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 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So instead of one thread that degenerates to yelling matches, circular arguments, and tribalism before getting locked or back on track, the solution is multiple threads that do that? I doubt that will be likely.

Actually, if there wasn't a mega thread, then the active closing of interesting topics might serve to encourage self-moderation, or barring that, could help identify repeat offenders for a (ideally) more liberal hand with OT bans for repeat miscreants.

Alternately, someone could pony up and make their own OT with blackjack and hookers. DakkaOT.com is available, after all.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think the situation is much different now as opposed to even just a year ago. I should have phrased it as 'I think the silliness of the past year was amplified by being in a single thread'. The way I put it above is admittedly misleading as to what I actually meant.

Well now it will pretty obviously anti-Trump, I would guess. So yeah. But what do you want out of it, if it were to be reinstated? An echo chamber does you or no one else any favors. Unless you just want another forum to vent, but why? Use a pillow.

Oh god, now I'm sounding like my mom.

Okaaay, I'll just back away slowly then. Not sure where 'splitting US politics into multiple threads' became 'you just want an echo chamber to cry about Trump' but I can assure you that sentiment is entirely of your own invention.

Hah, it wasn't meant that way, just a question couched in a bit of self deprecation.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
When regular users and mods all agree that a particular thread is for mudslinging,...

Except that wasn't 'agreed' at all.

There's a distinction between 'keep the discussion in one place to contain the nonsense' and 'this place is for nonsense'...

Let's also not ignore the reality that it's not just dicusssion of American politics that are nasty: American politics has become toxic. You have hyperpartisanship coupled with a widespread rejection of basic facts. I am not sure what there really is to discuss. You can't discuss policy, because the response to any argument is "your experts/facts/studies are wrong."

Why bother?

Prestor Jon wrote:
If the reason behind starting the NN thread is to affirm that there is only 1 valid acceptable opinion to have on NN and to then move on to which US political party is right and which is wrong on the issue then the thread really isn't about NN at all. It's about staking out a position, dismissing any counter argument to the position, ascribing the right and wrong viewpoints to the appropriate political parties and then dogpiling on the party in the wrong in a thread that is intended to be an echo chamber for the "right" viewpoint.

That's not true at all. The fact that removing net neutrality is a bad thing is indisputable. There is no plausible argument that anyone, other than a tiny number of wealthy executives and investment bankers, benefits from paying more for internet service just so the wealthy elite can get a bigger paycheck. The average person pays more and gets nothing in return. But that doesn't mean that there is no discussion to be had, or no room for alternate opinions. There is plenty to discuss: how best to oppose the repeal, how we got into a situation where such an obviously terrible policy is being taken seriously, etc. And there are valid opinions on multiple sides of those questions, even if every reasonable person agrees that net neutrality is a good thing. In fact, removing these questions is exactly the thing that creates an echo chamber. When you remove the politics of the situation all you're left with is a bunch of people saying "HAY GUYS I LIKE THE INTERNET DO YOU LIKE IT TOO?" until they finally get bored and the thread ends.

Once the thread becomes a succession of posts about how Party X is bad, should feel bad and anyone who supports Party X should feel bad it will inevitably lead to a dakkaite posting that he/she is member of Party X and he/she doesn't agree that he/she is part of the problem in fact it's Party Y that's the problem or Party Y and Party X are both equally to blame for the problems, which of course leads to personal attacks, warnings and thread lock.

This is only true if the person in question has no argument for their position besides a desire to have their team not get blamed for something. If Party X is genuinely not part of the problem then they should be able to provide a compelling argument for why they aren't, not just outrage. The issue is when moderation is based on superficial politeness instead of honesty or facts or anything like that, you get people posting blatant cheerleading for their team with nothing more than "I don't want my team to be wrong" to support it. Ban those people instead of the people who say too often and you get a much better discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
An echo chamber does you or no one else any favors.

Except that:

1) It doesn't have to be an echo chamber. In fact, it almost certainly wouldn't be an echo chamber, because echo chambers are boring and don't tend to stay active. There are people with a broad range of political views on this site, even in an era when we can all agree that Trump is The Worst Ever. And I don't know about you, but I'm going to have faith that there are people to the right of the democrats who are capable of having a constructive discussion without immediately getting removed and creating an anti-republican echo chamber.

