as we have started another thread concerning Israel and Palestine, let me raise something with posters that I have directly raised with HC admin
yesterday we saw an entire and very long threaded deleted concerning Israel's attacks on Gaza
I for one posted several times, and I posted content that was relevant to the discussion at hand
many others came into the thread and simply got off theme and used the thread to post their hastily sourced version of the history behind the continuing conflict in that region of the world
many posters over-stepped the line with their political and religious views, where in a few instances the posts just downright regressed to personal attacks on other members, where on a number of occasions the personal attacks were uncalled for, ill-conceived and at times childish and ignorant
this lead one of our volunteer moderators making a judgment call, as they are required to do, to delete the entire thread because it had gotten out of control, and unfortunately it was out of control due to the actions of just a few posters
i was very annoyed at the lack of control shown by several posters and of their highjacking the thread to espouse some views that were clearly off message and uncalled for
as a consequence of their actions many other educational, informative and insightful posts were deleted along with the offending posts
i had for my part spent not inconsiderable time and effort contributing to the thread on perhaps 5 occasions - my efforts and those of many others who thoughtfully contributed were lost at a keystroke due to the inconsiderate actions of a few
therefore while i have left the issue of how better very active and at times out of controls threads can perhaps be better dealt with from a moderators perspective, (which you can make suggestions for in the Feedback forum - not here), i leave with the members of HC the responsibility to approach highly charged topics like the Middle East with a bit more decorum and thoughtfulness, because as soon as some start to quite literally lose the plot, then the good efforts of many more posters are placed at risk of being deleted in their entirety, making the object and purpose of coming to and participating on HC at times futile due to the actions of just a few
i hope those of you who went off theme on the Israel thread give this post of little more consideration
