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I haven't seen much problems with the Political arguments so far, and I enjoy reading them, its a convenient way to keep up with current events.

As for Religion, the only problem I have with them is that it always has to be Atheist vs Christian. Because I am neither, I take little interest in the two flaming each other. But I think Dakka is more civilized than most places on the internet on the subject, so if they want to argue, this would actually be a good place to do it.

I come here to get away from all that crap. That being said I dont care if its on here, I just dont look at it.

Bringing elements of the real world into a hobby based site is a bad idea in my opinion. Topics of these types generally end up decending into arguments, no matter what their original intentions; though more so with the later. The ethos about don't discuss relegion in day to day life really should be applied here too, as well, though in real life it may be that those discussing it aren't likely to start a fight over it, with the number of people who can acess a discussion and give their own views on the web, its doubtless that without the lack of restrictions we face in the real world, that the online variants doubtlessly being steered towards topics of the pessimistic nature no matter what. So yeah, many other forums block them for good reason, and we see it happen here all the time no matter how much people try and prevent it, so it may be best for people to take these issues to other forums rather than getting riled up here.

Civil wars have started over these, so it doesn't take much for an argument to start from one either.¬¬

I put that down to an absence of The ShumaGorath Show.

Kinda miss him actually :(

Ontopic: where do you draw the line though, there have been some fairly intense debates over subjects like Wars/crime/various emotional media articles from what I recall.
Do these also get banned?

I'd echo what others have said, if the topic seems inflammatory to you, just avoid it.

Also to the OT guys saying that many who have posted in this thread dont contribute to the OT forum so why do they care: There is a difference between not posting there and not reading it at all. Many people do read the topics, just because they dont post dosent mean their opinion is less valid. Your view comes across as a little "its my street, leave it be". Others are entitled to walk down that street too.

However they can and probably should

if the topic seems inflammatory to you, just avoid it

Well,I just avoid them both since I just find them boring.

I rather just read a funny off-topic tread.

I'm happy with things as they are. Don't want another off-topic forum. If people get carried away then a thread is closed, fair enough. I'm also on a Doctor Who forum and the off topic political and real events section has some of the best debate on the entire site.

I am am moderator on a different forum that has had simmilar issues in the past.

We decided as a moderation group that, Yes, These type of discussions should be allowed and people should have a place to discuss such things.

We allow anything to be discussed as long as it is not racist, blatantly sexist, or personally derogatory. We have very very strong policy on the last one. Personal attacks are not tolerated at all.

What we ended up with was good, heated and at times passionate discussions that cosisted mostly of : I don't agree with you and this is why... Rather than: That bob guy is an idiot because he thinks this...

just my 2c, that forum also comes with a huge disclaimer stating that some conetent may be offensive.... etc etc.

oopps, i voted wrong keep that stuff out of here and save it for the news blogs.To many war vets,hippies,Etc.for that type discussion.

col. krazy kenny wrote:oopps, i voted wrong keep that stuff out of here and save it for the news blogs.To many war vets,hippies,Etc.for that type discussion.

You make a very valid point!. I get the full brunt of this any time I mention Nam around my Dad lol

I never read them so i don't care either way.

I know it is off-topic but DakkaDakka is based foremost around wargaming and not politics and religion. If you want to discuss that stuff, open up some other forum or something

I didnt know about that...

Fun thing about forums, we choose to be here. Don't censor!
Even though I only frequent the on topic stuff

I would say yes if I thought it were possible to keep it an inteligent, civil, and open minded discussion. However this is the internet.

This is a wargaming forum. Without Politics or Religon there would be no war, so I think they are useful.

snurl wrote:This is a wargaming forum. Without Politics or Religon there would be no war, so I think they are useful.

Certain topics are almost guaranteed to start dakka flame wars and have no relation to game wars.

Abortion is one such topic as an example.
Party politicking in general.
OMG! Immigrants are gonna eat my babies! and other scare stories.

The do nothing but wind each other up, waste the mods' time sorting things out and are a waste of server space.

No.

Nothing productive comes out. The majority of such "discussion" is an excuse for trolling, baiting and flaming.

I would be curious to know how many political threads ever just end naturally or fizzle off the first page of OT?

