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May I suggest a "The Drops" forum just for the sort of discussion such as US Politics, and funnel all of the people who'd like to get figuratively covered in into it?

For irony, you can make OP the sole mod of it.

A US politics ban is a temporary symptom being addressed: we tend to go a bit crazy when seeing "unfair" conditions.
The culture and environment we all work and play in can overshadow almost all topics.

- Some primary distribution centers are in the USA and so some hobby stuff has to cross the border (to Canada) and there is much discussion of tariffs = hobby politics.
- Some of us have a left and right view in rules and gets into lively discussions of RAI or RAW.
- We have a fair number of military members here so USA policy in the world has a HUGE impact on them.
- We have a fair number of LGBDT folks (and some in the military) which again, are affected by the various opinions and policies of the USA leaders.

We all come here for our hobby.
Some need the distraction more than others... desperately perhaps.
We are a support group of sorts for gamers and that includes a bit more than just the playing pieces and rules.

Yes, political discussions are hard.
They can be necessary since any collection of people will have a form of politics, it is pretty much inescapable.
We might as well have the tools in place to moderate well and try to stick to facts (not alternative truths) and maybe a dash of empathy.

I think it had been said a few times, now more than ever the discussion of US politics IS critical.
So many elements are being changed or attacked that have a lasting affect on the freedoms of the USA people.

At the very least, as a Canadian, I can get a better feel of what is going on in the USA than what is said in the news and allows me to better appreciate their situation.
Thanks.

 sebster wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I work in IT, and I don't wan't to read threads from people asking for help with their computer or some tech issue. I've never felt like the need to extrapolate that out to a forum-wide rule, and just don't click on those threads instead.

I work as an accountant in government. I never have to worry about that invading any forum anywhere because no-one discusses that for one second unless they're being directly paid to do so.

My wife works in a closely related field, and there's tons to talk about. From corruption to misappropriation, meetings about meeting to documents about documents, elected officials causing friction with employees to stodgy lifers preventing much-needed modernization, the whole thing plays out like a Douglas Adams take on a Kafka novel, or Idiocracy as a crime story.

Stop underselling your thrilling work life!

AdmiralHalsey wrote:

 Hollow wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:
Every US politics thread I looked at (prior to the ban) was insult after vulgar insult directed at me, my preferred candidates, and my preferred party/alignment.

If you are even remotely conservative OT is a hostile place to be.

This is a great example of why US politics is banned; statements like this demonize one side while exonerating the other, it provokes negative response. The only difference between this and trolling is the speaker (presumably) believes the statement at hand.

Yeah... good point. People are so blinkered and victimised that they can't take a step back and be objective. It's like team sports and people on both sides of the political spectrum have taken it to a disgusting new level (although that is a false equivalency, considering the GOP have literally opened their big tent to Nazi's, White supremists and child molestors.. where-as the left have just become super annoying)

However, I stand by what I said and think the ban should be lifted... perhaps we could have an 'Ice-box forum' where all bets are off, anything can be discussed, people can flame, be mean ,and not be beholden to any rules. US politics could be discussed there.

Is that a post about US Politics in a thread discussing that US politics are banned, primarily because of such wide sweeping offensive statements as contained in your post?

The irony is thick here

Indeed. The subsequent posts between them show it too. But then again it did end with a certain degree of civility.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Elemental wrote:
I look at it like this--the discrimination isn't against "Americans", it's about "people who can't have a discussion without being dreadful". One would be hard to justify, the other is completely fair.

Except the group in the second category is being defined as "Americans", not specific people who have been unable to have a discussion. It's just presumed that Americans can't behave, regardless of who the Americans involved happen to be. And, as has been pointed out, it's a bad assumption to make. The problem is not Americans or US politics, it's specific people who do not argue in good faith.

....who appeared in disproportionate numbers in one thread in particular, to talk about one subject in particular.

Maybe it was less "bad faith" and more "this subject brings out the crazy". I don't know, it all looked like a bunch of angry people getting angry at other angry people.

 Talizvar wrote:
I think it had been said a few times, now more than ever the discussion of US politics IS critical.
So many elements are being changed or attacked that have a lasting affect on the freedoms of the USA people.

If actual discussion of any sort had been going on there, I'd agree with you.

