Halx

Well guess what. If you guys don't shape up, you're not going to be able to do so any more.

THE POLITICS BOARD IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOU TO POST SHORT, ANGSTY QUIPS ABOUT YOUR STUPID, REDUNDANT POINTS THAT HAVE BECOME CLICHES AFTER YEARS AND YEARS OF REPETITION!

ALSO, THE POLITICS BOARD IS NOT *YOUR* BOARD - IT IS *MY* BOARD. THAT MEANS YOU DO NOT GET TO BE OFFENDED BY SOMEONE ELSE'S WELL-SPOKEN POLITICAL VIEWS AND RESPOND WITH NOTHING BUT VITRIOL AND A SMUG, IMMATURE DISGUISED INSULT.

Listen up, people. The TFP has come this far on a few principles... respect your fellow member's opinions and contribute to a discussion with an intelligent response. It can do nothing but good if you do this. If you are NOT willing to do this - if you are NOT willing to come to the politics board with an OPEN MIND - if you are NOT willing to DISCUSS politics rather than PREACH them - GET THE FUCK OUT!

Also, I'm sick and tired of you so-called "mature adults" (I think that is what you claimed to be when you submitted your account information to become a member) finding my moderators to be biased and incapable of doing their job. Your complete bullshit over the last few months is making them not want to even touch this board. As a result, you're just shitting in your own seat. My moderators do a damn fine job. I watch what they do and I'm impressed with their ability to put aside their own political views to view situations with a clear mind. They are fucking wonderful people. If you can't appreciate these people taking time out of their day to put up with your completely juvenile bickering, once again, GET THE FUCK OUT.

Figure it out, smart guys.

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Politics

Listen jackass. This is one of the reasons why you'll never get a dime out of me to help you run this site. You say it's your site now, but when you need money to help run it becaue you're damn near broke you sure as hell come to us begging for a butt load of cash. I want to express my opinions and if you ever expect to get any money out of me, you and your right-wing censors that you happen to call "moderators" need to back the fuck off and let people discuss the issues. Just becasue you hate politics and can't stand any of the parties doesn't mean that you and the "mod police" need to start silencing people. Start with that and then I'll think about helping you with $$$.

feelgood

Listen Jackass, you got the rights to express your opinion. Just make sure your opinion doesn't infringe on others. Just make sure your opinion is expressive and thoughtful. Otherwise, we'll have a board full of threads and posts about how democrats, republician, right party, left party, up party, down party is better, stupider or cooler than that party and we'll end up with bunch of jackasses like you posting nothing but garbages.

You got the right to donate or not but you sure hell don't have the right to come into somebody's house and tell him how you don't like it the way he arranges his furnitures.

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Hardknock

Wow, tell us how you really feel...

superiorrain

And that was you're first post, looks to me somebody doesn't understand the tilted way. This place as Halx says is about sharing ideas, making suggestions for a better system and for all to learn from one another. Have being your first post i'm not so sure you really qualify to say that the mods are 'mod police' and right wing sensors. They happen to be nice people and if you read their post you would learn this.

In fact i think your post is a prime example of how tilted politics should not look.

I myself will continue to look the discuss rather than preach, although i still think there is a fine line. But as always i will do it with some degree of respect for all the other memebers.

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Elphaba

Swell. I love the politics forum and the first reply to Hal appears to be from someone intent on getting it shut down.

arch13

My thoughts exactly.

I rather enjoy this forum, and think that 90% of the time, conversation is civil and within limits.
Persoanl attacks are sadly part of real life politics, and it suprises me not to see them pop up here occasionally.
I value the prescence of this forum on the TFP, and feel I've learned alot about the views of others that has nothing to do with party lines. Becuase, well, no one around here really falls into any catagory easily.

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Lebell

Wow, that's a great way to get respect around here.

I guess that's why you were too chickenshit to post under your own name and had to make a throwaway? Needed your regular username to stay cloaked in "respect"?

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Redlemon

This was not his first post. This was an existing user registering under a new name for "anonymity". Which, of course, is against the forum rules. Although, the mods can probably trace him back and may very well ban his current account as well.

Back on-topic, I'd be very interested to see if the Politics board can exist with the rules Halx is proposing. If it does survive, I might even participate; the current ultra-partisianship makes it nearly impossible for someone like me to enter it.

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Halx

Obviously I struck a nerve. Get ready to make another clone to bitch about me some more 'cause I'm about to ask for more donations.

Creating an anonymous email address: 3 minutes.
Creating a TFP username: 3 minutes.
Writing a long post bitching about me and the moderators: 15 minutes.
Moderator bans you: 5 seconds.

