Up/down votes were once allowed in the lounge. If I recall correctly, the feature was intentionally removed because it not only didn't restore sanity, but ratings were caught in the cross-fire. People would downvote people they disagreed with, rather than bad posts.
One of the reasons rating was removed from the Lounge was because it contributed to the reinforcement of negative behavior. I don't really see any reason that would be different now, especially since the utility of the reputation system on GDNet is practically nonexistent already.
That I am not aware of this period makes realise what a new user i still am
I am also wary of selectively moderating political content. Despite my best intentions, I still have my biases, I will likely interpret statements I disagree with as being "more unreasonable" than statements I agree with. In this case, moderation is further complicated by the fact that I (briefly) participated in the thread.
But I thought moderation is about halting inciting language used not about opinions
And some have mentioned 22 pages.( EDIT- I agree the thread is done with ... ) Yes like other topics maybe it dries out and becomes stale, but this is also a very dynamic political topic. And also the thing is if you follow the thread, it naturally goes to sleep on its own and then after a significant event gets revived
No doubt some people get the kicks from this kind of threads (No no not me... don't look at me, honestly :()