 Hollow wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:

 Hollow wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:
Every US politics thread I looked at (prior to the ban) was insult after vulgar insult directed at me, my preferred candidates, and my preferred party/alignment.

If you are even remotely conservative OT is a hostile place to be.

This is a great example of why US politics is banned; statements like this demonize one side while exonerating the other, it provokes negative response. The only difference between this and trolling is the speaker (presumably) believes the statement at hand.

Yeah... good point. People are so blinkered and victimised that they can't take a step back and be objective. It's like team sports and people on both sides of the political spectrum have taken it to a disgusting new level (although that is a false equivalency, considering the GOP have literally opened their big tent to Nazi's, White supremists and child molestors.. where-as the left have just become super annoying)

However, I stand by what I said and think the ban should be lifted... perhaps we could have an 'Ice-box forum' where all bets are off, anything can be discussed, people can flame, be mean ,and not be beholden to any rules. US politics could be discussed there.

Hey look! A wild generalization and false stereotype being used as an insult! Doesn't this count as an insult, and should be enough to warrant moderator action? The comment there serves no purpose other than to throw an insult. It doesn't justify or go against an argument, it is literally just an insult. I mean seriously, how does this not prompt moderator action?

As such, I am quite happy with the removal of US politics from the OT. Seriously though, does that not count as a flat out insult? Isn't that against forum rules? Honestly asking, as I've seen harder core insults than that go unpunished.

Yeah... I see the point in the ban now. I certainly didn't aim to insult. When it has gotten to the point that a literal statement of fact can be considered "a terrible insult" then perhaps its a topic best left banned.

You don't think that calling someone else's party a shelter for nazis, white supremacists, and child molester's was an insult? Then when someone calls you out on it, you come back with a snide comment.

Had you removed that section of your text, you would in fact have had a strictly objective argument. I am sure you knew that though.

Therein lies the problem. "Sweeping, generalized statements." I remember so many times in the US political election threads seeing the quote "Trump supporters are all idiots" or "Conservative voters represent the lesser educated voting population." Those are not arguments, those are insults.

Statement's such as "I do not agree with Trump's border policy as it would cost us billions" or "Hillary's open borders policy would better stimulate job growth through diversity" on the other hand are arguments, as they specify a policy and present an argument.

About a third of the political talk threads were composed of ridiculous sweeping statements, without purpose beyond venting hatred for the opposing party. I am perfectly fine with US politics being banned here. I'm tired of being called a racist and a nazi for not agreeing with certain groups. Again, calling people names isn't an argument.

From my perspective, the existing ban makes sense.

As a preliminary matter, I sympathize with the idea that we should moderate discussions rather than banning them. I think that is correct. It's our job, after all. The countervailing argument, however, is that we are unpaid workers. We pitch in because we value participating in the discussions here.

I won't speak for the entire staff but I personally find close to zero value in discussing (IRL) politics on a miniatures wargaming forum.* So I have almost no interest in moderating such discussions, especially considering the particularly harsh backlash from users who receive warnings in politics threads. Simply put, the cost far outweighs the benefit.

And sure I will concede that is a selfish analysis. But I don't mind being selfish considering there are innumerable other venues for discussing politics, including ones explicitly set up for that reason. It is a wide, wide internet. That content is on topic somewhere else. It's off topic here. At the same time, I recognize that folks want to discuss their opinions with people they know. In many cases, users have been posting on here for years. I know I have often wondered, what [insert username] thinks about [insert issue] while listening to the news. I get that there is value in hosting content not related to miniatures wargaming. That's one reason why we don't jettison the OT sub-forum altogether.

But it comes back to the cost/benefit analysis. Some posters ITT have objected to the uneven application of this ban. But it is only uneven if you consider it from a purely conceptual viewpoint. If you're wondering why we don't stamp down every single instance of political or pseudo-political posting, it is (as someone else ITT pointed out) simply because that instance has not (yet) required more cost (paid for by the staff) than it will (from the staff point of view) yield benefit.

While moderating rather than banning is my golden rule, it doesn't apply so strictly to off-topic content.

*This was not always the case. You can see from my post history that I used to regularly participate in political discussions on Dakka Dakka. To be frank, I don't think there is a lot of good faith argument going on there; more like battles of attrition.

 Manchu wrote:
As a preliminary matter, I sympathize with the idea that we should moderate discussions rather than banning them. I think that is correct. It's our job, after all. The countervailing argument, however, is that we are unpaid workers. We pitch in because we value participating in the discussions here.