I would bet that that the vast majority have to be locked by mods. Proof that they have no buisness here and are a waste of bandwidth...

Souldnt we learn how to accept others even if something sounds dumb for us? I thought I learnt that in eith grade.....I dont really care but I think it should stay, if a guy doesnt like Jews, Muslims, Christians, Pink people, Black, he has a problem. If he disses someone beacuse of their dfferances then he should be reported. Though im sure we have quite smart people here in this problem shouldnt happen quite often.

I am not here to read off-topic, so I don't care.

Anyway, I think that people need to be somewhat responsible, friendly and mature about this kind of subject.

Discussion of beleif in the real world can result in violent discussion and should be banned

I believe that it should be allowed to a point. No Islams and Christians are idiots are any of that like. With poitics that is a diffrent story. Not all countrys have freedom of speech so you have to be careful.

I answered the poll "no they should not". Sadly on firums people are far to quick to say something offensive and stir up far more arguement. Things do not tend to get debated as sensibly as they should and people are far too happy to cast very flippent remarks about things. Polotics and religion are far too heated subject matter for people to actually get reasonably and fairly debate in the real world with out things getting out of hand, let alone on an internet forum

darefsky wrote:I come here to get away from all that crap. That being said I dont care if its on here, I just dont look at it.

That's my stance exactly. If I ran Dakka, I wouldn't even have an Offtopic forum at all. I'd simply instruct my moderators to lock any non-wargaming threads, and that's it.

On the other hand, if you permit an Offtopic forum, I could care less what goes on in there specifically, so long as no rules are being broken. Politics and Religion threads are by definition offtopic, and if you have an offtopic foum, not sure why you'd want to specifically single those things out as verboten. All or none, I say.

Generally speaking I do not read or participate in the Offtopic forum.

Because Religon and Politics tend to always end up in flame war.

yakface wrote:
The off-topic forum on Dakka is provided as a place for people to have polite discussions about non-miniature wargaming topics, and currently topics of any nature can be posted there. However, political and religious discussions tend to have a way to make people react very defensively and negatively towards any viewpoint that isn't shared by themselves and that often results in threads that have to be locked or edited by our moderators (which is work for them).

Would you prefer if Dakka's off-topic forum rules forbade political and/or religious discussions? Or do you think that their inclusion provides a healthy outlet for sentiments that would otherwise creep into other forum threads on the site?

Those issues creep into other forum threads anyway thanks to certain individuals, often forcing the MODS to work harder than they should need to. And in the Off-Topic area where they are supposed to reside they get out of hand nearly 100% of the time, again forcing the MODS to work harder than they should need to. And by then, the damage is done. And the cycle repeats ad nauseum. People as a whole don't improve, that's why we need police and forums need MODS.

If you really want to keep the forum as "clean" as possible of the kind of extremism, intolerance and just plain rudeness that eats up 80% or more of the time spent moderating it, why not simply forbid political & religious topics from the forum altogether regardless of the outcome of this poll? You are under no obligation to provide such services nor are you obligated to provide a democracy on whether or not it stays here. This isn't something of great consequence to people's personal freedom, it's a game forum, your game forum, and you can run it as you see fit as is best for everyone. Thanks!

No my reason is too many people take too much too literal and too serious and others dont know where to draw the line lets leave this for a different site and keep the discussions based around models, modeling and gaming.

This just ends badly just going to say too many people have such little idea about other religions and other countries politics and way of life so that just ends badly.

My two cents.

No, it dont have any place on a wargaming site

It seems like the place to post those topics if anywhere, but I could see how people could be hurt by wats on the blog. I think it will eventually be blocked but until then it will just be a thing of controversy... For me though I couldn't care less wat happens to it

If people don't like those topics then don't post. I do not see why they should be removed.

I don't come on Dakka to make political/religious arguments, and I have been on forums that have banned such topics because it inflames emotions and often degenerates into very aggressive and hateful interactions between members who originally joined the community to discuss something they love. I don't do it myself, but if others can engage in such topics whilst respecting their peers and their opposite views, then by all means, feel free.
But far too often, John Gabriel's Greater Internet Douchebag Theory applies: normal person + audience + anonymity = total douchebag. Youtube proves this far too often.