It never ceases to amaze me how important people think their opinions are.

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Willravel

Upon reading this, I am ready to listen as the author is clearly ready to tell me something full of respect.
I know I wouldn't want this persons money, and I get the feeling Halx agrees.
Hahahahaha. Right wing. That's rich. Politics (if you ever get back on), the title of Moderator refers to their moderating quality of the site, not their moderate stance in politics.
We have been invited to be in Halx's community. I instead of ungrateful spite, I believe Halx deserves our thanks and respect.
Ahahahahaha!!! Owned!

superiorrain

With all due respect (as i don't want to be bitch slapped out of this place) this forum is based on peoples opinions, without our opinions we may as well give up. This place wouldn't be the interesting place that it is without them. As such i declear all peoples opinions as important, as long as they are written with the buzz word of this thread, RESPECT.

I do agree however slightly sad that someone would feel the need to cloke themselves, but whatever floats your boat.

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Cynthetiq

I find it funny that the purpose of this place is to NOT need to to "cloak" your personality but to actually show it, and show it respectfully.

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ShaniFaye

alters have never impressed me, on anytime on anyboard...this is the one place its not needed because most people feel free to be themselves and disagree with others all day long, I have far more respect for a person that blasts me as THEMSELVES.

I enjoy other peoples opinions, just not always how they are presented....specially in the politics forum....thats a scary scary place sometimes.

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tecoyah

Time to focus on this for a bit guys and gals......Things are going to change in here....PERIOD.

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ObieX

Is there some way to get that guy's IP and just complete the ban? That post was was out there, even for this forum, heh. I mean, damn.

While i agree there is a shitload of squabbling on this politics section, thats what politics is. Some folks are set in their ways, and dont bend to the wind, some sway back and forth whichever way the wind blows. The arguements are part of politics. However, personal attacks have grown quite a bit lately, and i have noticed a lot of "time outs" getting slapped on folks. I think as everyone is getting to know eachothers viewpoints more and more clearly, the persuasion part of the discussion starts to lessen as people already know they wont be able to change someone's mind on a certain subject. What we need is a more broad range of discussion i think, and veer a bit away fromt he usual R.vs.D. boxing match.

I like to hear what others have to say/think about pretty much every topic discussed in politics section. It's really opened my mind to the way people actually think, and i think this area is a valuable part of this board. While it may make people more calm with it's absence, it would feel, to me atleast, that a bit of the flavor of the board would be diminished.

I'm not quite sure how im viewed in this section. Probably as some kind of conspiracy loving bush hating nut job. But i still enjoy it, and find it fun, educational, and entertaining.

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MSD

It's kind of ironic: left-wing people accuse us of being conservative, right-wing people consider us liberals. Maybe that's a sign that we're somewhere in the middle. Nobody who throws out those accusations ever seems to consider the whole picture; they're usually so blinded by ideology that all they can do is spout rhetoric and accuse everyone who disagrees of being either a Nazi or a Communist.

chickentribs

Guess what, tough guy... You just did help him. What a great reminder of why TFP is worthwhile - Halx, tecoyah, Cyn, Mal, Lebell, Mr. SD, et. al - thank you for the work, time, and dog-catching you do to keep this place sharp and smart.
/off to get wallet...

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Ustwo

Hehe I come back for the first time in 6 months to drama.

Over all the politics board seemed pretty dead so obviously I missed some things.

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SecretMethod70

I just want to clarify...we don't think that people's opinions have no worth. You are right - it is the sharing of opinions that make this place what it is. What Hal is amazed by, along with me and others, is how much MORE important some people think their opinions are than what they should. It is the frequent arrogance that accompanies the expression of opinion, not the opinion itself.

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Willravel

Welcome back. You missed an election and what I consider to be partisanship aftershocks. We all know that elections can serve to severly polarize people, and this time it is taking longer to wear off.

cyrnel

Damn centrists! (jk)

I sometimes fantasize that the most bent, critical, angry posts come from people grinning behind their keyboards, just toying with others. It's a nice fantasy, wherein everyone's happy and a few pranksters post wildly contrasting opinions and attitudes just to see what sticks. No harm done because the angry responses are just more toying. Then someone comes along and tells me Santa's dead. Fuck me.

I've always felt large flames were best countered with a vacuum. Swift, complete, perhaps accompanied by a "pardon our dust" notice. If it isn't up for discussion then discussions only prolong the agony.

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Elphaba

This damned centrist loves the politics forum. I swear I will never call anyone a Big Dick or Mr. Dick again, no matter how much I am baited.