I won't speak for the entire staff but I personally find close to zero value in discussing (IRL) politics on a miniatures wargaming forum.* So I have almost no interest in moderating such discussions, especially considering the particularly harsh backlash from users who receive warnings in politics threads. Simply put, the cost far outweighs the benefit.

That is a fair position. Too much work for unpaid volunteers to properly handle is a recipe for disaster.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

If we look at the traffic across the site based on the messages in each area;
- 40K Gen Disc; 1,067,184
- OT; 923,704
- News & Rumors; 917,839
- P&M Blogs; 663,584
- P&M; 594,770
- P&M Showcase; 184,653
- P&M Tutorials; 21,912

The OT area of Dakka has more traffic than the P&M Blogs, Showcase, and Tutorials combined (917,839 v 870,149), and were it not for the ban on US political discussions the disparity would be even more pronounced. In a site dedicated to painting and playing with tiny army men the second most popular area is off-topic discussion (the most popular hosts a 45 page discussion on whether or not Codex Space Marines is the worst).

The question for the community and Moderation team is what value does the OT area add to the site, and what affect does that have on the character of the community?

I made bold and red the first of Dreadclaw69's two-part question that got me thinking about the value of the OT forum. Isn't all that traffic valuable to Dakka (Yakface) in terms of Ad revenue and page views? I admittedly know jack-all about that aspect of running a website, but doesn't the traffic the OT generates justify in some sense the "effort" required to moderate it? Perhaps not in the eyes of the volunteers who have to do the dirty work, but to Yakface, and the bottom line of operating DakkaDakka surely those clicks aren't valueless like they are being presented in this thread? Talks of closing OT down entirely seem disastrous for Dakka's traffic if I am understanding the numbers above, so why not pay someone a small stipend each month to jump in the OT forum and police it?

Well, Dakka Dakka does describe itself as:

"DakkaDakka is a large, independent wargaming community that features discussion, tutorials and images for many games."

So it could really push the "stay on topic" as-in keep at least a tenuous link to some game.
I can sympathize with trying to moderate anything with the big no-no's of "polite" conversation: sex, politics and religion.
Clear rules enforced makes those bogus "squashing our rights to free speech" pretty easy: as users we do not have the right to reach out and try to hurt others.

I would say our only religion is plastic crack and politics is largely play style: Fluff, Competitive, WAAC and sex well.... I think that all depends on how well socialized each of us are.

Well, it is nice to see politics discussion in general but name calling can and should shut it down fast.

Thanks.

Free speech is irrelevant in this case - Dakka is a private organisation and does not have to ensure free speech for its users.

The same snark and disregard for respectable conversation still comes to the surface in other threads that include any amount of US politics. Nothing has changed to justify bringing it back, unless we are willing to hand out bans.

 d-usa wrote:
The same snark and disregard for respectable conversation still comes to the surface in other threads that include any amount of US politics.

I don't necessarily agree with this, snark and rudeness are present throughout Dakka regardless of topic. It has been discussed before, some may agree with me and others will surely disagree, but the "culture" of Dakka from my perspective is fairly acerbic whether the discussion centers around paint jobs, new models or gun control. I am not pointing fingers as I am guilty of this as well, but I don't think it is accurate to say that snark is isolated only to US political discussions. Dakka has a reputation for being a pretty jerky place for a reason, after all.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The same snark and disregard for respectable conversation still comes to the surface in other threads that include any amount of US politics.

I don't necessarily agree with this, snark and rudeness are present throughout Dakka regardless of topic. It has been discussed before, some may agree with me and others will surely disagree, but the "culture" of Dakka from my perspective is fairly acerbic whether the discussion centers around paint jobs, new models or gun control. I am not pointing fingers as I am guilty of this as well, but I don't think it is accurate to say that snark is isolated only to US political discussions. Dakka has a reputation for being a pretty jerky place for a reason, after all.

It's not isolated, which is why I think it serves as a good indicator for the viability of lifting the ban. The US Politics Threads have always been the Spinal Tap of OT topics, and they have always gone to 11. So if the threads that are non-political manage to still hit a 10 if a political aspect is discussed, then I think it is pretty certain that any "pure" political thread would see the same people hit 11 without any delay.

