Thanks for your sensible feedback on this, and interesting analogy.

At the risk of running too far with it, a judge / moderator's role can also be to ensure proceedings have a modicum of respect and dignity. Therefore, if counsel for prosecution or defendant are abusing the process or are outright lying in their arguments, or are citing authorities which are false or disingenuous, the judge should arguably instruct a jury to perhaps discount those arguments or to point out that they are false, especially if there is no opposing counsel or opposing counsel is sleeping or bored by the case or discussion.

Likewise, if a lawyer on either side continues to cite fake authorities or is generally abusive, a judge / moderator should also have the power of contempt of court / forum (in this case, not publishing a comment at all and marking it as trollish).

Also, consider that judges in civil law systems can have much more of a fact finding role and can almost step into the shoes for lawyers on either side if they believe they're not doing their job, as opposed to the common law adversarial system of gladiatorial combat between only the lawyers, where a judge is generally much more passive and observes (and ultimately judges).

Analogies aside, though, we see the moderator's job to provide some balance into discussions if there is none, and we would be happy to play devil's advocate against the lefties too (but it just so happens that most of the trolling is coming from the right of the spectrum, and most of the lefties that do argue tend to back up their points with facts rather than just opinion or ideology).

> A totally valid point, but what difference would it make if you rather use a side account [...]

Perhaps not a bad idea, though often times the LI account exists to explain moderation decisions or warn if a commenter is on the verge of not being published as trollish, or if a commenter wants to continue the discussion, that they are advised to back it up with facts. As such, isn't it fairer and more honest, if the mod shares their opinions in their own 'name' rather than creating sock puppet propaganda accounts?

>Everyone has opinions, that's nothing special. But all of you are supposed to be lawyers: you're supposed to savor and relish intellectual debate about ideas and ideals. If a courtroom judge or arbitrator tells you they have a political opinion and rebuts or pokes holes in your arguments, but promises to judge your case fairly and on its own merits, you have several options:

a) try to get the judge to recuse themself (good luck), or

b) try to convince the judge of your position with the force of your argument and/or facts.

With the analogy you've presented, the following are the roles:

OP: Prosecution*

Commentator: Defendant*

Moderator: Judge

But you failed to take account of the LI audience, they're the Jury. A judge's role is to explain the principle of the matter to the Jury rather than expressing obiter dictum. If need be, the principle should always be in a neutral tone rather than taking sides, and let the Jury give verdict of what goes and what doesn't.

>b) not allowing any borderline hateful, low-effort shitposts to stand unopposed, but to do the job of, you know, an interviewer or a moderator who takes their job seriously, and provides some intellectual pushback to some of the arguments made, to encourage a debate (which is the point of LI)

A totally valid point, but what difference would it make if you rather use a side account to infiltrate all your biases and opinions like us i.e. Chichi Ban, Ashlesha, Hayabusa wala, etc.? A moderator actively being on the left side of the spectrum gives a wrong impression to the userbase, it becomes more of a 'Chichi Ban vs. Legally India' rather than 2 individuals debating about something.

I hope you get my point, regardless of which I've always been a fan of your perspectives and I profoundly enjoy reading them. Cheers!

> I still can't understand the reason for an opinionated moderator. Ngl he/she seems like a reasonable person who always contributes to threads when he/she can, and stimulates interactions. You can still comment I mean from an alias or something like that.

Good question. It's quite simple, really. If you start a thread arguing: "We should have lower taxes for the rich", or "we should privatise more PSUs", go for it. But those posts are rare: most 'extreme' political views submitted for moderation on LI are basically on the 'far right' of the spectrum (if there is a binary spectrum). By contrast, for some reason, the 'lefties' generally neither seem that interested in pushing propaganda, nor in countering the RW posts over and over again, as I assume they, like most, are persons who are going to LI to discuss the legal profession, rather than be sucked into their uncles and aunties share on family WhatsApp chats.

Such normal readers, centrists or potential sensible 'righties' or 'lefties', or mainstream normies, or whatever, therefore understandably don't very often engage in repeatedly rebutting or fact-checking dog-whistles, outright lies or sometimes hateful posts, which are usually also made with very, very low effort and made with an intent to cause OUTRAGE or TRIGGER THE LIBS, rather than actually being interested in discussion. And indeed, responding would mean feeding those trolls (which is something you should never do).

