Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Question to the mod. What's political and what is not?

In the thread named looking for an upright for jazz they removed my commentary. The op, out of the blue wrote in his first message against trade unions calling european factories labor union spoiled and blaming trade unions for the problems of american car factories

I don't like to start political discussions here or anywhere else but i respond when workers are under attack here or anywhere.

So my commentary was removed. Fair enough for me. But the ops first message with its attack to trade unions is still there.

So my comment is removed because of political reasons because i stand for the labour rights, but the ops first message attacking labour rights is not political?

Quoting first comment of the ops:

"in fact sometimes I think that developing markets are so ambitious and motivated that build quality may be even better than in spoiled labour-unioned European factories - remember US motor industry and Toyota Motor Company history?) But then again, I have zero experience in this field it is just my guts feeling"

Is this political or not?

absolutely

I've experienced this too when what seems to me to be obvious political commentary is responded to with arguments on the other side, and when the moderators respond, only the arguments of one side are deleted. This seems to show a bias. In many cases, the moderators maybe well meaning but because they themselves might be partisan, they may not even recognize that the arguments on one side are "political." Certainly we all know people who view one side as "truth" and the other side as "political." In fact, there might be such sensitivity to the other side that even references not to politics, but to certain people (including people who are not politicians), are deemed to be political on that side, whereas they might not be deemed to be such on the subjectively "truth-ier" side.

Just saying people are always flawed and even if there was a perfect moderation system and a perfectly fair set of rules, once people are put in charge of it, mistakes will get made, some of which are not even seen as mistakes possibly because of these flaws.

Actually, I think it is not very political, since a) it was an almost insignificant part of the entire post, and it was put in paranteses, and b) the OP clearly stated this was a thought, rather than absolute truth, and c) the OP further mellowed the statement by acknowledging it to be a "gut feeling". Basically, it seems the OP was stating his/her opinion as a small side remark.

Since I have not seen your post in response to the OP, I have no idea whether there, from my point of view, would have been any reason to treat it differently from the OP. But if it was kept in the same style of the OP, there should have been no reason to remove it (as far as I am concerned).

My impression is that moderators respond mainly to complaints/alerts by other posters.

I may agree that my comment was fairly removed because i admitt my head went hot when i saw that attack to trade unions and i wrote several things not to be proud of.

But still, blaming trade unions for the wrong things in society is a clear extreme right wing position, so at least that part could have been remooved.

Or they could have edited my comment to delete the nasty words and let remain the political response.

But as it is i don't think it is fair.

And i don't complain because of a personal issue regarding myself. I stand for the labour rights, here and everywhere.

Like many things, maybe even most things in life, it isn't fair.

On this forum, there is no rebuttal or discussion of such matters. The only recourse is the REPORT button.

I found the OP’s gut feeling post to be political and personally offensive. I am surprised that it was not edited by the mods.

I think this is what's happening. The mods (being volunteers I presume so I understand) aren't scrubbing the whole thread. I think they're just reacting to "reports" of particular posts. They can correct me if I'm wrong.

I've seen other forums where moderators shut down the whole thread to scrub it clean of offending remarks rather thoroughly, then re-open the thread with a warning to not re-offend. I don't think that is what is done here on this forum. But this kind of scrubbing takes enormous time and effort, and from what I understand, sometimes more than one moderator!

Instead of ignoring, you went into it.

Silence is golden.

+1

I didn't see the OP's deleted comment, but trust the Mod's judgment that it was political, especially given the OP's concession to that effect.

I wouldn't characterize the quoted text as an "attack on workers," and other than the word "spoiled" it isn't even qualitative. Acknowledging certain counties' comparative advantages isn't political, it's just fact. Attributing it to unionization in this case may be an oversimplification, but it's true that Germany has higher costs woven into their economy. For example, if I'm not mistaken, their social security system goes back to the 19th century. Taxes and wages are relatively higher. Also, the phenomenon where nonunion factories sometimes produce higher quality is also fact.

It's an age-old quandary: everyone wants German quality for Chinese prices, but most would probably prefer to work in a German factory for German wages, healthcare and retirement. Then again, they'd rather pay Chinese taxes and rent...

In defense of the moderators here, I agree that they rarely take action in a thread unless there are moderator reports, i.e., someone sends the mod a PM stating they feel a particular thread needs moderator attention/intervention.

The moderators do not typically "patrol" or "monitor" the threads/posts/comments. They simply do not have the time to do this, and the moderators usually distance themselves from engaging and participating in the forum threads as regular members/participants. Hence, part of the sacrifice they make in order to carry out their duties as a moderator, which is the hardest job anyone here on PW has...

Also, this is not a democratic internet forum where the majority rules, or the mods decisions are up for appeal. Frank Baxter makes the rules, and the moderators try to use that as a basis for the decisions they make. Someone is always going to "not like" or disagree with any decision a moderator makes, especially the member whose comments get deleted, or gets rebuffed/scolded by a mod in the thread.

If a member gets really huffy, or the offense is egregious enough, or repeated, the offending member may get a week or two suspension from the forum. The members attitude has a lot to do with that. But the suspensions usually involve making personal attacks against other members repeatedly or committing the same offence repeatedly.

Yes, you can make your feelings and thoughts known to the moderators, as the OP in this thread has done. The mods will allow you to vent a little and state your displeasure. But it will not change their decision. The moderators may not always be right, particularly in the mind of some members here, but they are always the moderators, and their decisions stand. On a very rare occasion, a moderator may reverse their decision for various reasons, but very rarely.

Personally, I think the moderators here do an outstanding job, they do it for free, and they rarely receive the recognition they deserve.

Rick

The mods have been known to scrub the entire thread. Only they could answer why it wad not done here.

In your post, you made some commentary about Greta. At least in the United States, that gets into politics whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

So the commentary gets deleted. Why? Because we do not need people getting upset, insulted, or fighting. That just causes problems. We suddenly have everyone reporting everyone else and it is a total mess to sort out. Sometimes it causes people to get banned. People who may never stirred up a bit of trouble except some sort of political statement pushed the right button in their head. It happens.

So even things about environmentalism, whether extreme or making light of it, can be political and inflame people. So do statements like "It is so much better in "INSERT YOUR FAVORITE COUNTRY HERE) than it is in (INSERT YOUR LEAST FAVORITE COUNTRY HERE). Or anything similar. To the poster it might seem perfectly innocent, but it will get arguments started.

Consider, these forums were started to discuss pianos and playing. Heaven knows that even these sort of topics get people's shorts in a knot as well. But they are the safest ones where we can discuss with a minimum of contention. There are MANY forums on the internet and I am certain that there is some forum out there to discuss what is off topic here.

So standing for labour rights gets deleted. Atacking labour rights is ok. But you don't want people getting upset. So then treat people equally regardless of their ideology or recognize your bias towards right wing positions.

My goodness, and all this while in France trade unions are fighting in national strike in defense of social security retirement rights.

Why are people arguing about a movie. Greta got 60% approval on Rotten Tomatoes it can't be all that bad.

It's at times like this that I feel as though I'm the only one who comes to this piano forum to learn/talk about piano stuff.

I hope you don't get upset at my suggestion, but in times like these, it truly is best to just step away from the keyboard and let things be. I know things aren't fair and I've had comments deleted before too because they touched on being "political", but it really is the higher ground to let it go.

Believe me, I wanted to reply to that original message too, but not in regards to the bit about the union, but I thought the OP's "gut feeling" about pianos from a certain part of the world was off, really off. But then I kinda knew that that could get contentious and so I refrained.