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I know I just re-entered the fold here but coming from being a member for some years at AtariAge and some FB forums, one thing they had all in common was a zero tolerance rule on political posting.  Originally I wasn't too keen on the censorship factor, but as things got more and more deranged in this decade I saw a real fracture of some places and not others and it all circled that singular toilet bowl.  Places that banned it people stayed friends, stuff stayed on the general topics, all went well, and if someone tried it they'd get warned or just removed.  Those that didn't I can't think of any group that lasted more than months to a year because it just got nasty people making enemies over policy and politics.

It's just a suggestion, a strong one maybe, but don't allow it.  It's an election year coming up very shortly and it's going to get vile and ugly and I'd hate to see this place immolate itself as not everyone is a righty or a lefty and plenty around online have little to no self control when the door is open.

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Events Team · Posted

Yeeeaaah, as much as I like the idea of everyone being able to discuss whatever their heart desires in the Everything Else tab, that's probably a good call. It's damn near impossible to have a reasonable, civilized discussion about politics without it devolving in to an argument nowadays.

I think maybe just having a single dedicated thread for discussing politics would possibly be a decent idea, but I can't say I'm very knowledgeable on how to run a forum like this, what works and what doesn't, so that could very well be the worst idea in human history.

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Gloves, thanks, that's all I ask.  I only made the post due to years of experience getting caught up in places that do and don't allow it, and the don't still are happy centers and live on.  Those that allow it, well it's a pissy tinderbox of like minded one side of the isle intolerant echo chambers at best, and dead meat at worst making enemies of many.  I get what Zeldafreak is saying too, but even having just one 'war room' like thread for all things that still would potentially breed fights, distrust and unwillingness (as bill and ted put it) be excellent to each other over bad blood.  Truth is most people lack the self control to handle politics, especially online, since you have that faceless way to really lay into someone you can't so easily get away with on social media with a real name or in real life where someone can clock you.

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I personally do not get myself involved in such manner (also religion) I mean I have my views and such but IMHO this is in essence a video game forum, an escape from the real world for a bit and even though I agree full heartedly about no censorship here there is a time a place for such and I'd much prefer it would be elsewhere than VGS. just my two cents and +1 post count.

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I'm a firm believer that Everything Else should be anything people want to post that isn't illegal.

If the mods want to add a couple of "tags" that more obviously label threads as "Politics" or "Religion", etc, that might be helpful to let people avoid accidentally clicking into something they don't expect to read.

(maybe even allowing people to filter out certain tags entirely, so they don't even see them -- kind of like a "foe" feature for entire topics)

 

But people that get upset about those kinds of threads should just avoid them in the first place.

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8 minutes ago, Crazy Climber said:

...it's usually just people that don't collect stuff that care about such things as politics...

"collecting stuff" is not a criteria for participating in the forums, nor is it a measure of one's worth in the context of the forum.

Edited by arch_8ngel
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11 minutes ago, Nintegageo said:

I think he was joking

Maybe, and sorry if I misread the tone.

At one time it was a fairly common dig on the old forum to try and discredit someone's participation in certain topics with a "why are you even here if you don't seriously collect".

 

Edited by arch_8ngel
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Administrator · Posted
30 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

I'm a firm believer that Everything Else should be anything people want to post that isn't illegal.

If the mods want to add a couple of "tags" that more obviously label threads as "Politics" or "Religion", etc, that might be helpful to let people avoid accidentally clicking into something they don't expect to read.

(maybe even allowing people to filter out certain tags entirely, so they don't even see them -- kind of like a "foe" feature for entire topics)

But people that get upset about those kinds of threads should just avoid them in the first place.

I agree personally, in that I don't think we need to have specific topics that are completely disallowed in Everything Else.  This particular issue has come up before, and the discussion of "this is a game forum" has been had many times.  I totally understand WHY this proposal is made, and I think it comes from a good place of wanting to keep nastiness out of the community.  Personally, I think this issue can be addressed by simply having good moderation and enforcement of the rules, and a good common understanding and encouragement from members to make a deliberate attempt to being reasonable adults, and not provoking people just for the sake of it.  And people can absolutely avoid topics if they don't want to discuss them.

I do acknowledge that people tend to get very heated particularly in the current climate, and even normally reasonable people can get too emotional and participate in negative back and forth arguments that aren't constructive.  And obviously that is not good to have negativity festering in a community, particularly if it could extend to other places or cause people to dislike each other.

Personally - I really do view this as a community, and just as in my own community circle of family and friends, I typically prefer to talk about fun things I enjoy and chit-chat around about random stuff and video games, but every now and then, I'm fine with talking about something that might be politically-related or otherwise, and I enjoy hearing different opinions about things.  I think if people are respectful and reasonable, it can be fine.  I think as a society, if we just refuse to talk about anything political because of the negativity, I don't know that that's good either.  I think WE ALL just need to work on better handling of our own emotions, better reacting and responding, being more respectful, and not getting hateful and attacking others.  That is clearly a challenge that we are struggling with as a society, far beyond a forum.

Do I have too much faith and hope in people?  Is it silly to expect people to be reasonable and not lose it on a forum and the wild west of the internet?  I don't know.  I'm not so naive to think everyone is going to always get along perfectly, particularly with controversial or political topics.  But also, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, with some exceptions, I feel like the community over at NA was still kept in tact for the most part and I don't think political discussions alone destroyed anything.  I think that if we do not explicitly exclude these topics, we all need to try to be better.  And if we do allow such discussions, it does create a little bit more potential work for moderators, but I do know that our current team is committed to fostering a constructive, positive environment.

