions are present?
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
There are a couple of things I want to follow up based on what you said.

"Country bashing" is not allowed under forum rules for obvious reason because that would just inflame the conversation. I do have a narrower understanding of its meaning and is important to discuss it in order to address your view that it is an inevitable outcome. Politics is simply pursuance of policies relative to a certain preferred worldview. In other words, it should be a debate of ideas that underlined policies and worldview. Any criticism or defence should be restricted to policies and worldview and not attacking the country or its people. Sadly, if you refer to the comments in the locked threads they are rich in country bashing and rarity regarding policies difference discussion.

Under current rules, country bashing is of course not allowed.

However, in other forums, country bashing of certain nations or groups are normal and contained in political subsections. There are other military forums for other nations I visit now and then with the understanding that there's going to be country bashing of country A or country X in certain threads or subsections, but that's fine, I just don't visit those political threads and stick to the ones that are useful to my interests.



I would be happy to hear your definition of minimum standard. The forum already has a set of "do not" rules. The problem is posters can't even respect the basic "do not". I am reproducing for you below , the second paragraph of a new thread that was started when the regular one was locked. Highlighted in bold are examples of basic "do not".


The comments are nothing but political rhetoric with emotions hardly contained. Do you think this forum is ready for political discussions when this type of language and emotions are present?

I suppose I would have two minimum standards.
1 would be no use of swear words, to keep a minimum standard of civility.
2 would be to keep certain specific political topics off limits. This will probably be more contentious for certain users here, but I believe this is a forum frequented and contributed to most usefully by members of Chinese background and who are partial to the PRC worldview and I expect the off limit topics to reflect that.

For the record, I certainly would not make those kind of posts like the one you quoted. I don't think it's particularly useful or particularly constructive, and unimaginative country bashing is... unimaginative. Furthermore, based on my two minimum standards, a warning would be issued with regards to that user's use of the f word.

However I also think that those sort of emotional comments are inevitable given the caliber of topics that the contemporary political and geopolitical environment is now at, and if there is any topics that are mildly political in nature we are likely to see elevated emotions.
I think it is better to have a specific subsection of the forum where those topics can be vigorously argued and gracelessly thrown about rather than to deny it a presence at all.


I expect the end result will be that a hypothetical forum's political subsection will be populated by heavily pro-China narratives where users making arguments against China and/or pro-US or pro-China-adversary arguments will be shouted out of the room.

But seeing as the primary purpose of this forum is for tracking Chinese military developments anyway, people who do not wish to discuss politics will be free to ignore the politics subsection of the forum and contribute primarily to the pure military threads instead.


Of course, the alternative is to not have any political subsection and to avoid political discussions/threads altogether in the forum, which is not completely crazy, but I do think there are two longer term consequences to that:
1. the scope of geopolitical competition and the relationship with military development is now very very thin, if it is there at all. Discussion about one cannot be quite isolated from the rest.
2. perhaps more importantly, is user retention. I believe that the most useful contributors to this forum are the individuals of the "pro-China" background. This is Sinodefence forum whose goal is to talk track Chinese military developments. I think the years has more than shown that the users who are the MVPs of providing new information, pictures and rumours about PLA developments are the ones of the "pro-China" background. I think creating an environment that is able to retain those users to allow open discussion about the heated political topics of our time will be beneficial to the purpose of actually tracking Chinese military developments. That said, I might put in some rules such that users are only able to access the "politics subsection" of the forum after a certain number of posts and/or receiving likes in the military forums.



And to follow up on this specific part:

The comments are nothing but political rhetoric with emotions hardly contained. Do you think this forum is ready for political discussions when this type of language and emotions are present?

If the swear words are removed, and if the relevant threads are all contained to a specific part of the forum -- yes I think this forum is ready for it.

That post certainly has country bashing, but if the above criteria are met I think it can be tolerated.
 
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Shaolian

Junior Member
Registered Member
I'm also in agreement that a separate political sub-forum could be created to facilitate such discussions. When it comes down to it, military actions is just the final form of politics.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
This forum was spun off of a Reference site and blog SinoDefence that is the origin of the name but even in it’s earliest incarnation we have and remain American hosted not Chinese. As such even in our earliest forum we discussed topics of an international range with a specific area dedicated to those PRC specific topics and a section dedicated to international topics. As we are NOT a pure Chinese based forum we have a mix of perspectives from a wide background not just Chinese but also wider Asian, America european and more.
If you’re interest is purely how to blow F35 from the sky. I suggest searching for another Chinese defense based forum. There are plenty of them.
 

Gatekeeper

Brigadier
Registered Member
I wouldn't usually deign to respond to such vulgar slander from a pretentious liar, but I think this is a good opportunity to address some of the hypocrisy I see here. First, the paragraph you quoted and the phrases that triggered you so were part of a serious proposal about China's industrial policy that I offered for discussion. It's far better written and more soundly reasoned than the vast majority of posts that are made anywhere in this forum. Let me link it (since, to serve your deception, you wouldn't) so readers can judge for themselves:

https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/a-reappraisal-of-chinas-semiconductor-strategy.t8511/

Don't pretend you're a noble defender of a great bastion of scholarly discussion, valiantly making your last stand before the barbaric e-hordes overrun you with their emotions and naughty words. You are no noble defender and this is no great bastion. Don't feel it's your place to set bounds on what should be discussed here and with what terms, either, lest that same logic be applied to you. I notice you contribute heavily to the F-35 thread -- what's an F-35 thread doing on Sinodefenseforum? The only discussion of F-35s that should happen here is how China can destroy them. Go to f-16.net and discuss F-35s there to your heart's content.

Bravo!
 

Brumby

Major
You are a prime exhibit of why politics are not allowed in this forum. As I said previously it requires maturity and more importantly character to engage in civil conversation like politics. You reflect none of those traits.

I wouldn't usually deign to respond to such vulgar slander from a pretentious liar,
You are responding so venomously because of being called out. I have already reported your post and is up to the moderators to decide whether your language and behaviour is consistent with forum rules. .

but I think this is a good opportunity to address some of the hypocrisy I see here. First, the paragraph you quoted and the phrases that triggered you so were part of a serious proposal about China's industrial policy that I offered for discussion. It's far better written and more soundly reasoned than the vast majority of posts that are made anywhere in this forum. Let me link it (since, to serve your deception, you wouldn't) so readers can judge for themselves:
You just don't get it. This is a rule based forum. All members are expected to conduct themselves according to the rules. You have no respect for the rules. You use language and words that are prohibited and you think somehow you can operate above the rules.

Don't pretend you're a noble defender of a great bastion of scholarly discussion, valiantly making your last stand before the barbaric e-hordes overrun you with their emotions and naughty words. You are no noble defender and this is no great bastion. Don't feel it's your place to set bounds on what should be discussed here and with what terms, either, lest that same logic be applied to you. I notice you contribute heavily to the F-35 thread -- what's an F-35 thread doing on Sinodefenseforum? The only discussion of F-35s that should happen here is how China can destroy them. Go to f-16.net and discuss F-35s there to your heart's content.

How you wish in your own fantasy that you can dictate what other members choose to engage in. The only arbiter is prescribed in the forum rules but then to you rules don't apply.
 
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