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Starting this out, bless the dakka crew for banning overt political discussion on this site.

Over the last 10 years or so I've been at least partially active in political forums on at least 6 sites. Many of them were started with the best of intentions, but most have turned into complete dumpster fires and are now defunct. The rest may fall as well.

I'd like this to be a discussion on how to increase the chances of a forum being better than a rage typing 4chan session.

In my mind the biggest hurdles can be summed up as membership, procedure, and oversite.

Membership: I've seen three forums started and to a lesser or greater degree fell apart because all it did was transplant the same group of disagreeable people into a new environment. A bit like a bullied kid that thinks highschool will be different and a new start, only to realize it's the same bullies he's in class with. I only see one way to combat that, merge multiple non-affiliated groups together so the old cliques have a new dynamic. I've seen the same tribes of individuals form over and over, so changing sites does nothing. I think we'd need a much larger user group to counter 2-3 personalities treating a forum like a personal feifdom.

Administration: I think someone needs to watch the watchers, but with a bit of separation of powers. Mods mod, Admin mods the mods, but usually won't step in for individual conflict. I've seen Admins chase people off sites by being tyrants with their own agenda. It's their site, but it makes for bad participation.

Procedure: All rules and procedures need to be spelled out clearly. In my mind, ideally, there would be a flow chart to tell mods exactly what to do. No thoughts or opinions even needed or even wanted. Member violated X rule, they receive Y consequences. It's incredibly frustrating when a rule is treated as gospel on Monday, ignored on Tuesday, and a suggestion on Wednesday. I've personally had mod tell me to do something, only to have them publicly chastise me for doing it, as that's "not how we do things." Then couple weeks later have someone else do it and have it be procedure again.


Odds and ends: absolute things that will destroy forums: Tolerating hate. I've seen mods tolerate explicit racial slurs, although most just seem to look the other way with "mild" slurs. Once I saw someone literally advocate for murderous genocide, double down on it, then have not just other members but mods condone it and dismiss critism.

I suspect you're posting this because you know certain people will read it and understand the shade you're throwing at them.

I also disagree with your solutions. Throwing several barrels of rotten apples into a larger barrel will do little positive for the average fruit quality of the barrel.

I assume this thread has something to do with that political forum that was an breakaway from dakka? Or am I mistaken?

 Scrabb wrote:
I suspect you're posting this because you know certain people will read it and understand the shade you're throwing at them.

I also disagree with your solutions. Throwing several barrels of rotten apples into a larger barrel will do little positive for the average fruit quality of the barrel.

Yes, and no. I'm considering going in with someone else to start a new forum. The first steps in solving a problem are to admit you actually have one. Am I throwing a bit of shade?, yes. They are also a legitimate concerns and complaints that could and should be addressed. When forums fizzle out in less than a year it's hardly a testament to success. Am I hoping some of the people I've referred to read it? Yes, in a way. With the exceptions of extreme agitators hearing a voice of decent is a good thing. If the goal is to create a better forum muzzling everyone doesn't stroke your ego is counterintuitive. This thread is highly unlikely to engage a majority of them though, as 2 of the forums I've alluded to have nothing to do with Warhammer.

When it comes to the solutions you disagree with, it seems like you only have a problem one of them, which is a larger, more diverse pool of posters. To cover this a bit more, Yes, I agree that combining pee with poop will not make perfume. What it will allow is a bit more legitimacy when combined with a new Mod structure. I fully expect the first few weeks to be a crapfest. When a new mod you've never encountered before agrees with the mod you currently know, you can't really bring up the "old grudges" card. I can hope that a diverse mod team with oversite following strict procedures will weed out the riffraff and the borderline people will behave a bit more.

While I only have the foggiest of ideas on how to implement it, I'm thinking of having a chart with a "violation score". Cross a line, earn a set number of points. Accumulate a high enough points total, receive a predetermined punishment (24 hour ban, week ban, perma-ban, etc.) Points being dropped after a set time so longer periods of good behavior can return you to good standing.




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AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I assume this thread has something to do with that political forum that was an breakaway from dakka? Or am I mistaken?

Yes and no. Does it partially cover that, yeah. It also covers a now defunct forum eliminated from another site we all know that is affiliated with Warhammer news, and two other forums that are/were non miniature related.

