While I recognize the problem with that thread bringing out the worst in some folks , myself included, I have to wonder if we can't learn something from it and move on with a more productive attitude towards debate. In the time following the election my feelings have not really changed, if anything I am more annoyed than ever with what is going on. However, I have had some time to reflect on some of my views in a very healthy way. Part of having an open mind and being accepting of everyone is respecting the people who really piss you off the most at face value. I may still hate your beliefs, but that doesn't mean I hate you. The distinction has to be made that we are discussing ideology rather than finger pointing (guilty of this myself as well).
In short, I think Dsh has the right idea about moving forward. My personal approach lately has been that if it is possible I would get heated, I simply recuse myself altogether. It's a shame that some good members have left, but closing down the discussion as a whole just seems like more of the same type of moderation that you are arguing isn't productive. Standing for nothing isn't productive, just make sure things remain civil... you Mods have been known to be quite diplomatic most of the time. I have faith you could make your decisions based on the good of the whole forum.
Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
Re: Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
The problem is that civility alone isn't enough. It is relatively easy to be demeaning and racist/sexist/homophobic while keeping one' stone perfectly civil. Hostility and oppression often wraps itself in the guise of civility.
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BogusMeatFactory
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Re: Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
If you read previous comments, the issues didn't stay in the thread, bled out into the entire community and caused some major damage and loss of good people from returning.SamuraiMegas wrote:This thread just makes me think of the Tyler, The Creator tweet about cyberbullying.
If you don't like the thread, literally just dont open it. I saw the old one and I dont know if I ever commented on it and I opened it like 10x the entire time it was a thing. Not because it offended me, I just didn't care for it.
I am with Gunstar, let's just leave it out. If you want to talk it out, there are plenty of places to do so. Let's just enjoy games.
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ZeroAX
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Re: Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
We could have a topic about global politics, it seems that when the discussion is about American politics that shit hits the fan 
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Erik_Twice
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Re: Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
That's because there aren't enough people from other countries for that to happen. That said, the political situation around here is nowhere as bad as it is in the US.ZeroAX wrote:We could have a topic about global politics, it seems that when the discussion is about American politics that shit hits the fan
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Re: Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
Ok, there are a few things I want to chime in on here about the past, present, and future of this thread (and about some of what has been suggested so far) since it seems we need to have that discussion before we can return to any modicum of normalcy for current events/political discussion. This is a long post, so sorry in advance about that. If you care about this topic, though, I think it is worth your time to read over:
First, I think the claims about the “toxicity” of that old thread/this proposed new thread and about its supposed impact on the community are being entirely overblown.
When I think of the most active members to leave the site in the recent past, two names come to mind: Luke and mjmjr25. Based on any discussion with them I have had before or after they left, it would be entirely incorrect to claim that this thread (or some supposed “spilled over animosity”) was the reason that either of them left the forum. In fact, neither of them were very active in that thread on a regular basis (and especially not around the time of their leaving). Other prominent names that have dropped out of late – JT and Hobie-wan, for example – never indicated that there was anything about that thread that made them drop out of the larger forum discussion. I don’t recall either of them taking part in the thread very often either (at least not relative to their posting history elsewhere across the forums).
So, for those of you who are under the impression that the political thread was costing us members (either new ones or long-standing ones), where is the evidence of this being a regular or significant problem? On a related note, where is the evidence that this supposedly unbridgeable animosity was spilling over into other threads and causing continued problems therein?
I think that old thread works as a convenient scapegoat for declining membership when, in fact, it was typically some of the most active members of the forums who were chiming in there over the 6+ years it was up. It is easy to identify many other significant reasons for forum membership– a stagnant front page/slow drip of new content, the aging out of the typical video game centered forum membership, the growth of social media and other outlets for engaging what video game forums once uniquely provided, the growth of retro-gaming culture and the number of outlets for engaging it in general, etc. These are more reasonable and realistic reasons why people have left the site over time. I can’t imagine (and don’t see much evidence to support) that the old political thread did anything along these lines (or of significant magnitude) to decrease forum participation.