Non-political threads have gotten warnings for Rule 1 violations once people talk about the valid political aspects that are involved in these particular topics, including multiple ones this month I believe. So what makes us think we are going to do better in a politics thread?

 d-usa wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The same snark and disregard for respectable conversation still comes to the surface in other threads that include any amount of US politics.

I don't necessarily agree with this, snark and rudeness are present throughout Dakka regardless of topic. It has been discussed before, some may agree with me and others will surely disagree, but the "culture" of Dakka from my perspective is fairly acerbic whether the discussion centers around paint jobs, new models or gun control. I am not pointing fingers as I am guilty of this as well, but I don't think it is accurate to say that snark is isolated only to US political discussions. Dakka has a reputation for being a pretty jerky place for a reason, after all.

It's not isolated, which is why I think it serves as a good indicator for the viability of lifting the ban. The US Politics Threads have always been the Spinal Tap of OT topics, and they have always gone to 11. So if the threads that are non-political manage to still hit a 10 if a political aspect is discussed, then I think it is pretty certain that any "pure" political thread would see the same people hit 11 without any delay.

Non-political threads have gotten warnings for Rule 1 violations once people talk about the valid political aspects that are involved in these particular topics, including multiple ones this month I believe. So what makes us think we are going to do better in a politics thread?

Maybe folks will self-moderate better since we *know* a topic ban can happen.

We haven’t since the ban was implemented, so why would we start now?

Nothing has happened to think it would be different, and we have gotten red text since then because it hasn’t been different.

 d-usa wrote:
We haven’t since the ban was implemented, so why would we start now?

Nothing has happened to think it would be different, and we have gotten red text since then because it hasn’t been different.

Weren't most of those red text due to folks bringing up banned topics rather than breaking forum rules?

It seems to me that the unruliness we've seen during the heated-elections season seem to have died down quite a bit.

EDIT: fixed a swear word that bypassed the filter...

 whembly wrote:
Maybe folks will self-moderate better since we *know* a topic ban can happen.

No chance, as can be seen by the multiple closings of the big US Politics threads for times before being allowed to be brought back, the temp-locks of those threads, as well as the behaviour in the not-quite-US Politic threads that d-usa pointed out. As soon as the ban was lifted and the US Politics thread got recreated, it'd be a warzone again in a week. I know that seems pessimistic, but it's balanced against the evidence of the behaviour of the OT over years, keeping in mind these were mostly years that the US Political landscape wasn't as aggressively divided as it is nowadays.

As a user I enjoyed seeing the odd interesting post in those threads when they were active. Sadly, as a mod, for every interesting post that actually brought up anything new/worthwhile we had multiple posts that needed to be redacted, warned, threads pulled up with red text, PMs sent, bans applied because of, heads slammed into desks, users barely skirting the rules for as long as they could before finally slipping up, etc. It's just not worth the headaches sadly. Also, full disclosure, as a mod, I do from time to time bring up with some other mods the idea of lifting the ban. Even though I'm one of the mods most active in the OT, so lumped with a lot of work when those threads go off. That maybe it has been long enough, that people have learned, cooled off, matured as posters, etc. But then an almost-US-Pols topic flares up, posters revert to their former selves, and the whole thing needs to be Old Yeller'd out the back. Then I am reminded why it is better left banned.

Fair enough moyak.

As someone who's been baned multiple times as things got heated, I'll certainly own up to my part. And I know that's gotta be the least appealing aspect of being a moderator... there's only so much bandwidth you and your crew should exert in keep things sane. So, for what its worth, much apologies....

If in the event in the future, that such topic would be allowed, I'd be willing to be put under a dakka's "Sword of Damocles™" where the next time a bane worthy event occurs, permanently nuke my access to the OT subforum.

I can't help but to step back and chuckle at this... case in point: Me and the OP (Peregrine) doesn't see eye-to-eye politically, but man he's a joy to converse on the hobby side, especially his vigorous defense over Forgeworld inclusions to the game.

We are so much more than our politics... sometime, we need to be reminded to maintain perspective that while we all enjoy talking about our hobby... we're also people who are shaped by our upbringings and different backgrounds. Which can lead into interesting non-hobby conversations...

 Cothonian wrote:
You don't think that calling someone else's party a shelter for nazis, white supremacists, and child molester's was an insult? Then when someone calls you out on it, you come back with a snide comment.

