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 Overread wrote:
I think many forget that no religion and no politics is pretty standard on most forums on the net (which are not focused on those subjects).

The fact that it is standard is why we are objecting. It's not like politics bans are a new thing, they're almost always implemented poorly and involve excessive moderation and the personal biases of the moderators. It is extremely disappointing to see dakka fall to that level too.

Increased conflict is never good and it sours the sites community (this thread is a very fine example of it).

Disagree completely. If I can't discuss politics with someone then I don't want them in my community. Hiding that conflict doesn't change the fact that they're a horrible person, it just means that I'm ignorant of their true character. Disagreement is a sign of a healthy community, one where everyone isn't obsessed with false politeness and never daring to say anything remotely controversial.

Plus lets not kid ourselves; we are not going to change the course of international politics or even national politics on Dakka.

We also aren't going to change anything that GW is doing, and yet we have countless "what should GW do" threads discussing the subject.

 Peregrine wrote:
It's not like politics bans are a new thing, they're almost always implemented poorly and involve excessive moderation and the personal biases of the moderators.

I might remind the mods and everyone else that this, right here, has been an issue on dakka during previous politics bans. Along with confusion and mods using posters as pingpong balls between differing threads due to differing ideas of what was 'politics'.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think many forget that no religion and no politics is pretty standard on most forums on the net (which are not focused on those subjects).

Increased conflict is never good and it sours the sites community (this thread is a very fine example of it).

Disagree completely. If I can't discuss politics with someone then I don't want them in my community. Hiding that conflict doesn't change the fact that they're a horrible person, it just means that I'm ignorant of their true character. Disagreement is a sign of a healthy community, one where everyone isn't obsessed with false politeness and never daring to say anything remotely controversial.

I can say I safely disagree with this statement then straight out, and false politeness? Insincerity is an issue, but then again having people bitterly at throats, cursing each other is still worse. Both for the community and those looking into said community.

If I can't discuss politics with someone then I don't want them in my community.

This statement is a pretty good summary of exactly the opposite of what this site is about and why there is now a politics & religion ban.

When you have mods like Kilkrazy showing how they are biased by default, how can we trust the mod team to remain neutral and fair? If you want to be fair, either ALL politics or NO politics should be allowed. There is no in-between.

Again, if you just come out and officially say that you're not trying to be fair or neutral, it would be appreciated.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
When you have mods like Kilkrazy showing how they are biased by default, how can we trust the mod team to remain neutral and fair? If you want to be fair, either ALL politics or NO politics should be allowed. There is no in-between.

Again, if you just come out and officially say that you're not trying to be fair or neutral, it would be appreciated.

And to add to this: "we shouldn't have politics in our game" is itself a political statement, taking a position that things are pretty ok and other political issues are less important than maintaining unity in the hobby and maximizing the number of members. There isn't really such a thing as a general politics ban, only banning political positions that certain moderators disagree with while smugly maintaining their own positions as the only acceptable ones.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There is no in-between.

Actually, the in between stuff makes up the greater part.

 Manchu wrote:

If I can't discuss politics with someone then I don't want them in my community.

This statement is a pretty good summary of exactly the opposite of what this site is about and why there is now a politics & religion ban.

Well that's kind of dishonest, trying to present the bolded words as statements of ownership rather than membership. And I note that you didn't quote the rest of the statement, explaining why I don't want those people around. If I can't discuss politics with someone because they think I deserved to be tortured in hell for eternity then why should I want to associate with that person? Why is it a good thing to remain ignorant of their beliefs? It's completely incomprehensible to me that the goal of maximizing the member count of a group takes priority over all other things, including maintaining a level of basic decency in its members.

 Peregrine wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
When you have mods like Kilkrazy showing how they are biased by default, how can we trust the mod team to remain neutral and fair? If you want to be fair, either ALL politics or NO politics should be allowed. There is no in-between.

Again, if you just come out and officially say that you're not trying to be fair or neutral, it would be appreciated.