Hal, does groveling and silent weeping help in giving Politics a second chance?

analog

4 if you don't count process/refresh time. I'm glad to see there are many in here with such an optimistic point of view of the nature of our politics forum. The fact is, it's headed downhill quite a bit.

We don't just exist to be a board, not just to be a community, but to be the community that others could never be, and to be the board that everyone else dreams of being. That, dear members, is the nature of the whole of the TFP.

What we have here is a portion of our beloved community enagaged in a battle of wits and quips where ideas are supposed to inspire, cause insight, and promote thinking, just like everywhere else. Somehow, though, this area is wrought with grief, anger, and childish name-calling.

When this much upset goes on in the Tilted Politics section, it trickles down in malicious little rivulets to the other forums, where the name-calling and immaturity blow up more quickly and spread out further into the general population.

We cannot have the muddy waters of the Politics forum infesting the rest of the board. What we're talking about here is the clean-up needed to restore the level of decorum, respect, and maturity expected and required of all members of the TFP.

If we have to, we will give time-outs as though you were children, in the form of temporary bans. If you act like a child, we will treat you like one. Stay a child, and you'll be sent away from the grown-ups table permanently.

My regular schedule just got freed up a lot, so I'm going to be back in business in here. Happy posting!

spectre

Not nearly as much as civilized discourse.

Same here. Remember everyone, we are watching, and Politics will be cleaned up one way or another.

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kutulu

Maybe not in the middle, but able to push aside your personal feelings to do the job you are appointed to do.

roachboy

i assume that there is a backstory to all this that somehow i know nothing about, yes?
i have noticed recurrent slides into simple namecalling, etc.--but it seems that during the 10 days or so that i was knocked out of commission with computer ennuis that something else had transpired. no matter really (i dont really care what the backstory is--i am just voicing my confusion over this turn of events).

what i am posting is a defense of the politics board.

1.
for what it's worth, i havent seen particular political questions arising from the actions of any mod as mod--sometimes things get strange when a mod switches from being a participant in a particular thread to acting as moderator in the same thread---the solution to this image-switch seems to me unnecessary (that another person operate as mod once a mod decides to participate)...goofy even...mostly because (for example) lebell is a consistently interesting fellow to talk/argue with--even though we rarely agree---and it would be a shame to hamstring his ability to participate in the forum because he is a moderator. same would apply, in differing ways, to most of the other folk with whom i have interacted in this space.

2.

it would be a shame indeed were the implied threat to shut down the politics board were to transpire. whether everyone likes the tone or not at every point, it often (often enough to keep me coming back to it--and there is no reason that i have to keep coming back--like everyone i have plenty of other things i can and probably should be doing in the morning) has fairly serious discussions---within the limitations imposed by the nature of messageboards--you get close to how someone might really think, but there is nonetheless always compression and the strange distancing that writing across little white squares engenders. and within the limits imposed on debate more generally by the sorry cultural environment within which we operate these days.

politics seems to me in the main more consistent than, say, the philosophy forum in this regard--maybe because folk do not understand the category politics to be as--o i dont know--formal or "serious" as philosophy. in my opinion, this is a real shame--most of what i think politics is would fit better under philosophy--but the division of intellectual labor within which we work is different than that. so there we are.

it seems to me that debate is fundamental to any democratic process. if the debate here is often degraded, it is more often than not an indication of the distance that seperates debate as a superficial index of or substitute for democracy from what the latter would be like were there anything real at stake. in which case, the problem is not this board, but the non-democracy that enframes debate more generally. the forum would be a symptom, in this case.

if you want to create a community that operates within a particular context but is somehow seperate from it, then fine--but dont be surprised if features of the context leak into the community--it would be naieve to imagine that things could go otherwise. well they could--and the community would soon die--as hundreds of previous communities have that thought they could seperate themselves entirely from their environments.

in the end, i am not sure what is going on here: whether the series of particular moves that engendered hal's opening statement are in themselves a result of some accumulation of pm-level sniping/exchanges of self-justifications that i (mercifully i think) am not privy to, or if the problem is the politics board in and of itself. either way, it would be a shame if this place were to be shut down in the interest of some conception of harmony that is in all probability self-defeating for the continued functioning of the community itself. say you did shut it down--the community would be open to the world around it across the level of what pop songs do you like, what tv shows or film have you seen, whats up with my computer, my leisure life, what is strange in the news. if this was the extent of it, then you might well have a harmonious community--my theory is that it would be harmonious like the shakers were---fewer and fewer people across time. if what this is really about is an attempt to remind/enforce a requirement of civility, then the opening is a pretty strange way to go about it----but whatever----people get angry--i get angry from time to time too.

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stevo

I must agree with you, roach.

nice post.