2) The discussion is happening whether you have a politics ban or not. Like I said in the OP, US politics discussion happens, period. The question here is not whether or not people will talk about US politics, it's how the situation will be handled. Is it best to allow US politics discussion openly, preferably in a thread/forum section/whatever where people who are not interested can avoid it? Or is it better to have a ban where thread after thread turns into a farce where we ignore the ban until the red text appears, and then make thinly-veiled political comments until a moderator locks it with a "you aren't fooling anyone, stop" message? One of these is the clear winner.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alpharius wrote:
We don't have that level of detail here, such as it is.

However, we CAN ban someone from the OT Forum entirely.

It *might* be worth lifting the ban and then if/when a user crosses the line in a US Politics thread, they're out of the OT Forum for good.

Worth thinking about...

Maybe something to trial in 2018.

That's a starting point, but it needs to be accompanied by a change in policy away from the idea that being impolite is worse than lying/spamming clickbait articles/etc and generally trashing a thread. Enforcing stricter moderation doesn't deal with the problem at the root of why the politics threads end up being such a trainwreck. It just means that the people who post utter without using any bad words will dominate the thread, while the people opposing them will get banned one by one for getting frustrated and saying one too many times.

(And TBH, this is a problem site-wide, among other problems with the moderators, but the general issue is not really appropriate for this thread.)

The job of the moderators is to keep the forum civil and on-topic. Not to enforce your personal standards of morality, or to fact-check posted content.

If you can't find a way to deal with a stranger on the internet posting an argument you disagree with without getting angry about it, that's not a problem with the moderators, it's a problem with your anger management abilities.

Sorry Peregrine, but you're kind of showcasing why a discussion of U.S. politics won't really go anywhere worthwhile. You descry people who post empty cheerleading for their team, and in the same post presume your own team to be correct by default several times without actually providing any kind of argument. That's the problem - nearly everyone with an opinion on the topic has already chosen sides and assumed an air of infallibility before the discussion even starts. Proper discourse isn't one person deciding for everyone else what the correct stance is and setting boundaries for which viewpoints are acceptable. That's just policing the ideological borders to make sure everyone's on one side or another for the sake of tribalism.

I have no issue with political threads going. What I have issue with is “sorry America, everyone else can talk their politics, but you can’t”. What’s fair for one is fair for all. The current ban on US politics while allowing everyone else is quite frankly a load of BS.

I can’t believe I’m on the same side as peregrine here.


*Fixed a fine example of autocorrect.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
What’s fair for one is fair for all.

Indeed it is. So when other national politics threads start generating similar levels of nonsense to the US version, they will receive the same treatment it did.

The UK thread has got close to being closed a few times, but it has been reined back in. Whilst I would be interested in knowing the views of some US posters about various topics unfortunately the last few threads did degrade in to name calling and abuse. Unfortunately this seems to be the way with US politics across the internet at the moment. I can’t see this changing any time soon, and any US politics thread will turn toxic. I would love to give my reasoning, but that itself will probably stray too far in to US politics.

 insaniak wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
What’s fair for one is fair for all.

Indeed it is. So when other national politics threads start generating similar levels of nonsense to the US version, they will receive the same treatment it did.

So go troll other political threads; got it!

Yes, that is indeed sarcasm, but there is truth to it: it wasn’t just US posters who ruined it. Posters from all over added vitriol. Everyone screwed it up, but it’s only affecting one group of countrymen. Hence my distaste for the judgement.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I have no issue with political threads going. What I have issue with is “sorry America, everyone else can talk their politics, but you can’t”. What’s fair for one is fair for all. The current ban on US politics while allowing everyone else is quite frankly a load of BS.

I can’t believe I’m on the same side as peregrine here.


*Fixed a fine example of autocorrect.

My sentiments exactly. It really isn’t fair to let everyone else have their political thread except for the Americans. However for the record, I’ve also come to the conclusion that most political threads are ultimately pointless. No one will be changing anyone’s mind as we’re all too entrenched in our beliefs, myself included It’s mostly about passive aggressive digs and petty point scoring. I wouldn’t miss them if they were all swept away.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

Yes, that is indeed sarcasm, but there is truth to it: it wasn’t just US posters who ruined it. Posters from all over added vitriol. Everyone screwed it up, but it’s only affecting one group of countrymen. Hence my distaste for the judgement.

You can view it however you want, but at the end of the day the topic is the problem, not the nationality of the posters.

Banning political discussion for the rest of the world because posters are seemingly incapable of discussing US politics specifically would be pretty much the exact opposite of 'fair'...