Procedure: All rules and procedures need to be spelled out clearly. In my mind, ideally, there would be a flow chart to tell mods exactly what to do. No thoughts or opinions even needed or even wanted

Life doesn't work like that. It may work for teleselling but that's about it. It is impossible to have rules which will cover all the different cases that can emerge when having a discussion about politics.

Furthermore, I can assure you that people will identify the loopholes that exist in your flow chart and abuse those loopholes. You will spend your time trying to fill them and never succeed.

Just use the established social medias.

The problem may be intrinsic to the medium. I'm not convinced online, in general, is the best place to discuss politics. The extreme opinions on either side of the debate tend to dominate, leaving everyone fighting against or defending those, when the interesting discussions happen closer to the middle. You also have the fact that once certain opinions and viewpoints start to dominate you chase away many of the dissenting voices, especially the ones in the middle, because very few people want to spend time trying to change such entrenched opinions or feeling like they're being ganged up on.

Your flowchart of rules is doomed to failure. Not only can you not have an exhaustive list of problems and procedures, but someone has to interpret the infringement at some point and that is almost always a matter of opinion. One person's free speech is another's tirade of hate, after all.

Selfcontrol wrote:
Furthermore, I can assure you that people will identify the loopholes that exist in your flow chart and abuse those loopholes.

This is one of the things I hated about a lot of the OT discussions on Dakka before they were banned. People just skirted the rules, instead of saying you're an X, which would break a rule, they'd say people who are Y are also X, and then by implication you'd fall into group Y and therefore be X.

It's no less insulting, but it skirts around the rule of not directly attacking other users while still effectively attacking other users.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Selfcontrol wrote:
Furthermore, I can assure you that people will identify the loopholes that exist in your flow chart and abuse those loopholes.

This is one of the things I hated about a lot of the OT discussions on Dakka before they were banned. People just skirted the rules, instead of saying you're an X, which would break a rule, they'd say people who are Y are also X, and then by implication you'd fall into group Y and therefore be X.

It's no less insulting, but it skirts around the rule of not directly attacking other users while still effectively attacking other users.

Exactly. That's why it's best to have general rules and apply them on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the subject matter of the discussion, the context in which the discussion takes place, and what is said.

Such a system necessarily implies that there will be some interpretation, but at least it works contrary to the author's idea. The problem is that this same system can lead to the departure of people who are sanctioned (either because their bs has been called or because they genuinely feel that they didn't deserve to be sanctioned). On a forum with thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of users, who cares ? But on a small forum where the departure of a contributor is strongly felt, the consequences can be disastrous and lead to the disappearance of the forum.

I just don't think that a small forum on the internet where a handful of people participate is an appropriate place to discuss politics. Not these days anyway.

Honestly, I think politics is just too highly charged a subject and too intrinsically linked to a persons identity to be reasonably discussed on a forum.
On all the forums I've used over the years, the politics sections have always met one of two ends:-
One side "Wins", and as that particular viewpoint starts to dominate, dissenting voices lessen until it goes full echo-chamber. Then, without anyone to argue against, the place starts eating itself until there's no longer enough discussion to sustain it and it dies.
Or, no one particular faction is stronger than the others, and as people become increasingly frustrated that the other sides can't see how wrong they are, the place becomes a toxic hell-hole that needs nuking before it spreads to the rest of the forum.

More power to you for trying to find a solution, but I think humanity is just too tribal for anything to work.

 aku-chan wrote:
...but I think humanity is just too tribal for anything to work.

When it comes to making online political discussions work, I don't think tribalism is the problem. It's the anonymity. You can say whatever you want online with no repercussions in real life (assuming you're not identifying your IRL self), and it reaches a point where you can't tell the difference between the lying trolls, the "I was just joking/asking questions" non-committers, and the true believers. I'm of the opinion they're all the same, really, because if you're willing to espouse a belief you don't actually believe in, just to "stir the pot" because that's how you get your kicks, you're really no better than someone who actually does believe that thing.

The problem with politics is that some issues are completly irreconcilable. How do you stay civil towards someone who clearly should not be allowed to participate in human society?

We should leave all discussion of politics to the Chatbots.

 Easy E wrote:
We should leave all discussion of politics to the Chatbots.

