WTF happened to these forums?

I come back thinking I'd get in some good forum games, instead all of the posts in off-topic are a bunch of political BS.

Can we get this Bane Shift moderated? This is the reason this community is dying. Politics and people having fun do not mix. Any and every time politics are allowed to mingle with gaming, it just pisses off some people and drives others away while a small vocal minority sits there all smug behind their keyboards.

This is only gonna get worse and worse as the US elections carry on.

So please. Ban political discussion on these forums.

 

I tend to agree with your observation, particularly with the culture of polarization I see among the political posters here.

However, I strongly disagree with moderation and censorship as unnecessary and heavy-handed. We (the posters ourselves) can resolve this issue without relying on gov- er, moderator intervention.

 

Yeah. Censorship is evil.

We don't need big brother on these forums.

 

speaking as a small part of the modsquad, there is moderation *in* the political threads. there is not moderation specifically *of* political threads. there used to be (under SOE, much less with DOG). i disagree that these specific threads are the reason the community is dying, it's been doing that both with and without them. there isn't much correlation, to my eye.

near as i can tell, the main issue with political threads is the unwillingness of most of the people taking part in them to shift off of what they believe, at core, is "good", "bad", or "fact" (things that contribute to belief in general). i don't view this as a bad thing in itself, just that when beliefs are questioned responses do tend to be more emotional, less logical, etc.

having said that, if you want more forum games i encourage you to make your own. if you don't want to read the political threads, i encourage you not to (if your problem is the number of threads on the matter, that's a slightly different story- however), and if you have an issue with moderation in general, it's hugely more effective to take it up with Senshu via PM than the OT forum crew via this.

if you have any other questions about moderation, similarly, i advise you to ask them of Senshu. near as i can tell, he's the one that sets the rules.


having said all this, i feel somewhat compelled to lock this thread. i'm going to leave this post, and hopefully you make use of it.


unless the notion of political discussion on these forums is so polarizing to you that you don't feel you can stand another minute here, in which case that's vaguely ironic