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And I'll also note that when I say "people I can't discuss politics with" I'm referring to people who are so far over the line that no discussion is possible. An alt-right member arguing for "peaceful ethnic cleansing" to create their white utopia is not going to have a productive discussion with me because the only answer to that level of hatred and ignorance is "WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU." A person who disagrees with me over what insurance rates the federal government should set to best drive economic growth is not going to have the same problem because their beliefs are within the limits of sanity and do not require crossing any moral lines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
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.

It does make it that way when the moderators are biased in deciding what gets locked/deleted, as they inevitably are when sites are foolish enough to have politics bans. Their stance is not factually the correct one, but is treated as the only acceptable one by the moderators. And it does demonstrate that "leave politics at the door" is inherently not leaving politics at the door, as it is a statement that the fight over LGBT rights (and associated issues) is less important than your desire to not have arguments about things unrelated to toy soldiers.

If there are no political discussion here, how are you going to even know they are an Altrighter.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
If there are no political discussion here, how are you going to even know they are an Altrighter.

Because, as I said, these things inevitably come out. A ban on politics doesn't stop people from making political posts, as has been demonstrated over and over again on countless other forums and even on dakka when bans have been in effect. It just ends the discussion early, usually involving a moderator locking the thread as a way to get the last word.

And yet, on other forums, people are perfectly capable of acting with civility, dignity, and honor without any mention of politics. Boggles the mind, it does.

 Peregrine wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
If there are no political discussion here, how are you going to even know they are an Altrighter.

Because, as I said, these things inevitably come out. A ban on politics doesn't stop people from making political posts, as has been demonstrated over and over again on countless other forums and even on dakka when bans have been in effect. It just ends the discussion early, usually involving a moderator locking the thread as a way to get the last word.

That sounds like a measure for "Why are there rules? People will inevitably break them". Which the counter is that if they cannot behave, they will be forced from said community.

 Peregrine wrote:
... it is a statement that the fight over LGBT rights (and associated issues) is less important than your desire to not have arguments about things unrelated to toy soldiers.

See, that might be where your disconnect is coming from. On a site that is devoted to discussion of toy soldiers, the fight over LGBT rights is less important than not having arguments about things unrelated to toy soldiers.

That doesn't mean that it isn't more important out in the real world... it just means that this isn't the venue for that fight, just like you don't go onto Coca Cola's Facebook page to fight for human rights violations in Tibet.

There are appropriate venues for that discussion.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
And yet, on other forums, people are perfectly capable of acting with civility, dignity, and honor without any mention of politics. Boggles the mind, it does.

And yet, on other forums, politics bans are laughably ineffective and 95% of the time consist of the political discussion continuing until a moderator sees something they disagree with and locks the thread.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
And yet, on other forums, people are perfectly capable of acting with civility, dignity, and honor without any mention of politics. Boggles the mind, it does.

And yet, on other forums, politics bans are laughably ineffective and 95% of the time consist of the political discussion continuing until a moderator sees something they disagree with and locks the thread.

I've seen the opposite, most forums with political bans tend to be quite civil, with only a few near-do-wells attempting to try and needle things up.

 insaniak wrote:
See, that might be where your disconnect is coming from. On a site that is devoted to discussion of toy soldiers, the fight over LGBT rights is less important than not having arguments about things unrelated to toy soldiers.

That doesn't mean that it isn't more important out in the real world... it just means that this isn't the venue for that fight, just like you don't go onto Coca Cola's Facebook page to fight for human rights violations in Tibet.

There are appropriate venues for that discussion.

Again, that is a political statement. You can't say "leave politics at the door" and then tell everyone about how you think the ranking of priorities should be.

And the comparison with human rights violations in Tibet is nonsense. Coca Cola is not responsible for those (or, if they are, then going on their facebook page to give them bad PR is 100% justified), while LGBT rights and the gaming community are not separate things. It isn't just a thought experiment, there are LGBT members of the community and a "no politics" rule directly translates into "don't stand up for yourself or express your disagreement with the bigot". TBH, your insistence that you can separate the two is the kind of thing that people with the privilege of not having a personal stake in the matter tend to say, minimizing the concerns of those who do. It's nice to be able to treat the subject as a fun debate club activity, but for some of us it's more than that.

Why would you even come to a forum of toy soldiers to defend LGBT?

It isn't just a thought experiment, there are LGBT members of the community and a "no politics" rule directly translates into "don't stand up for yourself or express your disagreement with the bigot".

