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RiTides I think you are underestimating the intensity with which political discussions can be viewed. IIRC the coronavirus thread was closed in part because at the end people were very worked up and distressed because they believed that incorrect information posted in the thread was literally going to kill people. That is an unhealthy level of intensity and a twisting of things like posts on Dakka into being actual existential threats.
Another example would be the 40k is inevitably political assertion that was brought up in this thread. It's not that such an assertion has no basis, it does, but it also has no relevance to the vast majority of 40k threads/discussions on Dakka. It is very easy to discuss the game of 40k, the hobby of tabletop wargaming and the industry to producing miniatures without dragging in the fact that trolls and white supremacists like posting God Emperor Trump memes. Combining those topics into a discussion isn't a necessity or inevitability it's a choice. Not only that but it's not even choosing to have a discussion it's a choice to establish parameters on a discussion that forces it into a combative echo chamber. It's not a discussion, there is no intellectual curiosity involved or exchange of ideas when the basis for the discussion is asserting The Correct View on the situation and haranguing anyone who has the temerity to disagree because such disagreement is not only in defiance of The Correct View but is incorrect to such an extent as to make those who hold the incorrect view so horribly wrong as to be worthless or dangerous, either case making them an existential threat to life as we know it. What is the benefit of that type of discussion and do you really want to invest time and effort into moderating that type of discourse?

I can understand the appeal and the benefit of having the ability to take a diverse group of people, united in their passion for tabletop gaming, and allow them to discuss their different ideas, views and opinions on things like politics. There aren't many opportunities to have such discussions with people from all over the world with different experiences, knowledge and beliefs. Unfortunately I don't think such a place would actually be able to maintain the level of utopian casualness it would need. None of us are actually policy makers and power brokers. We're not the ones running the countries and making the big decisions. We'll never sit at those tables and if by some miracle we did get a seat at the table nobody would listen to us anyway. It's just an intriguing thought exercise. Once it becomes more about asserting The Correct View, and belittling, dismissing or crushing any dissenting views than listening to other views and acknowledging other perspectives, there's not a lot of value to be gained. Very few issues are actually absolutists almost everything has complexity and nuance. Very few people, ideas, and groups are irredeemably bad or undisputedly good but that is often the underlying assumption upon which political discussions are currently built.

You should do what you believe is best for you RiTides and I wish you luck with whatever you do. It's your sandbox, I hope you can manage and moderate it in a way that, if it doesn't bring you joy at least leaves you content.

 Kanluwen wrote:

How do you know he genuinely believes it?

You claim it's not in bad faith--I'm seeing all the hallmarks of an argument being made in bad faith. It starts off with an absurd premise("moderating the discussion will lead to echo chambers") while also insinuating that there's going to be a problem no matter what...and then proposes an "alternative" that neuters any potential actual moderation as the only reasonable answer.

If you truly, sincerely think that a moderator's job needs to allow for people to repeat garbage arguments or conspiracy theorist nonsense with zero consequences?
Then you might as well keep moving on and pretend politics don't exist.

Gotta say, I think you're way overreacting to that post by Jerram. I can't see anything in it that would indicate a bad faith argument. Seems like a pretty level-headed explanation of an opinion to me. You may not agree with the two options Jerram put forward for moderating a political forum but I don't see how that's bad faith posting. Just seems like you disagree with the framing of the two options. That's fine. Disagreement is what breeds debate, but automatically assuming someone you disagree with is posting in bad faith doesn't further debate.

It's a perfect example of what RiTides was talking about with regard to moderating bad faith posting.

In terms of P&R discussion?

Why the need to discuss it on Dakka of all places?

As others have said, seemingly whilst advocating for it on Dakka, there are other sites better suited to such topics?

I think the part of Jerram's post which caught my eye was this sentence:

Unneeded snide comments about people with different political orthodoxy just sliding on through.

I don't think anyone in this thread has made reference to any specific political orthodoxy. They have pointed out issues with argumentation (in my case the specific complaint of the repetition of claims which are not true without addressing any of the previous rebuttals of the last time they posted their claims). I may have just missed something and if so, I apologise, but it does seem like some people take a rebuttal of a style of argumentation that is inherently bad faith (as it is not based on actual discussion and debate) as a rebuttal against the policies they are trying to support using those arguments.

Honestly I think what some people want isn't a forum moderated by volunteers for social and functional reasons but a professional high level debating site with moderators who fact check; force advance of the debate beyond sticking points and generally operate on a much higher level of moderation.

