Thread to Discuss Current Events & Politics

[marurun]

I cannot speak for the other moderators, but I can speak as a moderator. The World Falling Apart thread and sociopolitical screeds in other forum spaces absolutely did incite harassment and cause both bans and voluntary departures. We know because we are the ones reading the PMs from concerned users and victims, implementing bans, and deleting accounts.

My suggestion is, if you want to talk politics and worldviews with other RB folks, create parallel spaces to do it in instead of using the RB forums themselves.

I think it should be OK to talk about, say, Objectivism in Bioshock, or the implications of Spec Ops: The Line, or how much you love the social message of a particular game, but we need to keep those discussions about the games and make sure discussions stay away from denigrating others. Inclusivity before exclusivity. That's how I think we need to move forward.

[CFFJR]

Isn't the act of banning one type of discussion a form of exclusion though?

I'm not trying to be a smart ass with that question.

I understand the parallel spaces idea, but doing that loses the open forum where anyone might choose to contribute to a discussion even if they never have before.

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As an aside, is the opt-in board idea not feasible or acceptable? There hasn't been a response to that from mods/admin.

[dsheinem]

Inclusivity before exclusivity. That's how I think we need to move forward.

How does one judge someone else's (or a community's) level of inclusivity absent of a space where that concept - which is itself a political stance - cannot be interrogated, fleshed out, and exercised? If people were banned from or left the forum because they revelead their bigotry, hatred, or contempt for others in that political thread, wasn't the thread then useful to keep those folks and their values away from a forum that professes inclusivity?

[alienjesus]

Inclusivity before exclusivity. That's how I think we need to move forward.

How does one judge someone else's (or a community's) level of inclusivity absent of a space where that concept - which is itself a political stance - cannot be interrogated, fleshed out, and exercised? If people were banned from or left the forum because they revelead their bigotry, hatred, or contempt for others in that political thread, wasn't the thread then useful to keep those folks and their values away from a forum that professes inclusivity?

We're assuming the people who left were all people being banned, and not people driven away by the opinions expressed. Yes, those opinions were not confined to the politics thread, but that thread still represented a space where people felt those opinions could be expressed.

Remember when we had several trans members on the forums? IIRC, they were driven away by the types of 'political' discussions we seemed to see on those threads.

[Erik_Twice]

Remember when we had several trans members on the forums? IIRC, they were driven away by the types of 'political' discussions we seemed to see on those threads.

They indeed were. In fact and if I recall correctly Dsh himself threatened to leave the forum after the "gay marriage" debacle. The other main reason why several transexual posters left was another "debate" in which another poster insisted trans women were not real women but men infiltrating female spaces.

And yeah you are right. Generally speaking the people who left were not those expressing those views, but their targets.

I had more to say about the topic but I deleted it. I don't want this to spiral into the same issues we mentioned before.

[CFFJR]

Remember when we had several trans members on the forums? IIRC, they were driven away by the types of 'political' discussions we seemed to see on those threads.

I thought that was a result of some of the religious "discussions" (or just one in particular) that happened.

Remember that big blowout about homosexuality 2 or 3 years ago? One particular member made his feelings about that very clear in that thread. The whole thing was a mess.

Edit now that Erik has posted. I think I missed that second event.

[marurun]

There is no solution that will please everyone, so we have to pick a solution that we consider best for the health of the forums. While we absolutely appreciate everyone's thoughts and feedback, ultimately the mod team and Racketboy have to make the final determination, and that determination is still up in the air.

[dsheinem]

Remember when we had several trans members on the forums? IIRC, they were driven away by the types of 'political' discussions we seemed to see on those threads.

They indeed were. In fact and if I recall correctly Dsh himself threatened to leave the forum after the "gay marriage" debacle.

I think there's a lot of NOT recalling correctly here. We have had and we still do have trans members here. I think part of the reason for that is that the community has made it a point to call out transphobic remarks wherever they have occurred in the forums. I don't know of any trans members that have left the site because of the discussions in the old "World is Falling Apart" thread, though there may be other reasons that some have left that have nothing to do with that thread's discussion of politics. That thread was also not the only place that trans issues have been brought up, so nullifying that kind of political thread in the future would likely not nullify that discussion either.

The homosexuality thread was here: http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=635573. It was spun out of the "Random Thoughts" thread - not the "World is Falling Apart" thread. I never threatened to leave the site over that discussion (or any discussion, that I can recall). mjm had suggested the same at one point, so I posted this to try and show otherwise:

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/search.p ... mit=Search

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/search.p ... mit=Search

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/search.p ... mit=Search

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/search.p ... mit=Search

Again, I really feel that the "World is Falling Apart" thread was one of the places in this forum where this community actively defined itself as an inclusive, intelligent, and interesting space with a membership that could typically discuss topics that transcended an interest in video games (or other hobbies). I still don't buy that it has cost us valuable members or new members (nor have I seen any evidence of such), though I'd concur that it may have cost us some members that don't share the forum's stated values.

EDIT: I think it is worth quoting the last post (by Flake) in that homosexuality thread:

Sad to see the thread end this way but I am impressed that so much good, meaningful conversation came out of it. If this thread happened on any other site that I can think of, it would have "gamefaqs'd" itself really quickly.

[marurun]

Make no mistake, if we prohibit a politics/current events thread, we will also be on the lookout for that same thing happening in other threads.

Also, if we have any remaining trans participants on the board at this time, I'm not aware they're trans. Everyone I knew was trans is either long gone or actively deleted. This might be an issue with my own awareness of our user base, so correct me if I'm wrong.

[CFFJR]

Now that I've had a chance to reread that thread, I see I that I was not remembering events correctly. I know I was incredibly frustrated reading it when it happened (and a lot of that feeling returned after reading it again) and it seems that colored my perception.

Setting that aside, I still think there's a place for these kinds of discussions here. I know I don't participate in them, but I learn from reading them, and it would be unfortunate to see any subject outright banned from discussion.