Had you removed that section of your text, you would in fact have had a strictly objective argument. I am sure you knew that though.

Therein lies the problem. "Sweeping, generalized statements." I remember so many times in the US political election threads seeing the quote "Trump supporters are all idiots" or "Conservative voters represent the lesser educated voting population." Those are not arguments, those are insults.

Statement's such as "I do not agree with Trump's border policy as it would cost us billions" or "Hillary's open borders policy would better stimulate job growth through diversity" on the other hand are arguments, as they specify a policy and present an argument.

About a third of the political talk threads were composed of ridiculous sweeping statements, without purpose beyond venting hatred for the opposing party. I am perfectly fine with US politics being banned here. I'm tired of being called a racist and a nazi for not agreeing with certain groups. Again, calling people names isn't an argument.

He did make a sweeping unjustified statement that could easily be seen as insulting. So I see why you are annoyed by that, and I believe your feelings are valid. But re-read your original statement; you opened with a sweeping unjustified statement that could easily be seen as insulting. However valid your feelings may be you are still getting angry at someone for treating you the same way you treated them. This is the very feedback loop of toxicity that caused the ban in the first place.

It's not a sweeping unjustified statement though, which is just part of the problem. Calling party X and shelter for "negative group y" isn't a sweeping generalized statement, but one couched in a specific criticism of a given element of behavior. It's the difference between calling an opinion stupid and calling the person expressing it stupid. One is an insult, the other isn't but hey just call it a "snide comment" and dodge an actual discussion about the opinion.

The reality is that there are too many people with knowledge of what goes on but a marked lack of mature introspection. Thus begins the pointless brick wall back and forth where the offended completely ignores the actual point to cry about their hurt feelings, which when it comes to the party being accused of being a shelter for nazis, white supremacists, and child molesters is just hilarious because it's the same party that rants about participation trophies and hurt feelings not being important.

And that's just the comedy of it all. US Politics the OT thread became a massive satire of US politic, so glaringly lacking in intellectual maturity on the part of many of the participants that the very idea it could ever be productive was laughable. People complained about drive by postings and "snide comments" but the level of discourse from the beginning was so run down that drive by postings and snide comments were really all that there was to any of it.

 LordofHats wrote:
It's not a sweeping unjustified statement though, which is just part of the problem. Calling party X and shelter for "negative group y" isn't a sweeping generalized statement, but one couched in a specific criticism of a given element of behavior. It's the difference between calling an opinion stupid and calling the person expressing it stupid. One is an insult, the other isn't but hey just call it a "snide comment" and dodge an actual discussion about the opinion.

The reality is that there are too many people with knowledge of what goes on but a marked lack of mature introspection. Thus begins the pointless brick wall back and forth where the offended completely ignores the actual point to cry about their hurt feelings, which when it comes to the party being accused of being a shelter for nazis, white supremacists, and child molesters is just hilarious because it's the same party that rants about participation trophies and hurt feelings not being important.

I could see his statement as a reasonable one were it rephrased, but it seemed pretty clear to me that he was calling out the whole GOP as welcoming the indicated groups. Even taken in a way that's technically true the statement is rather disingenuous.

And that's just the comedy of it all. US Politics the OT thread became a massive satire of US politic, so glaringly lacking in intellectual maturity on the part of many of the participants that the very idea it could ever be productive was laughable. People complained about drive by postings and "snide comments" but the level of discourse from the beginning was so run down that drive by postings and snide comments were really all that there was to any of it.

US politics has become a parody of US politics.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The same snark and disregard for respectable conversation still comes to the surface in other threads that include any amount of US politics.

I don't necessarily agree with this, snark and rudeness are present throughout Dakka regardless of topic. It has been discussed before, some may agree with me and others will surely disagree, but the "culture" of Dakka from my perspective is fairly acerbic whether the discussion centers around paint jobs, new models or gun control. I am not pointing fingers as I am guilty of this as well, but I don't think it is accurate to say that snark is isolated only to US political discussions. Dakka has a reputation for being a pretty jerky place for a reason, after all.

I have to agree. In the short time I’ve been here I’ve had to put 46 people on my ignore list, including 4 members of staff. No other site I’ve ever frequented has come close to that. And most of it is political OT related. You have to ask yourself, is it worth having politics discussed here? Is there not enough bile spewing out of the wargame threads without adding political bile on top of that?