We will consider and discuss this of course.  For the time being there isn't any specific exclusion - I'd prefer to give us a chance and deal with issues if they arise, just like anything else.

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25 minutes ago, spacepup said:

 

We will consider and discuss this of course.  For the time being there isn't any specific exclusion - I'd prefer to give us a chance and deal with issues if they arise, just like anything else.

Well, I started a side topic suggestion about utilizing our "topic"/"tag" feature to let people "ignore topic" rather than just "ignore user".

That wasn't possible on the old forums that I know of.

If it was possible here, it would probably go a long way to solving the potential conflicts.

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1 hour ago, arch_8ngel said:

I'm a firm believer that Everything Else should be anything people want to post that isn't illegal.

If the mods want to add a couple of "tags" that more obviously label threads as "Politics" or "Religion", etc, that might be helpful to let people avoid accidentally clicking into something they don't expect to read.

(maybe even allowing people to filter out certain tags entirely, so they don't even see them -- kind of like a "foe" feature for entire topics)

 

But people that get upset about those kinds of threads should just avoid them in the first place.

I agree. The fact that many people do participate in political discussions shows that there is a need for an outlet.

Yes, some people do take things too far. But that’s not the fault of the topic being discussed, it’s still the responsibility of the person posting to regulate themselves and only post respectful content

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1 hour ago, arch_8ngel said:

I'm a firm believer that Everything Else should be anything people want to post that isn't illegal.

If the mods want to add a couple of "tags" that more obviously label threads as "Politics" or "Religion", etc, that might be helpful to let people avoid accidentally clicking into something they don't expect to read.

(maybe even allowing people to filter out certain tags entirely, so they don't even see them -- kind of like a "foe" feature for entire topics)

 

But people that get upset about those kinds of threads should just avoid them in the first place.

 

A possible solution could be that for certain, sensitive topics, they have to be tagged with a given tag or two, as Arch has stated.  Even "politics", "religion"  and one or two others could work.  Where rules are defined, everyone can be instructed to filter out those tags if they do not want to engage in such discussions, and if you are going to engage in that type of talk, you have to tag it.

For those that do want to engage in these discussions, you can have very-specific rules of civility, that might even be more stringent than other topics about games and collecting.  I mean, people can throw out some trash talk when you talk about games, and people can get agitated in places like the Werewolf game, but it all blows over with time.

It's impossible to be non-offensive to everyone, and I wouldn't even then it that should be a goal.  But, with some topics, you can set extra guidelines to keep this place from getting divided. We all know that politics and religion aren't the point of this site, but we also agree (I assume) that sometimes community is built on other, shared interests.  Having rules stated on how we can discuss potentially sensitive topics which others can filter out makes sense as a good balance on handling these issues.  You could even facilitate a discussion on which topics should need to be tagged.

Politics, Religion, Drugs (legal discussions, of course) and sex are a few that come to mind.

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Subscriber T1 · Posted

Politics and religion are subjects that are likely to polarize views, but as long as the common site rule of being respectful to each other is adhered to, I don't see the need for a ban. Discouraged perhaps, but not an outright ban.

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Just now, ap123 said:

Politics and religion are subjects that are likely to polarize views, but as long as the common site rule of being respectful to each other is adhered to, I don't see the need for a ban. Discouraged perhaps, but not an outright ban.

The problem with that, as a rule, is it's subject.  Someone says something spiteful, they get banned, then people on their side start calling out moderator, preferential treatment & bias.

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Subscriber T1 · Posted

I would

2 minutes ago, RH said:

The problem with that, as a rule, is it's subject.  Someone says something spiteful, they get banned, then people on their side start calling out moderator, preferential treatment & bias.

It should just be a case that people are asked to retract anything disrespectful or any personal attacks. The rules are pretty clear that those types of comment aren't acceptable. Hopefully wouldn't have to ban anyone unless they were a serial offender, or promoting hatred and violence.

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8 minutes ago, RH said:

The problem with that, as a rule, is it's subject.  Someone says something spiteful, they get banned, then people on their side start calling out moderator, preferential treatment & bias.

I wonder if part of the novelty of the tag/topic system could be "banning" people from specific topics alone, if they misbehave in those topics?

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4 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

I wonder if part of the novelty of the tag/topic system could be "banning" people from specific topics alone, if they misbehave in those topics?

If that's plausible with this software, that's a great idea.  It's merely a soft ban.

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Homebrew Team · Posted

I don't think I would care too much either way this lands.

My 2 cents:

While I don't like to have the forum censored, I prefer it be a separate category or a single topic.  That way, I just never click on it.  If I can have it ignored in my custom content streams, even better.  

On NA, I just never clicked on the topic.  If I wanted to discuss politics, I went elsewhere for that.

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Nice debate, fun to read the various ideas about it.

I think I mentioned before AtariAge and their locks.  Funny coincidence, they do use the same Invision forum software.  They do in fact allow for tags.  You can filter by tags, you can soft ban via tags or individual posts but not sections or forum wide.  The software is quite versatile in all that it allows for custom actions and not blanket wand waving motions.

Depending how the debate on the inside swings that would be possible.

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3 hours ago, Crazy Climber said:

...it's usually just people that don't collect stuff that care about such things as politics...

 

3 hours ago, arch_8ngel said:

"collecting stuff" is not a criteria for participating in the forums, nor is it a measure of one's worth in the context of the forum.

 

3 hours ago, Nintegageo said:

I think he was joking

bah, political discussions are usually filled with guys that actually tell their wife or girlfriend the real price they paid for stuff, no collector of awesomeness wants to be surrounded by that 🙂

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