Examples would be pretty helpful. Also, if you want to shutdown this forum, it would be much appreciated if you let us organize where we could go to continue our community and discussions.

I can understand not wanting people to post about where to take traffic that makes you money, but if you're banning that traffic anyway, it would be nice to allow that for people who have spent countless hours on your site generating revenue for you, and in many/most cases also been customers of your business in other ways.

Hopefully making that point doesn't get me banned, but if it does, goodbye everyone... It's been enjoyable discussing the issues of our time with other bright minds.

I have other thoughts, but I don't see the point in arguing for/against different types of posts without seeing examples of what we're even talking about.

I agree that catface's ban was an overreaction if it's a permaban. But my point was that I think there have been bans in the past for advocating/organizing moving of business/traffic from this forum to another entity. And that's not unreasonable.

in exchange for agreeing to keep the politics forum open, i will agree to buy 5.7 books

I mean Mason came in saying he didn't want the business/traffic and may just shut it down. Not sure what he expected.

If you value the forum and want it to stay together you have to take steps to do so before the nuke hits.

Totally agree with the you about the problem. But it's also a really informative forum in many ways and politics is a great subject so please try to to find a way to make it work.

In my humble opinion the mods do a pretty good job most of the time but there has to be some direction from 2+2 on what is acceptable to the site. It's too hard for forum mods alone to draw the lines when it comes to such a divisive subject.

There have been at least two, but nice try I'm not posting links. I think they both came out of 4L when there was a crackdown over there/threats to close it. The main one was quite popular for a while and featured ed furlong and a dids twitter bot. It's where TBAB found his biggest mark.

3th. I like most of the people here and value many of the opinions but this is the main reason I stay since poker went kaput. (And werewolf, but that mostly moved to a different site already.)

Mason,

In over well over 10 years years here, and only a light poster in this forum, the only time I was ever temp banned was by that Cookie guy, but I chuckled about it at the time and accepted that as part of the current culture of this forum. I do not think anyone who posts in it, even the obsessed serious ones, take themselves that deeply seriously once they catch their breath. Well, at least I hope.

Speaking as a non regular - the forum is actually an interesting one to read, sometimes for the information, although that gets cluttered with a lot of rando tweet posts, but usually for the human emotions and interactions, because it does reflect the times we are in as experienced by a niche portion of the population, and that is a valid form of expression.

Definitely can be a bit petty at times, but that is the internet in general, and nobody should really take things said in this forum that seriously as it does not have any pipeline to actual people who would implement political change.

I would offer from a non regular perspective that simply excising this forum would not be that productive. If behavior needs to be moderated a bit more (like when posters wish other people dead and such), then so be it, but the forum definitely has some value.

Thank you for your time.

To be fair i have deleted, temp-banned, and infracted several users for behavior such as this, but I don’t read every thread, nor does Wookie I would guess. Use the “notify mod” button when you see this and it will be taken care of. Similarly posters who wish death or bodily harm on a political figure are infracted or temp-banned and their posts deleted if I catch it.

I've been following this forum for years. It isn't perfect, but it is overwhelmingly a net positive. There are a lot of well informed people, vastly more informed than the average person. I get good links, sometimes comment stuff, see funny things. It is part of my daily politics consumption. I way prefer it to twitter, other forums, facebook, etc.

Taking it away for what to me is entirely nonobvious problem of vitriol would be a huge disappointment. It would be the last thing keeping me here on 2+2 for sure. Heck, I submit the vitriol here is substantially LESS than many other places on the internet to talk about politics. If it really is a problem, be clear in directions to wookie to tighten the screws in some types of moderation, dont' threaten to eliminate it!

I think if you are planning on eliminating a large, established community party of the daily politics interaction of many people, there should be extremely clear problems identified, a long series of other attempts tried before closing, and closing only as the very last of resorts.

