Given that previous guidelines have largely failed to work and since there's no indication of things improving any time soon, continuing the politics forum is simply a luxury that the forums can no longer afford. The collateral risks to the rest of the forums as well as the personal cost of moderating and conciliating have grown too large.
I have therefore decided to shut the politics down until further notice.
(Don't try to game this by starting it up elsewhere!)
Insofar, there's politics that is relevant to ERE, I'll allow it in the appropriate subforum. However, any relevance better be of a very technical nature, e.g. contingency planning for health insurance, taxes, ... and the likes.
No politics - 2025 update
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jacob
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Re: The politics section has been closed down until further notice.
Reminder.jacob wrote: ↑Wed Feb 17, 2021 9:16 pmI have therefore decided to shut the politics down until further notice.
(Don't try to game this by starting it up elsewhere!)
Insofar, there's politics that is relevant to ERE, I'll allow it in the appropriate subforum. However, any relevance better be of a very technical nature, e.g. contingency planning for health insurance, taxes, ... and the likes.
-
jacob
- Site Admin
- Posts: 16904
- Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
- Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
- Contact:
Re: The politics section has been closed down until further notice.
Reminder again.jacob wrote: ↑Wed Feb 17, 2021 9:16 pmI have therefore decided to shut the politics down until further notice.
(Don't try to game this by starting it up elsewhere!)
Insofar, there's politics that is relevant to ERE, I'll allow it in the appropriate subforum. However, any relevance better be of a very technical nature, e.g. contingency planning for health insurance, taxes, ... and the likes.
-
jacob
- Site Admin
- Posts: 16904
- Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
- Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
- Contact:
Re: The politics section has been closed down until further notice.
Reminder again again.jacob wrote: ↑Wed Feb 17, 2021 9:16 pmI have therefore decided to shut the politics down until further notice.
(Don't try to game this by starting it up elsewhere!)
Insofar, there's politics that is relevant to ERE, I'll allow it in the appropriate subforum. However, any relevance better be of a very technical nature, e.g. contingency planning for health insurance, taxes, ... and the likes.
-
jacob
- Site Admin
- Posts: 16904
- Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
- Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
- Contact:
No politics - 2025 update
Reminder again again again!
The purpose of banning politics on the forum is to prevent infighting and the self- and forum-destruction that historically has followed once one of the sides feels like they lost a heated debate.
I would (once again) ask forumites to help prevent this by refraining from making up nicknames or using adjectives to describe the other side in ways that the other side would not use to describe themselves, e.g. evil, stupid, etc. I realize this may be difficult, but please try to avoid it---reread your post before posting if you have to. Because doing it anyway just adds tinder and fuel to the situation. Do not engage in behavior that would piss you or people from your side off if "the other side" did it to you or your side. It is in your self-interest to do so because one day, it's going to flip and the other side will be "cleverly" name-calling your side insofar this behavior gets too normalized.
Since politics does affect a lot of people these days, I am going to allow people to talk about how some politics affects them personally. You can talk about what you have done or what has been done to you or what you're actively going to do. The reason why this is allowed is that you're stating an objective fact AND more importantly that that fact is NOT up for debate. E.g. "I got fired from politics X", "Lost $100,000 from politics Y", "Imprisoned for expressing support for politics Z",... is fine because it objectively happened to you. Nobody (I hope) is going to respond saying how they don't believe it happened or that they don't believe it really matters to you... It is also acceptable for others to offer actionable suggestions for what it is possible to do for the given situation. I hope that if by keeping things personal, concrete, and actionable, we can avoid the kind of debates that have resulted in destruction in the past.
As such what is NOT helpful is analysis, opinions, or debate about the political context. What is also NOT helpful is posting about [politics] you read in your newspaper or saw in your algorithmic video feed. The reason for that is that analysis as well as debate of that context require a shared set of objective facts about the state of the world. We simply do not have that shared objective reality anymore as people do not read sufficiently widely if they read at all. Pick two different mediaspheres and you'll get two very different takes on the same story. Worse, pick two different mediaspheres and the story that is headlining one of them will often be completely buried in the other one. This makes it impossible to have any kind of reasoned debate across the aisle. There is basically only downside to the forum from that with zero upside. As long as this situation persists, non-personal politics will continue to be banned on the forum. I will not reconsider this until it's been years of everybody demonstrating a command of the whole of reality and not just their side of it. Maybe it'll happen someday. Maybe it won't.
Note, that I can't control or see what anyone puts in PMs. Thus, if anyone feels compelled to give their hot take on [political analysis] feel free to PM that person(s) and debate them via PM if you must. Also note, that the forum software makes it possible to block people in case you don't care for their PMs.
The purpose of banning politics on the forum is to prevent infighting and the self- and forum-destruction that historically has followed once one of the sides feels like they lost a heated debate.
I would (once again) ask forumites to help prevent this by refraining from making up nicknames or using adjectives to describe the other side in ways that the other side would not use to describe themselves, e.g. evil, stupid, etc. I realize this may be difficult, but please try to avoid it---reread your post before posting if you have to. Because doing it anyway just adds tinder and fuel to the situation. Do not engage in behavior that would piss you or people from your side off if "the other side" did it to you or your side. It is in your self-interest to do so because one day, it's going to flip and the other side will be "cleverly" name-calling your side insofar this behavior gets too normalized.
Since politics does affect a lot of people these days, I am going to allow people to talk about how some politics affects them personally. You can talk about what you have done or what has been done to you or what you're actively going to do. The reason why this is allowed is that you're stating an objective fact AND more importantly that that fact is NOT up for debate. E.g. "I got fired from politics X", "Lost $100,000 from politics Y", "Imprisoned for expressing support for politics Z",... is fine because it objectively happened to you. Nobody (I hope) is going to respond saying how they don't believe it happened or that they don't believe it really matters to you... It is also acceptable for others to offer actionable suggestions for what it is possible to do for the given situation. I hope that if by keeping things personal, concrete, and actionable, we can avoid the kind of debates that have resulted in destruction in the past.
As such what is NOT helpful is analysis, opinions, or debate about the political context. What is also NOT helpful is posting about [politics] you read in your newspaper or saw in your algorithmic video feed. The reason for that is that analysis as well as debate of that context require a shared set of objective facts about the state of the world. We simply do not have that shared objective reality anymore as people do not read sufficiently widely if they read at all. Pick two different mediaspheres and you'll get two very different takes on the same story. Worse, pick two different mediaspheres and the story that is headlining one of them will often be completely buried in the other one. This makes it impossible to have any kind of reasoned debate across the aisle. There is basically only downside to the forum from that with zero upside. As long as this situation persists, non-personal politics will continue to be banned on the forum. I will not reconsider this until it's been years of everybody demonstrating a command of the whole of reality and not just their side of it. Maybe it'll happen someday. Maybe it won't.
Note, that I can't control or see what anyone puts in PMs. Thus, if anyone feels compelled to give their hot take on [political analysis] feel free to PM that person(s) and debate them via PM if you must. Also note, that the forum software makes it possible to block people in case you don't care for their PMs.