I'm truthfully more than a little surprised by how many posters are espousing the idea that threads that are going well should be locked just for the sake of parity because a different topic, with different participants largely, generated too much vitriol. Some pretty classic dog in the manger action.

 insaniak wrote:

You can view it however you want, but at the end of the day the topic is the problem, not the nationality of the posters.

/thread ?

 Ouze wrote:
I'm truthfully more than a little surprised by how many posters are espousing the idea that threads that are going well should be locked just for the sake of parity because a different topic, with different participants largely, generated too much vitriol. Some pretty classic dog in the manger action.

I was thinking the same thing, then I noticed it's only the same 2 posters championing the idea multiple times throughout the thread.

Reading backwards through the thread I just saw Alpharius's suggestion. That's probably the best way to go. Actually, you might want to try that with the UK politics thread too, as that's on its last legs as well for pretty much the same reasons (albeit not quite as extreme).

I think the Mods in the thread have nailed why the ban should stay; moderating people who can't be civil towards each other on threads that are not relevant to the purpose of the site, all under voluntary work, is not something they need to be wasting their time on, nor is it something that we should be even asking them to do.

I haven't yet been in the UK politics thread, mainly because I've not been in the UK long enough to accustom to the political scene. If it's anything like what US politics was though, god help you all who post there.

 insaniak wrote:
The job of the moderators is to keep the forum civil and on-topic. Not to enforce your personal standards of morality, or to fact-check posted content.

Then, honestly, the problem here is that the moderators don't understand what their job is. The point of moderators is to enforce quality posting overall, not just superficial politeness where it's ok to lie and evade and generally trash the discussion as long as you don't use any bad words as you do it.

If you can't find a way to deal with a stranger on the internet posting an argument you disagree with without getting angry about it, that's not a problem with the moderators, it's a problem with your anger management abilities.

Again, it's not about mere disagreement. There are plenty of people I disagree with that I don't get angry at. The actual problem is that you have a "conversation" that goes like this:

Troll: TRUMP IS HITLER.
Reasonable Person: Of course he's bad, but that's a bit exaggerated.
T: NO I MEAN HE IS LITERALLY HITLER. NAZI OCCULT RITUALS MADE HIM IMMORTAL.
RP: Uh, what? None of that is true. {long explanation of why it's all absurd}
T: NO TRUMP IS HITLER. READ WWW.INFOWARS.COM/TRUMPISHITLER
RP: Infowars is not a credible source.
T: YOUR ALL JUST BIASED BOTH SIDES ARE BAD READ MY TRUMPHITLER BLOG.
RP: Oh FFS you're an idiot.
Moderator: BANNED FOR RULE #1. THREAD LOCKED.

A week passes, a new thread happens.

Troll: TRUMP IS LITERALLY HITLER.

Now, obviously something like Trump literally being Hitler with a bad spray tan is going to be absurd enough that nobody is going to pay any attention to it, but it gets infuriating when people are doing with tax policy/health care/etc. In those cases the lies are plausible enough to convince people, so the choice is between refuting the lies and clickbait garbage and risking the red text, or abandoning the thread and leaving the discussion to the people posting clickbait garbage. It directly encourages having garbage threads because nobody is willing to touch them, and do you really want your forum to be a sewer of lies?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Luciferian wrote:
You descry people who post empty cheerleading for their team, and in the same post presume your own team to be correct by default several times without actually providing any kind of argument.

Uh, no, I didn't presume that at all. I don't have a team in US politics, as no major party represents my political opinions. The closest I have is grudgingly supporting the least-bad option in the hope that things move in the direction I want and eventually reach the point where one or more major parties aligns with my beliefs. And if you want to call the democrats "my team" because they're the closest to my positions, well, I've criticized them plenty of times in the past.

Proper discourse isn't one person deciding for everyone else what the correct stance is and setting boundaries for which viewpoints are acceptable. That's just policing the ideological borders to make sure everyone's on one side or another for the sake of tribalism.

Of course proper discourse involves setting boundaries for which viewpoints are acceptable. If someone comes in here making an argument that Hitler had the right idea and advocating genocide against the lesser races I don't think anyone would complain when they are banned. If someone repeatedly spams threads about how 1+1=3 because they read an infowars post about it I don't think anyone is going to complain about getting rid of that spam. Garbage needs to be removed so that reasonable people can have a conversation without it degenerating into clickbait spam and blatant dishonesty by people with no interest in participating legitimately.