And to add to this: "we shouldn't have politics in our game" is itself a political statement, taking a position that things are pretty ok and other political issues are less important than maintaining unity in the hobby and maximizing the number of members. There isn't really such a thing as a general politics ban, only banning political positions that certain moderators disagree with while smugly maintaining their own positions as the only acceptable ones.

Well.. Yes, not every single person dedicates their entire life to politics. It is genuinely surprising that people can't realize people don't have the same positions they do, nor that they think the exact manner.

You can infact leave politics at the door. It's only political to those who cannot turn it off.

 Manchu wrote:
Actually, the in between stuff makes up the greater part.

And that's the problem. Banning politics without just turning the OT section into a trash can of inane small talk where nobody is allowed to say anything remotely controversial means having gray areas where the politics ban becomes a de facto case of "political discussion I don't agree with is banned, people agreeing with me is fine" and moderators lock a thread as a means of getting the last word on a subject.


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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Well.. Yes, not every single person dedicates their entire life to politics. It is genuinely surprising that people can't realize people don't have the same positions they do, nor that they think the exact manner.

You can infact leave politics at the door. It's only political to those who cannot turn it off.

Did you actually read what I said? "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement. If you say "leave politics at the door" then you are not leaving politics at the door, you are insisting that only your personal political opinion is valid and all others must be excluded.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
When you have mods like Kilkrazy showing how they are biased by default, how can we trust the mod team to remain neutral and fair? If you want to be fair, either ALL politics or NO politics should be allowed. There is no in-between.

Again, if you just come out and officially say that you're not trying to be fair or neutral, it would be appreciated.

I've pointed out in the past that being neutral arbitrators is not the job of forum moderators. We're here to keep the forum running in a way that meets the requirements of the site's owners, not to be impartial adjudicators. Moderators will have their own opinions on topics. What keeps things 'fair' is the oversight of the mod team as a whole, and the fact that the mod team were chosen based on their 'fit' with the style of site that Dakka's owners want to see.

I personally disagree with the sentiment that politics can't be discussed and shouldn't becin polite company. The idea that we are blanket banning the problem is wrong. There are a few bad apples in those and we should just ban them.

 Peregrine wrote:
It's completely incomprehensible to me that the goal of maximizing the member count of a group takes priority over all other things, including maintaining a level of basic decency in its members.

That's a pretty gigantic logical leap from what's actually happening here.

The ban is nothing to do with 'maximizing the member count'. It's about keeping the site the sort of place that people will want to keep returning to. You may personally want to establish the political and religious beliefs of every person you meet before choosing to have anything further to do with them, but from my experience that would put you in a very, very small minority. The vast majority of gamers don't care in the slightest which political party the guy standing on the opposite side of the table voted for, they just want to play toy soldiers.


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 Peregrine wrote:
. If you say "leave politics at the door" then you are not leaving politics at the door, you are insisting that only your personal political opinion is valid and all others must be excluded.

Sorry, but this is nonsense.

If I ask people to leave their politics at the door, that does nothing more than ask them to leave their politics at the door. That's not a declaration that my opinion is correct, because I left that at the door as well. It's nothing more than a request to leave the political discourse for somewhere better suited for such things.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Actually, the in between stuff makes up the greater part.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Well.. Yes, not every single person dedicates their entire life to politics. It is genuinely surprising that people can't realize people don't have the same positions they do, nor that they think the exact manner.

You can infact leave politics at the door. It's only political to those who cannot turn it off.

Did you actually read what I said? "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement. If you say "leave politics at the door" then you are not leaving politics at the door, you are insisting that only your personal political opinion is valid and all others must be excluded.

Sure, call it political if you want. But if you cannot abide by the rules of the community because you cannot stop making everything political, you are very free to leave. It is not your community, it is everyone else's as well.

"Ownership rather than membership" is really well put. That is exactly what the problem is. Membership is not about controlling, it's about participating alongside others, which includes restraining oneself. IRL this is why we say avoid politics in polite company. In the political realm, it is about controlling, and polarizing, and dividing everything up between us (right side of history) and them (wrong side of history). And that's contrary to the spirit of this site. Whether or not that is even the appropriate way to conceive of politics, it's certainly not appropriate for a discussion forum about miniatures gaming.