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Charlatan

Wow... now that's a first!


I have been following this thread and would just say that I agree with roach as well.

While there are from time to time flares and there are certain members that can get a little out of hand, for the most part, the level of discourse here is *much* higher than anywhere else.

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powerclown

Agreed. Also agree with roachboy...though of course there is nothing wrong with discussing pop sings, movies, cars and other light-hearted stuff. I've seen it much worse elsewhere to be honest. I don't see tfp as being primarily a politics board anyway. I see it as a titty board/exhibitionist board first, with a bunch of other forums grafted onto it. I remember the days when the tfp was ONLY a titty board. I've been to many other boards where the politic forums are openly hostile, and some places where there is a 'flame forum' dedicated soley to vent...anything goes. Maybe another forum to add on?

shakran

Eh, flame forums are pretty much a big mistake IMHO. The same scenario always seems to develop.

Everyone's civilized everywhere else, but in the flame forum, user A calls user B an ignorant fucktard, then user B says he's gonna fire bomb user A's house or some similar bullshit, and before you know it there's a shitload of hatred between members, and then that spills over into the other forums and wrecks the discourse and community of the entire board.

Not worth it IMO.

Halx

If you are satisfied with the level of discourse, then you're either not looking at it closely enough, or you're not quite as put off as I am when people take the easy way out of a discussion by adding a one-liner that amounts to a radio engineer pressing a button for a sound effect.

You guys are also responsible for holding your fellow members to a higher standard of behavior.

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Superbelt

I wish my new job didn't block this forum. I love the politics board here, and everyone in it, for the most part.

BTW, find the cloaked bitcher and ban him (he/she obviously hates it here anyway) and I'll double the board contribution I'll be submit tomorrow.

Elphaba

I am pretty certain the "cloaked" one was identified. It's all about "respect" doncha know?

matthew330

.....forgive me father, for i have sinned. yah though i walk through the shadow of darkness, blessed is he who has sinned against me. and blessed be is thy name.

boatin

It's too bad that the thread was kicked off by the now banned flamer. Because it disguised/distracted from the real point. I'd like to see this thread explore the things that Halx is talking about.

While I agree with Roachboy to a point - this is more polite than any politics forum, ever - and friction creates some positive outcomes - there is surely behavior that makes me nuts.

If we are driving down the road, and Halx's goal is to keep us on road, the moderators provide course correction at the edges. My guess is that course correction is VERY hard and has to be applied with great vim. Because this is TFP, it shouldn't be so hard for the moderators. WE make it too hard, and that, perhaps, has consequences on the rest of the board.

Perhaps the goal is to police ourselves better, so that the mods can apply the light touch they apply elsewhere?


For myself, the thing that makes me nutty is people responding to a particular detail in someone's post that they CAN make a rebuttal to, and not responding to the actual point of that post. God forbid we actually say: great point - I can't respond to that because you are right.

I'm sure there are lots of other things, and I'm guessing I have guilt too But just to throw something out there...



thx for having us in your house, Halx

analog

By george, I think he's got it!

biznatch

I agree with you Hal. although it is tough to not get carried away when the topic is politics.
thx for giving us the chance to express each other while protecting us from those "jackasses"

Mephisto2

My thoughts exactly. I also dropped off the scene, more or less, for about six months.

Mr Mephisto

raveneye

Political issues often involve the most fundamental values of human society, and these values often are life and death issues. Those of us who understand intimately that these are life and death issues are not likely to turn these debates into pissing matches. They are too important for that.

I feel strongly about many things discussed here; I don't believe that it's generally a good idea to hide one's emotions on issues as important as these. As long as we respect each other, I see no reason not to let our feelings out.

I come from a politically active family in which some members have suffered tremendously as a result. A cousin of mine (a reporter in Paris) was murdered by the Yugoslav Secret Police back before the breakup while getting out of his car in the newspaper parking lot. He was shot 5 times in the head; nobody was caught. Previous to that he spent 5 years in prisons being tortured horifically, to prevent him from speaking out in the future. Many other friends and relatives have been tortured in prisons. My sister has been haunted by death threats for many years and has been shot at at close range; she is lucky to be alive today. She seems safe now, but there are times when the phone rings and a part of me is thinking, "is this it"?

For me, politics means doing your damndest to get it right. That's because lives are at stake. I know firsthand what happens to survivors when people don't get it right. Maybe it's a pipe dream, but I have no intentions of giving up.

It's easy to sit here in front of a computer in comfort and forget these kinds of things. Maybe it's a good idea to keep in mind that there are more important things in life than how far you can piss on an anonymous discussion board ? And I'd also like to thank Halx and the moderators for their patience here.