I think they basically want degree level writing with references and facts in the post to defend and uphold viewpoints with the moderators acting like lecturers checking and marking and approving, disproving, etc.... the facts in the middle when the two sides cannot agree on points or if validity of sources is brought into question.




Basically you're not after a place where two or more people have a conversation; you're after a higher level of debate.

One where "Bad faith" would be exposed through lack of sufficient proof/supporting theory. Where opinion is crafted on fact and information adn where information is exchanged at a higher level than "what I was thinking of for the last5 mins whilst chatting about this".



And honestly that's a tall ask for volunteer mods who are mods on a miniature wargame forum and who, like as not, have no professional legal or political background to even give them the basic idea of the subject at large. You're after something WAY WAY different that Dakka and its staff cannot provide.




Because in the end online the only way to tell "bad faith" from incorrect stances is to have facts, fact checking, references, sources, key information and a much higher level of debate that would expose bad faith and false viewpoints from simple honest ignorance or variation of opinions on the same data sets.



Basically at best Dakka would offer a family table style of forum; what some are asking for is a professional university level debating forum.

I think that's a very good summary Overread.

Though I will respond that we do often see these kinds of potentially bad faith posts in other topics, which are related to wargaming.

A prime example is the argument of "Space Marines get the most support because they sell the most".

The longer any discussion about the perceived discrepancy between the support of factions in 40K goes on, the probability of this point being made approaches 1. I call it Goodwin's Law because I like puns.

Once this argument is made, it is guaranteed that the counter argument of "Space Marines sell the most because they get the most support" will enter the thread, usually with reference to the Dark Eldar 5th edition revamp, or Tau post-6th, where they went from slumming it with the SoB as a neglected faction to getting a new codex every edition, as well as supplement and model support. From this point the thread will almost always devolve into a bit of a mess of people defending the space marine focus, others wanting space marines to all be poured into the main reactor core of Chernobyl, the lack of support of Renegades and Heretics, the state of Blood Angels, how Eldar must atone for 6th edition, how Chaos must still repent for their 3.5 codex, how the Guardsman is too cheap etc. And often you get "Space Marines get the most support because they sell the most" thrown in there a couple more times by people who have skipped to the last page to respond to the OP.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that's a very good summary Overread.

Though I will respond that we do often see these kinds of potentially bad faith posts in other topics, which are related to wargaming.

A prime example is the argument of "Space Marines get the most support because they sell the most".

Even within Wargames its important to realise that "marines get the most" is a very casual observation that many people believe in. They don't study the numbers; they aren't focusing on the production schedul. They are simply looking at it through their own limited lens of casual observations. It's a fact they've never looked at the data to prove because by and large, its not important enough to bother with. In the end its a casual level of commentary and thinking ripe for being ignorant, incorrect, false, miss interpreted and all that.

And honestly that's how most of us are with hobbies and pass times - we research only so far and then no further. I can bet most photography fans do not have a clue about optical physics; or about digital translation of light data; or about the correct Japanese pronunciation of bokeh



"Bad Faith" is a problem as a term and way of thinking because it assumes that the person declaring "bad faith" knows the same information as the person making the "bad faith" comments. When in actuality both could be thinking of entirely different sets of data and criteria and one might not even have any raw data or impressions. In the end its also a bad path to head down because its essentially name-calling - in theory in a debate the term should never appear because one side will post data with sources/references which refute the other side. If the other side can't then present data to counter the point is lost and the moderator would move the discussion on if required.

I'll have a full reply tonight to everything, but just wanted to comment on this regarding the purpose:

Prestor Jon wrote:
I can understand the appeal and the benefit of having the ability to take a diverse group of people, united in their passion for tabletop gaming, and allow them to discuss their different ideas, views and opinions on things like politics. There aren't many opportunities to have such discussions with people from all over the world with different experiences, knowledge and beliefs. Unfortunately I don't think such a place would actually be able to maintain the level of utopian casualness it would need. None of us are actually policy makers and power brokers. We're not the ones running the countries and making the big decisions. We'll never sit at those tables and if by some miracle we did get a seat at the table nobody would listen to us anyway. It's just an intriguing thought exercise. Once it becomes more about asserting The Correct View, and belittling, dismissing or crushing any dissenting views than listening to other views and acknowledging other perspectives, there's not a lot of value to be gained. Very few issues are actually absolutists almost everything has complexity and nuance. Very few people, ideas, and groups are irredeemably bad or undisputedly good but that is often the underlying assumption upon which political discussions are currently built.

