Suggestion: Temporary Mods

As a junior member of this forum, I may not be allowed to offer suggestions and may be banned; however I decided to take this risk after the recent closure of the Ukrainian conflict thread. I have given some thought on how to deal with the excessive bs that was happening there. Some of us have a deep interest in this topic and have the self control to refrain ourselves from going into off-topic tirades about topics like Taiwan and the US-China trade war. So, it is unfair for us that we have to suffer the consequences of actions from people who can’t resist the urge to argue over irrelevant s**t. In addition, based on my observation, the current mods are basically stretched thin. They have too much ground to cover and too little time to moderate every single thread.

In conclusion, I believe we need unbiased temporary mods who can moderate only a specified thread. However their powers are limited in comparison to that of permanent mods. Here are the following limitations:

1. Temporary mods cannot moderate other threads and abuse their power. They will be permanently banned if they do so.
2. Temporary mods must have a vested interest in the thread they want to moderate, and this interest is measured by the amount of high-quality contributions.
3. Temporary mods are selected based on how relevant, beneficial, and frequent their contributions are to the thread. For example, in the Ukrainian Conflict thread, @Suetham and @anzha post high-quality content, provide excellent commentary on the situation, and keep things relevant. In several of the recently banned users’ cases, they provide childish and provocative posts that belong to a YouTube Comment Section. In the formers’ case, they will make great temporary mods.
4. Temporary mods will lose their power once the thread is no longer relevant; in this case, they will cease to be mods when the Ukrainian conflict ends regardless of the outcome.

Unlike other suggestions that just died out, this one, if agreed upon, should be implemented immediately. The rapidly developing situation in Ukraine and the sheer amount of propaganda being thrown around can cause misinformation to spread quickly. I joined this forum because of its accurate and unbiased takes on the PLA and other nations’ military and personally think that we, as a military forum, should find the truth out of the waves of propaganda shown by both sides in this conflict.

This forum is still a business.

What drives clicks is what matters.

Closing that thread, as a business decision, probably will be discussed by management.

I would like to see that thread reopened.

This is an important point in world history. Everything could be different after this war. We were living that feeling inside that thread, and now it is closed.

That thread was important, because even with the side tracks into off topic discussion, and the misinformation which was intentional, still a lot of good information made it through.

In the final analysis, as someone who read at least 700 pages of that thread, that thread was a gigantic success!

All I remember was the war reports, and the gallows humour, both at times were exceptional.

I will never forget that thread.

Surely no-one will be banned for a suggestion, even more not so if it is one that can help to solve this issue!

Thanks for that and I will put it forward into the discussion.

Here is my suggestion:

1 thread for War news + war (military operation discussion) BUT no politics allowed

1 thread for geopolitical discussion about the War.


War is an extension of politics, so trying to ban discussion of politics from the topic doesn't make sense. I think a split its better so that the threads become more manageable/readable

horse said:

This forum is still a business.

What drives clicks is what matters.

Closing that thread, as a business decision, probably will be discussed by management.

I would like to see that thread reopened.

This is an important point in world history. Everything could be different after this war. We were living that feeling inside that thread, and now it is closed.

That thread was important, because even with the side tracks into off topic discussion, and the misinformation which was intentional, still a lot of good information made it through.

In the final analysis, as someone who read at least 700 pages of that thread, that thread was a gigantic success!

All I remember was the war reports, and the gallows humour, both at times were exceptional.

I will never forget that thread.

Click to expand...

I feel the same way. The day 1 and day 2 of the invasion, that thread was delivering a real time update of the war's progress. Most importantly, unlike other sites, disinformation was quickly called out.

There was even suspense and plot twist, like when the Russian VDV was reported to have been driven into the forest, and the very next day it turned out they held on to the airport long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

Overbom said:

Here is my suggestion:

1 thread for War news + war (military operation discussion) BUT no politics allowed

1 thread for geopolitical discussion about the War.


War is an extension of politics, so trying to ban discussion of politics from the topic doesn't make sense. I think a split its better so that the threads become more manageable/readable

Click to expand...

Realistically, it won't work. People will just post news and discussions in both threads. Just look at the Breaking News thread + Ukrainian conflict thread + Taiwan contingency thread.

I agree, I have been following the Ukraine thread with passion. I read every post believe it or not!

Do hope it can be brought back. Otherwise those trolls win.

solarz said:

I feel the same way. The day 1 and day 2 of the invasion, that thread was delivering a real time update of the war's progress. Most importantly, unlike other sites, disinformation was quickly called out.

There was even suspense and plot twist, like when the Russian VDV was reported to have been driven into the forest, and the very next day it turned out they held on to the airport long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

Click to expand...

Do you think it’s worth having a general discussion thread. Idk if there is one. Where everyone can bicker whatever as long as it’s within the forum rules.

The fundamental problem is the lack of mods. Even PDF which is like 10x crazier than here is still a relatively respectable place because it has many mods which can keep the place relatively clean.

From what I have seen, we effectively have only 3 mods here who have real power to ban members or delete posts. And obviously they have limited time to moderate the forum which results in long periods of time where the forum doesn't have any mods online to respond to trolling activity which then inevitably leads to derailed threads

I think the OP's suggestion is a good short-term quick fix, but the overall issue remains, there too few mods in this forum

There's a certain demographics with certain ideological beliefs that keeps dragging US vs Russia total war into every single Ukraine discussion. Can we inform these people that total war is outside the scope of the discussion and take action if they don't listen?

This same demographic also frequently posts off topic troll memes of zero discussion value and have not been punished. This should happen.