Religion and politics

[twonha]

After a few years of us trying the Religion & Politics board idea, we have realised that it is nearly impossible to hold a civilised discussion on these topics, which then also spreads the hatred to the other boards.

With this in mind, we have decided to close down and remove the Religion & Politics board and go back to our old ways of prohibiting the discussions of these topics in the forums.

I see this lasted about a day. You remove the R&P board because the topics are being banned, and the first thing you do is then allow it in General Discussions. R&P got its own board because it was very unsuited to GD; it was thought better for it to have a place of its own, "enter at your own peril" like on so many forums.

There is a very clear demand for an R&P board, despite the inevitable fierceness of the arguments. Either crack down like prison guards and ban it outright, or give the topic its place and let it be. No online community is a Disney utopia.

[Langaleer]

And if you read the thread with the post from Kingkatt, he said they can try it in GD to see if they are civilized enough....

[twonha]

And if you read the thread with the post from Kingkatt, he said they can try it in GD to see if they are civilized enough....

Which, to me, makes no sense at all. We've tried the civilized talk in GD, that ended up stupidly horrible because people weren't actively choosing to discuss sensitive topics. Then after lots of screaming and begging and asking there came a P&R board, which in my opinion did pretty well for itself. Of course, I don't have a full overview of the forums, but I don't think it was so bad that we'd have to ban the topics entirely, and then put them back in GD again, hoping everyone will play nice!

Seriously, this half-way thing of a solution irks me. Just reinstate the board already, put up an extra sticky or a warning of some kind and be done with it. I find this childish "show me you can behave" show ridiculous.

[Langaleer]

I dont disagree with you at all. The board was a fuel of hate etc and it was agreed internally that we would remove the board and ban it outright. The offer to see how you handle it in GD was a shock to me and in my personal opinion doesnt show anything as a couple of "lets see how you get on here" doesn't reflect the other 99% of threads that were in there.
I've mentioned it internally to make a solid decision, although I'd expect the announcement that was raised recently will be the final word.

[HomeBrewPCiq]

I agree it should have been removed. There are enough places in this world, and on the interwebs that R&P can be debated to the end. I see no reason for it to be here. In fact I would not even allow it in GD.

I say good job FM!

[twonha]

Okay, it's good to know it's still being discussed.

I would still argue in favor of the R&P board though. Perhaps with its own set of harsher rules. Perhaps put the community in charge as well - something like "if you get notified by five different forum members, your R&P status is set to read-only for a week" or something. I think there are some interesting things we could try to settle down the board a bit and keep the other boards clean at the same time.

Banning any political or religious topics entirely seems very... Difficult, to me. You'd have to manage the grey area of what constitutes a P&R topic, and then decide each and every time whether or not to allow it. Better to tweak and finetune P&R instead, trying to improve what's worked for years, instead of throwing all of it into the rubbish bin.

[FM_kingkatt]

It's my bad call for the confusion.

I felt it was worth giving it a final shot, but Langleer is right, the worst offenders have had more than enough warnings. With religion and politics being so divisive and opinions so strongly held, I was naive to think people would change their ways.

[HomeBrewPCiq]

No need to apologize at all!

This is a privately owned website, no? Do you charge members to be here? With that said, I have no problem following the simple rules you put forth and simply focus on the real intent of this site. And if people can not find other places on the web for their P&R needs then they are not looking. I do find it sad though because there were a few here with such respectful, insightful, and all together worthwhile posts that it's a shame they were always lost in a sea of bickering and venom.

[red_dog007]

R&P restrictions in the coding level.

Can only post with X amount of posts.

Can only enter if a member.


Everyone is happy.

Plus as of late, it hasn't been ANYWHERE near as bad as it used to be. Makes little sense that now you get rid of it when that area has been maybe the most civilized ever! And your reasoning is just that it is too wild and crazy.

[Zoolook]

Plus as of late, it hasn't been ANYWHERE near as bad as it used to be. Makes little sense that now you get rid of it when that area has been maybe the most civilized ever! And your reasoning is just that it is too wild and crazy.

It all went downhill when I started posting again...