And, before you assume, no, I'm not excluding my political opponents here. There are plenty of people that I disagree with very strongly on various political issues but acknowledge that they make constructive posts and are entitled to participate in the discussion.

 Peregrine wrote:
Then, honestly, the problem here is that the moderators don't understand what their job is. The point of moderators is to enforce quality posting overall, not just superficial politeness where it's ok to lie and evade and generally trash the discussion as long as you don't use any bad words as you do it.

A moderator's job is to enforce whatever ground rules have been laid down. As far as we know, there is no rule they or we have to abide by saying that we can't post something that is false/clickbait/infuriating, but we know that they do have to enforce Rule 1 and 2 - be polite, and stay on topic.

It directly encourages having garbage threads because nobody is willing to touch them, and do you really want your forum to be a sewer of lies?

If you're suggesting that the forums in general are a sewer of lies because of the way moderators go about their business, then I believe the thread title needs an upgrade to "Moderation conduct on this site is absurd and needs to be changed".

 General Annoyance wrote:

A moderator's job is to enforce whatever ground rules have been laid down. As far as we know, there is no rule they or we have to abide by saying that we can't post something that is false/clickbait/infuriating, but we know that they do have to enforce Rule 1 and 2 - be polite, and stay on topic.

Pulled directly from the DakkaDakka rules:

Rule 3: No Spam
While Spam may be a tasty meat product (yum!) on the Internet "spam" refers to invasive, unsolicited information. There are many versions of spam such as: posting advertisements for unrelated web pages or services, making multiple posts to increase your post count or to generally be 'cute', making posts full of jibberish or emoticons, etc. Whatever its form, "spam" is always inappropriate and is a violation of Rule 2 and certainly Rule 1.

I can see what Peregrine is saying while not directly agreeing with him that the moderators are at fault. I definitely agree that certain posters should have had their privileges to post in the politics threads revoked, even if I might have been one of them.

In the long run though? I'm fine with not seeing US politics getting its own dedicated thread back, but I think that the topic shouldn't be forbidden when it relates to an issue at hand such as Net Neutrality. It's important to recognize the potentially political nature of a topic or political motivations relating to the reasoning for the decisions that are being discussed.

 General Annoyance wrote:
A moderator's job is to enforce whatever ground rules have been laid down. As far as we know, there is no rule they or we have to abide by saying that we can't post something that is false/clickbait/infuriating, but we know that they do have to enforce Rule 1 and 2 - be polite, and stay on topic.

Then the rules need to be changed. I said it before in this thread, but I'll say it again: some of the best political discussion I've read was on a forum with a moderation policy that openly encouraged people to be rude to trolls and idiots and would ban people for posting arguments without supporting them when challenged. Sure, it had a few more s than dakka (and no swear filter), but the people who continually drag politics threads into the sewers were weeded out and what was left was the people capable of having a constructive discussion. The same is true in general. Dakka puts way too much emphasis on superficial politeness instead of things like honesty or value to the discussion.

If you're suggesting that the forums in general are a sewer of lies because of the way moderators go about their business, then I believe the thread title needs an upgrade to "Moderation conduct on this site is absurd and needs to be changed".

I'm suggesting that it's how a hypothetical politics thread with super-strict moderation on superficial politeness and no moderation on lying/clickbait/etc would go. Obviously the 40k new releases thread is not going to be a sewer of lies because of this policy.

 Peregrine wrote:

Then, honestly, the problem here is that the moderators don't understand what their job is.

When you purchase the Dakka domain, I am sure that you will no doubt take great pleasure in defining the exact job descriptions of your unpaid volunteers.

Until then, I'm afraid you'll simply have to grit your teeth, square your shoulders, and endure the terrible burden of hardship that is the approved moderation style of the current site owners.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Pulled directly from the DakkaDakka rules:

Rule 3: No Spam
While Spam may be a tasty meat product (yum!) on the Internet "spam" refers to invasive, unsolicited information. There are many versions of spam such as: posting advertisements for unrelated web pages or services, making multiple posts to increase your post count or to generally be 'cute', making posts full of jibberish or emoticons, etc. Whatever its form, "spam" is always inappropriate and is a violation of Rule 2 and certainly Rule 1.