..Except rules against politics tends to block the bigot from speaking as well. Also once again, I literally cannot understand your thought process on this.

Sounds like someone has had experience with politics becoming a banned subject, in several places.

Is the common denominator a certain someone?

Maybe the grass is greener on the other side of the fence because you aren’t over there fething things up. Maybe.

 Peregrine wrote:


Again, that is a political statement. You can't say "leave politics at the door" and then tell everyone about how you think the ranking of priorities should be.

Of course you can. This is a forum for discussion of toy soldiers. Therefore, the priority is the discussion of toy soldiers. That's no more a political statement than stating that a football field is intended for playing football on.

... there are LGBT members of the community and a "no politics" rule directly translates into "don't stand up for yourself or express your disagreement with the bigot".

If you want to view it that way, sure. Just as the forum rule #1 about being polite could be read that way when someone insults you. The appropriate thing to do in that case is to refer to to a moderator, not to escalate things on the forum.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Sounds like someone has had experience with politics becoming a banned subject, in several places.

Is the common denominator a certain someone?

Maybe the grass is greener on the other side of the fence because you aren’t over there fething things up. Maybe.

Sounds like you're just taking an opportunity to continue your weird obsessive vendetta against me, apparently not being too concerned with that pesky rule #1 thing in the process. But no, I'm thinking of forums where I wasn't a very active participant, so you'll have to find a better objection.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
Of course you can. This is a forum for discussion of toy soldiers. Therefore, the priority is the discussion of toy soldiers. That's no more a political statement than stating that a football field is intended for playing football on.

And yet you have an entire OT section for things unrelated to discussion of toy soldiers. Don't pretend that dakka's rule is "only discussion of toy soldiers".

If you want to view it that way, sure. Just as the forum rule #1 about being polite could be read that way when someone insults you. The appropriate thing to do in that case is to refer to to a moderator, not to escalate things on the forum.

You mean the same admin who explicitly told me that they would not be deleting a particular bit of transphobic garbage or banning the person who posted it because the statement was "within the scope of a party's platform"? The moderators who refused to deal with blatant anti-Semetic statements until several people pointed out in public over a period of weeks? You'll have to understand if I don't trust the moderators here one bit on this.

It's not that weird. Some people like to bully others. Some people like to stick it to bullies. You have your axe to grind, and I have mine.

Frankly, I admit it's a direct call-out. But honestly, if you, personally, were capable of handling the responsibility of civil discourse, you might find that your ability to grind said axe might be tolerated a bit better.

You've admitted to actively searching out bigots to expose, and you then go on to provoke them. I search out people that seek to aggrandise themselves at the expense of others.

It's really not that weird. And it's not obsessive. When you aren't being an active... difficulty... I have nothing to say to you. But then you get all huffity and self-important and start selfishly putting your desires ahead of the community you claim to champion. Which is absurd. So I give you a shot. You like to expose biggots. I like to point out your flawed, self-entitled activity.

Truth, in all its ugly glory.

OT is for when people want to talk about something other than toy soldiers. Like when your at the Anime clib and start talking about like Cage or something. Their related and you share the interest, but you came there for anime.

 Peregrine wrote:

And yet you have an entire OT section for things unrelated to discussion of toy soldiers. Don't pretend that dakka's rule is "only discussion of toy soldiers".

I wasn't pretending that the site is only for discussion of toy soldiers, I was pointing out that the site's primary focus is toy soldiers, and that pointing that fact out is not a political statement.

You'll have to understand if I don't trust the moderators here one bit on this.

Then, to be blunt, you would probably be happier on a different site. Most likely one that you were the admin of.

I'm gonna be blunt. peregrine wants politics so he can then do a witch Hunt of anyone in a community for exposing their views and ostracize them. He keeps bringing up Nazis, but he would do it for alot less.

Peregrine, I'd like to make a point regarding your last statement (referring to homophobic, transphobic, anti-semitic, and other horrible language).

This is all language we do not want to have on Dakka, which is actually in part the point of something like the politics/religion ban. You have a view of wanting to seek out and expose people who you find intolerant - but even with the broader scope of OT, that's not what this site is for. We don't want that kind of language (or having to determine when someone is tip-toeing around it) on our site at all.

Does that make sense?

I'd also point out that, the negative side of your approach is that it can easily lead to witch hunts. This is evident all through history, of course, but is a much bigger problem in the online world recently, where a certain percentage of people get called out incorrectly, but are never exonerated, as all the attention is on the process of calling them out.

This just isn't what Dakka is for, and trying to navigate it puts us in the middle of that huge, ugly mess!

