Catty much? I used to read COTH stuff all the time. Every time I’d Google a horse related subject COTH would pop up with a lot of very interesting information and people with experience with the various horses and saddles and boarding experiences etc. So, I have been lurking a long time before becoming a member. Once I became a member I noticed the political thread and I was horrified by the lack of respect the conservatives got from the libs, so I joined the fray… probably a mistake on my part, I’ll admit. (However, despite my lack of time online, I did read most of the thread, and I remember you well.)
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Me too!
Remember Thanksgiving and the glut of moose topics from the Canucks? :lol:
We were all so much NICER to each other then.
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And now we know what contributed to the OT closing. IBTL
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Chicken in the oven!!!
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Yep, Mean Girls coming out on this thread as well…classic! :lol:
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I changed the word for you. Changing words does not change the deed. I felt compelled to explain the incident from my POV.
Honestly, life is too short for people to be taking out their aggression on line with perfectly nice strangers that they would probably be friends with if they ever met them. (Again, my POV, so please do not ask me for proof… ha! a joke for KY girl)
No one is closing this thread so far. Feel free to discuss among yourselves unhindered. I’m outie. Peace.
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based on the Moderators post- would guess they were getting lots of alerts on the thread.
Blame the trigger fingers if you think over moderated or blame the offending posters if you think under moderated.
The moderators are not to blame.
If you dont like how a free board is run the solution is very simple- leave.
No need for the pouty flounce every time.
So now will be called a mean girl for having a different opinion . So be it.
Right. Resort to name calling if everyone does not agree with your opinion. Sound familiar?
Mean girls? Fake news?
I will miss the political discussion but you cannot seriously blame the Moderator.
ETA personally I suspect those with alert trigger fingers - whatever end of the political spectrum - really dont know- are the reason OT has been closed.
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I’m sure the OT forum will return in some iteration in the future, but right now, we’re giving it a break.
When faced with complaints about non-horse-related content/issues in the discussion forums over the years, the powers that be have consistently recommended that we simply avoid the problems by not allowing that content.
The moderation staff has held that members use and appreciate the OT forum, and that the relationships and community formed here extend beyond horses. It seems natural to allow everyone to discuss other topics as well.
At the moment, the complaints, hassle, ill will, occasional threats, etc., resulting from some aspects of that forum overshadow our desire to provide it for users, despite the majority of members using it in a benevolent fashion.
As I said, I am sure OT will return in some form in the future. Politics/Current Events…I don’t know.
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Thanks for your patience and efforts, Mod 1.
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Appreciate the explanation and apologize for my pissiness. Thank you.
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I was a member of a social media group that had very strict rules. It was an invitation only group that was dedicated to Native American genealogy. It had a ‘social Sunday’ rule where you could post anything. It was a fun day that built a social community. There was never any politics. Not even Tribal politics. There were a few hard-nosed arguments about aspects of NA history. The site died when the owner/mod passed. I miss him and that site.
My local social media site is focused pretty much on local issues. We do not get into partisan politics. If someone starts to flame out … that person is removed and removed quickly. It is the go-to site in my community when there is a local emergency.
My other social media site is also a genealogy site. There are no posts or topics about anything but wiregrass genealogy.
It also has strict rules about what you can post about that. We aren’t ancestry.com where everyone is related to Queen Elizabeth and has an ancestor that was a Cherokee princess. I exaggerate.
COTH is the only site where I found a political thread. I was enjoying it. Posters linked to some interesting reports/articles to underscore their arguments on an issue. Some posters resort to name-calling. I always forget if it was Aristotle or Socrates that said if you insult your opponent you have lost your argument. I paraphrase.
Ironically, the reason I found this site was because a local person had gotten herself into some trouble. I had left a site I helped moderate a few years ago because she refused to stop posting libelous posts and the other moderators didn’t want to get involved. I was out of there.
I like COTH a lot. The only bonus, for me personally, in the closure of the political thread is I have more time in my day to do other stuff. I worked in media/government/politics for 40+ years. It sure does get nasty at times. I hope the pollical thread comes back. I’ll likely start decorating for Christmas early if it doesn’t.
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Thanks, @Moderator 1! You have such a tough, thankless job. We’re a rowdy crowd.