And we have a winner! ( Not sarcasm. )

I don't tend to engage with much or many political posts where I may follow some political figures or movements. A lot of those seem to have a built in cult of followers who would rather argue than consider any other points of view. Not playing is the only way to win or at least it's a time saver. Feels like people are just angry and enjoy taking it out on other people for fun like some kind of sport.
My most left leaning friend loves twitter just to argue with people as if that will some how build a better world. I think it's just that diamine hit addiction people have.
Wonder if Douglas Coupland's written anything on that yet. If not maybe he should have.

It can't be done. Look at ETC. The progressives will run off anyone who doesn't explicitly agree with them or moderate their expressions so as not to offend them until, I assume, it merely becomes another circle jerk of varying degrees of progressivism. However it was useful in one aspect.They educated me on the matter being simply one of power, not debate or compromise.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I'd like this to be a discussion on how to increase the chances of a forum being better than a rage typing 4chan session.

BAN PEOPLE WHO DO NOT ARGUE IN GOOD FAITH.

Yes, you also need to ban the raving lunatic extremists unless you want to follow 4chan's example and become a Nazi forum, but that's obvious. Where politics wrecks forums is where you have bad moderation that focuses 100% on superficial politeness over honesty and reasonable discussion. Make a dishonest argument, ignore the sources people provide to prove you wrong, and just keep parroting your party's talking points? Everything's fine! But as soon as someone inevitably gets frustrated and says "" in responding to you that's over the line and it's time for moderator action. This turns the forum into a dumpster fire of trolling and general dishonesty where the bad-faith posters are allowed to push out all reasonable discussion as long as they know which "bad words" to avoid saying. And because the moderators never deal with the root of the problem people keep saying "", until the mods decide it's too much work and ban the subject entirely.

Also, familiarize yourself with the various racist/homophobic/etc dog whistles. The 4chan Nazi crowd very deliberately comes up with stuff that sounds superficially polite but everyone on their side knows it means "the Jews" or whatever. If you're banning people for saying " you" in response to a dog whistle you don't recognize then you are a major part of the problem and exactly the kind of person the 4chan Nazis target to poison discussion.

(How this applies to Dakka is left as an exercise for the reader.)


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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
It can't be done. Look at ETC. The progressives will run off anyone who doesn't explicitly agree with them or moderate their expressions so as not to offend them until, I assume, it merely becomes another circle jerk of varying degrees of progressivism. However it was useful in one aspect.They educated me on the matter being simply one of power, not debate or compromise.

Spoken like someone who has never encountered the snowflakes on r/Conservative

The simplest answer is, as always, not allow political discussion on this site. Put as many rules in place as you like, it will still descend into screaming. This is a site about war gaming, not politics. Some might argue they are intertwined but they are not.

If people want to talk politics, go anywhere else on the internet. There are a plethora of other forums dedicated solely to that topic and better suited to dealing with the issues it invites.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
The simplest answer is, as always, not allow political discussion on this site. Put as many rules in place as you like, it will still descend into screaming. This is a site about war gaming, not politics. Some might argue they are intertwined but they are not.

If people want to talk politics, go anywhere else on the internet. There are a plethora of other forums dedicated solely to that topic and better suited to dealing with the issues it invites.

OTOH, if politics is inherently this impossible to discuss subject then how does going elsewhere change anything? How can an appropriate venue for political discussion exist when you claim that no matter what rules you have it will inevitably degenerate into a screaming match? The answer is that the existence of places where politics can be discussed proves that it can be done, and the issue is solely a lack of ability and/or willingness to do proper moderation.

As for them not being intertwined, I present https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/808438.page as a counter-argument.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
The simplest answer is, as always, not allow political discussion on this site. Put as many rules in place as you like, it will still descend into screaming. This is a site about war gaming, not politics. Some might argue they are intertwined but they are not.

If people want to talk politics, go anywhere else on the internet. There are a plethora of other forums dedicated solely to that topic and better suited to dealing with the issues it invites.

OTOH, if politics is inherently this impossible to discuss subject then how does going elsewhere change anything? How can an appropriate venue for political discussion exist when you claim that no matter what rules you have it will inevitably degenerate into a screaming match? The answer is that the existence of places where politics can be discussed proves that it can be done, and the issue is solely a lack of ability and/or willingness to do proper moderation.

As for them not being intertwined, I present https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/808438.page as a counter-argument.

Your example is locked, likely for a reason related to the issues involving politics. Your suggestion of good moderators willing and able to police such a thread is offensive sir. The mods already work their butts off for no money to keep this site running. The last thing we need to do is give them an even bigger headache by creating a forum that will likely consume much of the time they could be using to keep the relevant pets of the website in working order.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Your example is locked, likely for a reason related to the issues involving politics.

