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.

 

[bring the ghost on]

I concur with most on here (i.e. everyone except Bruce and Roydo) that to charge people to discuss "politics and other hot topics" (what are these hot topics?) just seems baffling and also condescending - "those who can't pay aren't capable of keeping order" seems to be the insinuation.

It's particularly baffling at a time of such political upheaval with Trump and Brexit practically changing the entire political landscape of Britain, Europe, USA and beyond. Worthy of discussion in any ale house I've ever stepped foot in.

 

[Seanjd]

But they dont cause us that much bother.

Its just a trial to see if the general tone of the Ale House can be a bit less fraught. Which more than a few posters have commented on.

To extend @magicjuan analogy, its seeing if the general conversation in the pub can be less dominated by a few topics that have been done to death.

But Bruce said 50% of reports come from them and the project is to lower that number. I'm confused.

 

[bring the ghost on]

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.

It seems that all of your moderating decisions are based around personal studies and experiments which you may find interesting but have the consequence of shutting down harmless, thought-provoking discussion.

Maybe the EU thread was too low-brow for you, but clearly plenty on here found it interesting to read.

 

[Tubey]

I concur with most on here (i.e. everyone except Bruce and Roydo) that to charge people to discuss "politics and other hot topics" (what are these hot topics?) just seems baffling and also condescending - "those who can't pay aren't capable of keeping order" seems to be the insinuation.

It's particularly baffling at a time of such political upheaval with Trump and Brexit practically changing the entire political landscape of Britain, Europe, USA and beyond. Worthy of discussion in any ale house I've ever stepped foot in.

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?

 

[Clint Planet]

It's particularly baffling at a time of such political upheaval with Trump and Brexit practically changing the entire political landscape of Britain, Europe, USA and beyond. Worthy of discussion in any ale house I've ever stepped foot in.

Yup. Don't get it.

 

[Seanjd]

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?

All correct. Part of the charm of debating in political threads is that everyone is linked by a common cause - Everton. And it doesn't matter if your political views differ wildly, that's why everyone is here.

This doesn't seem a popular decision amongst non-mods.

 

[Ruairi77]

Is this decision re. Sunday final or are any of these posts leading to a change of heart?

 

[Tubey]

To give an example of how impossible it is, here's a thread I picked at random about airports.

https://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/commercial-airliners.94048/

I briefly looked at the first three pages - during which, people have mentioned a disaster, the second world war, racial profiling and terrorism.

To the Upgraded Forum it goes I guess?

 

[Woolly Blue]

I appreciate it causes work for the mods, but ultimately it is the forum users talking about what they want to talk about - if work comes from that, it should just be considered part of the job

Plainly I ain't moderating any more, but I absolutely detested having to go into the political threads to calm things down or reprimand people. For me, too many people take the proverbial in those threads because they treat them as a place to stand on a soapbox, spout their rhetoric and have no intention of listening to what anyone with opposing views have to say.

I havn't read all of this thread, but I'd wager that a sizeable minority of those against what Bruce is suggested barely post outside the political threads.

For most people GOT is a footie forum where people also chat about non-footie stuff ( including politics ) in the Ale House, but for a few people, GOT is a place to talk politics and occasionally chat about Everton. For me, the people who fall into the latter category made moderating this place a chore.

 

[Donald Twain]

I can see this thread going in there too

 

[Seanjd]

Plainly I ain't moderating any more, but I absolutely detested having to go into the political threads to calm things down or reprimand people. For me, too many people take the proverbial in those threads because they treat them as a place to stand on a soapbox, spout their rhetoric and have no intention of listening to what anyone with opposing views have to say.

I havn't read all of this thread, but I'd wager that a sizeable minority of those against what Bruce is suggested barely post outside the political threads.

For most people GOT is a footie forum where people also chat about non-footie stuff ( including politics ) in the Ale House, but for a few people, GOT is a place to talk politics and occasionally chat about Everton. For me, the people who fall into the latter category made moderating this place a chore.

In my experience of posting in both Everton and quite a few political threads, I don't believe this to to be the case at all.

 

[magicjuan]

I can see this thread going in there too

It'll be locked first

 

[Tubey]

Plainly I ain't moderating any more, but I absolutely detested having to go into the political threads to calm things down or reprimand people. For me, too many people take the proverbial in those threads because they treat them as a place to stand on a soapbox, spout their rhetoric and have no intention of listening to what anyone with opposing views have to say.

I havn't read all of this thread, but I'd wager that a sizeable minority of those against what Bruce is suggested barely post outside the political threads.

For most people GOT is a footie forum where people also chat about non-footie stuff ( including politics ) in the Ale House, but for a few people, GOT is a place to talk politics and occasionally chat about Everton. For me, the people who fall into the lattee category made moderating this place a chore.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have a strike system right? So shouldn't that be covering repeat offenders naturally if they're out of line? Or, if they're not getting strikes so are not out of line, what are you bothered about - they can soapbox all they want, as long as they're not causing offence or grief then it's words into thin air isn't it? You don't have to read everything they say - there's a reporting system in place that, again, surely streamlines things?

For me, instead of thinking of ways to moderate more efficiently, the suggested solution seems to be "bin it off completely". That seems to be a sledgehammer approach to a problem...

 

[Elong]

I learn loads reading the political debates on here.

However, the reason they close is because half of you descend into insulting eachother. Like the last EU thread.

Before the insults, it's good debate. The reason you guys insult eachother is because neither will budge from their views. Once you guys understand that someone on the internet isn't going to change another one's opinion, and you stop resorting to insults, then perhaps it will be easier for the threads to stay open.

Just my 5 cents.

I'd love to keep reading them, and adding what little I can.

 

[Woolly Blue]

In my experience of posting in both Everton and quite a few political threads, I don't believe this to to be the case at all.

I have no idea why you mentioned Everton threads mate !

On the political threads, you may well be right, I'm just giving a view from my time in mod central and that is probably skewed by the fact that I normally only entered the political threads when something was amiss.

Be that as it may though, for the roughly two years I was moderating I hated those threads, and the main reason I hated them waa because the people who complained loudest about thread closures, thread bans or just posts in general, spent a large majority of their time in those threads, contributed very little to the rest of the site but expected the unpaid mods who volunteered their time to clean them up.

I may well be wrong, and apologies in advance to anyone who has, but I suspect of those complaining about Bruce's idea, only Boss Blue ( and I don't actually know if he has ) has recently volunteered to take Danny up on the call for volunteers to join mod central he made in December.

Edit : Plainly I don't want Tubey to volunteer.