Now I won’t disagree that there have been moments of back and forth debate that have gotten a little mean-spirited at times (and occasionally downright nasty). However, the people who have usually been involved in those moments are often the very same people who kept regularly coming back to that thread anyway (I can think of CRT and AppleQueso as two good examples of this). In any case, mods have done a good job stepping in at those moments and of getting people to cool off as needed. That is a good thing: because of the mods’ leadership and the general attitude of most people in that thread, we had been able to sustain a lengthy political discussion that allowed various viewpoints to intermingle (and learn from one another) over many years without the recurring nastiness that would shut down that discussion in many other online venues (in less mature forums, less well moderated forums, or in much of social media, for example).
In other words, the problems of that thread were minimal, they were self-contained, they were well handled, and they did little to deter people who wanted to continue to discuss politics from doing so.
Second, I would also add that it shouldn’t be up to people who didn’t participate in that thread with any regularity to make arguments that “political discussion has no place here” and thus to negate its future.
Flake had every right to close a thread he started, but I don’t think that people who don’t typically engage in political discussion here should have much say in trying to shut it down going forward. If debating politics isn’t something that you are interested in now, or it wasn’t something you were interested in previously, then don’t fight to keep it away from those of us who would enjoy it in the future. For some of us, there is no divorcing politics from anything and so video games/video game culture/video game forums are just as relevant venues for political discussion as anywhere else.
---
I have tried to suggest so far that nothing of value was lost by that thread. Let me offer a few things that I think were gained because of that thread:
- I have come to know and respect many of the long-standing members of this site because of their contributions to that thread over time. They aren’t just “video game forum friends” (where I know what games they play, what they picked up recently, etc.) - they are people who I know much more about their lives (their experiences, their world-views, their sense of right/wrong, their intellectual strengths and weaknesses, etc.) In my experience, that is a thread that has been a bigger force in bringing people together and fleshing out relationships on this site than it has been a deterrent to posting, joining, contributing, etc.
- As I indicated earlier, that thread has often blossomed into a kind of rare/wonderful place to have a type of meaningful political discussion that is increasingly rare online. Comments sections of news articles are cesspools. Facebook and Twitter are places where family members and strangers alike can leave drive-by animosity without repercussions. Many forums are too poorly moderated or too large to support useful political discussion. Here, comparatively, things have worked exceedingly well. The length of that thread’s tenure and its number of posts should attest to that.
- Many of our non-American members participate in that thread. At least for me, that is one of the first places I think to go if I want to get the “on the street” opinion of someone from a different county on some issue of global significance. Losing that would suck.
- We have largely defined ourselves in that thread as an inclusive community (in a way that simply talking about old games cannot). I would argue that if you can, in fact, find people who have been ostracized by that thread it is because they were making comments that could very reasonably be considered racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, etc., were called out for it, and felt that they should be able to make these statements without engendering a respectful/reasoned challenge. This forum has always taken a firm stance against those kind of ideologies, and that thread is a place where that conviction was often put in place. The result is that we have a healthy selection of members who are comfortable being open about aspects of their identity here on this forum in a way that, unfortunately, is not possible for some of them in much of video game culture.
----
So, what to make of the future of that thread?
I have certainly visited many forums with political discussion that I never took part in (and that I have never read), and I would guess that many/most members of this site have done the same. I ascribe to the “if you don’t want to take part in this thread, then don’t do so” philosophy. Absent of some super-compelling evidence that a very similar politics thread would “ruin” the future of this forum or some such, I think that we should just go back to having basically the same thread. If Flake doesn’t want a personal association with it as the thread starter, that’s fine. I started this thread because I have no problems associating myself with the very positive contributions of the past legacy of political discussion here on this site and its hopefully continuing positive future. I tried to set it up with some fair guidance and disclaimers. I would strongly oppose censorship of political speech altogether, the phasing out/deletion of posts in time, or any curtailing of speech here on the site. That, to me, is not what this site has ever been about. Personally, I am not sure what I’d make of this place if that became the new paradigm.