Well yes, the thread involving a set of political miniatures was locked on a forum with a politics ban. That doesn't change my point that politics and gaming are often intertwined, as demonstrated by a manufacturer in our hobby releasing a new product that is an explicitly political statement.

Your suggestion of good moderators willing and able to police such a thread is offensive sir. The mods already work their butts off for no money to keep this site running. The last thing we need to do is give them an even bigger headache by creating a forum that will likely consume much of the time they could be using to keep the relevant pets of the website in working order.

If they don't like the work they can stop doing it at any time. But "accept the status quo without question because you should be grateful the mods exist at all" is not a very constructive starting point for a discussion.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Well yes, the thread involving a set of political miniatures was locked on a forum with a politics ban. That doesn't change my point that politics and gaming are often intertwined, as demonstrated by a manufacturer in our hobby releasing a new product that is an explicitly political statement.

Just discuss the miniature itself, in other words the design and usefulness relating to the game. You don’t have to get into the political aspect of it.

If they don't like the work they can stop doing it at any time. But "accept the status quo without question because you should be grateful the mods exist at all" is not a very constructive starting point for a discussion.

I’m saying you should take consideration of the people who have to clean up the messes started by such discussions. Instead of creating it and waiting for them to come over and deal with it, just stop it before it becomes an issue.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Just discuss the miniature itself, in other words the design and usefulness relating to the game. You don’t have to get into the political aspect of it.

"Don't get into the politics of this miniature which was created for the sole purpose of being a political statement, has little or no artistic merit otherwise, and is not intended for use in any game" is the kind of farcical non-discussion that shows why politics bans are problematic. There's no point in having a discussion forum if the only acceptable discussion is banal exchanges of "I like this" and "yes, I also like it".

Or, if you want another example: GW's "WARHAMMER IS FOR EVERYONE" statement. It's clearly a newsworthy event in the hobby but it's something that was explicitly political and is impossible to discuss without talking about the political context that required GW to make the statement. Politics is inherently intertwined with it, contrary to your claim that this isn't the case.

I’m saying you should take consideration of the people who have to clean up the messes started by such discussions. Instead of creating it and waiting for them to come over and deal with it, just stop it before it becomes an issue.

I did take it into consideration. The fact that I came to a different conclusion from you does not mean that I don't respect the moderators, please don't generate extra work for them by making rude and false accusations against me.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I'd like this to be a discussion on how to increase the chances of a forum being better than a rage typing 4chan session.

BAN PEOPLE WHO DO NOT ARGUE IN GOOD FAITH.

Having never modded before, I can only assume this is easier said than done. If you don't do it fast though their cancerous attitude spreads.


One tactic I've noticed is the tag team combo. Are you the first to bring up a big topic that will eventually be discussed? Make your biased claims about it, then claim the other side will never respond because they are cowards that can't defend their counter argument. Then a coconspirator quickly posts that "these (insert slurs) won't be able to stop themselves justifying their position."

If there is no response, pat each other on the back for winning. If there is a response, dog pile them with "knew you'd take the bait" replies, then claim you win.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Having never modded before, I can only assume this is easier said than done.

It takes active mods who are engaged with the community and pay attention enough to notice when it's the usual suspects pulling the same old dishonesty. If you have mods that just enjoy having the power to ban people or are completely checked out and only pay attention if it's something obvious like using " " in a post you're going to have problems. But if your mods are active members of the community it will usually be pretty obvious when someone isn't arguing in good faith. You'll see them parrot the same party-line propaganda, ignore everyone who fact checks them, quote people out of context, post a litany of fallacies, and then once the discussion moves on they'll post the same stuff a week later as if the previous discussion never happened. Or you'll see dog whistles, "I'm just playing devil's advocate and asking questions", etc, being used to express abhorrent beliefs in superficially polite terms so that technically they're staying within the rules. You'll see that when people are getting frustrated and crossing the line into rudeness or hostility it's often one of the usual suspects on the other end of it, and when you go back and read the exchange leading up to the offending post you'll see that they may have been superficially polite but they've been being infuriatingly dishonest and the hostility happened for very good reasons.