This is correct, however I don't think that rule matches with the kind of post that Peregrine is talking about; those posts don't fall under spam even if they're false/provocative because they're still classed as contributing to the topic (if they're on topic of course). Even if they're adding "clickbait" links it would be hard to class them as advertising if it's not explicitly said, or if the content is pertaining to the discussion.

I should say that I'm not advocating the Mods to turn a blind eye to that kind of behaviour. Having an argument with someone who refuses to listen to your point is incredibly frustrating, and it usually throws whatever good discussion was being had at the time, and high profile trolls (such as a particular one I and Peregrine conflicted with a lot) are better off not being on the site at all. That being said, saying that the Mods don't know what their role is is a little off to me - trolls and obnoxious posters eventually run into the moderators' gunsights and are dealt with, and I'd say that the Mods here do their job pretty well, especially considering that they do it all out of goodwill.

I can see what Peregrine is saying while not directly agreeing with him that the moderators are at fault. I definitely agree that certain posters should have had their privileges to post in the politics threads revoked, even if I might have been one of them.

In the long run though? I'm fine with not seeing US politics getting its own dedicated thread back, but I think that the topic shouldn't be forbidden when it relates to an issue at hand such as Net Neutrality. It's important to recognize the potentially political nature of a topic or political motivations relating to the reasoning for the decisions that are being discussed.

I think I'm in agreement with that point (wowzers); I think the problem will come when those threads are used as a return to a discussion that would have been seen in the US politics thread, which has happened a lot. However, if the power to revoke access to the OT for certain users is used, then I think it will pan out well.

 Peregrine wrote:


Then the rules need to be changed. I said it before in this thread, but I'll say it again: some of the best political discussion I've read was on a forum with a moderation policy that openly encouraged people to be rude to trolls and idiots and would ban people for posting arguments without supporting them when challenged. Sure, it had a few more s than dakka (and no swear filter), but the people who continually drag politics threads into the sewers were weeded out and what was left was the people capable of having a constructive discussion. The same is true in general. Dakka puts way too much emphasis on superficial politeness instead of things like honesty or value to the discussion.

Perhaps this is true, but I would say that Dakka's rules were likely not engineered to be effective with political discussion. I'm not sure if you're referring to a Forum that is for wargaming, or if it was made for political discussion, but I would ask why you wouldn't use that forum if it's objectively better than here for that line of chat.

I'm suggesting that it's how a hypothetical politics thread with super-strict moderation on superficial politeness and no moderation on lying/clickbait/etc would go. Obviously the 40k new releases thread is not going to be a sewer of lies because of this policy.

Considering that politics is part of an extended sub forum that was granted to us (and isn't the focus of the site) I would personally argue that such matters are not of importance to the Mods. But I do accept your point that it's detrimental to the discussion.

As said before though, it'll be a hard job convincing unpaid Mods that they should put their time and effort into this when they can just blanket ban and focus on something more important for the site.

 General Annoyance wrote:
That being said, saying that the Mods don't know what their role is is a little off to me - people like that eventually run into the Moderators' gunsights and are dealt with.

Except the US politics threads rather convincingly demonstrated that they didn't. People like that were allowed to continue posting, and if they did end up banned it was for other things.

Perhaps this is true, but I would say that Dakka's rules were likely not engineered to be effective with political discussion. I'm not sure if you're referring to a Forum that is for wargaming, or if it was made for political discussion, but I would ask why you wouldn't use that forum if it's objectively better than here for that line of chat.

I don't use it because it doesn't really exist anymore, it died years ago. But it was a gaming/scifi/etc forum that had an extensive OT section.

And no, obviously political discussion isn't the priority, but the same problem happens elsewhere, if less frequently. For example, over and over again people will imply various insulting things about casual/competitive players, but as long as they don't use any bad words as they do it nothing happens. But if you're a little too hostile in responding to the person who called you a TFG (without using the term explicitly), well, you're risking the red text.

As said before though, it'll be a hard job convincing unpaid Mods that they should put their time and effort into this when they can just blanket ban and focus on something more important for the site.

Again, my point from the beginning of this thread is that a blanket ban doesn't work. Despite the ban we keep having US politics threads in all but name, and threads (like the net neutrality one) that become a farce of trying to pretend that a subject which is 100% US politics is about something entirely different. I'm pretty sure this requires more moderator attention than just accepting that there will be a US politics thread and ignoring all the complaints about rule #1 violations.

 Peregrine wrote:
Except the US politics threads rather convincingly demonstrated that they didn't. People like that were allowed to continue posting, and if they did end up banned it was for other things.