First, I think the claims about the “toxicity” of that old thread/this proposed new thread and about its supposed impact on the community are being entirely overblown.
When I think of the most active members to leave the site in the recent past, two names come to mind: Luke and mjmjr25. Based on any discussion with them I have had before or after they left, it would be entirely incorrect to claim that this thread (or some supposed “spilled over animosity”) was the reason that either of them left the forum. In fact, neither of them were very active in that thread on a regular basis (and especially not around the time of their leaving). Other prominent names that have dropped out of late – JT and Hobie-wan, for example – never indicated that there was anything about that thread that made them drop out of the larger forum discussion. I don’t recall either of them taking part in the thread very often either (at least not relative to their posting history elsewhere across the forums).
So, for those of you who are under the impression that the political thread was costing us members (either new ones or long-standing ones), where is the evidence of this being a regular or significant problem? On a related note, where is the evidence that this supposedly unbridgeable animosity was spilling over into other threads and causing continued problems therein?
I think that old thread works as a convenient scapegoat for declining membership when, in fact, it was typically some of the most active members of the forums who were chiming in there over the 6+ years it was up. It is easy to identify many other significant reasons for forum membership– a stagnant front page/slow drip of new content, the aging out of the typical video game centered forum membership, the growth of social media and other outlets for engaging what video game forums once uniquely provided, the growth of retro-gaming culture and the number of outlets for engaging it in general, etc. These are more reasonable and realistic reasons why people have left the site over time. I can’t imagine (and don’t see much evidence to support) that the old political thread did anything along these lines (or of significant magnitude) to decrease forum participation.
Now I won’t disagree that there have been moments of back and forth debate that have gotten a little mean-spirited at times (and occasionally downright nasty). However, the people who have usually been involved in those moments are often the very same people who kept regularly coming back to that thread anyway (I can think of CRT and AppleQueso as two good examples of this). In any case, mods have done a good job stepping in at those moments and of getting people to cool off as needed. That is a good thing: because of the mods’ leadership and the general attitude of most people in that thread, we had been able to sustain a lengthy political discussion that allowed various viewpoints to intermingle (and learn from one another) over many years without the recurring nastiness that would shut down that discussion in many other online venues (in less mature forums, less well moderated forums, or in much of social media, for example).
In other words, the problems of that thread were minimal, they were self-contained, they were well handled, and they did little to deter people who wanted to continue to discuss politics from doing so.
Second, I would also add that it shouldn’t be up to people who didn’t participate in that thread with any regularity to make arguments that “political discussion has no place here” and thus to negate its future.
Flake had every right to close a thread he started, but I don’t think that people who don’t typically engage in political discussion here should have much say in trying to shut it down going forward. If debating politics isn’t something that you are interested in now, or it wasn’t something you were interested in previously, then don’t fight to keep it away from those of us who would enjoy it in the future. For some of us, there is no divorcing politics from anything and so video games/video game culture/video game forums are just as relevant venues for political discussion as anywhere else.
---
I have tried to suggest so far that nothing of value was lost by that thread. Let me offer a few things that I think were gained because of that thread:
- I have come to know and respect many of the long-standing members of this site because of their contributions to that thread over time. They aren’t just “video game forum friends” (where I know what games they play, what they picked up recently, etc.) - they are people who I know much more about their lives (their experiences, their world-views, their sense of right/wrong, their intellectual strengths and weaknesses, etc.) In my experience, that is a thread that has been a bigger force in bringing people together and fleshing out relationships on this site than it has been a deterrent to posting, joining, contributing, etc.
- As I indicated earlier, that thread has often blossomed into a kind of rare/wonderful place to have a type of meaningful political discussion that is increasingly rare online. Comments sections of news articles are cesspools. Facebook and Twitter are places where family members and strangers alike can leave drive-by animosity without repercussions. Many forums are too poorly moderated or too large to support useful political discussion. Here, comparatively, things have worked exceedingly well. The length of that thread’s tenure and its number of posts should attest to that.
