Shall we ban politics? Take the poll.

Do you want politcs to be banned from this forum?

  • Yes, ban it.

    Votes: 37 50.0%

  • No, keep it.

    Votes: 37 50.0%
  • Total voters
    74
  • Poll closed .
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Buckeye said:
And this is why politics had to be banned. Some folks just want to keep beating that dead horse, and are unable to understand basic rules of common courtesy. Have a nice day.
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So what if [say I] and another member are going at it hammer & tong over a political point. If it annoys you, if you think we are being ridiculous ? If you didn't open that thread, you would never know.

You are not concerning yourself with what you participate in, you are concerning yourself with what others participate in. Control yourself, as opposed to controlling what others do.
 
An even split in 2017 yet still active as an interest.

Yes, ban it. Votes: 37 50.0%
No, keep it. Votes: 37 50.0%
Total voters 74 Poll closed Sep 24, 2017.

Worth the read Grumpy Ol' Man Senior Member Post #14

The ending paragraph had this in it.

Their political forums are "hidden". A member must request permission to have access to the political discussion and can, likewise, opt out at any time.

Quite a few responses in the original poll had the logical idea that if you don't like a thread & don't participate what difference would it make?

Maybe a new poll ?
 
rgp said:
So what if [say I] and another member are going at it hammer & tong over a political point. If it annoys you, if you think we are being ridiculous ? If you didn't open that thread, you would never know.

You are not concerning yourself with what you participate in, you are concerning yourself with what others participate in. Control yourself, as opposed to controlling what others do.
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lol - fact is that politics were banned quite a while ago, and if you don't like it you are free to leave. Have a nice day.
 
Buckeye said:
lol - fact is that politics were banned quite a while ago, and if you don't like it you are free to leave. Have a nice day.
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So true, but there you go again, trying to control what i do, so right back at'cha ... if a political thread is opened ? I suggest you do not open it, since the prospect of it seems to upset you. You after all are free to participate in other threads.
 
If there was a thread put up discussing what hats the ladies were going to wear to the Kentucky Derby this year ......... I have absolutely no interest in such a subject , so why would I even open such a thread ? ..... Conversely why would I even attempt to limit them from discussing it ?

Discuss it at will, discuss it as you will. Matters not, too me.
 
As I recall, when political discussions were permitted, personal animosity over differing political views often leaked into other threads. This often led to unpleasant cliquish behaviour which affected many members, politically engaged,

or otherwise. In my opinion, over time, the atmosphere in sf suffered greatly. Tension rather than conviviality became the norm.
 
Shalimar said:
As I recall, when political discussions were permitted, personal animosity over differing political views often leaked into other threads. This often led to unpleasant cliquish behaviour which affected many members, politically engaged, or otherwise. In my opinion, over time, the atmosphere in sf suffered greatly. Tension rather than conviviality became the norm.
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(The bolding above was mine.)

@Shalimar, agreed -- and that was precisely my point. As it is, sometimes one can guess at a poster's political views, but we're not all arguing pros and cons or making assumptions over labels. No politics allows more friendliness between members.
 
I'd like to see politics allowed, as long as it is really politics, and not a slugfest of insults. I'm on several other forums where politics is permitted, and haven't seen any major wars break out. People just voice their opinions.

It does seem kind of odd to me that politics is not allowed, but religion is. There are certainly as many opposing viewpoints over religious ideas as there are over political ones.

One other thing occurred to me: even though overt discussions of politics are banned, it is very often obvious what political stance someone is taking. One example: for a while, any discussion about whether to wear masks was highly political. It wasn't really about masks; the masks were symbolic, at least to a lot of people. It's nearly impossible to omit politics from any but the fluffiest discussions, even if you want to.
 
These days, we can't even agree on what is a fact and what is fabricated. Some people live in an alternate reality based on crazy conspiracy theories and that's what they base their opinions on. I have a neighbor like that. I just walk away from him when he comes near me.

I'm for keeping political discussions banned.
 
Matrix said:
Should SF ban politics to be a friendly forum, or depend on politics to be an active and fun board?
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While there is a sizable portion of the populace that insists that their fantasy-conspiracy political belief is the truth, there will never be an opportunity to have a "civil" political discussion.

There are forums out on the 'net where people get their jollies tearing each others hair and eyeballs out, so anybody that likes that kind of behavior can go there and have at it.
 
