Starting and Participating in Divisive Political Threads
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 12:10 pm
At this point anyone not living in an ideological bubble surely has experienced how the current atmosphere of political divisiveness have split up former friends and even family members who are no longer talking to each other.
This forum is unfortunately not immune to this effect.
Many personal finance forums ban politics entirely. I've been reluctant to do this because usually such discussions are informative. However, given how much the tone has changed this year I'm not so sure whether the benefits outweigh the costs anymore. It no longer seems like discussion happens in the spirit of learning as much as with a motivation to confirm one's existing positions while destroying the opposition.
Such exchanges only increase tension and during this year several forum members have asked to leave because of these conflicts. Before 2017 this never happened.
I'm not going to ban political discussions but I am losing patience with how quickly some of those political threads escalate and tired of the destructive effect it has on the rest of the community. I'm therefore asking, nay, demanding to consider the following:
* When posting, ALWAYS refrain from instigating and poking. It only serves to push away neutrals and increase tribalism.
* When starting a thread, consider whether and how it's related to ERE or whether a bunch of ERE-people would have any particular ERE-insights on that topic.
* Also if a thread gets shut down, take that as a clue to not immediately start another one about the exact same topic. Threads get shut down because they've turned net-negative. Too many yellow cards eventually earn a red card.
This forum is unfortunately not immune to this effect.
Many personal finance forums ban politics entirely. I've been reluctant to do this because usually such discussions are informative. However, given how much the tone has changed this year I'm not so sure whether the benefits outweigh the costs anymore. It no longer seems like discussion happens in the spirit of learning as much as with a motivation to confirm one's existing positions while destroying the opposition.
Such exchanges only increase tension and during this year several forum members have asked to leave because of these conflicts. Before 2017 this never happened.
I'm not going to ban political discussions but I am losing patience with how quickly some of those political threads escalate and tired of the destructive effect it has on the rest of the community. I'm therefore asking, nay, demanding to consider the following:
* When posting, ALWAYS refrain from instigating and poking. It only serves to push away neutrals and increase tribalism.
* When starting a thread, consider whether and how it's related to ERE or whether a bunch of ERE-people would have any particular ERE-insights on that topic.
* Also if a thread gets shut down, take that as a clue to not immediately start another one about the exact same topic. Threads get shut down because they've turned net-negative. Too many yellow cards eventually earn a red card.