I’d like to pose a challenge to any and all who like this board: subscribe. Subscribe to the magazine. We no longer have the option of a premium account, so that’s how you can support COTH. Print media is failing, and fast. I have no idea how COTH is doing (haven’t looked, unsure if any info has been made public) but more subscriptions are always helpful. If you don’t actually want the magazine, donate it to your library, or local lesson program, or a nursing home. It’s less than $50 for a year.
COTH has provided this playground for years and years, along with staff to moderate it, to make sure it doesn’t go way off the rails, and IT resources to support and customize. They’ve invested in the platform again and again. Who appreciates that? I sure do! :yes:
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YES. The chicken in the oven. That’s why I read OT.
Also I really enjoy reading about other people’s batshit crazy neighbor drama. I don’t know why but I CAN’T LOOK AWAY.
I don’t usually get involved in the political stuff. I recognize that this is a unique constellation of people to have that kind of discussion with (mostly women and all fairly horsey) but really, why bother?
I’m glad the question was raised because I was trying to figure out what the heck had happened as well. I’m really saddened that the Mods decided to close the thread and hope that they will reconsider. (Pretty please!). I’ve always found the OT discussions to be enlightening, educational and, for the most part, thoroughly enjoyable. That the voices are/were predominantly female added immeasurably to my enjoyment. The sheer range and depth of knowledge and expertise is quite impressive. For those reasons, the OT thread was my favorite place to drop in, catch up, and enjoy the humorous ripostes. I would occasionally wander onto other forums and, rarer still, post, but for the reasons outlined, OT was my hands down favorite. I even recommended the OT forum to several members of other interest groups, to which I belong, for a fascinating peek at (mostly) US opinion — in all its variety. First time I’ve ever done that; it’s a measure of how much I value the informative and thoughtful discussions here.
I also want to address @Tyrus’Mom misrepresentation of my post: “…What came to mind the most for me when I read the political thread was the woman who insulted another for voting for Trump, telling her she was stupid (in an underhanded way…).”
The fact is that I neither called any poster stupid nor implied that they were, and certainly not “in an underhanded way.” That distortion alone makes me wonder about motive. Further, my post was not directed at any individual, as @Tyrus’Mom falsely states. It’s revealing, I think, that @Tyrus’Mom’s misrepresentation asserts a prior exchange between @dotneko and me that never happened. Never happened; think about that for a moment. As I alluded, my post was based on patterns of behavior that I had observed across multiple posts by (what I assumed to be) different posters. My observations were neither directed towards nor in response to @dotneko, who, as far as I know, hadn’t posted to the thread for several weeks, at that point. (Frankly, my initial reaction to @dotneko’s post was, “I don’t know who this person is or why they shot out of the woodwork, but it’s a very good illustration of what I just described.”). The remainder of @Tyrus’Mom’s post is equally problematic and that seems to be something of regrettable (albeit individuated) pattern too.
The above notwithstanding (I’m a gardener so I understand the importance of manure in growing great tomatoes ;)), I want to thank the Mods again for all of their work and to thank all of the posters who made the OT thread such an enjoyable and educational experience for me. I greatly appreciate it and look forward to experiencing it again.
Aly
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[QUOTE=TCA Arabians;n10211285 I’ll likely start decorating for Christmas early if it doesn’t.
[/QUOTE]
:lol::yes:
@Aly, I didn’t read the posts about IQ until today- I was stumped about how this closure came to be:
“The fact is that I neither called any poster stupid nor implied that they were, and certainly not “in an underhanded way.” That distortion alone makes me wonder about motive.”
That is not true. I won’t name names, but ask you - the GENERAL YOU- and you, @Aly to read those posts again. You will see mockery and disdain and derisive dismissal. Want to quibble the presence or absence of the word ‘stupid’ or ‘underhanded’ that’s your prerogative but if the GOAL is to win the mid-terms and get DJT out of the WH and replace him with anyone else, I suggest we focus on winning others over, not deriding them and the fact that they posted their IQ.
Mine’s a 148 
so while I may not agree with @dotneko on many things, but I totally get what s/he was trying to convey. It’s like she used the wrong fork at a formal dinner and y’all went nuts on her. Just bad form.
“We” don’t deserve OT if ‘we’, the collective, can’t get our **** together.
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I want to say that I did not complain to the mods. I chuckled at some of it, rolled my eye at some of it, but basically I don’t report things that don’t involve full blown swear fests. I haven’t gotten to where I am today without having a pretty tough hide.
