Politics and stuff

[Bruce Wayne]

As some of the longer term members know, we've had long-running discussions about the merits of political threads on GOT as they tend to result in disagreements and in-fighting amongst Blues.

They, and other similarly 'hot' topics, do tend to be discussed however, so we're going to trial putting them all into the upgraded member lounge, where moderation is more relaxed on account of it being primarily used by members who have shown a willingness to support the site.

Threads that will be put there include topics such as politics, religion, guns and so on. Any existing threads on these topics will be moved over to the upgraded lounge by Sunday evening.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

If political threads are being moved to the UG forum that's essentially what you're doing mate.

It's an unmoderated area designed to give people who support the site a degree of latitude over what they post. That's the point of it, that the general moderating rules of the rest of the forum don't apply to it.

 

[RaleighBlue]

https://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/forum-rules.11181/



Or we could just observe the rules you all agreed to when you signed up.

Yeah, I have no actual issue with this, since politics have been explicitly against the rules and we've just been allowed to bend those considerably.

I think I'd rather them be banned than them upgraded to members-only though. That's fairly distasteful to me, since it has a whiff of purchasing a voice.

That said, it's a private forum. Do what you will, I generally ignore political threads anyway because I find it too difficult to keep up with the ridiculous pace of them (the same is true for transfer/match threads).

I still think that any sense of hostility on the forum does not emanate from political threads though.

 

[Seanjd]

To be fair to @Seanjd, he posted in the Geri thread today and the Joel one on Monday, but, in your defence those posts are easily missed because they're swamped by Sean's posts in the political threads.

I'm using Sean as an example here, and, honestly, it's nothing personal, but your Custom Title still reads "Banned at own request". Now, I can't remember why you asked to be banned, and I'm genuinely glad you came back because I think you're a sound bloke and a good poster, but I think it was me that banned you ( at your own request ) and, I suspect part of the reason you asked to be banned was related in some way to the political threads ( feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I often am ).

But if you asked to be banned , and part of the reason for that was related to something which was said in a political thread or they were taking up too much of your time, then it demonstrates that some good Blues are sometimes lost to this site because of said threads.

At this point I could mention EFCNik, but I'm going to swerve that.

I asked the esk to ban me for a while because I didn't need any distractions for a bit. It happens that most of the threads I contribute to are political yes, but I read the Everton content. I can't see how this is relevant though.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Quite hypocritical considering you were one of the main contributors to the EU thread, and a moderator.

I quite agree, and I know first hand that it's caused me to feel anger at fellow Blues on here, which isn't what GOT is about, and which is why politics is officially banned on here, and has been since the site was created. This is an experiment to test another approach.

 

[magicjuan]

Veni vidi something.

Use yoghurt, but not a crunch corner, soon clear up

 

[Clint Planet]

It's not just that - I mean, I have access to the lounge and I'd pay anyway, so it doesn't bother me in that way.

What does bother me is this - by moving it there, I automatically discuss these things with fewer people, meaning poorer conversation.

Secondly, given it'd obviously bomb and the upgraded forum would basically become a recycling bin for threads in the Ale House, I'd eventually find myself using other forums to discuss those things, meaning I wouldn't spend anywhere near the same amount of time on GOT. Oh, and before anyone says, not because I like arguing about politics, but because the one thing I love about the Ale House is that there can be a thread about anything that will grab my attention and that I can discuss with personalities I know. If you remove the possibility of interesting subjects being discussed because a few mods have the power to subjectively decide what is "political" and bin the thread, then the forum is a much less interesting place to me.

So yeah, just confused why this keeps coming up - don't you want people to use GOT or something? Yes, it's workload, but isn't that a good thing as it indicates a thriving forum?

Boom.

 

[jal123]

I quite agree, and I know first hand that it's caused me to feel anger at fellow Blues on here, which isn't what GOT is about, and which is why politics is officially banned on here, and has been since the site was created. This is an experiment to test another approach.

Will your experiment include enforcing the other rules Bruce, namely the ones raised above?

 

[Seanjd]

I quite agree, and I know first hand that it's caused me to feel anger at fellow Blues on here, which isn't what GOT is about, and which is why politics is officially banned on here, and has been since the site was created. This is an experiment to test another approach.

Although I can appreciate that political threads can become quite heated at times, I've always thought that, on the whole, they are incredibly informative and posters conduct themselves well there. I'm just a little baffled as to why you think that those who pay will conduct themselves better.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Yeah, I have no actual issue with this, since politics have been explicitly against the rules and we've just been allowed to bend those considerably.

I think I'd rather them be banned than them upgraded to members-only though. That's fairly distasteful to me, since it has a whiff of purchasing a voice.

That said, it's a private forum. Do what you will, I generally ignore political threads anyway because I find it too difficult to keep up with the ridiculous pace of them (the same is true for transfer/match threads).

I still think that any sense of hostility on the forum does not emanate from political threads though.

It's not paying to have a voice. The Everton forum and ale house abide by the standard rules of the forum, of which no politics is (or should be) one of them. The upgraded lounge is designed as a place for forum supporters whereby most of those rules are relaxed, including the kind of content you can discuss there.

 

[GrumpyBlue]

I locked it because it was 1,000+ pages of people in the blue corner entrenched in their views, shouting at those in the red corner entrenched in their views. I'd also read a couple of studies showing that people become more entrenched, the more they discuss things on fora like this, so it generally seemed a waste of time.

Would this not just continue in the UG lounge? There are a myriad of political discussion forums on the internet. There are very few Everton ones worth visiting/reading/joining. This is one of them. Keep locking the political threads, and those that wish to have hours of debate, on whatever they like, will find a suitable forum.

Just my opinion.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Most of the fume on here comes from Everton being crap and losing football matches not politics to be honest.

 

[Seamus Colemole]

Shut up lad.

"GrandOldTeam prides itself on offering Everton fans a place for intelligent and respectful debate about the issues that matter to them"

Lol.

But those damn political threads huh?

 

[Brennan]

It's an unmoderated area designed to give people who support the site a degree of latitude over what they post. That's the point of it, that the general moderating rules of the rest of the forum don't apply to it.

I get that Bruce, mentioned it in a previous post.

Nobody would have an issue if it weren't for the fact that you have to pay to access that forum. It's incredibly unfair to those who can't afford to pay.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Will your experiment include enforcing the other rules Bruce, namely the ones raised above?

Believe it or not, we do try to. Of course, we're not perfect and never will be, but we certainly try and be as fair and equitable as we can.

 

[Goat]

I quite agree, and I know first hand that it's caused me to feel anger at fellow Blues on here, which isn't what GOT is about, and which is why politics is officially banned on here, and has been since the site was created. This is an experiment to test another approach.

Why not just make the AleHouse unmodded then?