For anyone interested, I've started a thread in the Wasteland for Dakka political refugees here.

Thank you, Hordini much appreciated!

The Wasteland was never somewhere I braved myself, but I know Lorek did (and still does, it seems!). Always thought it was cool that it was basically an ex-pat community of Dakkanauts, and of course the zero filter part

 RiTides wrote:
Thank you, Hordini much appreciated!

The Wasteland was never somewhere I braved myself, but I know Lorek did (and still does, it seems!). Always thought it was cool that it was basically an ex-pat community of Dakkanauts, and of course the zero filter part

Happy to be of service! The Wasteland is/was a very unique community of Dakkaites. It filled an important niche before Dakka had its own dedicated OT subforum, and died out with the rise of Dakka OT and Facebook. Maybe now it's time for it to fill that niche again.

What I will say though: In its prime, the Wasteland was a pretty tight knit community, and while we certainly didn't always agree with each other on every issue, and while it was most definitely no holds barred, when it came down to it everyone who posted there was a good dude (or dudette). So if you're going to post there, be a good dude (or dudette).

Just a point but Perigrin you keep saying that if there are not dedicated political discussions then "bigots and nazis will not be uncovered".

However you also state that without political discussions the insulting/abusive viewpoints of such individuals will appear anyway in their posting.

So considering that the result of both would likely be a ban from moderators due to abusive/insulting behaviour I fail to see why political discussion is needed if both having and not having it will result in the same expression of viewpoints and behaviour and thus similarly both result in social exclusion.



Especially since political discussion allowed would only accelerate such a process if those people took part in the political discussions themselves.



So by your own admission we don't "need" politics to "flush these people out".


Really the only risk I see is that without politics you can't as quickly add people to your own ignore (either the website or your own mental list) list or try to get them removed from the social group. So there's a terrible risk that you could be talking toy soldiers or anime or movies or the latest hobby interest with someone who you might politically disagree with - without ever knowing about it!

 RiTides wrote:
Peregrine, I'd like to make a point regarding your last statement (referring to homophobic, transphobic, anti-semitic, and other horrible language).

This is all language we do not want to have on Dakka, which is actually in part the point of something like the politics/religion ban. You have a view of wanting to seek out and expose people who you find intolerant - but even with the broader scope of OT, that's not what this site is for. We don't want that kind of language (or having to determine when someone is tip-toeing around it) on our site at all.

Banning politics and religion isn't going to make those disappear.

Whenever a thread opens asking about the disconnect in GW artwork and model lines compared to their lore (such as asking where the women Imperial Guard models are), which is a perfectly valid topic of discussion for a toy soldiers forum, you're going to have people complaining about SJWs trying to ruin the game and how politics shouldn't be in the game etc. They'll be using veiled language and dog whistles to avoid saying it outright, much like the current problem users in the political threads but the meaning is still there.

And they will use the no politics rule to shut down those perfectly valid toy soldier discussions about toy soldier model lines or artwork of toy soldiers. The no politics rule potentially gives such people more power to shut down topics they don't like (women guard, femmarines, how to make the hobby more welcoming for women or minorities) by giving them the argument that such topics are innately political. And they are right, representation in media is a political subject. And this kind of thing will target the people in minority groups who want to discuss more representation much more than those who are already represented. The misogynist won't be making threads about how there shouldn't be representation of women in the hobby, they'll just be trying to get threads arguing for the opposite closed for political discussion. And when we as a community cannot discuss how to make ourselves more welcoming, as that is a political discussion, we cannot grow our community into what it can be.

Those who would keep using banned topics to get discussions closed down are few and far between and honestly such behaviour should get spotted as a pattern and that user removed/dealt with by the mods.

There are other banned topics and we don't have a deluge of people swearing/insulting/posting porn just to get topics locked so politics/religion is going to be the same.

 Overread wrote:
Those who would keep using banned topics to get discussions closed down are few and far between and honestly such behaviour should get spotted as a pattern and that user removed/dealt with by the mods.

There are other banned topics and we don't have a deluge of people swearing/insulting/posting porn just to get topics locked so politics/religion is going to be the same.