People who argue that everything is political are doing so as part of an agenda to ensure that everything is politicized.

 insaniak wrote:
The ban is nothing to do with 'maximizing the member count'. It's about keeping the site the sort of place that people will want to keep returning to.

These are completely contradictory statements. You can't claim that maximizing the member count has nothing to do with it and then, in your very next sentence, state that it's about maximizing member count (via keeping people returning).

The vast majority of gamers don't care in the slightest which political party the guy standing on the opposite side of the table voted for, they just want to play toy soldiers.

And the vast majority is free to not click on threads with "politics" in the title. A ban is not necessary to achieve their goal of not caring about politics. A ban has the sole purpose of establishing the political beliefs of certain moderators as the only acceptable ones to hold.


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 Manchu wrote:
"Ownership rather than membership" is really well put. That is exactly what the problem is. Membership is not about controlling, it's about participating alongside others, which includes restraining oneself. IRL this is why we say avoid politics in polite company. In the political realm, it is about controlling, and polarizing, and dividing everything up between us (right side of history) and them (wrong side of history). And that's contrary to the spirit of this site. Whether or not that is even the appropriate way to conceive of politics, it's certainly not appropriate for a discussion forum about miniatures gaming.

IOW, your political argument is "other political issues are less important than my desire to maximize the number of people I can play a game with". Where does that line get drawn? Would you happily welcome a Nazi into your gaming group so long as they leave the swastika flags at home?

People who argue that everything is political are doing so as part of an agenda to ensure that everything is politicized.

And people who argue otherwise are doing so as part of an agenda to ensure that everything is politicized, just in a different way. At least the people who argue openly that everything is political are being honest about it, and not smugly insisting that their political beliefs are just the normal default and therefore don't count as politics.

 Peregrine wrote:

These are completely contradictory statements. You can't claim that maximizing the member count has nothing to do with it and then, in your very next sentence, state that it's about maximizing member count (via keeping people returning).

Just as well I didn't do that, then.

There's a difference between giving my house a complete makeover in order to make it cosmetically appealing to the widest possible audience, and locking the cranky old dog in the back yard so it doesn't bite people when they open the front gate...

A ban has the sole purpose of establishing the political beliefs of certain moderators as the only acceptable ones to hold.

Repeating this claim doesn't make it any less nonsensical.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Sure, call it political if you want. But if you cannot abide by the rules of the community because you cannot stop making everything political, you are very free to leave. It is not your community, it is everyone else's as well.

You are missing the point, and it's starting to seem deliberate. Everything is already political. "Leave politics at the door" is a political statement. People saying "leave politics at the door" are inherently violating their own rule, and it's a blatant double standard to say that this particular political statement is ok but all others must be silenced.

 insaniak wrote:
The ban is nothing to do with 'maximizing the member count'.

This is an ongoing theme with Peregrine. He wants all political views on full display so the 'undesirables' can be discovered and eliminated. He believes the only reason not to purge the 'undesirables' is privileging the number of posters over their ideological purity.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Sure, call it political if you want. But if you cannot abide by the rules of the community because you cannot stop making everything political, you are very free to leave. It is not your community, it is everyone else's as well.

You are missing the point, and it's starting to seem deliberate. Everything is already political. "Leave politics at the door" is a political statement. People saying "leave politics at the door" are inherently violating their own rule, and it's a blatant double standard to say that this particular political statement is ok but all others must be silenced.

Why yes it's deliberate, because I don't push everything through a lens of politics. I literally cannot understand your view aside from you trying to force something to ensure everything is politicized. Except that you cannot seem to understand that not everyone has this self-given agenda to try and pin everything down through politics.

The fact that you seem to want to have everything controlled, sectioned off in such a manner is something I cannot understand.

 insaniak wrote:
There's a difference between giving my house a complete makeover in order to make it cosmetically appealing to the widest possible audience, and locking the cranky old dog in the back yard so it doesn't bite people when they open the front gate...

"Don't lock political discussion" is not a complete makeover.

Repeating this claim doesn't make it any less nonsensical.

