>>173551Moderating a site like this tends to be a balancing act between preserving free speech for all users
which includes idiots with nothing especially valuable to say while still maintaining a high-quality discussion environment. Rules on the site exist for the purpose of maintaining that quality. To that effect, how stringently a given rule is enforced will depend on the situation and the general attitude of the site's userbase, as well as the overall effect any mod action would have on the quality of the site as a whole. In other words, the interpretation of the rules is subordinate to their purpose.
For instance, the No Generals rule was put in place originally because generals were a huge problem on 4chan at the time the site was founded, but since this site didn't really have the same problem, we didn't feel the need to strictly enforce this rule for most of the site's history. The Syria General and Anonfilly threads technically count as generals, but those threads are well-loved by the community and have been an integral part of board culture for some time. To my knowledge nobody has ever complained about either of them.
Eventually, though, the "random news" thread and a couple others turned into massive generals which were being constantly bumped with low-effort content and no discussion, mostly by one user. This meant that every time someone visited the site, it was usually the same couple of low-quality, general-topic threads at the top of the page. This led to multiple complaints, which were deemed valid, because essentially this one user was filling the board with the kind of low-quality high-volume posting that people come here from 4chan to get away from. So, in this case, the no generals rule was enforced for these threads, while other threads like Anonfilly and /sg/, which arguably are generals, were left alone.
>GG posted, in that case, duplicates of his threads back when he was reviewing F:E.The Glim Glam threads are each dedicated to a review of a single story, so each thread is technically its own topic. The FoE review spilled into multiple threads because of the 700 post limit on the main board + the length of the story + Nigel's endless shitposting taking up space. It was an ongoing topic that was consistently producing new content, and the duration of the thread was determined by the amount of time needed to review the entire story. As soon as the story ended, there were no more GG FoE threads; the next Glim Glam thread was about a new story. In other words, every Glim Glam thread has a self-contained topic, and the lifespan of the threads is determined by how long it takes to exhaust discussion of that topic.
This thread is different. For one, it's gone on for three years, for almost 3,000 posts, without any apparent conclusion being reached. How many more threads of the same length would it take to bring the discussion to a close? The problem with this thread is that it's not a discussion that's going to end, it's just going to go on the way it's been going in perpetuity forever. Since the OP of this thread is the same person who was responsible for a large portion of the high-volume low-quality posting I mentioned earlier, it's likely that he sees the endless cyclical nature of this thread as a feature and not a bug.
Basically, what OP wants is for this thread to be continuously bumped to the top of the overboard so it's constantly visible, the same way he wanted visibility for his other low-quality junk threads. The problem with this is that what makes him happy tends to piss everyone else off.
So, in effect, we're being asked to piss off the entire mlpol community
or at least most of it in order to accommodate the whims of one obnoxious schizo. To this request, we say "neigh." If people want to discuss flat earth, they are free to do so in this thread until it expires. Meanwhile, the rest of the community gets a break from seeing it constantly occupying the top spot on the overboard. Pretty much a win-win for all parties involved.