- Many of our non-American members participate in that thread. At least for me, that is one of the first places I think to go if I want to get the “on the street” opinion of someone from a different county on some issue of global significance. Losing that would suck.
- We have largely defined ourselves in that thread as an inclusive community (in a way that simply talking about old games cannot). I would argue that if you can, in fact, find people who have been ostracized by that thread it is because they were making comments that could very reasonably be considered racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, etc., were called out for it, and felt that they should be able to make these statements without engendering a respectful/reasoned challenge. This forum has always taken a firm stance against those kind of ideologies, and that thread is a place where that conviction was often put in place. The result is that we have a healthy selection of members who are comfortable being open about aspects of their identity here on this forum in a way that, unfortunately, is not possible for some of them in much of video game culture.
----
So, what to make of the future of that thread?
I have certainly visited many forums with political discussion that I never took part in (and that I have never read), and I would guess that many/most members of this site have done the same. I ascribe to the “if you don’t want to take part in this thread, then don’t do so” philosophy. Absent of some super-compelling evidence that a very similar politics thread would “ruin” the future of this forum or some such, I think that we should just go back to having basically the same thread. If Flake doesn’t want a personal association with it as the thread starter, that’s fine. I started this thread because I have no problems associating myself with the very positive contributions of the past legacy of political discussion here on this site and its hopefully continuing positive future. I tried to set it up with some fair guidance and disclaimers. I would strongly oppose censorship of political speech altogether, the phasing out/deletion of posts in time, or any curtailing of speech here on the site. That, to me, is not what this site has ever been about. Personally, I am not sure what I’d make of this place if that became the new paradigm.
Re: Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
CRT called, he wants his formatting back.
I've already said all I care to say on the matter.
I've already said all I care to say on the matter.
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Forlorn Drifter
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Re: Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
I can't argue certain points there without starting a fight, so I won't.
Dsh, when it is cleared on what is to be done with a politics thread, could you make the actual thread separate from this one so that those of us not interested won't have it popping up in our "Threads you posted in"?
Dsh, when it is cleared on what is to be done with a politics thread, could you make the actual thread separate from this one so that those of us not interested won't have it popping up in our "Threads you posted in"?
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SamuraiMegas
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Re: Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
I agree with dsh, people left because of lost interest.BogusMeatFactory wrote:If you read previous comments, the issues didn't stay in the thread, bled out into the entire community and caused some major damage and loss of good people from returning.SamuraiMegas wrote:This thread just makes me think of the Tyler, The Creator tweet about cyberbullying.
If you don't like the thread, literally just dont open it. I saw the old one and I dont know if I ever commented on it and I opened it like 10x the entire time it was a thing. Not because it offended me, I just didn't care for it.
I am with Gunstar, let's just leave it out. If you want to talk it out, there are plenty of places to do so. Let's just enjoy games.
I don't know what else I can add after his post. If an adult can't handle someone having views they dislike on a videogame forum, I don't know how they survive irl.
I've experienced targeted cyberbullying. As Tyler the Creator said, I just closed my eyes and walked away from the computer. Just don't read the thread if you hate it.
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Jagosaurus
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Re: Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics
I can report as someone who purposely avoided posting in this thread, but occasionally read large chunks... it did spill over into other subforums & threads. I'd wonder why certain members seemed overly short with each other, open up this thread and bingo.
I think this topic suffers from the typical Racketboy mega-thread mentality as well. Politics is so vague. A sports forum I visit has a political subforum. They then can start dedicated threads such as "North Korea Thread 2017," "Texas State Primary Elections 2017," "US Senate Voting on Bill [xyz]," etc. This keeps the discussion as focused as political conversations can go. I like that idea and the hidden subforum you opt into suggestion as well.
I think this topic suffers from the typical Racketboy mega-thread mentality as well. Politics is so vague. A sports forum I visit has a political subforum. They then can start dedicated threads such as "North Korea Thread 2017," "Texas State Primary Elections 2017," "US Senate Voting on Bill [xyz]," etc. This keeps the discussion as focused as political conversations can go. I like that idea and the hidden subforum you opt into suggestion as well.
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