Therefore, the only way for LI not to turn into 4chan or platform for unchecked propaganda or lies of those somehow motivated to spread them, is then the obvious decision for the poor moderator to engage by:

a) blocking the really odious and hateful stuff (and believe me, there is plenty), and

b) not allowing any borderline hateful, low-effort shitposts to stand unopposed, but to actually do the job of, you know, an interviewer or a moderator who takes their job seriously, and provide some intellectual pushback to some of the arguments made, in order to encourage a debate (which is the point of LI).

However, the fact is that very few OPs (as evidenced in nearly all the examples you list above) take advantage of this opportunity to actually debate or defend their politics or ideals and instead turn around and cry foul, saying: "Oh, the moderator does not agree with me, how dare they!"

Everyone has opinions, that's nothing special. But all of you are supposed to be lawyers: you're supposed to savour and relish intellectual debate about ideas and ideals. If a courtroom judge or arbitrator tells you they have a political opinion and rebuts or pokes holes in your arguments, but promises to judge your case fairly and on its own merits, you have several options:

a) try to get the judge to recuse themself (good luck), or

b) try to convince the judge of your position with the force of your argument and / or facts.

If neither of those are an option for you, then perhaps it is worth considering if you want to be a lawyer at all: other careers, such as politician or YouTuber, don't necessarily require the same love of argument and opposition.

Would be interested in why you would disagree with the above or if you have alternate solutions.

TL;DR - Please stop making a mockery of moderation.

Perhaps I have certain reservations about the manner this is put across.

But despite having a similar inclination as the mod, I agree that the mod posting their extreme views through official channels is never heard of and goes against the very idea of having a mod in a drop down chat forum.

I am pretty sure the mod would not mind posting their comments through an independent account handle, unless they think they have been granted some special privileges.

[Repost: LI Moderation becoming a bit too much? | Legally India}

In the past couple of weeks, I've noticed a distinct change in moderation.
I don't know if it's the controversial topics popping up that made me feel this or not, but LI has definitely been more active in sharing what 'they' believe is true which was not the case earlier.
For me, moderation was about censoring the derogatory, factually incorrect, and targeting nature of comments rather than censoring comments which fall on the other end of the spectrum of what mods believe to be true/un-woke. There are incidents where comments have been censored because they MIGHT offend someone, imo it's a vague reason for oppressing an opinion.
Should moderation be allowed to actively participate in sharing of opinions?
I personally do not think that's fair considering it is the regulating authority, it should be unbiased towards everyone despite the person's ideology not being in consonance with LI's ideology.
To which LI might argue that they allow every comment which is logically sound and all, no. As long as an authority is displaying its bias, it is no longer an unbiased medium to share opinions. I'll cite the threads to support my argument.
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/240820-The-Wire-vs-Meta-Who-is-giving-fake-news-and-who-is-telling-the-truth- [All the comments by LI have been opinionated, so far as to mock everyone in the comment 5.1 for being indifferent]
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/240601-Dating-Advice-needed-Can-not-so-good-looking-girls-hope-to-date-good-looking-guys- [In comment 5.1.1 LI is being the judge of what represents the real world and what doesn't to Playboy PA]
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/240115-2-conservative-US-circuit-judges-refuse-to-take-Yale-law-clerks-after-students-disrupt-free-speech-panel-Fox-News [All the comments made by LI has been heavily opinionated and targeted the audience having contrasted beliefs]
There were more of these incidents, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep track of them all.

I still can't understand the reason for an opinionated moderator. Ngl he/she seems like a reasonable person who always contributes to threads when he/she can, and stimulates interactions. You can still comment I mean from an alias or something like that.

Perhaps true, I think all the trollish nonsense political posts are radicalising us! 😀

Seriously though, we still believe everyone's entitled to an opinion and yours will continue to be published on LI too, whether they are left or right, so long as they don't imply or espouse violence or hate against other people, and are made in good faith to have a discussion. For political shit posting there is zero tolerance.

Which post that has been published has been trollish though?

And which of our views are 'extreme left' (and how would you define that?)

Something seriously wrong with the current moderator. He/ she (hereinafter He) is recently releasing trollish political posts and also commenting with clear biases through the main account.

Also the political siding, He is so far left it cant even be considered left anymore, I mean I understand that everyone is entitled to a side and opinion, but not such extreme views from a moderator.