Or, to put this in non-political terms, think of the YMDC forum. I'm not going to name any specific names but I bet you can think of certain posters, whether here or in similar rule discussions elsewhere, that delight in coming up with the most absurd interpretations of hyper-literal RAW and then defending them to the death against the majority saying "that's stupid, nobody would ever play that way" and telling newbies the real answer that people use in real games. Everyone who deals with them knows exactly what they're doing and how they're deliberately trying to provoke a reaction, but because they never use any "bad words" they manage to stay just on the safe side of the rules. And when their trolling inevitably results in someone losing patience with them and posting " YOU STOP BEING TFG" everyone who has been paying attention at all knows exactly how it got to that point. If you're a good moderator you ban the troll, if you're a bad moderator you ban the person who was rude to the troll, rewarding the troll for their bad behavior and encouraging more trolling in the future.

But TBH the main thing it takes is a moderation policy that being a polite is worse than calling someone a . Ban the 4chan Nazis, the trolls, etc, and if someone is a little too aggressive in responding to an obvious bad faith poster you let it slide because it's an understandable reaction.

The problem is that unless you enforce a fact-based policy, people who deal with peddling lies suck up an inordinate amount of bandwidth and waste everyone's time, bringing the whole conversation/forum down. The bad-faith posting like that is what causes issues.

That and that 'should this person who was born differently than me deserve the same rights as me?' should not be 'political'.

 cuda1179 wrote:

Membership: I've seen three forums started and to a lesser or greater degree fell apart because all it did was transplant the same group of disagreeable people into a new environment. A bit like a bullied kid that thinks highschool will be different and a new start, only to realize it's the same bullies he's in class with. I only see one way to combat that, merge multiple non-affiliated groups together so the old cliques have a new dynamic. I've seen the same tribes of individuals form over and over, so changing sites does nothing. I think we'd need a much larger user group to counter 2-3 personalities treating a forum like a personal feifdom.

I agree with your whole post, but this bit especially.

I've been fairly active on politics sub-forums on a few forums, but after the rift in US politics most of them shut down, which resulted in a few people spawning off a few politics forums which all suffer from a chronic lack of traffic, members and perspectives.

The one politics sub-forum on a larger one seems to work OK - You need to be an established poster and request access, then there are pretty strict rules on what is and isn't allowed, which are upheld properly. As a result there is discussion from across the political spectrum rather than those leaning towards the primary group on a smaller board, but that only works because the larger forum has thousands of members.

I'd love to see somewhere like Dakka re-open it's politics forum in a restricted way - only members with 50+ posts can join, there are clear rules and members can be removed from the subforum for breaking them. It'd likely need it's own mods and I understand Dakka is currently struggling in that regard.

OP - The Internet is oversaturated with places to talk politics.

Assuming you're doing this for non-financial reasons, the site will struggle to attract users. If you're looking to grow a community organically, the odds are high the entire membership will consist of you, your friend, and a couple people you specifically invite.

At a starting stage, moderation policies will have no bearing on anyone deciding to participate. Might be best to start out simpler by just putting up a site to see if there is any interest.

Wishing you all the best in this endeavor.

I don't think Dakka should. Politics isn't currently a realm of rational discourse but a place for faith, belief and entangling people's sense of self with different positions and parties. Even establishing the facts is a tiresome and largely pointless process (witness climate change - on one hand one of the biggest bodies of scientific research, on the other people who say they are lying for various reasons). You don't get a debate out of that, especially with faceless strangers on the internet. And especially when they are wrong...

I actually really like a flow chart idea - but the main problem surrounding all online politics discourse is how subjective interactions might be, and that probably scuppers any streamlined or succinct process. Not easy to discern whether someone is wilfully misrepresenting facts or legitimately believes something, for example, and bad faith is a really major issue.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
It can't be done. Look at ETC. The progressives will run off anyone who doesn't explicitly agree with them or moderate their expressions so as not to offend them until, I assume, it merely becomes another circle jerk of varying degrees of progressivism.

Oh, come on. You flounced off in a huff because you got a short ban after being repeatedly warned by a stereotypically right wing US mod for putting extremist words in people's mouths.

If you say.It would've maybe been ok were the same standards applied to others... You know who I mean.

I do have to thank you for educating me though, that amongst some other things that happened in 2021. I think my views now might be far too upsetting to those guys if they couldn't handle some moderate normiecon centrist cringe back then...

And so begins the descent into madness