2 + 2 seems to be being taken over by the very vocal, very racist right wing. They bring their repulsive views into every thread in which they post so no reasonable person would ever even consider being involved in those discussions. This is not confined to SMP and Politics, but is seeping into other forums now. They seek out things to be offended about and scream louder than any others. Every thread they get involved with is a pretty big derail of whatever the thread title suggests. Sensible people aren't going to get involved because as these posters have no interest in engaging in discussion, just repeating variations of the same ridiculous, vile opinions. In time this will sink the entire 2+2 website.

Agreed. Who interprets? Seems like the answer is the mods of the forum where the material is posted, subject to your review if there are disagreements about the interpretation. The only question that's really useful to discuss is whether TS's posts violated site-wide rules. Since no one will say what he was banned for, it's impossible to discuss.

Instead of getting mired in the same kind of shouting you see on Facebook and Twitter, perhaps find constructive topics to emphasize?

I think there has just been a rise in overall nastiness on 2p2 in general. It is magnified in politics forums for sure, but not limited to there. jmho.

Is there any reason to leave this thread and Congrats to 2+2 on Political Correctness Initiative open now that Mat started WTF do you people want?!?!? I'm happy to leave them all open, it just seems like it's the same argument in three different places and it might be preferable to have it all in once place.

I don't think you could find a match for the level of hatred on display in P anywhere else on the internet. I get it in a way, it seems like the world has gone crazy and people are lashing out. It's way past out of hand though, it's a cancer eating away at the entire site.


The tumor is out in the open, lets chop it to bits.

I think you will find it started to rise immediately after the election, because many on the left couldn't accept the election result and still can't.

And politically biased moderating exacerbates it.

Really? How many P users have murdered someone for calling them a mean name vs. reddit users?

Only a small fraction of Politics regs get involved with these ATF threads.

given the many complaints about left wing bias in politics, why not give the right wing leaning posters their own politics forum?

oh yea cos you did and it devolved into wall-to-wall white nationalist and anti-Semitic propaganda. never mind

I had no idea there were so many triggered snowflakes mad about the politics forum

That's just as much exaggerated bull**** as saying it was full of Nazis.

Neither is true. You people need to stop lying.

Good example of your avg post. Zero content, name calling, bile.

Fits right in in P.


Oh and BTW, the trigger that started this **** was one of yours, under a gimmick, whining about nazi mods.

lol ts was posting bell curve whites are superior ****.

Lol rafiki tells people racist jokes at get togethers and is baffled that anyone would confuse him as racist. He would even stick his penis in some of them.

To address the thread topic:

Mat, wtf do YOU want? You're in charge of a large-ish internet forum. This is the job. In the grand scheme of things all of this sound and fury is pretty damn tame and involves few people.

I know how annoyed you get dealing with this stuff, but I don't know what context to put that in because I don't know whether this job buys you beer or pays your mortgage. If it's the former, you have my sympathies. If it's the latter, buck up, buttercup.

Hence the reason for banning people for discussing politics anywhere on the site. Politics and religion aren't polite topics for a reason. They mostly just create ugly arguments on internet forums.

The reality is that most people, even relatively open minded people, are very closed minded about politics and religion. It's just a really crap discussion topic. Everyone ends up yelling past each other and nothing gets accomplished.

I do wish Dvaut1 wasn't a P poster. He's very strong. Losing his posts troubles me as much or more than losing TS. Guy is a legitimately smart liberal poster who has great content. The big problem I'm having is he's the only redeeming thing I can think of about the politics subforum.

lol

better suggestion: OTBC your account

The thing is that there's this really high correlation between being a troglodyte with terrible, deplorable opinions and being a really really bad poster. Most normal human beings with triple-digit IQs can differentiate but you always get a few people like kioshk who think they're being persecuted for their political views.

Partisans of both sides have absolutely zero interest in doing anything but repeating the same stale bull****. That's why just stopping all of them is a viable plan.

One things for certain though... 2p2 needs a good solid way to tell the good posters from the bad without having to ban them and see how mad people get. This whole situation is just screaming for a reformed system.

exhibit B. this comment wasn't even directed at him and he's all personally wounded, hyperdefensive. I mean the truly terrible posters know deep down in their hearts who they are.

this is absolutely untrue. I mean, there are definitely a large group of people who can't do anything other than mindlessly parrot talking points they read on twitter.

The elite posters aren't really interested in repeating propaganda. They are here to dunk on the morons in the first group.

And yet here's TS the legit best poster in a semi major section of the site who is also troglodyte with terrible deplorable opinions. I'd say the over under on his IQ is 130 and I'll snap take the over.

The most important thing 2p2 must do is optimize itself around coddling the good posters who are providing the reams of free content that drive the traffic. There is no other way to look at it from a business perspective.

People come to forums to get their questions answered or to read where other people got their question answered IMO. Then they stay for the low content threads and **** posting . The important thing is to always be siding with the good posters vs the bad. That calls for an automated way to judge poster quality.

EDIT: I think one of the biggest issues with people on both sides of the political debate is how they demonize people who hold views they disagree with. For instance TS has done some pretty crazy stuff with race in an attempt to troll people he knows will get insanely butthurt by it. He thinks racism is massively over exaggerated in society so he finds this behavior hilarious. I sincerely disagree with him on the whole thing because my experiences differ substantially from his.

Context matters though. TS isn't from the US and his perspective is pretty different. It's fine to disagree with him and think he's got some dumb opinions. A great poster with some dumb opinions is worth it though.

I 100% guarantee there are a bunch of posters who are great in other subforums who would be sincerely awful in BFI. They don't know anything about the subject. TS doesn't know much or care to know much about racism. He also doesn't see poverty as an excuse, which is a relatively common viewpoint among people who have managed to climb the social ladder. My wife basically agrees with him and we grew up as poor as all but the worst off in the US.

True dat.

Nobody even called Rafiki a racist for defending TS and he thought an antifa army had come at him within minutes.

You're right. I've called Dvaut1 a truly elite poster and I mean that. **** you're a second tier good poster (like I consider myself). I wish there was a way to limit the politics forum to an endless debate between him and a select few others. Unfortunately the vast majority of politics posters are god awful trash. The worst trolls on this site. The far left and the far right ones are just as worthless because it's hard to be more worthless than worthless.