That is definitely the appeal, and the reason I'd be interested in taking it on (again, I wouldn't be participating other than discussing how to moderate the site - but I actually enjoy reading political debate more than actually taking part myself, anyway!). In hindsight after seeing the number of places where divergent groups of people can come together and discuss politics become shockingly small, Dakka actually has a pretty great spread of people with which to have this kind of discussion (as far as different nationalities and political views goes, at least - not so much different ethnicities or sex, since we're a reflection of the makeup of the wargaming community in general).

The fact that no one has been able to link to an effective alternative for us to all go to is another point in favor of this. Many places I'm a part of have done the same thing as Dakka, simply removing political discussion to keep the peace for the main purpose of the site. But if we make a site whose main purpose IS to discuss politics, and have people sign up with clear ground rules like I outlined last page (that there would be no arbitrary moderation, no attempt to determine bad faith or fact-check, only to enforce a "level playing field" for discussion) I think it's actually something that I, at least, am missing at the moment. Or at least, am missing with people I have gotten to know (rather than utter strangers), and the caliber of poster on Dakka is actually quite high compared to the internet in general, making this place much more well positioned to try this than most.

As I said last page, and you mentioned in the first part of your post, it could fail spectacularly for a variety of reasons . But the goal from the moderation side would be for it Not to fail for the final reason you mention. There would be no "putting my finger on the scale", or actually participating in any debate (other than how to moderate) at all. It would simply be an open venue for, again, the pretty high caliber of people here to discuss things. Why can't we have a debate on health care, on minimum wage, on defense spending? There are obviously going to be topics that are much more difficult to address, but we should be able to debate things. From what I can see, the possible benefits of being able to have this space (which people consistently come back and ask for here!) far outweigh the possible downsides.

Bad Faith is a problem because people look at information (which is always imperfect) through who they are and interpret it differently. I've sat in a room with experts in their field before, all looking at the same data and coming to different conclusions.

As far as what I was accused of acting in bad faith in, its simple, the more you asks mods to make what are inherently subjective calls, the more they will (subconsciously if they're good) base those subjective calls on their own inherent biases, people learn that and act accordingly. Eventually more and more of the people with the minority viewpoint get tired of it and leave. I've seen it multiple times. I've never seen it not happen when boards are heavily moderated.

Malus, its a bit more than that but I'm trying not to drag this discussion into partisan political arguments.

RiTides
You still potentially have the problem of the poo getting dragged out of the loo, does that outweigh the benefits /shrug. I wish you luck.

Just a thought, but the only safe way for you to have another site for political discussion that won't have blowback onto Dakka is to have another site that has already established its entire own population separate from Dakka. That way arguments, debates and such that arise have a far greater chance to be their own thing on that site and the number of direct Dakka VS Dakka members (who know they are dakka members or use the same user names); becomes far less.


Otherwise another forum that's just dakka politics would have the same effect as a subsection on dakka - the mud would sling and it would blowback because the fights would be with hte same known faces and people. If anything it could actually be worse because someone might use a different user name on each site and use that as a means to target someone they don't like from one site on the other site.

If you want to "enforce a level playing field for discussion", then you need to ensure bad arguments cannot be put out there. You cannot have meaningful discussion without some modicum of common bloody sense being present.

Every time that garbage argument about drunk driving was posted in a thread about a mass shooting when gun control got mentioned? It should have been a flatout suspension for the poster who started to bring it up after Sandy Hook. They knew it was a garbage argument yet continued to trot it out because they also knew it was one guaranteed to get a reaction from people who were unfamiliar with their nonsense...which meant, unfortunately, that some people had to engage and put out that it was in fact a bad argument while having to ensure they didn't get too 'personal' against that poster because heavens forbid you call someone making a bad argument that they know is wrong and has been proven wrong ad nauseum a mean name!

Why can't we have a debate on health care or minimum wage or defense spending? Because for some reason, they're heavily politicized with terms like "socialism" tied to healthcare reform and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" with regards to minimum wage. Go figure right?

PS: I still don't know why that stupid "Trumpening" thread is up. It adds zero value to the forum, especially when dude is just spamming threads down that way. It's clearly intended to be political and the fact that you guys seem to have just let it skate is questionable.

I'm questioning your ability to dictate bad faith posts kanluwen. Because at this time it seems like in general it's "An argument I don't like" rather then anything relating to anything in general to bad faith posting.

So, the dude states that he 3d prints faces. Including trump, etc. Because a friend wanted the head?

