Actually, some may interpret my comments as favoring quasi-political discussions. In reality, I am against them for two reasons;
1) AAC is a business. What legitimate purpose is served by allowing such contentious discussions here? At best, you get a few extra clicks. In sum, you probably loose more than you gain.

Agreed, but also a complete non-issue. The owners and commercial side of AAC take a VERY hands-off policy regarding the forum side. We have not received a hint of any direction from them that has anything to do with clicks or traffic or advertising or anything of the sort. In fact, they are more hands-off than we would sometimes like because there are some things that we need their input and action on that we have been unable to get.

 

Didn’t this whole thing play out several years ago?

I don’t look forward to another bloodbath...

Play on.

History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes - Mark Twain

 

You are completely wrong. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, it is a chore. No, it is not impossible.

Fine. That's what I get for violating my own rule of never say never, always, or impossible.

As for the transformerless power supplies comments -- you are largely preaching to the choir. One of the first things I did when I became a mod was request clarification from the ownership on just what the actual intent and scope of that prohibition was. I have asked several times since. I have received none. At the risk of airing dirty laundry (though I think this has been out on the public boards before), a couple years ago it looked like we were in agreement on removing all restrictions on technical content and leaving it to the mods on a case-by-case basis. We had the wording worked out and the ownership had indicated that they would update the ToS/UA and never did. Until they do, our hands are simply tied -- we HAVE to do our best to enforce the owners' wishes as expressed in the ToS/UA.

A while back the commercial side of the house wanted to publish some transformerless power supply articles and the mod staff objected saying that we felt it was bad policy to have content on one side that was prohibited on the other. At first, the commercial side didn't see an issue with different sets of rules but eventually saw our point and agreed to not publish the content until the ToS/UA issue was resolved on this point. So we had hopes that it might finally lead to getting rid of the prohibition. It didn't. So our hands are still tied.

I believe it is a simple case of this being an extremely low priority on a very long list of things that need to get done. Nothing more. That the AAC forums run as smoothly as they do and are not a constant source of headaches for the ownership probably contributes to that.

 

Politics is a tricky subject i think because each side has beliefs they are banking on rather than absolute truths or at least what could be proven to be truths on the fly. It takes a lot of time to prove some theories with a lot of words, and so it makes it hard for anyone to be able to follow along unless they are knee deep in it to begin with. If you work in politics you have to know how it works, but otherwise it's almost like hearsay. So both sides end up arguing because they have been 'told' one thing or another. It's only when they decide to dig into the meat of it that they will understand what is real and what is just rhetoric.
Then there are the ones who know, but wish to see money spend in different ways. This isnt like an electrical circuit where we find the value of a resistor and it cant be anything else. This is like a circuit that can have two different value resistors in the same place and it becomes a matter of personal preference. We might be able to prove one is better than the other in a few minutes, but if this was in politics it could take hours and hours and a ton of text and research.
Then there is the "who do you care for most" angle for solution. Do you care for one group more than another, you go with the one you think is more worthy.
I wish i had a simple solution for this, but what it takes is not simple just like getting a good college degree is not simple. To understand this subject really requires years of study of history and current events.

 

It has a lot in common with religion.

 

It has a lot in common with religion.

yes ... and some people cannot distinguish between the two ...

 

yes ... and some people cannot distinguish between the two ...

Religion drives some ideals in politics i have found. The lack of it too.

 

The first part of the ten laws were to set the relationship with a man and his creator, and the second part are to set the relationship of a man and his neighbor.

Religion and Politics is man's stiff-necked response, to both.