OF, you're welcome to start a new thread, even with the same title, and carry on with the conversation that you had originally sought. But closing a problematic thread keeps people from being tempted to respond with "one last comment" and keep the problematic ball rolling. As you say, KKK etc. was extraneous to the topic you started.
Stepping outside of my mod shoes for a minute, I will confess that I am somewhat surprised to find that thread closures are found to be so troubling - on other boards I'm on with a no-politics rule, the mods are *much* more aggressive than around here, as they not only close threads, but also put the posters on time out if they don't behave. And their definition of "politics" is sometimes much broader than ours. Nevertheless, I fully recognize as a poster that the mods are volunteering their time, that the admins are volunteering both their time and money, and that it is accordingly their forum that I'm invited to contribute to provided I follow their rules. So my view? "There's no crying in (forums about college) baseball."
Stepping back into my mod shoes, all we're asking is to keep things at least vaguely related to COVID-19, and yes, that may inevitably be political. It's when it ceases to be about COVID-19, and becomes only political, that it becomes a problem. And we really don't want to single anyone out with warnings, so we've collectively decided that relative aggression with thread closure is preferable to trying to single out individual posters or play whack-a-mole. If that occasionally requires restarting a new thread, so be it, and you are more than invited to do so where you see fit. :)
Bygones.
Stepping outside of my mod shoes for a minute, I will confess that I am somewhat surprised to find that thread closures are found to be so troubling - on other boards I'm on with a no-politics rule, the mods are *much* more aggressive than around here, as they not only close threads, but also put the posters on time out if they don't behave. And their definition of "politics" is sometimes much broader than ours. Nevertheless, I fully recognize as a poster that the mods are volunteering their time, that the admins are volunteering both their time and money, and that it is accordingly their forum that I'm invited to contribute to provided I follow their rules. So my view? "There's no crying in (forums about college) baseball."
Stepping back into my mod shoes, all we're asking is to keep things at least vaguely related to COVID-19, and yes, that may inevitably be political. It's when it ceases to be about COVID-19, and becomes only political, that it becomes a problem. And we really don't want to single anyone out with warnings, so we've collectively decided that relative aggression with thread closure is preferable to trying to single out individual posters or play whack-a-mole. If that occasionally requires restarting a new thread, so be it, and you are more than invited to do so where you see fit. :)
Bygones.