It's not a 'lack of interest', nor is the moderation arbitrary, nor is it motivated by 'keeping discussion on topic of electronics.' The last element is disproved by threads such as the 'which cola do you drink?' which went on for many pages and was never touched at all.
Also Dave can't claim it's just Geoffs being a bit too enthusiastic. Geoffs is implementing Dave's own policy, while Dave usually stays out of it to avoid being visibly associated with this kind of censorship. I was disappointed to discover it actually originates from Dave, when he personally threatened to ban me from the site if I posted even one more comment in the MH370 thread. This was after I'd merely listed 'plane lost as a result of actions from outside the plane' among other cases in a logical enumeration of the fundamental possibilities. Personally I think the real reason was that I was trying to start a discussion on the technical details of Inmarsat's public claims. Which is about as on-topic to electronics as you could possibly get, but also carries a risk of turning up something contradictory to the official narrative. Dave's description of my everist.org web site as 'conspiracy central' was particularly amusing. I got the impression his disdain is related to one folder in my site containing lists of links to news articles on various topics - some of which are related to our friends the chosen tribe.
Now we see Geoffs very rapidly shutting down a thread, in which the obvious focus would have been 'exactly who's anti-aircraft targeting radar was it, that was detected locking on the plane just before the missile fired?'
I think that's on-topic, don't you? And where else is it likely to be discussed sensibly?
Off Topic section deleted
Keep comments about moderation please.
In my view, electronics practice in today's world is intrinsically and unavoidably linked to politics in many ways. To deny people with electronics expertise the opportunity to discuss such matters anywhere in a popular electronics forum, is well into the realm of immoral behavior. I also don't think the reasons claimed for enforcing such a ban are the true reasons. You can work out the real reasons by observing the effect of actions and the specifics of which topics are removed. It's not what they say, it's what they do that matters.
If the real reason was to avoid argument disrupting threads throughout the forum, then what's wrong with having a 'Current Events' category? (As if 'General Chat' isn't specific enough for that.) We've seen new topic areas created recently, so it can't be claimed it to be too hard to do. Then those who wish to avoid politics can just not look at it.
Incidentally, I'd advise anyone about to post something like the above, to save a local copy first. Screenshots too, if it goes up for a while. PNG is better for text, not JPG.
Edit: fix typo. Also just realized: It's probably not a mere coincidence that the plane was Malaysian. There must be many commercial airliners flying over Ukraine each day, so why Malaysian, and why now? I can see an obvious reason.