New Year, New Mod Drama
Sorry to throw this on everyone in the group, but there has been another mod shakeup and it feels fair to address it publicly.
MightBe has been removed as mod from both World News and Politics.
I also unpinned and removed their rule change posts.
The too long; didn't read is they were pretty hostile in messages to both myself and little cow, and when asked to join back channel discussions in chat, refused, and instead made unilateral decisions without group discussion.
Moderating a group like this needs to be a collaborative experience, no single voice should be establishing rules without some form of common agreement.
They not only refused to engage in that collaboration, but did so in a manner not fitting for being the new person on the team.
And it is a team. I tend to make more public posts than others, because I value the transparency over privacy, but when I do so, it's a result of a nice private chat among the group.
For now, their rule changes have been removed from both Politics and World News. Back to the stated way of doing business:
World News is for all News OUTSIDE the United States, that's what the normal "News" is for.
Politics is for US Politics - Somehow I doubt that's going to be an issue in 2024.
There ARE things the mod team is discussing, and any rule changes will be made as a group effort, and (hopefully!) for the better health of the group and ALL of our participants!
Happy New Year!
All the best sorting the mods out!
The division you make between domestic and worldnews is US centric. US newssites and journals follow this same logic. So, US citizens read their domestic news and everything that is not US, is considered worldnews . I get that.
The problem is that what sometimes is domestic to US, is sometimes worldnews for the rest of the world. This means some domestic US news is considered worldnews in other non US newspapers.
I don't care especially about domestic US News, but when it's considered major news by Non Us newsagents, it's usually important for the world as a whole.
Please, consider this element as well.
Oh, absolutely, but at the same time we don't want World News flooded with internal US news about Biden being attacked for supporting Israel, that kind of thing.
Something like the US attacking Yemen? That seems fitting for World News, News, AND Politics.
Biden getting yelled at on a campaign stop because of Israel? Sorry, not World News, keep it in Politics.
One post I removed from World News HURT because it was a good story, an important story, and it hurt my heart to remove it. The impact climate change had on the spread of disease and how a warmer climate makes the wee beasties spread easier.
Problem was, the entire article was focused on the spread of disease on the US East coast. No international angle AT ALL. And I LOOKED... "Come on! Give me a reason to keep it! Talk about Nova Scotia, SOMETHING!"
Just because the article doesn't explicitly talk about the international angle doesn't mean there isn't one that can be implicitly understood by the majority of readers.
Reverse the logic though... if it were an article talking about climate change spreading disease in South America, that would be removed from the US Centric sites as well.
The idea is to give global stories room to breathe without the "Um, actually, in the United States see..."
We also don't want to blur the lines between News/World News/Politics - otherwise why even have separate groups?
I would agree with that? IMO, any article talking about climate change anywhere would fall under world news due to the implications.
Regardless, I accept this is just one of those gray areas that somebody has to ultimately make a judgement call about
Tnx, good enough for me!
I get that you need a clearcut line, on the other hand you are the MODS, so you could use your discretion wisely and sparingly, when you feel the need.
When it hurts to remove a post, becasue of the rules, that should ring a bell, and imo you should follow your "nose" instead of the rules. Rules are only "guidelines" after all.
When it doesn't hurt, that's easy. Anyone can do that! :) It's when there's friction between your personal interests and the best interests of the site, and you have to set aside your personal interests... yeah. If it didn't hurt sometimes, you wouldn't be human. :)
Maybe they could allow links to stories about the US which are from foreign news outlets. E.g. US bombing in yemen:
BBC
Al Jazeera
DW
Oh, like I say, the US intervening in a foreign country DEFINITELY rises to the level of World News, but just because it's on a non-US site doesn't make it "World".
For example:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/biden-defends-inflation-reduction-act-dares-critics-to-name-a-failure-in-anniversary-speech-101692280260327.html
"Biden defends Inflation Reduction Act, dares critics to name a failure in anniversary speech"
Yeah, I don't care which news agency reports that, not World News, and World News doesn't need to be cluttered up with stories like this.
On top of that, Hindustan Times is a known problematic site as well. Questionable source, low credibility.
Huh, turns out this stuff is pretty complicated. Should have known 😛