Consider banning politics

[greg]

Oh all right. I am not going to give personal info to a load of dodgy "quiz" sites but have added to the dreams thread.

Appreciated. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Ban politics already, or at least exclude the relevant threads from the "show unread posts" query.

There is exactly 1 thread on USA Politics. It is called 'USA Politics'. If you can't avoid 1 thread, well, there isn't a whole lot I can do from here.

[Mirror Image]

There is exactly 1 thread on USA Politics. It is called 'USA Politics'. If you can't avoid 1 thread, well, there isn't a whole lot I can do from here.

There's actually several US political threads: the coronavirus one is essentially a US political thread in disguise of something it's not, next is the Brexit thread and then there's a Boris Johnson thread, which both of these threads have US politics wrapped around them for better or for worse (for the worse I say). But my point is it's not a question of avoidance, it's a question of whether they belong on a music forum. There's absolutely nothing wrong with creating a thread on headphones or the weather. This is harmless stuff, but when it comes to politics and religion, but mainly politics this forum has proven that it cannot respectfully disagree, but, instead, turns into an ad hom blood bath in which the only victims are the ones that are doing the insulting and not the other way around. I'm glad that there have been steps taken to prevent people from bashing each other on the political threads, but even with these measures taken, it has proven that, again, people aren't happy here and, in fact, it has caused more of a ruckus than when there were no guidelines implemented. The end result is the same: people are unhappy and they're leaving. Hell, I've been splitting some of my time on Talk Classical and have generally enjoyed the environment.

[MusicTurner]

There's actually several US political threads: the coronavirus one is essentially a US political thread in disguise of something it's not, next is the Brexit thread and then there's a Boris Johnson thread, which both of these threads have US politics wrapped around them for better or for worse (for the worse I say). But my point is it's not a question of avoidance, it's a question of whether they belong on a music forum. There's absolutely nothing wrong with creating a thread on headphones or the weather. This is harmless stuff, but when it comes to politics and religion, but mainly politics this forum has proven that it cannot respectfully disagree, but, instead, turns into an ad hom blood bath in which the only victims are the ones that are doing the insulting and not the other way around. I'm glad that there have been steps taken to prevent people from bashing each other on the political threads, but even with these measures taken, it has proven that, again, people aren't happy here and, in fact, it has caused more of a ruckus than when there were no guidelines implemented. The end result is the same: people are unhappy and they're leaving. Hell, I've been splitting some of my time on Talk Classical and have generally enjoyed the environment.

There is discussion of governmental strategies and discussions regarding many other countries in the corona thread. It's obvious that you can't discuss or deal with the virus without debating governmental and administrative issues.

The Boris Johnson thread is marginally relating to Trump at times, but it's certainly not about US politics.

I don't recall dealing with the US or #45 in those threads. I gave up a long time ago, due to the obvious cultural differences that just keep emerging again and again. One post of mine, I think in a US thread, was a quote of a #45 remark that was, er, a bit strange and had some ~entertainment value.

[Mirror Image]

There is discussion of governmental strategies and discussions regarding many other countries in the corona thread. It's obvious that you can't discuss or deal with the virus without debating governmental and administrative issues.

The Boris Johnson thread is marginally relating to Trump at times, but it's certainly not about US politics.

I don't recall dealing with the US or #45 in those threads. I gave up a long time ago, due to the obvious cultural differences that just keep emerging again and again. One post of mine, I think in a US thread, was a quote of a #45 remark that was, er, a bit strange and had some ~entertainment value.

But my point is that this forum's political threads have been US-centric and it is US political threads that get the most foot traffic on this site and, before the guidelines fell into place, the Trump thread was one of the most heavily discussed non-musical threads that I've seen since my joining this site in 2010.

[Madiel]

I don't think it makes sense to have policies set in different areas. It makes things confusing. Right now, it would be one thread, but who's to say it wouldn't expand. I think it's much easier to have it all in one place. I also think it's inconsistent. A post in one thread is fine, but the same type of post in another is not? That doesn't make any sense to me. That's why I would delete the idea of deleting links without text completely.

I also think that giving the moderators the power to delete questionable posts based entirely on their whim without some sort of backing to what that might entail is problematic to say the least. It means their interpretation of everything is what is important, not the rules set out for all to follow. TO be clear, I am not accusing anybody of anything. But it does make these sorts of... questionable....actions all too easy.

There were already different policies in different areas. The guidelines you're fond of quoting make quite clear that The Diner is a distinct area. So that's frankly a pretty poor argument.

As to your notion of this all being on the basis of whims, I started this by pointing out that every system requires SOMEONE to be making the decisions and the idea that there would be no discretion involved is a fantasy. Interpretation is going to be involved no matter what. Otherwise we wouldn't need moderators.  We could just have software that deleted things it was programmed not to like. And our political addicts would spend all their damn time trying to outwit that.

