This topic got closed because it was off-topic and it contained politics.
Of course it was off-topic, this is off-topic section.
And it did not contain politics or moved away from the original subject. OP was about vaccines & their effectivenes against the virus and that was what was being discussed.
I call this censorship. 
Off Topic threads only.
What is the ratio of locked topics to unlocked topics?
The initial post is about making informed decisions. The newest posts were very far away from that, I would clearly call that being off-topic within that thread.
Some of the posts also had a political touch from my point of view.
You can call it censorship or whatever. I understand that the moderators donât want to deal with it. There are plenty of places where that kind of topic can be discussed and donât see a need this should happen here. There is a reason why politics was banned and the moderators are free to extend that as needed.
When I put up my own company web site, initially it had a âforumâ section. And, since my product was at that time very popular, the âforumâ was very popular, too. But â sometimes in the wrong way.
Eventually, I got tired of being âa moderator,â and I concluded that the forum wasnât really benefiting my customers or my sales. So, I closed the whole thing down, putting a one-way âproblem ticketâ system in its place. But, I did thereby gain a new appreciation for the entirely-thankless role of: "moderator."
If youâve ever participated on a forum that didnât have a very-attentive âmoderator team,â you know exactly what I am speaking of. âSomebody has to do it.â âSomebody has to make that call.â âSomebody has to have âthat buttonâ that isnât on anybody elseâs screen.â
Our moderator team here is: âJohnny on the spot.â And thatâs a very, very big reason why this forum continues to be successful. You donât have to agree with their decisions, but their utterlly thankless task is to make them. And â if I may say â "usually, it sucks." Donât criticize until youâve walked a mile in their moccasins.
You are trying to make it look like a heroic deed, but the way I see it @Fweeb closed it because the conversation was not going the way he would have approved. In other words it was an arbitrary decision.
Where is the harm if people are sharing their opinion in a civilized way? You were also sharing your opinion in that thread @sundialsvc4, now you cannot participate to that discussion yourself.
As per subject, it fits the description of the channel. If not letâs clarify like so:
Discuss things not related to Blender or computer graphics. Biggest rule is be nice and play well with each other. But donât make posts critical of vaccines.
I wonât enter further into this matter. It was not âheroic.â It was their sovereign choice. I respect their prerogative to make that choice â on behalf of the site owners. I have no further comment.
"On your boat, Capân, weâll do things your way!"
"Ownership has its privileges." They have the privilege, and they chose to exercise it.
I never said they canât. I am merely pointing out that it was an arbitrary decision and it was an unnecessary intervention.
You write I wonât enter further into this matter right before you make further comments into the matter. That is the opposite of what you write.
If I had to take a stab at a guess as to why that thread was shut down, Iâd say itâs due to the fact that this is the internet, and political discussions rarely ever end without some blood and tears being shed these days.
Itâs not that they have any particular agenda so much as they donât want to deal with the overhead.
How do you know this?
I used to moderate another board, and I can you straight up that political discussions are always a pain in the ass.
All these people calling each other nasty names, baiting each other so they can hammer the report button on them. Politics are a geek bloodsport now, and I can totally commiserate with the folk here not wanting to deal with it.
You didnât answer my question. You donât have to answer my question, Iâm just pointing it out.
Was this what was happening in the vaccine thread?
It wasnât. People were being pretty civil, all things considered.
Like I said though, I can understand why theyâre gun shy about allowing those certain sensitive topics to roll on.
Thanks for answering 1 of my 2 questions. I really appreciate that. Since you agree that it was civil maybe you would also agree that it was an arbitrary decision and it was an unnecessary intervention. Am I wrong?
Why is it sensitive?
I suppose I should say something since I was the one who closed the thread.
@Renzatic was pretty spot on when saying:
Our only âagendaâ is to keep BA a pleasant place for people to visit and feel comfortable having discussions. Posts in that thread had already been flagged a couple times and Iâd already made a post earlier in the thread about sticking to the topic. That recommendation was not heeded.
If you want to make a separate Covid/vaccine discussion thread, then have at it. I personally donât have a problem with that. Just keep it civil, stay on topic, and keep the politics/conspiracies to a minimum.
It wasnât arbitrary, but it was something of a preemptive strike.
Would things have devolved in that thread to the point itâd require moderator intervention? Who knows. People here seem to be generally levelheaded. Chances are better than good things would have remained civil, if not a little heated.
But the moderators have probably seen a number of those types of threads come and go over the years, and realize that thereâs an x% chance of things going off the rails. Their choices were to let it go, and hope for the best, or cut it short, and keep from having to deal with potentially greater drama down the line.
You donât have to like their decision, just realize that thereâs probably not any ulterior motives behind it other than making the moderatorâs lives easier.
Itâs just one of the many things that rile people up these days.
You just closed one COVID/vaccine thread and now you are saying âyeah, go ahead make another oneâ.
Which post in particular strayed from the topic? (I have read every post in the topic and they were all related to the discussion.)
By sticking to the topic, do you mean agreeing to a certain PoV?
How can you be so sure about this? You know realize is a pretty strong way to put it, right? It implies conviction on your side.
Sticking to the topic, in the sense of sticking to the topic. As mentioned here:
The newer posts were clearly not anymore about that. Thatâs by definition off-topic.
Thatâs why I threw the âprobablyâ in there to balance things out. I donât know anything for a fact. Iâm just assuming here.
âŚand yes. I know what they say about assuming.
About what exactly?
I am asking because it is not clear to me what you mean by âthatâ. Subsequent messages seems to me are also about not making uninformed decisions. Hence on topic.
If you disagree please point out the specific post.