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Making The first politics thread visible once more (but still locked)

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I am going to try and request one last time that the first politics thread be made visible(but still locked) again, please. I ask this because I like to go back and read old posts and reminisce. The thread I am inquiring about is the original politics thread, the one Moth3r locked late December of 2016. When Jay “disapeared” the 2nd politics thread and banned the discussion of politics on the forum, he "disappeared the first politics thread as well. Jay once said this about both politics threads:

Jay said:

They’re not wiped out. They’re sitting in the forum recycle bin like every thread that’s ever been “deleted”.

That says to me the thread still exists somewhere. I know there are some pages of the thread recorded in the “way back” thingy, but I think that has less than half pf pages of the thread in question. I would greatly appreciate it if the original politics thread could be made visible(but still locked) again, for old time’s sake. Thankyou.

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Jay stated the reason why these threads were moved to a place where they could not be seen at the time in your ‘The deletion of the political threads’ thread in the Feedback Forum…

Jay said:

I haven’t decided whether I’ll restore them or not. The primary reason I moved them is to prevent new visitors from viewing them and search engines from indexing them (they already have, but once they show up as 404 for search spiders, they should get dropped from the index and no longer actively link to them).

I might restore them under a members-only section of the forum, so at least those who are logged in can still read them.

&

Jay said:

Post Praetorian said:

I would also appreciate having them restored…I have often enjoyed participating therein and have a concern that the discussion of politics is at this time more important than ever given the lack of understanding among various factions…

There was little desire for understanding or a genuine exchange of ideas in the politics threads of late, which is why they’re in cold storage for the time being.

Since then, and as indicated to you in your PM query about this just last month, the thread is seemingly unrecoverable. Even if it were not - the primary reasons as to why Jay removed the political threads would still apply.

Also, the Political threads, at times, were a divisive powder keg - and resulted in spats, ill-feeling and a lack of civility being carried over between members into unrelated threads throughout the site.

As Jay stated above, it often seemed there was little desire for understanding or a genuine exchange of ideas (or examination of our own beliefs and that of our political parties we may have voted for or support). This may not have been the case for some of the more thoughtful and insightful members here - yet they were seemingly dismissed or overlooked (or drowned out) for yet another cheap hit or ‘for the lolz’ - which sustained more division amongst members here.

We’re not going to bring that powder keg back (even as a ‘read-only’ locked thread - even if we could).

We are past all that now - and we have moved on. Hopefully for the better.

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Well, I don’t see how it could cause more fights or any sort of harm if it were kept read-only. The 2nd politics thread is visible and read only and as far as I know, it has caused no trouble in that form. As for being unrecoverable, I am not so certain of that. I am sure you and Silverwook and the mods honestly believe the thread to be unrecoverable, but Jay indicated that he did not delete it. In fact, you quoted Jay in your post, Anchorhead, saying that “They’re(the 2 political threads) are in cold storage”. Cold storage, and not deleted. Cold storage from which the 2nd thread was brought back. To me that says the 1st thread still exists somewhere. I just think you guys don’t know where it is. I will only believe it is gone, if Jay himself says so. In any case, I see I am wasting my time. It is very sad to me that years of interesting political debate and forum history are gone, and probably will not return. I know you and the others see nothing of value from that thread, we will just have to disagree there. I intended no harm nor to start fights or to talk about politics in the forum again. I simply wanted to read the thread. That is all. It is part of forum history and I think it should have been preserved. It is a shame and unfortunate that it has to be this way. It is sad to me that no one else seems to appreciate that thread the way I do. I shall trouble you no further about this. I give up. farewell.

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The original politics thread existed from 2004-2016, with most of the original contributors no longer on the site, it would be interesting to see a thread that predates the social media age as we know it today. At this point it’s a historical document more than anything else. I ask for the mods here to reconsider putting out that original thread, even if it’s only accessible to members.

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Hi Handman - as explained in this and other threads… the moderators have no inclination to being this thread back (even if we could find the thing).

The original Politics thread is located somewhere in a 3,500 thread Trash section… and we also have no inclination of looking through that cesspit to find this thread.

However, the original Politics thread - as a ‘historical document’, of pre-‘social media’ times, can be viewed via Archive.org - apparently much of it - though not all, is still available on there.
 

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
‘How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

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Thanks Jason. A shame not all of it is archived there. I figured enough time had passed to give it another look. Ah well, archive.org is good enough for now.