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Just wondering what this community's stance is on expanding the 'Off-topic forum' into other boards such as one devoted to politics/religion/war. The reason I ask is because there are a frequent number of topics and replies posted daily about these subjects and imo its enough to warrant their own forum, it also has some added advantages for people who don't necessarily want to talk or see such heated topics and would rather delve into other facets of the OT forum without seeing their threads fall by the wayside since pol/rel/war can dominate in this respect. And from my experience just about every large forum community does this and it seems like a good way to set it up.

Cos this is a forum dedicated to wargames and miniatures, the OT is the place to put all the rest of it in one pile, if folks actually want to debate politics or religion in detail on a very regular basis, there are forums dedicated specifically to that.

Cane has a point there imho. I use a lot of Forums and Dakka is still my favourite. I spend more time in the off-topic section these days then in the modeling and news forums combinded.

I agree with MeanGreenStompa on the basis that if politics/War/religion threads are becoming excessive then another website that deals in those subject would be far better suited.

That said, as people are welcome to post what they like in the off-topic as long as they follow the rules so obivously they should be free to do so. Dakka does have the off topic forum for that very reason and seems to be in high use at the moment, If this trend continues then adding a forum specifically for war/politics/religion might be a good idea to help ease the amount of threads being posted and preventing others being pushed down so quickly and will also help keep some of the heat out of the off-topic, as lets face it, those three topics are the highest candidates for flame wars.

As seen 1,000's of times, these threads only end up locked due to causing problems.
Why actually promote such trouble causing topics on here?
If anything, they should simply ban the topics on here to save problems.

There's already a video games forum as well, there could be an 'off topic' section like there is a '40k' and a 'WHFB' one where you have the General OT, Pol/Phil/Rel/War, Video Games, etc.

JD21290 wrote:As seen 1,000's of times, these threads only end up locked due to causing problems.
Why actually promote such trouble causing topics on here?
If anything, they should simply ban the topics on here to save problems.

Usually its only ever certain individuals that cause the grief, so banning a subject is basically saying "because those two won't play nice, none of you get to play"

Keeping them in a seperate forum would in that case keep the off-topic cleaner rather than scrolling down to see "locked thread" "locked thread" "locked thread". It would be nice to see such heated topics regulated more, but bare in mind that the MoD's can't keep an eye on everything and they are also doing this for free in their own time, its why we have an alert button to help them as users.

lol, fancy a job as the "Off-Topic MOD" JD21290?

Hells, people allways rely on stupidity as a lack of argument, all of the heated threads show this time and time again.
If its not the regular people causing the problems its someone else.
Im yet to see such a topic go past the 8 page mark

Also, this drags MOD's away from keeping an eye on actualy reltaed topics, you know, the ones the site is about?


I could never take a job as a MOD, i allready have biased opinions of certain people lol.
also, i would be too harsh to some, unlike letting them get away with warning after warning it would be 1 warning, then a suspension and then a ban

All in all i just feel that they are used to either push arguments and build post counts.
Both of which seem pointless and not needed.

JD21290 wrote:Hells, people allways rely on stupidity as a lack of argument, all of the heated threads show this time and time again.
If its not the regular people causing the problems its someone else.
Im yet to see such a topic go past the 8 page mark

Also, this drags MOD's away from keeping an eye on actualy reltaed topics, you know, the ones the site is about?


I could never take a job as a MOD, i allready have biased opinions of certain people lol.
also, i would be too harsh to some, unlike letting them get away with warning after warning it would be 1 warning, then a suspension and then a ban

All in all i just feel that they are used to either push arguments and build post counts.
Both of which seem pointless and not needed.

Funny thing is, I didn't really see that side of it until you posted it so clearly
Yes, the MOD's shouldn't be dragged away from non-warhammer related topics, Dakka is after all a warhammer/modelling forum, so it is unfair to suggest a MOD should spend time on non-related topics. However, I would add that MOD's don't always read everything so the majority of the time they look at something specifically is either because the subject interests them, or they have been alerted by a user.

Lots of people on dakka have an opinion that they will stick to regardless of proof shown to them, and no matter what you say, they twist it to prove they are right and thus causing thread to fall into a spiral of posts repeating themselves over and over again until thew thread gets locked. You can't deal with poeple like that "as a user that is" and its easy to write more agressively or bluntly on a forum than face to face.

I think it would be hard for any MOD not to be biased in some form or another, though I think the MOD's here are very fair compared to what I've heard about MOD's on other websites.

Some people crave attention, and a flame war is a perfect outlet for them