I'll just use this quote as a general starting point. Didn't mean to single you out. I just think this view is representative for many participants here.
UK-with-kids wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 2:00 am
Sorry if this is a bit of a rant. Personally it doesn't bother me to see political statements as I just ignore them, or I call them out for what they are. I try to avoid arguing with people's world view because it's pointless. But I find it ironic that people complain about this forum being destroyed by politics when there's a separate sub-forum which they can choose not to read. The one thing that would make me leave the forum and not come back is if my posts started getting deleted because they didn't fit in with the (political) world view of the mods. That just feels like 'no platforming'.
My point is that the current forum regime functions somewhat like a school yard with me as the principal in charge.
I can't just ignore fights or behavior that falls under the wide umbrella of bullying whenever they're not fighting me. I do understand how staying out of trouble is a good survival strategy for individual kids. However for the school itself, a school where the level is high and people get good grades, ignoring fighting and bullying is destructive. If a gang of kids start taking over part of the school or interfering in geology lessons with flat earth speeches, I can't ignore that ignore that either.
The normal (other forums or schools for that matter) approach is either ignore the problems resulting in a Lord of Flies situation where people ultimately learn nothing except fighting. Or be tough with expulsions and suspensions and restricting all teaching "to the test" never straying from the curriculum.
These are two easier extremes. The hard work is in the middle which requires selectively blocking off "fight zones", having long and boring conversations in the principal's office, making the environment unwelcome to gangs, and pushing back on the flat earth lectures each and every time it doesn't happen organically.
Since these efforts mostly go unseen, I understand why people presume this is easy. If a machine is mostly running fine, it is easy to conclude that maintenance is easy and the machine is all good except for the minor issue that seemed to lead to the current breakdown. If there are no fights or bullying in the school yard, it's easy to conclude that everybody is well behaved and the principal is getting paid for doing nothing.
My point is that it's hard work. The hard work is mostly created by a) the existence of a few revolving individuals; and b) politics.
Keep in mind that "the school problem" is not about individual behavior but about how individual behavior affects group behavior. "A bad apple spoils the barrel" comes to mind. I can't just clobber things I don't like w/o changing the dynamics and hence what learning is taking place.
Individuals can be "polished" or "raised" to be more considerate. However, politics is essentially a threat multiplier. It makes the forums more interesting, but it also leverages the risk of problems. (It's like spraying ethylene into the barrel.)
So I'm weighing my personal pros of allowing politics as far as I find it interesting with my personal cons of having to deal with an increased load of fighting, bullying, and flat earth lectures because of the political environment. Running this forum takes a lot of my focus which I have the liberty to spend elsewhere, so it has to be worthwhile for me.
Basically, politics has gotten far worse on the forum in the past few years than it was in the beginning years, so it's up against a rising tide ...
Ideally, there would be a fourth way where people take more ownership of the community (Kegan3+) instead of just using it as a place to say their piece.
Basically if you want politics to continue existing on the forum, you can't just ignore it when it becomes too much, because I can't. Unless this situation improves markedly and soon, I'm going to lock down the "politics and eternal disagreements" forum until at least after Jan/2021 or however long it takes for the
culture wars to calm down to the 2010-level (early days of the forum) again when things were manageable. After the last several years I'm at the point now where I've had enough.