Mason,
As a poster who only pops in here sporadically, but who is active on one sub of 2p2 or another pretty much daily: a significant problem with closing this sub is the value it serves in containing Politics to one area where it's totally appropriate to freely discuss the topic. Other subs do occasionally indulge the topic, but it tends to be a toxic one for community purposes in other areas, and closing this sub down seems that it would lead to at least one of these two outcomes for many posters:
1. They just leave 2p2 outright; or
2. They infuse politics into non-Politics forums at a significantly higher rate, creating more problems there.

Yes, mods of other subs could more strictly censor Politics too, but that would just lead to greater numbers quitting on the site altogether.

Modding this forum more strictly is fine; whatever. It isn't that hard for a poster to act like an adult while discussing adult issues, or it shouldn't be. Closing it outright seems like it would be a pretty clear mistake.

I do not know the inner workings of the site here, but my belief is you guys are actually not paid, so while I personally think you guys are insane to moderate, I do appreciate the effort .

I guess context is a bit important as well. I am horrible remembering names (as was apparent in my last post), but one poster who always talked about wanting Trump dead would say the same thing if he did not like how a player in Survivor played. It is lame, but I assume wishing people dead is his way of saying "how are you doing today" so should that guy be moderated the same as a genuine crazy who posts threats of violence? No idea, that is why you guys get paid the big bucks!

The forum without question has a built in intolerance, with a group bullying tactic directed at anyone who does not tow the line, but that is standard in any political forum. Some posters talk about another political forum that I followed the link to ( think it was on the Kansas City Chiefs board, pretty weird how politics forums gain strength in places at times), and that place with a quick visit seemed an exact duplicate of this one, with the political beliefs being opposite. Was like that Bizarro Seinfeld episode, and I have no doubt that both forums would be upset with that observation.

I like reading this forum once in a while. I like the energy, and the passion, even if at times it is a bit narrow minded. I hope the forum stays, so perhaps you and the other mods of this forum (no idea who is a mod of what) can toss together some suggestions that would make everyone a bit unhappy if implemented, as that is a great sign of a reasonable compromise.

Perhaps I need examples to make my point, because judging from this post, I have failed by simply linking it (it's okay, thank you for the honest judgement). This is the kind of stuff you see from ChiefsPlanet:

Note how every single one of these quotes comes from a different poster; it's universal. The level of discourse there is atrocious. You can't have a serious discussion with anyone for more than two posts before it devolves to "**** you, you're stupid" with zero engagement on facts or positions anymore.

You don't see that on 2+2. Fatwolf's posting was pretty awful but he still got engaged with on the merits of his (bad) arguments. And it's because the standard of this forum is much higher than most other political discussions on the interwebs.

Hi Mason, a few thoughts:

1) I think it's really unfortunate to start a conversation about the need to disagree with others respectfully by perma-banning catfacemeow just for expressing an opinion which one could reasonably expect many posters to have in reaction to this thread. I hope that ban is reversed.

2) I'm fairly sure that the root issue is this (and thanks to monteroy for saying it so succinctly):

Conservative posters are obviously more likely to be annoyed by this than liberals because we're all more likely to be aggravated by views we disagree with, and I think that explains part of your issue with the forum, but I've heard non-conservatives lament this tendency of the forum as well, FWIW.

I'm also fairly convinced this has more to do with the general political climate in the US than this forum specifically, or it's moderation. Although I think moderation contributes to it at least insofar as it seems that the mods are more likely to quickly notice and exile obnoxious conservative posters and more likely to overlook and tolerate obnoxious liberal posting. But I think that's a much smaller factor than some think, in comparison to the culture of the forum and the attitudes of regular posters. There just aren't really that many obnoxious conservative posters coming around.

Part of what has happened, in my view, is that the politics forum has become its own community with its own culture, as is the case with other 2+2 subforums. It's hard to change the culture by moderation without destroying it. Many of the forum regs (imo) view the forum as a community of generally like-minded people, and not as a debate forum, let alone a forum for "respectful debate". Almost every argument (regardless of political affiliation of the participants) involves some chorus of complaints about not feeding the trolls, not derailing the thread, or etc. In a very real sense whatever bias exists in the moderation is often bias towards preserving that community feel, where members are treated more deferentially than outsiders. This has both pros and cons, in my view.

