COTH owes us exactly nothing. As a private publication of long standing, devoted to horses, they owe us nothing as far as bandwidth to quibble about politics and current events. I think you know that, and I definitely share your dislike of the decision, but it’s theirs to make, for any reason or no reason.
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The Off Topic is tame. The Mods of course get complaints more its got the higher traffic of posts. That is what it means to be a moderator. I ran an 8000 member group on Facebook about as mundane and non controversial topic as possible (blue glass collecting). Guess What? There was regularly a ton of drama. It goes with the territory. Saying the Off Topic was more drama filled seems like missing the bigger picture, message boards, groups bigger than five people are drama. The “resources” needed or required to deal with drama are a consistent set of comprehensive rules and a consistent and clear set of consequences. Add to that making people with level heads who are regular posters be admins who report to the Mods when warranted would end any need for these “shut downs” which oddly enough probably cost more than paid man hours for mods in lost ad revenue for COTH.
No group on the internet exists with out fights or drama, you’ve got thousands of individuals with distinct personalities and it’s the internet people fight over cake recipes and what color a dress is. Instead of getting the drama further churned up with a shut down, a few simple changes would make a world of difference. I’ve been on multiple sections of the message board and drama is a fact of life in all of them. Breeders forum, yup, colored thoroughbreds, off course, rescues and bestiality, and lets not forget dressage…so calling down the thunder on Off Topic is, odd and pointless. What gets me are the seemingly “relieved” chorus that comes out when it shuts down who bemoan the drama while at the same time have a keen depth of knowledge about the drama they are so unhappy with. Seems like the easiest reply for mods to give to people complaining is “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen”. Or no one has a gun to your head making you come to the Off Topic, so if its upsetting don’t go there.
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pretty much sums it up
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Sorry to disabuse you of that notion, but my goal was never to convince you or anyone else; nor am I attempting to do so here. I don’t know you, so I have no investment in what you choose to believe. My original post, the entirety of which you apparently didn’t read, didn’t understand or simply failed to acknowledge, was a description of my observations and my intellectual ‘process.’ It’s revealing, I think, that subsequent posts addressing lies about the original and restating my ‘process’ are somehow (mis)labelled as disingenuous and facetious.
Plus ca change…
Aly
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To me the politics thread was exactly that and that’s what makes it so important. But even more significant is the fact that it represented just a single thread on OT. The other topics included support for people going through cancer, divorce, parents with dementia, financial issues and more. Gardening tips, recipes, discussions of books and movies and so much more.
If the PTB felt that the politics thread had gotten unpleasant (and it really hadn’t at all) then fine, close it again. But to shut down all of OT? That’s just cutting off their nose to spite their face. I suspect a dramatic decrease in site traffic may have them rethinking this poor decision. I hope so anyway.
The shutting down of an entire forum seems to be a massive over reaction. It makes me wonder why some nastiness and dissent in political topics is so unacceptable yet we have all seen horrible, nasty, personal, train wreck posts in dressage, breeding, menagerie, eventing and more. Not once have I ever seen mods threaten to close down those forums.
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agreed for the most part, except that the other forums are directly horse related so they do align with COTH’s reason for being - therefore, somewhat worthy (for want of another word quickly) of moderation.
Whereas politics, current events, discussions about aging/interior decorating/sexual predation/finances/etc. have nothing to do with COTH, so they may as well be tossed aside when maintenance is being considered.
Their site, their rules.
I do hope they reconsider, though. Soon. :sadsmile:
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And you are contributing to it and are a part of it.
Willful ignorance and hipocrisy rolled into one.
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Then there are the bully reinforcers and assistants…the followers.
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Then GO START ONE. There are a gazillion platforms available for this. Free message boards, Facebook, Reddit. Leave the chronicle of the horse name out whatever you call it, lest you get sued, but then pm people you’d like to join, and add the link to your signature.
You want that? There are easy tools out there to set it up. Stop talking and start doing.
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I’m very sad that OT and in particular the political thread is gone. I believe that the political thread generated far more traffic than any other thread. Part of the appeal, of course, was that everyone got to know everybody else and for the most part we were able to have very enlightening and civil discussions that (to be truthful) most of us couldn’t have anywhere else. Going out and trying to find another political discussion thread, I am finding that the majority of posters seem to be men and there’s a whole lot of mansplaining going on with a lot of theoretical but not very much realistic ideas being tossed around. Not a whole lot of female points of view, which was definitely one of the beautiful things about our forum.
Oh, well. Guess I’ll be able to zoom through the rest of the COTH forum in record time and go on to do other things. Hopefully we’ll all be able to get together some time in the future. Stay well and focused everybody. And remember to VOTE in November.
