Well this is a peculiar situation...
To clarify a little what I meant before I flounced off: I do honestly believe the moderators here are fine people who do a fine job and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. My frustration was with the trolls and with the nature of every discussion board, good bad or otherwise that I've experienced for the trolls to ultimately get their way through sheer persistence, even if that just means destroying something or poisoning the well. I see an example of this as two political threads being closed and one started by a troll, which I believe gives him some powers over it, being open. If I was being calmer and more helpful I might have suggested that they should all be closed and a mod start a new one with their own guidelines in the header. I submit that idea now.
And yes, I know my responses on these threads would not always be characterized as "when they go low we go high".
I have, however, tried to keep political discussion exclusive to those threads as much as possible, have even tried to nanny political discussions that have popped up elsewhere back where it belongs.
Why have political threads at all? I think peoples attitude to the Diner generally is instructive: the common response seems to be "you could do away with all of it - except those ones I really like". And these are a topics I find necessary and engaging, if often heated. I don't believe 99% of the discussion has been rubbish or just reinforcing the boundaries of the culture wars as two recent opinions stated.
Yes its a classical music site. I've been waiting and expecting my enthusiasm for classical to come back to the level it was on TC before most of my vinyl got stolen and then I had to sell of all my cds during a stretch of hard times. I still read and enjoy the posting of others and contribute a little, though much more to jazz and non-classical in recent years. I'd like to think its been noted that I contribute to those threads and to threads on other cultural pursuits.