You have 0 context on what projects he does and his leanings?


How do you get to the point that that is political?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I'm questioning your ability to dictate bad faith posts kanluwen. Because at this time it seems like in general it's "An argument I don't like" rather then anything relating to anything in general to bad faith posting.

And going by your posts in this thread, it's clear that you have zero interest in actually engaging beyond torching this thread.

I've said my piece. If you want to continue discussions RiTides, you can PM me. This isn't constructive as it stands because while waiting for your reply things can go off the rail. Politics can just stay off the table, but if that's the case? It needs to be a total shutdown of anything remotely political. Not just politics in general.

Anytime someone brings up "SJW" or "femnazis" or any of that trash? Come down like the wrath of fricking god on it. Because that is tied to political leanings at this point in time whether or not the moderation staff agrees if it is full on 'personal attacks' or not.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I'm questioning your ability to dictate bad faith posts kanluwen. Because at this time it seems like in general it's "An argument I don't like" rather then anything relating to anything in general to bad faith posting.

And going by your posts in this thread, it's clear that you have zero interest in actually engaging beyond torching this thread.

I've said my piece. If you want to continue discussions RiTides, you can PM me. This isn't constructive as it stands because while waiting for your reply things can go off the rail. Politics can just stay off the table, but if that's the case? It needs to be a total shutdown of anything remotely political. Not just politics in general.

Anytime someone brings up "SJW" or "femnazis" or any of that trash? Come down like the wrath of fricking god on it. Because that is tied to political leanings at this point in time whether or not the moderation staff agrees if it is full on 'personal attacks' or not.

The entire concept of 40k is political, since it satirises 1980's British politics. Are you asking for all 40k discussion to be banned?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I'm questioning your ability to dictate bad faith posts kanluwen. Because at this time it seems like in general it's "An argument I don't like" rather then anything relating to anything in general to bad faith posting.

And going by your posts in this thread, it's clear that you have zero interest in actually engaging beyond torching this thread.

I've said my piece. If you want to continue discussions RiTides, you can PM me. This isn't constructive as it stands because while waiting for your reply things can go off the rail. Politics can just stay off the table, but if that's the case? It needs to be a total shutdown of anything remotely political. Not just politics in general.

Anytime someone brings up "SJW" or "femnazis" or any of that trash? Come down like the wrath of fricking god on it. Because that is tied to political leanings at this point in time whether or not the moderation staff agrees if it is full on 'personal attacks' or not.

The entire concept of 40k is political, since it satirises 1980's British politics. Are you asking for all 40k discussion to be banned?

40k may have started political, but it can most definitely be discussed nowadays without bringing politics into it.

"Is S4 AP-2 D1 better than S5 AP0 D2?" is not a political question.
"How exactly does Disgustingly Resilient work with one-wound models and multi-damage weapons?" is not a political question.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I'm questioning your ability to dictate bad faith posts kanluwen. Because at this time it seems like in general it's "An argument I don't like" rather then anything relating to anything in general to bad faith posting.

That's why you need moderators that are able to make that distinction, because the debaters themselves are unlikely to be able to as they would be invested in the discussion.

 JNAProductions wrote:
40k may have started political, but it can most definitely be discussed nowadays without bringing politics into it.

"Is S4 AP-2 D1 better than S5 AP0 D2?" is not a political question.
"How exactly does Disgustingly Resilient work with one-wound models and multi-damage weapons?" is not a political question.

Only if we limit that discussion to rules (as your two examples do), or ban discussion of the context which gives meaning to the 40K universe.

Any discussion along the lines of, say, how the Imperium could have avoided becoming the dystopian misery factory it is would be impossible as it would rely on examining the fundamental principles of the Imperium, which are incredibly political (stuff like xenophobia, cult of personality, atheism vs religion, Imperialism, democracy vs authoritarianism, class, the value of an individual vs the collective, minority rights etc.).

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
40k may have started political, but it can most definitely be discussed nowadays without bringing politics into it.

"Is S4 AP-2 D1 better than S5 AP0 D2?" is not a political question.
"How exactly does Disgustingly Resilient work with one-wound models and multi-damage weapons?" is not a political question.

Only if we limit that discussion to rules (as your two examples do), or ban discussion of the context which gives meaning to the 40K universe.

Any discussion along the lines of, say, how the Imperium could have avoided becoming the dystopian misery factory it is would be impossible as it would rely on examining the fundamental principles of the Imperium, which are incredibly political (stuff like xenophobia, cult of personality, atheism vs religion, Imperialism, democracy vs authoritarianism, class, the value of an individual vs the collective, minority rights etc.).