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Again where is all the vitriol for a board you have complete autonomy to just not open?
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I tried reading the horse forums a few times and I quit reading very quickly. At first I was shocked at the amount of self-righteous superiority and downright viciousness towards those that didn’t subscribe or agree to “their way” that was soon dumbed down to catty bullying/mean girl behaviour. I’m not into dressage but I sincerely wanted to learn about it and reading a few of the trainwrecks on the horse forums stopped that endeavour quickly. Even the racing industry which is a lot more competitive than dressage does not subscribe to that type of behaviour.
But you are right, from what I have seen and can tell, nobody has been banned from something they’ve said in the horse forums or had an entire forum shut down but yet they have been in the OT…why is that?
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I am totally in the dark about which posters are men…can you give me a short list of them so I’m not totally in the dark?
The menagerie was specifically created for non-horse posts so I think the comparison is valid
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Well it’s a community, for better or worse by offering a message board the powers that be created one. A community of friends, colleagues, experts, and yes just regular people with regular life issues that don’t always revolve around their horse. I’ve had this conversation before, I don’t own a horse, probably never will. Does that make me being on the message board less valid? How many topics have we seen that were a big help or educational or just fun on Off Topic? Again if a thread there becomes too intense for someone, wow there is this cool little x at the of the page and click! You are out of there! The their site their rules seems stupid since they created the Off Topic section. Its like opening an emergency room and freaking out when sick people come in for treatment. The whole rationale of resources is what I find lame. What is the amount of energy it takes to read an email or a report? Like I said previously consistent rules and consistent consequences that were clearly defined would nip a lot of it in the bud. You do a. then b. happens, do it again and bye for a month. Anything else or really weird converse with the parties involved and diffuse it. I ended a lot of drama when I admined by just saying no, or better yet saying you are adult and you can not react. That handled about 75%. No board is drama free. That is a unicorn that does not exist.
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I can understand the lackadaisical attempts of moderation if the moderator is a volunteer and not getting paid for the task. Wouldn’t the owners be able to afford to pay a moderator to come in 2-3x’s weekly to do a clean sweep and deal with all complaints/reports/follow-ups?
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Well KathyS (pardon me if it isn’t you, we debated so much I thought I recognized you
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This sentence barely parses.
But how I feel about off topic is totally irrelevant. You know what is relevant? The fact that COTH has decided to do away with it. Bitching about that, flouncing off in dramatic exits, bringing the off topic discussions here? Just really goes to show WHY it all got shut down. This is their sand box, their rules.
Don’t like that? There are SO MANY tools out there to set up a discussion forum the way YOU want. Go do it! I hope you are wildly successful and are able to retire off the ad revenue :yes: 
ANYONE who wants that kind of “horse people talking about non horse things” space has that opportunity. COTH is not the single place on the internet to bring people together to converse.
At this point, I would not be at all surprised to see the entire board go poof. That would be really, terribly unfortunate. But very understandable if the powers that be decide to pull the plug on the whole thing because it’s just no longer worth all this drama and ridiculous entitlement.
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YOUR posts are some of the things I will miss most in the absence of the political forum/thread.
But I don’t think the onus is on a horse magazine to provide a forum for non-horse topics, whether they did or did not at any time in the past.
Yes, many of us have gotten tremendous benefit from the non-horse forums. Yes, if there is more clarity with regard to actions and consequences it may work a teensy bit better…but again I assert that COTH doesn’t owe us anything, most especially if we are not subscribing to their magazine. (Which I admit I am not, after decades and decades of doing so, then not for a few years, and finally a brief flirtation with it in the waning years of my horse ownership a couple of years ago.)
We NEED emergency rooms. We do not NEED this or that forum on a horse internet bulletin board. We pay (in various ways) for emergency rooms. We do not pay for using this bulletin board, unless you count a bit of data mining.
COTH is a business. There has to be a reasonably compelling reason for a business to provide free services to the editorial us, many of whom are not horse owners at the moment. I am not sure I see a business reason for them to provide this for us. It would be a nice thing to do, but…what is the value proposition from their standpoint?
It feels like several of us are angry at COTH for no longer providing the Off Topic forum. I don’t think this is deserved, especially when we couldn’t refrain from insulting each other and posting current eventish topics that would ordinarily go in the political thread. Enough of us willingly disregarded the few rules there were, some were not able to self-moderate, and COTH decided the effort to moderate the forum is not worth the benefit of offering it, and/or that it did not reflect well on the organization as a whole, so here we are. Or, more accurately, here we aren’t.
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