And we so appreciated being called Putin cocksuckers by you. I guess your actual words were, "Putin knob slobbering." So family friendly and all.
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My comment (whole and with context) was:
She has been accused (by folks in her own party) of being a Russian asset back during her campaign for the D nomination for POTUS. That probably is a check in the plus column for some of you judging by how much Russian/Putin knob slobbering I've seen. ...
- I did not call anyone a cocksucker. My comment was directed to the content of some posts in the forum, not to the character of any member of the forum or to all GIM2 refugees in general for that matter.
- I wasn't wrong (there are a lot of posts in the forum celebrating Putin/Russia), I just wasn't very diplomatic in expressing myself.
- I apologized for my undiplomatic language. I'm human and make mistakes just like anyone. I own my mistakes though.
We can be at odds in how we view the world. Differences of opinion challenge the intellectually honest to question themselves and can expand the horizons of perception and thinking. It's a good thing when all parties are engaged honestly.
When folks don't engage honestly, we have a problem. I'm seeing a lot of it right now (mostly in the Politics forum):
- Posting mischaracterizations of fact(s) without any follow up acknowledgement when shown to be incorrect.
- One way dialogues - refusing to acknowledge or consider facts or logic that contradict cognitive bias
- Repeating mischaracterizations of fact(s) in the same thread where it's already been demonstrated to be false.
- Promotion of 3rd party editorials without any comment. This looks like propaganda spam to me. There is no discussion happening, just promotion of 3rd party content.
What a warm welcome to new people who quickly financially supported this new place.
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I do appreciate the financial support from all the GIM2 refugees. I have bent over backwards to earn that support with improvements to the site. I have spent a *lot* of time and effort both online (fixing the email issue, setting up Stripe and ditching PayPal, applying updates to the server environment and forum software, installing add-on mods, configuring forum rooms and moving hundreds and hundreds of posts around to keep things organized) and offline (setting up bank account and PO box to handle check payments for folks who don't want to use credit cards). The support from GIM2 folks has been nice, but it honestly hasn't come close to covering the time, effort and expenses that I've invested in the site.
I created this site to provide a forum for people interested in gold, silver, sound money and macro economics a place to discuss issues related to same. PMBug was never intended to be a political site for folks to incite or champion violence, promote 3rd party propaganda or thinly veiled bigotry. I'm seeing a lot of it in the forum right now though.
I don't enjoy exercising moderating powers. I much prefer to treat everyone here as an adult and just set boundaries/expectations so folks know where the lines are drawn and conduct themselves accordingly. However, if folks can't respect the lines and use a modicum of decorum and self control, I'm going to be forced to solve the problem.
There is too much "shit on the wall" to be cleaned up easily. Right now, I'm inclined to just hide the Politics forum from public view. I imagine that will mitigate a lot of the propaganda spam at least.