3) Despite these complaints, I echo the sentiments of others that this forum is valuable to me. It's generally more intelligent and interesting than any other politics forum I participate in. There are a lot of smart and informative people who post here, and the forum is often worth reading. I wouldn't have much attachment to 2+2 left if it were closed. The problem Monteroy identified is not unique to 2+2, and if anything this forum is much less hostile and has a much higher level of discourse than many others.

I once floated a proposal aimed at addressing the above complaints through opening a second forum, rather than changing the existing one. That idea was motivated by the belief that the existing forum was valuable as is, and that it would be hard to really change it without destroying it. I backed away from doing it because it didn't really seem workable given the high level of opposition from politics forum regs and the lukewarm support from those it was aimed at. But I continue to think it's a theoretically better solution to this type of complaint than trying to change the existing reasonably-well-functioning community. And it's far better than closing this forum.

Anyway, sorry if this is both rambling and pointless. Thanks for taking the time.

Regards,

Matthew

Goofy, with all due respect, I think you see a lot of that on 2+2 as well. In fact, a handful of the initial replies ITT were of a similar nature until jman220 edited them.

Without being able to see them anymore I can't comment, but the overwhelming difference I see is this:

Politics is, universally, personal. People's beliefs are not an inseparable part of themselves and when someone says "what you think about X is stupid, and here's why" then people take it personally and respond in kind. There is a lot of that on ChiefsPlanet and a lot of that on 2+2.

But on 2+2, people will always engage with your ideas. If you want to have an argument about something, people will have it with you, to the point that others will eventually complain about your argument going back and forth for so many posts (not full of "hurr durr you're stupid" "no you are", but "you're wrong and this is why") that it's derailing the thread. Go look at the shutdown thread, where Fatwolf did most of his awful trolling for two weeks: people were taking potshots at him, sure, because he was on a two week trolling binge, but they were also engaging with his (terrible) arguments. And look at this thread, where there is understandably a lot of animosity towards Mason for threatening to close the forum, but people are still engaging him on the merits of it.

That's the difference, imo.

A big part of the problem is that there's a denial of that group bullying tactic.

There's also the attitude that engagement, reasonable discourse and a level of respect for those we disagree with are inherently bad things. That may be a defensible political position but it's toxic to political discussion.

No, they really weren't. The replies that I edited/deleted were not anything close to goofy's quotes from chiefsplanet.

This is a very good point. I really don't think mods of other forums are going to want to deal with the inevitable fallout that would happen if the politics forum were closed. Discussion isn't going to stop. A containment forum like this is definitely a net positive.

What forum are you reading? Because it's not this one. Don't conflate people being super nice to each other with engagement.

+1, especially the bolded. There are excellent posters making valuable, informed, and thoughtful posts every day in this forum.

Your opinion would hold more weight if most of us hadn’t seen you completely ignore it when you were modding P7

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Ok, so, seeing it typed out like that, now do you realize your statememt isn't entirely accurate? If nothing else, the insults here are never that sophomoric even if they sometimes come close to being that vitriolic. The deleted posts are saved and if the mods don't regale you I can relay them from memory.


p.s. Not exactly a regalement but it works:

The problem with a "second" political forum for "right wing" ideas, is that it's effectively been tried several times (politics unchained, politics v.7, politics v.8), and despite the best intentions of those who start it, it always devolves into an alt-right literal pro nazi racist hellhole. And while I know that this politics forum is sometimes a nuisance to Mason and Mat, I am confident that the type of vitriol that was eventually being posted in those other versions of the politics forum was far far worse both to the business of 2+2 and offensive to them personally. At least I hope that is the case.

To be clear, I don't think of the proposal as a "forum for right-wing ideas", but it's certainly true that the main reason I decided not to do it was because it didn't seem like there was a large enough group of posters to sustain it who wouldn't run afoul of rules meant to prevent the above from happening.

The linked thread describes the rules as I imagined them, if you're interested.

Also, I suppose I should say my first preference is simply that Mason does nothing, rather than that he try to address his concerns via a second forum. I just think a second forum is better than closing this one.