I’m pretty sad and disappointed that I once again have to perform my least favorite activity. After the derail in this thread, I’ve suspended several users for a week. Those accounts will have access restored next Saturday. Also, one user who had received repeated warnings not to engage in derails (and promised me several times that he would stop doing so) has been permanently banned for his participation in this latest derail.
I will at some point put together an FAQ of some sort outlining my vision for the site. But everyone involved in that thread was a longtime user who knew exactly what was and wasn’t okay here. There weren’t many political sites you could go to during the 2007-2008 presidential primaries and avoid the ceaseless wars between competing factions. SSP was one of those few. And this site will remain a haven for all its days, whether it’s healthcare or some other contentious, emotional issue that crops up.
I don’t mean to step out of line, but I’ve got to ask if putting an end to the thread derailments as you hope to do is really possible. Politics and policy go hand in hand-for most of us I’d hope good policy is why we’re interested in politics. A lot of times we have to talk policy to understand a campaign or a poll or the dynamics of a race or to explain why some of us support certain candidates in the face of bad polls or fundraising. The bottom line is, while you clearly don’t like doing this sort of thing, as long as you run this site you’re most likely going to be doing it without end, human nature and politics being what they are. Trying to stamp that out seems ultimately to be an effor that will prove fruitless no matter what you do. So I have to ask,why do it?