I mean for fairness, if you have to keep politics on the site then lift the ban on US politics, but if you won’t lift the US ban then think about banning it all. And I’m favouring the latter.

And this is just demonstrating my point: a discussion about whether US politics should be banned or not turns into an argument over who said what about which party. US politics is not going to go anywhere. The real choice we have is between discussing US politics and having the discussion occasionally interrupted, often when it's a perfectly reasonable conversation, by a moderator until the next US politics thread, or just accepting the inevitable and removing the ban.

I could see his statement as a reasonable one were it rephrased, but it seemed pretty clear to me that he was calling out the whole GOP as welcoming the indicated groups. Even taken in a way that's technically true the statement is rather disingenuous.

An unpleasant statement is not the same as a disingenuous one. You can’t have a meaningful discussion of politics while banning people from voicing statements that are unpleasant and if someone chooses to take any criticism as a personal insult then they should probably stay far away from anything remotely political.

US politics has become a parody of US politics.

Just because politicians and pundits act like 12 year olds doesn’t mean posters here should act like toddlers but that’s what US politics became here. Bickering toddlers repeating the latest sound byte like a bunch of monkeys. The dumbing down of politics to the lowest common denominator didn’t need to be the reality but that’s what it became.

I suspect in the scheme of things it will matter little.

All other threads all seem to come to a logical close when any of the following is met:

- Someone is compared to Hitler.
- The last 3 posts devolve to "You hurt my feelings and I hurt you back!"
- We start talking about random things away from topic (obvious lack of interest in the thread).
- When the thread is more of a "click-bait" item and a MOD patiently waits about a page to see if it can manage to be on topic and polite.
- A re-opening of a thread about one that was closed with much prejudice... oh, wait...

We can always talk the politics of trying to keep a thread alive as long as possible.

This thread if nothing else has proved to me that we're better off with the US politics discussion staying banned.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
This thread if nothing else has proved to me that we're better off with the US politics discussion staying banned.

Its better(so far) than the last N+B thread about the US politics ban.

Progress!

Also, keep the ban.

 Talizvar wrote:
I suspect in the scheme of things it will matter little.

All other threads all seem to come to a logical close when any of the following is met:

- Someone is compared to Hitler.
- The last 3 posts devolve to "You hurt my feelings and I hurt you back!"
- We start talking about random things away from topic (obvious lack of interest in the thread).
- When the thread is more of a "click-bait" item and a MOD patiently waits about a page to see if it can manage to be on topic and polite.
- A re-opening of a thread about one that was closed with much prejudice... oh, wait...

We can always talk the politics of trying to keep a thread alive as long as possible.

Your hitleroid post hurt my feelings and you are dumb for posting it, why don't you cure your meanness using one weird trick and re open the US politics thread!

Am I doing it right?

 LordofHats wrote:

I could see his statement as a reasonable one were it rephrased, but it seemed pretty clear to me that he was calling out the whole GOP as welcoming the indicated groups. Even taken in a way that's technically true the statement is rather disingenuous.

An unpleasant statement is not the same as a disingenuous one. You can’t have a meaningful discussion of politics while banning people from voicing statements that are unpleasant and if someone chooses to take any criticism as a personal insult then they should probably stay far away from anything remotely political.

I understand that, I just get a different meaning from the phrasing of the respective statement than you do. At any rate such is somewhat tangential to my original point and the topic at hand, so perhaps we can agree to disagree?

US politics has become a parody of US politics.

Just because politicians and pundits act like 12 year olds doesn’t mean posters here should act like toddlers but that’s what US politics became here. Bickering toddlers repeating the latest sound byte like a bunch of monkeys. The dumbing down of politics to the lowest common denominator didn’t need to be the reality but that’s what it became.

I should have been more clear; I meant to give a tongue-in-cheek explanation as to why, not excuse the behavior.

I don't know if this is possible, but I was wondering if dakka mods can ban caustic posters from specific threads or if the granularity of the system only allows bans from subforums? Might be a solution as a mod might be more willing to hand out the ban if it has a more limited impact and can allow the discussion to move forward.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
This thread if nothing else has proved to me that we're better off with the US politics discussion staying banned.

How so? It's been polite discussion, and some disagreement, but there hasn't been any heat, or warnings, or anything like that.