[mc ukrneal]

There were already different policies in different areas. The guidelines you're fond of quoting make quite clear that The Diner is a distinct area. So that's frankly a pretty poor argument.

As to your notion of this all being on the basis of whims, I started this by pointing out that every system requires SOMEONE to be making the decisions and the idea that there would be no discretion involved is a fantasy. Interpretation is going to be involved no matter what. Otherwise we wouldn't need moderators.  We could just have software that deleted things it was programmed not to like. And our political addicts would spend all their damn time trying to outwit that.

Any system that is transparent, consistent and fair is a welcome one, regardless of whether I agree with it or not.

[Madiel]

Any system that is transparent, consistent and fair is a welcome one, regardless of whether I agree with it or not.

If your concern is consistency... here is probably not the place for an entire philosophical discussion about the problems with people trying to get cases treated the same way when no 2 cases are ever going to be the same, but I still don't know whether your notion of "consistency" involves the USA Politics thread being treated the same as every thread (in which case, no, because behaviour around USA Politics as a topic is not the same as every other topic), or whether we're talking about all posts on the USA Politics thread being treated consistently (in which case, I'm sure the moderators are trying to make consistent decisions in line with the policy stated at the beginning of the USA Politics thread).

As for transparency, the policy itself IS transparent. It's been publicly posted. I personally think there is more room for moderators to explain in individual cases what they're doing rather than having posts just disappear, but the moderators don't agree, and I do wonder whether all that would happen is lots of combative responses as to why the decision is wrong anyway. Not sure what else can be done about that, beyond the kind of discussions that happen here in GMG News. I certainly wouldn't want those discussions to completely clog up the threads where the action is, so I'd say it's better they occur here... but I don't think there is a way of forcing the moderators to discuss the reasoning behind individual decisions.

They've made clear that the tolerance levels on the USA Politics thread are different from elsewhere (just as those Guidelines make clear the tolerance in The Diner for certain things is different from the rest of the forum). At some point posters need to take that into account when posting, just as anyone in any situation needs to take account of when the rules change. That's what rule changes are MEANT to do.

[greg]

Transparency- the policy is transparent, but i think mc meant "reasons given" why posts are deleted. That type of transparency.

Consistency- no one expects 100% consistency. But instead, consistent within reason. Have the mods deleted the post advocating that Stalin should have killed more and the US should have been destroyed yet? Apparently that isn't "questionable" enough? Or are they just taking their time? If that post is okay, then that's extreme inconsistency.

Fair- pretty much falls under transparent + consistent IMO.

[Gurn Blanston]

Transparency- the policy is transparent, but i think mc meant "reasons given" why posts are deleted. That type of transparency.

Consistency- no one expects 100% consistency. But instead, consistent within reason. Have the mods deleted the post advocating that Stalin should have killed more and the US should have been destroyed yet? Apparently that isn't "questionable" enough? Or are they just taking their time? If that post is okay, then that's extreme inconsistency.

Fair- pretty much falls under transparent + consistent IMO.

Not sure why that post bothers you so much, greg. While I (and obviously you) don't agree with the opinion expressed, there is certainly no reason why the poster isn't allowed to believe that way, trust me, she isn't the only person in the world who does! We are not in the business of forcing people to believe a certain line of thought, we are simply trying to get them to express their beliefs in a civil manner and to actually listen to what others say in reply.

[greg]

Not sure why that post bothers you so much, greg. While I (and obviously you) don't agree with the opinion expressed, there is certainly no reason why the poster isn't allowed to believe that way, trust me, she isn't the only person in the world who does! We are not in the business of forcing people to believe a certain line of thought, we are simply trying to get them to express their beliefs in a civil manner and to actually listen to what others say in reply.

I don't care about the difference in opinion. I wouldn't delete a post like that if I were a mod, either, despite it being extremely disrespectful.

But apparently that isn't "questionable" enough, yet my post was? Did I just enter an alternate dimension? Is it okay if I say Hitler should have killed more people? 

[amw]

She's either being deliberately provocative or really a nutjob.

The latter.

To be honest, I do think there's plenty to debate about Stalin, the Soviet Union, etc (& me and my friends get into some very heated ones at times) but there's no point doing so if the other person is coming from a viewpoint of believing everything they hear from the US government & media. So I don't really bother, and just present my views in a somewhat unnecessarily provocative way—though not, I think, more provocative than people who minimise the deaths of black people in police custody in the US, or people who support the mass detention of immigrants by ICE and CBP, or people who think letting others die of coronavirus is an acceptable price to pay for economic growth, etc, to say nothing of the people who think European colonisation of the Americas was good or whatever. Sometimes the only way people can understand that these things are wrong is to be confronted with a viewpoint that supports redirecting the violence from the "other" (i.e. immigrants, black people, native americans, people with health problems etc) to "people like them" (i.e. landlords, bourgeois intellectuals, police officers, people whose family owned a castle etc).