Even if we ban all that, which seems an overreaction when you can keep modern-day politics to a minimum, there's still a crapton you can talk about when it comes to toy soldiers.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
40k may have started political, but it can most definitely be discussed nowadays without bringing politics into it.

"Is S4 AP-2 D1 better than S5 AP0 D2?" is not a political question.
"How exactly does Disgustingly Resilient work with one-wound models and multi-damage weapons?" is not a political question.

Only if we limit that discussion to rules (as your two examples do), or ban discussion of the context which gives meaning to the 40K universe.

Any discussion along the lines of, say, how the Imperium could have avoided becoming the dystopian misery factory it is would be impossible as it would rely on examining the fundamental principles of the Imperium, which are incredibly political (stuff like xenophobia, cult of personality, atheism vs religion, Imperialism, democracy vs authoritarianism, class, the value of an individual vs the collective, minority rights etc.).

Even if we ban all that, which seems an overreaction when you can keep modern-day politics to a minimum, there's still a crapton you can talk about when it comes to toy soldiers.

What do you class as modern day? Because Marx wrote the communist manifesto in 1848 yet I doubt me starting a thread in Off Topic to discuss his work would last long before being locked. And such a discussion could be relevant to a discussion of the Imperium's evolution.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
40k may have started political, but it can most definitely be discussed nowadays without bringing politics into it.

"Is S4 AP-2 D1 better than S5 AP0 D2?" is not a political question.
"How exactly does Disgustingly Resilient work with one-wound models and multi-damage weapons?" is not a political question.

Only if we limit that discussion to rules (as your two examples do), or ban discussion of the context which gives meaning to the 40K universe.

Any discussion along the lines of, say, how the Imperium could have avoided becoming the dystopian misery factory it is would be impossible as it would rely on examining the fundamental principles of the Imperium, which are incredibly political (stuff like xenophobia, cult of personality, atheism vs religion, Imperialism, democracy vs authoritarianism, class, the value of an individual vs the collective, minority rights etc.).

Even if we ban all that, which seems an overreaction when you can keep modern-day politics to a minimum, there's still a crapton you can talk about when it comes to toy soldiers.

What do you class as modern day?

A more relevant question would be what the mods class as modern day.

The vast, vast majority of posts on this board are completely non-political in nature. It's really not difficult to avoid politics completely in most cases. Even in those cases where there may be a political element to an on-topic discussion (the nature and history of the Imperium is a good example) there may well be a bit more leeway allowed but it's up to the mods to decide when that discussion strays too far towards the real world. In effect we don't really have a 100% ban on politics on Dakka. It's more a very strict guideline and warning about what may ultimately be deemed worthy of deletion.

However, every time certain subjects come up, they get banned. A majority of the current posts ...in the narrow group of accepted topics... is apolitical. If you want to talk about the role of women in the Imperium or inclusiveness in the hobby or even why Australian prices are so high, it inevitably gets locked. Pricing threads, FLGS horror stories, minority or female minis/what-is-cheesecake/offensive, all tend to go off the rails.

Dakka has removed a host of interesting conversation possibilities just so it can point to the bland remainder and say, “See? No politics in this hobby.”

The politic ban is an issue when it comes to media discussion, because media is full of it.

Star Wars, Star Trek and Marvel all have a surprisingly political nature.

And of course the relatively recent western animation shows like Steven Universe, Adventure Time, The Owl House, She-Ra, even Avatar, have social messages that are inherently political.

Well no one told the ST or SW people they couldn't talk about either topic any more - they are both going 50 pages strong and manage to be pretty moderator action free so far .

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
In terms of P&R discussion?

Why the need to discuss it on Dakka of all places?

As others have said, seemingly whilst advocating for it on Dakka, there are other sites better suited to such topics?

Please let me know where!

That Covid thread was such an interesting one and I am still sad that it got closed. I think 99% of it was well mannered and considered. I also think (and speaking a bit personally here) it was something of a pressure valve, and I think the fact that (most) of the posters on the site are well educated, or intelligent enough, to be able to sit and concentrate on miniature painting or playing a game I think lends itself well to that considered discussion. Compare Dakka to some of the forums focussing on video games for a comparison of quite how mature and measured most of the discussion is here.