It is not nonsense, it is simple truth no matter how much you don't like it. "Leave politics at the door" is a political statement, and a politics ban enforces that position as the only acceptable one. No other goal is accomplished by banning politics, because no ban is required to accomplish those other goals.


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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Why yes it's deliberate, because I don't push everything through a lens of politics. I literally cannot understand your view aside from you trying to force something to ensure everything is politicized. Except that you cannot seem to understand that not everyone has this self-given agenda to try and pin everything down through politics.

Ok, let's give an example of a gay person in a group where a right-wing anti-gay Christian is present. Saying "leave politics at the door" is telling that person that their desire to feel safe is less important than your desire to have more players in the group. You're expecting them to just shut up and accept the bigot, and any attempt to object to the bigot's beliefs is not welcome. Or there's the popular topic of minority representation in miniatures. Saying "leave politics at the door" is a statement endorsing the status quo, banning any objections to the current (perceived or real) lack of representation and insisting that everyone accept what we have now without complaint.

 Peregrine wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
There's a difference between giving my house a complete makeover in order to make it cosmetically appealing to the widest possible audience, and locking the cranky old dog in the back yard so it doesn't bite people when they open the front gate...

"Don't lock political discussion" is not a complete makeover.

I think you lost track of the metaphor, there.

It is not nonsense, it is simple truth no matter how much you don't like it. "Leave politics at the door" is a political statement, and a politics ban enforces that position as the only acceptable one. No other goal is accomplished by banning politics, because no ban is required to accomplish those other goals.

This is a wind up, right?

Removing political discussion is not political. If you remove the political discussion, what you have is by very definition a lack of political discussion. There is no political statement being made.

All that is happening is that we've asked for people to not talk politics or religion in our house. That's not a political statement, it's a request for people to adhere to an extremely common social convention to help avoid potential unpleasantness. You can try as hard as you want to turn that into some sort of massive political statement, but frankly you're nailing jelly to a tree.

 Manchu wrote:
This is an ongoing theme with Peregrine. He wants all political views on full display so the 'undesirables' can be discovered and eliminated. He believes the only reason not to purge the 'undesirables' is privileging the number of posters over their ideological purity.

And, I ask again: do you feel that Nazis should be welcome in our community as long as they leave the swastika flags at home?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
I think you lost track of the metaphor, there.

No, you just used a poor metaphor that exaggerates one side way beyond reason.

Removing political discussion is not political. If you remove the political discussion, what you have is by very definition a lack of political discussion. There is no political statement being made.

All that is happening is that we've asked for people to not talk politics or religion in our house. That's not a political statement, it's a request for people to adhere to an extremely common social convention to help avoid potential unpleasantness. You can try as hard as you want to turn that into some sort of massive political statement, but frankly you're nailing jelly to a tree.

Like I said, it's about enforcing your particular beliefs. Repeating over and over again that you have those beliefs is not changing the fact that it is a political position, one you have declared to be the only acceptable one.

 Peregrine wrote:

Removing political discussion is not political. If you remove the political discussion, what you have is by very definition a lack of political discussion. There is no political statement being made.

All that is happening is that we've asked for people to not talk politics or religion in our house. That's not a political statement, it's a request for people to adhere to an extremely common social convention to help avoid potential unpleasantness. You can try as hard as you want to turn that into some sort of massive political statement, but frankly you're nailing jelly to a tree.

Like I said, it's about enforcing your particular beliefs. Repeating over and over again that you have those beliefs is not changing the fact that it is a political position, one you have declared to be the only acceptable one.

Sounds like you are the one who is trying to dictate the position of what is acceptable in this community.

By trying to enforce the idea that everything is political, you can infact try to dictate the idea and keep everything political. It does not work like that.

 Peregrine wrote:

Ok, let's give an example of a gay person in a group where a right-wing anti-gay Christian is present. Saying "leave politics at the door" is telling that person that their desire to feel safe is less important than your desire to have more players in the group. You're expecting them to just shut up and accept the bigot, and any attempt to object to the bigot's beliefs is not welcome.

No, what it's saying is that there is no reason for the bigot's beliefs to be relevant to that setting to begin with.