The "non-political" responses here to some threads have been political enough for me to want to keep the ban. I don't think I'd enjoy the forum as much if the ban were lifted. I think the ban provides an interesting way of tempering replies so that someone has to think about how to express their opinion without it being political.
 
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I,was verbally attacked on another forum because my view on politics was different than theirs. I have no problem with anyones point of view on the subject . Like others, have mentioned I could chose whether or not to post anything, so it would be fine with me if there was a political thread.
 
The issue that I see these days is that even in a thread that is initially not about politics, it will end up there because it is all so inter-twined. I commented this past weekend on a bit of the history involving the current fad of censoring people on social networking platforms and somebody came in upset about only conservatives being banned. My post was not at all about that, but instead about how we got to where censorship on these platforms became a thing.

So the problem I see is that if politics is banned, we will probably be very limited as to what can be discussed if politics is to not get involved. The moderators would have their hands full trying to stop such discussion where it flares up in ANY thread.

On the other hand, there seems to be such deep division and hatred these days for an opposing view from one "side" or the other, that civil discussion seems all but impossible.

It seems to be human nature to join "dese guys" and then "dose guys" become the bad guys to be attacked, ridiculed, etc. It happens between supporters of various sports teams, between religious belief systems, between schools and other institutions, between political parties, and most anything else that a person can join. I remember it even happening between CB'ers and ham radio folks back in the 1970s. To me, it is incredibly childish, but those heavily invested in one view or another can't seem to step back far enough to see the big picture, instead continuing to blindly fight for their side. Until we collectively grow up beyond this sort of thing and see beyond our own beliefs, I have little hope for civil discussion when it comes to these kinds of division.

Tony
 
tbeltrans said:
It seems to be human nature to join "dese guys" and then "dose guys" become the bad guys to be attacked, ridiculed, etc. It happens between supporters of various sports teams, between religious belief systems, between schools and other institutions, between political parties, and most anything else that a person can join. I remember it even happening between CB'ers and ham radio folks back in the 1970s. To me, it is incredibly childish, but those heavily invested in one view or another can't seem to step back far enough to see the big picture, instead continuing to blindly fight for their side. Until we collectively grow up beyond this sort of thing and see beyond our own beliefs, I have little hope for civil discussion when it comes to these kinds of division.

Tony
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...basically you're describing the tribal mentality that some people were raised in- "us" vs "them". That is always a fertile ground for conflict, without a doubt.

I had a supervisor at work back in the day, if someone had a different view than his, he would insist that "you're either for us or against us". Oh brother....
 
Funny thing, in my little corner of the universe, most people don’t seem to care very much about political or religious differences. Frankly, more often than not, we don’t even know where many of the people we know stand on these

issues. Considered rude to ask. If it does come up, unless someone is a proud boy, or espouses hatred towards any group in our multicultural society, we tend to be tolerant.
 
I do believe it's possible to have civilized political discussions, but I haven't found that many people who are capable of doing so. It is cool to have a great political discussion with someone who is able to be respectful of another's informed opinions and who can state specific reasons that their informed opinion is different. I sometimes learn new things in discussions like that.

I'm still all for the politics ban here unless there is a specific discussion thread for those topics that I can choose to have not show up at all when I look for new posts.
 
Shalimar said:
As I recall, when political discussions were permitted, personal animosity over differing political views often leaked into other threads. This often led to unpleasant cliquish behaviour which affected many members, politically engaged,

or otherwise. In my opinion, over time, the atmosphere in sf suffered greatly. Tension rather than conviviality became the norm.
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One of the problems with a site like this, is that regular posters do reveal their political and personal views. We soon get a mental profile of everyone, and this can affect our responses to all their posts.
 
Many of you weren't members of this forum when this poll was taken, and this was about 3 or 4 years after I joined.. (i've been here 7 years)

The political forums or threads here were almost impossible to avoid, because it seemed as tho' politics were brought into many unrelated threads and if you dared to go against the thoughts of the clique majority view, you could be hounded all around the forum..every thread.... a mere good morning wish on the daily morning thread would get some troublemaker attempting to call you out , taunting and attempting argument because of your opinion being even slightly different to theirs on a political point... it got to be a horrible toxic situation, which went on for years and ultimately we weren't keeping new members because they'd soon see what was happening or become embroiled themselves, ... so something had to go.. and that was the banning of some members who refused to comply with the rules , and ultimately the poll asking for the majority view with regard to keeping politics as part of this forum

This has been a very much nicer , and calmer forum since we lost the political threads... I wouldn't want it to return
 

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