But, in that thread, pretty much one person (perhaps unwittingly? I'm not sure whether it was master act of trollship or not) managed to act as a catalyst to raise tempers and led to the conversation getting a bit out of hand and at some strong language started being used against that person. Perhaps one or two people could have been blocked from that discussion and the other 50 or so could have continued to take part in the discussion?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Only if we limit that discussion to rules (as your two examples do), or ban discussion of the context which gives meaning to the 40K universe.

Any discussion along the lines of, say, how the Imperium could have avoided becoming the dystopian misery factory it is would be impossible as it would rely on examining the fundamental principles of the Imperium, which are incredibly political (stuff like xenophobia, cult of personality, atheism vs religion, Imperialism, democracy vs authoritarianism, class, the value of an individual vs the collective, minority rights etc.).

In-context discussion has always been fine (as mentioned with the ST and SW discussions). Bringing up real world examples to illustrate that in-context discussion would also potentially be fine, so long as the discussion overall didn't focus on that.

As has been discussed previously, the point of the politics ban was never to stifle hobby-relevant discussion, just to stop arguments over real-world politics from spoiling the site.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
However, every time certain subjects come up, they get banned. A majority of the current posts ...in the narrow group of accepted topics... is apolitical. If you want to talk about the role of women in the Imperium or inclusiveness in the hobby or even why Australian prices are so high, it inevitably gets locked. Pricing threads, FLGS horror stories, minority or female minis/what-is-cheesecake/offensive, all tend to go off the rails.

Dakka has removed a host of interesting conversation possibilities just so it can point to the bland remainder and say, “See? No politics in this hobby.”

Except we've never claimed that there is no politics in the hobby. Once again, the politics ban was not intended to stifle hobby-relevant discussion, just to remove an off-topic discussion topic that caused more trouble than it was worth.

All of the topics that you mention above were topics that would have consistently resulted in thread locks even before the politics ban, because they're all topics that people consistently refuse to discuss in a civil manner and so inevitably go off the rails.

 insaniak wrote:
Once again, the politics ban was not intended to stifle hobby-relevant discussion, just to remove an off-topic discussion topic that caused more trouble than it was worth.

You guys once nuked a thread about a Chinese printer not being able to deliver on a kickstarter game project because of censorship... a thread started by a mod, no less.

 Ouze wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Once again, the politics ban was not intended to stifle hobby-relevant discussion, just to remove an off-topic discussion topic that caused more trouble than it was worth.

You guys once nuked a thread about a Chinese printer not being able to deliver on a kickstarter game project because of censorship... a thread started by a mod, no less.

Without being familiar with the thread you're taking about, I'm not sure how that's relevant to what I said.

 JNAProductions wrote:
40k may have started political, but it can most definitely be discussed nowadays without bringing politics into it.

"Is S4 AP-2 D1 better than S5 AP0 D2?" is not a political question.
"How exactly does Disgustingly Resilient work with one-wound models and multi-damage weapons?" is not a political question.

Now try it with this one: 'Why are certain gangs being extensively reworked/not rereleased at all for Necromunda?'

Or, god help us, certain lore subjects. Or any discussion of certain BL authors, like what happened with Parrot.

Or even news items like "GW has banned these youtubers from making 40k vids." Never mind some of their other press releases of the "you will not be missed' vein.

I mean, consider how some threads that directly have to do with GW have on occasion dipped into this in the past, such as the various GW lawsuit threads or GW's shipping issues that came about due to the Trump/China trade war, or things like W Atiels (sp?) and Hasslefree's struggle to meet orders due to issues going on in the world right now.

Hell, COVID casualties among the local gaming groups in this area have been heavy. Granted I live in PA, where idiots keep the zone hot, but still.

These are things that directly effect the hobby.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

Except we've never claimed that there is no politics in the hobby. Once again, the politics ban was not intended to stifle hobby-relevant discussion,

But that's been the result. I'm not saying that the ban should be lifted in dakka. My suggestion was just that Dakka mods start actually using Wasteland for it's intended function. The Mods brought up alternatives to that, that were, in theory, being discussed, though as usual, a lot of off topic discussion sprang up around that,

 BaronIveagh wrote:

But that's been the result. I'm not saying that the ban should be lifted in dakka. My suggestion was just that Dakka mods start actually using Wasteland for it's intended function. The Mods brought up alternatives to that, that were, in theory, being discussed, though as usual, a lot of off topic discussion sprang up around that,

Honestly, I have no idea what the 'intended function' of the Wasteland actually is, these days, but given some of the content on there it is most assuredly not a place I would be recommending to people, unless I was sure they were OK with that sort of environment.