So now users will be removed for pointing out that political threads are political? This is where what other users touched on earlier comes into play, namely moderator bias. A thread discussing ways to make the tabletop gaming community more welcoming is going to be political. It is going to involve discussing such topics as safe spaces, gender, acceptable language, how to deal with problem players etc. But it is also a subject that should be discussed if you seriously want to make the wargaming hobby as welcoming and fun for everyone that most of us believe it should be. So does it get banned or not? That is entirely up to each individual mods own feelings on the thread. So a discussion which is important for our community might get shut down because someone doesn't like the phrase "safe space", or thinks discussing how you should use the pronoun of an LGBTQ person that they are comfortable with is too political. And once one thread has been closed for that reason, it can set a precedent that the users who do not want such discussion can point to.

Alternatively, nobody will even begin such conversations as to how make our community the best it can be as they do not want it to be shut down. And so that discussion never happens because the person who would like to discuss it doesn't want to break the rules of the site.

What other topics are banned but are also going to crop up anyway, as political discussion cannot be entirely separated from toy soldier discussion unless you are willing to ban any discussion of topics such as greater diversity in model lines, the issues with problem behaviours in the wargaming community (which is an important subject to discuss if you want to make wargaming more welcoming for more people)?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Banning politics and religion isn't going to make those disappear.

Nor did we expect that it would. It's a big step in what we feel is the right direction, though, for the reasons mentioned in yakface's post.

Whenever a thread opens asking about the disconnect in GW artwork and model lines compared to their lore (such as asking where the women Imperial Guard models are), which is a perfectly valid topic of discussion for a toy soldiers forum, you're going to have people complaining about SJWs trying to ruin the game and how politics shouldn't be in the game etc. They'll be using veiled language and dog whistles to avoid saying it outright, much like the current problem users in the political threads but the meaning is still there.

And they will use the no politics rule to shut down those perfectly valid toy soldier discussions about toy soldier model lines or artwork of toy soldiers. The no politics rule potentially gives such people more power to shut down topics they don't like (women guard, femmarines, how to make the hobby more welcoming for women or minorities) by giving them the argument that such topics are innately political.

It doesn't give any poster any more 'power' to do anything. They can report the thread as a politics discussion, in which case we can assess the thread and either post a reminder in the thread or prune the thread to remove anything that's a problem, or they can gakpost in the thread to try to get it locked, in which case the sooner someone reports their posts the more likely we'll get to them before the thread has progressed much further and delete them so the thread can continue unmolested.

And when we as a community cannot discuss how to make ourselves more welcoming, as that is a political discussion,

Not as far as I can see, it isn't. or doesn't have to be, at the very least.


Again, the point of the ban isn't to stifle genuine hobby-related discussion, and we'll take that into account when moderating hobby-related threads. The bigger issues with political and religious discussion are to do with how those discussions affect the OT area, and the way that spills over to the rest of the site.

Ironically the start of 40 k was a Satire of all human ideologies and societies there are.(Brown orkz anyone? Ghazkulls name eerily close to thatcher? Imperial heraldry close to fascisct/ imperialist symbols? Collectivistic caste faction which has only one hirarchical relevant class based mostly on new speech and want to look like good guys?)

I wish you good luck trying to stop any and all discussion of politics, since satire is always political.

Alternativly you could, probably, kinda make a cloaka maxima, a thread were all this stuff could go you know?

Enough snark for the day.

For genuinely wargaming-related discussions, we always allow more leeway, since that is the primary purpose of the site.

A good example is as Overread posted. Posting pics of nudity is generally not allowed on the site, but things like daemonettes are perfectly fine, and we've had little trouble making that distinction for years.

So the same would apply here, but we avoid making a hard and fast rule to keep people from trying to sidle up to the line. If you're unsure, just ask a mod (I've got a PM query in my inbox right now actually ) and we'll point you towards what likely is/isn't OK to post.

Edit: Ninja'ed... like 3 times

 insaniak wrote:

It doesn't give any poster any more 'power' to do anything. They can report the thread as a politics discussion, in which case we can assess the thread and either post a reminder in the thread or prune the thread to remove anything that's a problem, or they can gakpost in the thread to try to get it locked, in which case the sooner someone reports their posts the more likely we'll get to them before the thread has progressed much further and delete them so the thread can continue unmolested.

What you're describing here, however, is the exact problem of the existing politics threads. That solution, removing the offending people who are posting in bad faith or dragging to topic to a place that it should not be going, apparently didn't work, hence the politics discussions being banned.

So why will it work now?

 insaniak wrote:

And when we as a community cannot discuss how to make ourselves more welcoming, as that is a political discussion,

Not as far as I can see, it isn't. or doesn't have to be, at the very least.

You may not regard discussions of topics like safe spaces, gender pronouns, unacceptable language etc. as political, but many do. Just look back through any of the threads which touched on those topics to see that.