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SImkie-And there’s also the option for digital only subscriptions, if you don’t want more trees to die. Supporting the forum is the major reason I subscribe, and have for years.
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In point of fact, I did; several times. I reread the subthread before drafting the above. Then, I went back and reread subthread for a third time before posting. I never called anyone stupid, nor implied that they were. Yet that’s precisely what was stated. It’s not quibbling to call a thing what it is. That was a lie. She embroidered the lie by asserting that it occurred in an exchange between dotneko and me. There was no such exchange, that too was a lie. Both context and content were lies. Surely you didn’t post merely to support/defend the lies?
What I actually did was to thank posters for the understanding that they gave me by the repeated pattern of behavior that I had observed in multiple posts, over multiple subthreads. Observing that pattern, in turn, allowed me (for the first time in 2 years) to understand a larger phenomenon that I’d been unable to fully grasp previously. Full stop. One may not share my observations and that’s fine. Lying about what I said and lying about to whom it was directed (“the poor woman”) is not. The blatant and arguably deliberate misrepresentation of my post warranted correction, so I obliged. As I am obliging you now.
Frankly, I am unaccustomed to people revealing their IQs (real or imagined) on internet forums — even on those forums where it would be substantively related to the topic at hand. This was a first. I still don’t know what to make of it, other than that dotneko was apparently angry. Admittedly, I found Hawkins’ assertion amusing, but I honestly think dotneko’s response was simply an overly defensive, misconstrual of my observations. In any event, I didn’t deride dotneko for posting her IQ, just as I haven’t derided you for posting yours. Nor did I see anyone else deriding dotneko. What I saw was several (not all) posters commenting on the (unusual) fact of her self-revelation. When one introduces a non sequitur into a discussion people will comment on it. One shouldn’t be surprised when they do.
I agree that a goal is to elect someone better qualified (experientially, intellectually, behaviorally and psychologically), but we don’t need to “win over” those who seem doggedly fact-avoidant. That’s an illusory goal, at best. Active Trump supporters do not constitute a majority of voters in the US. Leave them to God or whatever higher being you believe in and sink resources elsewhere. IMO, we’d do better by focusing on independents, disaffected voters in both parties and dems.
YMMV,
Aly
In point of fact, I did; several times. I reread the subthread before drafting the above. Then, I went back and reread subthread for a third time before posting. I never called anyone stupid, nor implied that they were. Yet that’s precisely what was stated. It’s not quibbling to call a thing what it is. That was a lie. She embroidered the lie by asserting that it occurred in an exchange between dotneko and me. There was no such exchange, that too was a lie. So, both the purported context and invented content were lies. Did you post to defend the lies?
What I did was to thank posters for the understanding that they gave me by the repeated pattern of behavior that I had observed in multiple posts, over multiple subthreads. Observing that pattern, in turn, allowed me (for the first time in 2 years) to understand a larger phenomenon that I’d been unable to fully grasp previously. Full stop. One may not share my observations and that’s fine. Lying about what I said and lying about to whom it was directed (“the poor woman”) is not. The blatant and arguably deliberate misrepresentation of my post warranted correction, so I obliged. As I am obliging you now.
Frankly, I am unaccustomed to people revealing their IQs on internet forums, even on those forums where it would be substantively related to the topic at hand — which this was not. So, this was a first. I still don’t know what to make of it, other than that dotneko was apparently angry. Admittedly, I found Hawkins’ assertion amusing, but I honestly think dotneko’s response was simply an overly defensive, misconstrual of my observations. In any event, I didn’t deride dotneko for posting her IQ, just as I haven’t derided you for posting yours. Nor did I see anyone else deriding dotneko. What I saw was several (not all) posters commenting on the unusual fact of her self-revelation. Here’s the larger reality, when one introduces a non sequitur into a discussion, people will comment on it. One shouldn’t be surprised when they do.
I agree that a goal is to elect someone better qualified (experientially, intellectually, behaviorally and psychologically), but we don’t need to “win over” those who seem doggedly fact-avoidant. That’s an illusory goal, at best. Active Trump supporters do not constitute a majority of voters in the US. Leave them to God or whatever higher being you believe in and sink precious resources elsewhere. IMO, we’d do better by focusing on dems, independents, disaffected voters in all parties.
YMMV,
Aly
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