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How about a political forum?

2K views 14 replies 10 participants last post by  TheGrizzlyBear 
#1 ·
Why isn't there a political forum on MMAF? I understand that it can start pretty heated discussions, but with an effective moderator, that can be kept to a minimum.

How about it? :thumb02:
 
#2 ·
One or two political threads are more than enough, discussions get out of hand and despite the best efforts and often warning being given out we rarely can have a political thread burn out before we are forced to start handing out infractions and close it. An entire sub forum would be full of closed threads since there would be nothing to bump them. People can't discuss politics like adults they always end badly.
 
#9 ·
One or two political threads are more than enough, discussions get out of hand and despite the best efforts and often warning being given out we rarely can have a political thread burn out before we are forced to start handing out infractions and close it. An entire sub forum would be full of closed threads since there would be nothing to bump them. People can't discuss politics like adults they always end badly.
As a former bartender one of the rues of discussion is no politics and no religion. Someone is going to get offended and we know how that will turn out.


This is the only forum I visit that doesn't have a political forum. Should we say that MMAF can't discuss politics like adults?
I find it hard to believe that there is any forum out three where someone doesn't react poorly to a political thread, just my experience.

That being said, I would love a lounge dedicated to politics. Some of the better discussions I have had which subsequently led to a newer perspective of the world around me came directly from political discussions.
 
#10 ·
As a former bartender one of the rues of discussion is no politics and no religion. Someone is going to get offended and we know how that will turn out.
Exactly, you're at a bar, you want to have a good time, you're not expecting some stranger to start questioning what your worldview and values are. When you have forum dedicated to this discussion you will be prepared and willing to be challenged.



That being said, I would love a lounge dedicated to politics. Some of the better discussions I have had which subsequently led to a newer perspective of the world around me came directly from political discussions.
Yes, there are some bright and interesting people here who I feel I might learn something interesting from that can't fully express their views because of the restrictions of the forums.

We're never going to have a civilized debate about politics if we don't keep trying to make it right. I've seen plenty of discussion that are passionately argued which don't spiral off into name calling, but these discussions are formalized and designated as such.

I sympathize with mods having to sort through all kinds of bile and trash, but I feel sometimes the most interesting threads and debates get closed prematurely because of fear they'll get out of hand.

If the fear is a political subforum will inevitably devolve, then I say have a subforum that is meant for contentious debate and unmoderated. I've see other forums do this and it isn't like a cesspool or anything, it actually becomes pretty interesting and pretty well contested.
 
#7 · (Edited)
I think the problem might be that precisely because it pops up in the 'lounge'or 'ufc' that people get heated over it. They don't immediately think 'this is a political thread I should tread carefully' but that its an invasive/disagreeable opinion popping up unexpectedly in what is usually a leisurely area.

If you designate a place for it and lay down and emphasize some rules before hand I think people will come into the discussion prepared to have their opinions and values challenged. Its like if you're at a bar and someone makes some contentious statement , maybe things won't be so amicable, but if you're going into a debate knowing beforehand that its an argument and that there are some formal rules, things are going to be alot more civilized.

In summary, the very designation of a separate 'political' space may in itself effectively make for more civilized discourse and secondly, could prevent the contentious threads from popping up unwanted in other areas.

my 2 cents.
 
#14 ·
That's not always the case.

ARe you telling me the other forums discuss politics like adults?
In my experience, NOBODY discusses politics as adults when its over the internet. Im part of other forums as well, and it ALWAYS spills into the other sub-forums.

If you think one guy is a douche because of his political views, you're still gonna think he's a douche when he's discussing MMA.

Also, if every other forum you are part of has a Politics forum, doesnt that satisfy your need to discuss it?
Once again, that's not true. There are some people that can't handle the heat, but they don't last very long anyway.

I'd also like to let everyone know that the other forum I'm referring to with the politics forum has over 1,000,000 members! I honestly don't think it'd be a problem here, if kept under control.
 
#13 ·
A political sub-forum would definitely be interesting, however, with the past experiences this forum has had with any sort of political discussion, it could very well turn out bad.

One of the problems when it comes to debating politics on this forum, is that mainly people debate over MMA, and when you debate about something like MMA, a lot of favoritism comes into play, and a lot of the time posters will end up disliking a certain poster, or not see eye to eye. In my own observations, it's these people who end up causing political/religion threads to close, cause they already do not like said poster(s) from heated MMA discussion, and they transfer that into those topics and that leads to them being closed after it all goes south. It would be difficult to manage, even in a controlled setting.

It's an interesting idea, and, sometime in the future I think it would be interesting to "test" this idea, as in create a few test threads in the lounge or something, but as for an entire sub-forum, it's a bit premature to do it as of yet because of the past experiences with such topics.

We'll keep it on the list of things to check out and work on, though.
 
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