He can think what he wants in private. He can go home and hate gay people, or cats, or pistachio ice cream all he wants, and it won't make a lick of difference if he's not airing those views in the group venue.


There is simply no other feasible way for this to work in a public setting. Allowing people to air their views on that subject isn't going to flush out all of the bigots so that you can show them the door, it's just going to flush out the ones who choose to speak up about it. You can show the outspoken bigot the door, assuming that's your prerogative to begin with, but you're still not going to have the faintest idea of the feelings of the rest of the group without hooking them up to lie detectors and subjecting them to an interrogation on the topic.

Allowing free discussion isn't giving you a safe space, it's just creating an environment where conflict can flourish.

Peregrine cares so much about other people's political affliation that he thinks other people do.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Sounds like you are the one who is trying to dictate the position of what is acceptable in this community.

By trying to enforce the idea that everything is political, you can infact try to dictate the idea and keep everything political. It does not work like that.

Uh, no. "Everything is political" doesn't dictate any acceptable content because I am not in favor of any ban on politics. People are free to say (or not say) whatever they want.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Sounds like you are the one who is trying to dictate the position of what is acceptable in this community.

By trying to enforce the idea that everything is political, you can infact try to dictate the idea and keep everything political. It does not work like that.

Uh, no. "Everything is political" doesn't dictate any acceptable content because I am not in favor of any ban on politics. People are free to say (or not say) whatever they want.

Except it's quite obvious you do. After-all if you cannot discuss politics with someone you literally said "If I can't discuss politics with someone then I don't want them in my community."

It sounds as if you want people to be forced to speak up about politics so you can instead shame them for not having the views you hold.

 insaniak wrote:
No, what it's saying is that there is no reason for the bigot's beliefs to be relevant to that setting to begin with.

He can think what he wants in private. He can go home and hate gay people, or cats, or pistachio ice cream all he wants, and it won't make a lick of difference if he's not airing those views in the group venue.

So I'll ask you the same question: are you happy to allow Nazis to be part of the community as long as they never bring any swastika flags to the game store?

And do you honestly think that a person like that is keeping their beliefs 100% silent? What a ban on politics inevitably means is that the bigot is free to say "you deserve to be tortured for eternity in hell" (though in polite terms, of course) and the thread will be locked before other people can counter their argument. Now the information on their beliefs is public knowledge, but the gay person is supposed to just forget that it happened and pretend that everything is ok.

There is simply no other feasible way for this to work in a public setting. Allowing people to air their views on that subject isn't going to flush out all of the bigots so that you can show them the door, it's just going to flush out the ones who choose to speak up about it. You can show the outspoken bigot the door, assuming that's your prerogative to begin with, but you're still not going to have the faintest idea of the feelings of the rest of the group without hooking them up to lie detectors and subjecting them to an interrogation on the topic.

Of course it isn't going to reveal anyone, but that's not the point. The original claim was that politics generates arguments and divides people, and this is a bad thing. It isn't. A bigot revealing their beliefs and getting removed (and their arguments being comprehensively refuted) is division, but it is good division. It's like dealing with cheaters: you might never catch them all, but it would be absurd to suggest that cheating can never be a permissible subject of discussion because it divides the community when someone is caught cheating.


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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Except it's quite obvious you do. After-all if you cannot discuss politics with someone you literally said "If I can't discuss politics with someone then I don't want them in my community."

It sounds as if you want people to speak up about politics so you can instead shame them for not having the views you hold.

There is a distinct difference between me as an ordinary member saying " you GTFO" and a moderator hitting the lock/ban button to remove statements they don't agree with. I can refuse to associate with someone once their beliefs are known, but I can't remove them by force.

 Peregrine wrote:
What a ban on politics inevitably means is that the bigot is free to say "you deserve to be tortured for eternity in hell" (though in polite terms, of course) and the thread will be locked before other people can counter their argument.

Yes, occasionally someone on the internet will say something that you disagree with, and you will not have the opportunity to correct them.

That doesn't make their stance the 'right' one by default. It just makes them someone who said something on the internet.