But that's the reason political discussions always become heated and result in insults and such being thrown around—these are real issues of life and death. (Well, life and death for most of us. Those of you for whom politics only affects the value of your bank accounts can afford to treat them as a game.) I deal with it personally by just being extremely cynical and only rarely if ever posting in the threads in question. I can turn this down to "never" if the mods prefer.

[SimonNZ]

But that's the reason political discussions always become heated and result in insults and such being thrown around—these are real issues of life and death.

Succinctly expressed.

[Madiel]

I don't think that's why they become heated. I think they become heated because these days a lot of people have tribal affiliations and identities in politics, in a way that they do for sports teams but no longer do for Team Brahms and Team Liszt/Wagner.

A lot of political discussion is no longer actually about issues, about policy. It's about whether Your Team is currently scoring points. There have been studies showing how you can get a very different response to the very same policy statement depending on whether you identify it as having come from a Republican or a Democrat.

[greg]

I don't think that's why they become heated. I think they become heated because these days a lot of people have tribal affiliations and identities in politics, in a way that they do for sports teams but no longer do for Team Brahms and Team Liszt/Wagner.

A lot of political discussion is no longer actually about issues, about policy. It's about whether Your Team is currently scoring points. There have been studies showing how you can get a very different response to the very same policy statement depending on whether you identify it as having come from a Republican or a Democrat.

Yes. Tribalism (aka regression).

Tough enough for anyone to get into any political discussion without quickly being labeled with so many assumptions. Best to not affiliate too heavily with anything. But people have this strong need to group up. I'm weird, though, if I happen to agree with someone that's fine, but I go it alone. People get lonely easily, just not a relatable thing to me.

[steve ridgway]

Yes. Tribalism (aka regression).

Tough enough for anyone to get into any political discussion without quickly being labeled with so many assumptions. Best to not affiliate too heavily with anything. But people have this strong need to group up. I'm weird, though, if I happen to agree with someone that's fine, but I go it alone. People get lonely easily, just not a relatable thing to me.

Fortunately the members here don't get as tribal over music as say a rock music forum 0:).

[Gurn Blanston]

I don't care about the difference in opinion. I wouldn't delete a post like that if I were a mod, either, despite it being extremely disrespectful.

But apparently that isn't "questionable" enough, yet my post was? Did I just enter an alternate dimension? Is it okay if I say Hitler should have killed more people?

You just did.   

And as I told you earlier, I never saw your post, but I support the integrity of the moderator who deleted it.

[Gurn Blanston]

....I deal with it personally by just being extremely cynical and only rarely if ever posting in the threads in question. I can turn this down to "never" if the mods prefer.

We are more concerned with your means of expression than the content of your beliefs. It is our considered opinion that people aren't assholes because of what they believe, but because of how they impose it on other people. Unless, of course, they believe that treating everyone else like a moronic enemy can be parlayed into a lifestyle.

[Que]

I don't care about the difference in opinion. I wouldn't delete a post like that if I were a mod, either, despite it being extremely disrespectful.

But apparently that isn't "questionable" enough, yet my post was? Did I just enter an alternate dimension? Is it okay if I say Hitler should have killed more people?

My... Are still going on about this? It must have really hit a raw nerve.
If you are that sensitive, perhaps you should apply some of that sensitivity to your posts.

Here is some interesting advice, from the Bible, of all places...

First, remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye.

Here is another advice: stop pointing at others to justify your own actions.

Q

[greg]

You just did.   

And as I told you earlier, I never saw your post, but I support the integrity of the moderator who deleted it.

Just did what?
Do you mean calling for deletion of a post? Because I never would have called for that if my post weren't deleted for being "questionable."

My... Are still going on about this? It must have really hit a raw nerve.
If you are that sensitive, perhaps you should apply some of that sensitivity to your posts.

Here is some interesting advice, from the Bible, of all places...

First, remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye.

Here is another advice: stop pointing at others to justify your own actions.

Q

You are the one blame shifting. You started all of it by giving no clear rules and an entitlement to do whatever you want, so no one has any idea what is going to hurt the mods' feelings or not.

I'm pointing at amw's post as an example that any reasonable person would find it more questionable than my post. It's not to 'justify my own actions,' that has no meaning to me and is just pure gaslighting.

Me calling you out for lack of consistency isn't even going to be acknowledged by you.