Can we have a political sub forum?

[Janet Voxel]

The genie is out of the bottle. Political threads are going to keep popping up in general.. Locking threads is only going to lead to more saltiness, micro aggressions and little passive aggressive jabs. Wouldn’t it just be better to have them contained in one place that you can choose not to view if you don’t want to? Even better why not make it something you can opt into? That way, you won’t even see the sub forum unless you really wanted to.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Janet Voxel

[LittleMe Jewell]

[Coffee Pancake]

Oh hell no.

There are not two sides to every issue.

Take it to reddit.

[Dragon Mommy]

I'd prefer those sorts of discussions just banned. 

[Sammy Huntsman]

For the love of god, please no. 

[Rowan Amore]

[Madelaine McMasters]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

...swoons

[Kathlen Onyx]

If people want to discuss politics take it off SL. Create a discord channel if you want.  Better yet join one of the thousands already out there.

[Alwin Alcott]

delete.. and put it in the TOS or Guidelines.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[bigmoe Whitfield]

https://www.reddit.com   is the best place for these type of discussions.

[Extrude Ragu]

Makes sense to me.

The threads are getting made anyway. People want to talk about the things that matter to them.

We're not Reddit users, we're SecondLife users.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Either that or at the very, very least: don't leave General Discussions such a junkyard as it is.

[So Whimsy]

I'm also throwing my hat in to ban all political disucssions.

[Mollymews]

that threads sometimes evolve into conversations about real world politics, intersectionals, philosophy, science, etc. religion too sometimes, shows there is an appetite amongst some forum correspondents for these topics

when posts do go down this path then Linden seem to be pretty tolerant and only reach for the delete button when the conversation starts veering off into the personals

the personals aren't the sole domain of these topics either. Some posts on purely SL topics can get pretty personal sometimes

so I wouldn't mind if there was a sub-forum for real world issues of the day

a simple moderating rule could be that Linden aren't going to wade thru every post in a thread that is veering off into the personals. Even one or two posts that make the moderators eyes bleed can be locked without warning or explanation

Cristiano used to do this over the street. Open a thread started during his night. Eye bleed on the first page before he even had his morning tea, and lock. Next

[Karl Herber]

I agree that all political discussions need to be banned.

The issue with having a separate subforum for it, is that many threads don't start out political but the politics creeps in later. Yes the mods could move them but they're not always quick to act, especially weekends.

Get rid of them altogether, take them elsewhere. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

14 hours ago, Janet Voxel said:

The genie is out of the bottle. Political threads are going to keep popping up in general.. Locking threads is only going to lead to more saltiness, micro aggressions and little passive aggressive jabs. Wouldn’t it just be better to have them contained in one place that you can choose not to view if you don’t want to? Even better why not make it something you can opt into? That way, you won’t even see the sub forum unless you really wanted to.

There isn't really a way to separate out "political" threads from anything else, especially in "General Discussion." If someone starts a thread discussing acrylic vs. wool yarn for knitting it will become political, and you can generally predict who will be on what side and what they'll say.

ETA: Actually that one could get interesting, with it's petrochemicals vs. animal rights dynamic. I can imagine certain people will start arguing with themselves.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Theresa Tennyson

[Janet Voxel]

7 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

There isn't really a way to separate out "political" threads from anything else, especially in "General Discussion." If someone starts a thread discussing acrylic vs. wool yarn for knitting it will become political, and you can generally predict who will be on what side and what they'll say.

Sure there is, which is why I proposed a sub forum for them and a place where they can be put so that people that are claiming (lol) they don't want them here won't have to even see them if they choose not to. I'm not talking about threads that become political through derail, which is really due to people not getting whatever they had to say in a previously locked thread off their chest. I'm talking about threads that are pointedly political that are sitting in General and rage on for days and sometimes months before they're finally put out of their misery. They aren't going to stop and the desire to have them banned clearly isn't working. Splitting threads off that diverge is a thing on other forums, not quite sure why it doesn't happen here. But splitting a thread off that becomes political into it's own forum is a good solution. You want to continue talking about what you're talking about? Fine, do it over there. That way the original topic can continue the way it was intended and however the thread diverged politically can also continue.

For example:

All of these immediately got political whether it was intentional or not, doesn't really matter. They did; one of which was dredged up from a year ago. If they were contained, if you don't want those kinds of discussions, you'd never see them.

[Madelaine McMasters]

32 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

There isn't really a way to separate out "political" threads from anything else, especially in "General Discussion." If someone starts a thread discussing acrylic vs. wool yarn for knitting it will become political, and you can generally predict who will be on what side and what they'll say.

ETA: Actually that one could get interesting, with it's petrochemicals vs. animal rights dynamic. I can imagine certain people will start arguing with themselves.

Knitting? Sweatshops exploiting children! Robots putting them out of work!

Bring it on, I'm ready.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[SynesthetiQ]

52 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

There isn't really a way to separate out "political" threads from anything else, especially in "General Discussion." If someone starts a thread discussing acrylic vs. wool yarn for knitting it will become political, and you can generally predict who will be on what side and what they'll say.

ETA: Actually that one could get interesting, with it's petrochemicals vs. animal rights dynamic. I can imagine certain people will start arguing with themselves.

For what it's worth, I completely agree with this.

One person's Politics is another person's Ethics. They aren't synonymous, and deciding which is which usually leads to absolute carnage.

 

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Politics and Ethics forum, whatever

[Solar Legion]

Want to discuss Politics? There's an entire SL adjacent forum that allows such, started by another user here.

Go there.

[SynesthetiQ]

17 minutes ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

Politics and Ethics forum, whatever

Or maybe a Political Ethics forum?

Trouble is, if you expand the scope as much as that then it sort of defeats the object of the exercise doesn't it?

Either way, give it a bash, it'll certainly be entertaining 🙂

[LittleMe Jewell]

Political discussions almost always turn into personal bashing and one-on-one arguing.  LL has enough trouble moderating the SL related topics that go that route.  They'd be totally overwhelmed trying to deal with threads in an actual political sub-forum.  

Not to mention what the weekends would turn into, given that LL does practically no forum moderation from Friday afternoon until Monday morning.

[Janet Voxel]

19 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Political discussions almost always turn into personal bashing and one-on-one arguing.  LL has enough trouble moderating the SL related topics that go that route.  They'd be totally overwhelmed trying to deal with threads in an actual political sub-forum.  

Why? They don't occur frequently enough to where they need to be moderated. They're only moderated when someone reports it. It's usually just two sides not listening to each other; But they pop up and drag on just enough where they're an annoyance(and even if people don't participate, they're going to look). If one pops up in general, move it there and let it continue, or if it's a political derail, spilt it off and move it then moderate it if necessary because the forum rules would still apply. I don't see how that's more work, if anything, its better for the board's health in general.

31 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Not to mention what the weekends would turn into, given that LL does practically no forum moderation from Friday afternoon until Monday morning.

If it's in it's own sub forum, you wouldn't see it at all though, especially if it's opt in. I'm not seeing how them not moderating on the weekend would make a difference. The way it is now, it'll just sit in general where everybody can see it and it has potential to explode, which would mean more moderation for them.

[Katherine Heartsong]

Please just no. 

However if LL did create that, I'd subscribe to the forum overall just to get in the "First post before the lock!" cause you know that would inevitably be the end of most of the arguments discussions.

We can barely keep civil at times discussing gachas, modesty, and who makes the best hair for female avatars ... I'd rather we didn't bring politics into the forums.