Dear Keith,
You know I agree about our TOS provision which prohibits the discussion of politics on WBF. Of course this requires very subjective and difficult lines to be drawn. It is always a subjective analysis and a slippery slope.
Yes, sometimes there is snooty-snogging when a member writes an ostensibly non-political post knowing well that others will read it as having a political undertone or as having an embodied political message. This is not permissible, and, if detected, will be sanctioned.
Lines have to be drawn to enforce the ban on politics. These lines often are subjective. There is no getting around this reality. The ban attaches to political posts, but does not attach automatically to all discussions of non-audio current events. I don't think it is necessary to draw the line as narrowly as you are suggesting we draw it, especially on the topics of this particular thread at this particular time.
I truly did not consider my rhetorical question about whether it is a coincidence that the virus originated in the town with the virus lab to be political in any way. Simply discussing a particular country is not, to me, necessarily or inherently political. Of course such a discussion may devolve rapidly into an impermissible political discussion.
We have allowed discussions such as about virus preparedness by individual countries, and about actions taken to combat the virus, to proceed on this thread. Arguably, even those discussions have second order political undertones as they discuss individual countries and actions by the leaders of those countries, but as long as the discussions don't turn explicitly political and contentious we are allowing those discussions on this particular thread to proceed.
The ban on politics applies to all threads. However, I will concede that because of the intense focus presently by many members on virus topics and virus-related repercussions (medical, economic, financial, countries), and because more members seem to find solace and interest and outlet in this thread (as long as the medical information posted is accurate) than members who are annoyed by it, we have tended to allow people, on this particular thread, a wider berth than usual.
I appreciate that almost everything I have written in this post is subjective. Honorable and honest people will disagree with my thoughts here, and would draw differently the lines I have attempted to articulate here for this particular thread.
I assure you that Steve and I and the moderators try to be as fair and intellectually honest as possible about the application of the forum's ban on politics. Sometimes it might not seem that way, but the practical reality is that we are not monitoring the site every second of every hour, 24 hours per day. This is why we always welcome our attention being drawn to a particular post or to a particular discussion, either publicly on a thread or privately in a PM, if a member believes a particular post violates the ban on politics or is discourteous to himself/herself or to another member.