This could be a point to be used in changing Dakka enforcement since punishments may not be harsh enough, but if those people got temp bans or restrictions for their posting, then the Mods have done exactly what they've been asked to do.

And no, obviously political discussion isn't the priority, but the same problem happens elsewhere, if less frequently. For example, over and over again people will imply various insulting things about casual/competitive players, but as long as they don't use any bad words as they do it nothing happens. But if you're a little too hostile in responding to the person who called you a TFG (without using the term explicitly), well, you're risking the red text.

A good example of the grey area when it comes to politeness - a lot of people will imply things in their posts, but it's hard to shut down those people if they're not explicitly saying something that violates the rules, since you could be wrong and have subsequently banned/suspended someone who did not deserve punishment. I don't really know how one could fix this; you sorta risk alienating people whichever direction the line is drawn.

Again, my point from the beginning of this thread is that a blanket ban doesn't work. Despite the ban we keep having US politics threads in all but name, and threads (like the net neutrality one) that become a farce of trying to pretend that a subject which is 100% US politics is about something entirely different. I'm pretty sure this requires more moderator attention than just accepting that there will be a US politics thread and ignoring all the complaints about rule #1 violations.

I think the key difference there is that Net Neutrality can affect everyone who uses the internet, not just Americans. You can argue that American politics are some of the most influential in the world, but Net Neutrality is more clear cut in my mind, and likely in the minds of the Mods, hence the lack of ban.

 Peregrine wrote:

And no, obviously political discussion isn't the priority, but the same problem happens elsewhere, if less frequently. For example, over and over again people will imply various insulting things about casual/competitive players, but as long as they don't use any bad words as they do it nothing happens.

Ah... so the problem is actually that you've forgotten that the vast majority of site moderation goes on in private, rather than with big red text in a thread.

We do attempt to guide posters who frequently cause issues into a more productive direction, and where that doesn't work have shown dedicated trolls the door in the past.

But if you're a little too hostile in responding to the person who called you a TFG (without using the term explicitly), well, you're risking the red text.

Indeed you are. And that policy isn't going anywhere.

The appropriate response to behaviour that you see as unacceptable is to alert the mods and let them deal with it, not to fight fire with fire and wind up with the US politics thread.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Dakka puts way too much emphasis on superficial politeness instead of things like honesty or value to the discussion.

We have this crazy idea that kids getting sworn at because some crusty grognard felt that their posts didn't add sufficient 'value' to the discussion isn't particularly conducive to strong community building.

People are going to say stupid things. In the vast majority of cases, being rude to them isn't going to make them suddenly realise that they are saying stupid things. It's just going to ramp up the hostility, and then you wind up with a forum populated by a few die-hards who enjoy that level of nonsense in their discussions, and nobody else.

That's not the sort of forum that Dakka's owners have any interest in creating.

 Peregrine wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
The job of the moderators is to keep the forum civil and on-topic. Not to enforce your personal standards of morality, or to fact-check posted content.

Then, honestly, the problem here is that the moderators don't understand what their job is.

Hahahahaha!

Yeah, Alpharius and Lorek! Do your fething jobs, losers!

You tell them, Peregrine!

What a goddam joke of a post...

 insaniak wrote:
People are going to say stupid things. In the vast majority of cases, being rude to them isn't going to make them suddenly realise that they are saying stupid things. It's just going to ramp up the hostility, and then you wind up with a forum populated by a few die-hards who enjoy that level of nonsense in their discussions, and nobody else.
That's not the sort of forum that Dakka's owners have any interest in creating.

This.

In the end, this is a board that has owners that like to see a certain level of discussion and have rules/guidelines they want followed.
The MODs are to simply follow that.
This board has been quite good in my view but people would be mistaken that it runs on altruism: in order to survive it has to follow it's business plan.

I suppose like with any town there is a bar that feels like a lawless place, I suppose the OT catch-all is our "hive of scum and villainy" that needs to be raided by the police on occasion.
I figure OT survives on the indulgence of the MODs, it would be easy to state the case that it is more trouble than it is worth.
Some believe it is a means to blow off steam and explore topics outside the hobby with those we know here.
The US ban will not be the last ban I am sure.
I figure anything to manage OT is important or it could be shut-down completely if too difficult to police.

<edit> Maybe make the OP a MOD and have them moderate OT for a year or so?