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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Because a forum of people who disagree with you is the best crucible to refine your own opinions and make them better. We are all wrong somewhere, but it can be tricky finding out where.

Of course for someone unwilling to alter their own opinions such a situation will simply be stressful and unproductive at best, but given you stopped to ask the above question in the first place I doubt that is the case.

Why didn't you leave your first reply to RiTides request for conservative posters up?


And to the invitation.... No thanks

Just this past month I've witnessed my sister walk out on my father because he didn't respect her wishes to not continue a political conversation after she had said her piece. Apparently it was cool for her to come under his roof and raise her voice at him for this wicked ways but he wasn't allowed to respond because of her boundaries.

Had my brother walk out on me after I called him out on sniping me in conversation and only talking about my problems. He agreed with me then left.

Posted stuff on fb. Had two friends ridicule and belittle me without any rebuttal. A third posted "bye bruh" and then blocked me.

I unfriended an otherwise (as far as I knew) decent fellow from high school age over a reframed inglorious bastards meme with a maga hat instead of a nazi uniform he posted. I think you know the one.

Just not worth it. Certainly not for strangers. The political climate is deteriorating. Seeing some of your most prolific posters... They're exactly the sort of people I don't have time for.

It bothers me just the tinest bit that the answer to the question I got asked on registration is wrong.

I understand why, but the pedantic part of me is screaming

 AustonT wrote:
It bothers me just the tinest bit that the answer to the question I got asked on registration is wrong.

I understand why, but the pedantic part of me is screaming

Wait, is there an answer other than the one after this pages www.?

 AustonT wrote:
It bothers me just the tinest bit that the answer to the question I got asked on registration is wrong.

I understand why, but the pedantic part of me is screaming

What?

Cool story. None of that kind of thing is happening over on ETC. But if this sort of thing stresses you out, avoid it.

There are two challenge questions for signup, but you only have to answer one and it's kind of random which one you get. Auston, looks like you got the one I need to fix the wording on where people get it right but it's not technically accurate (AlmightyWalrus pointed this out, too, but I forgot!). LordofHats, looks like you got the other one

 Dreadwinter wrote:


Cool story. None of that kind of thing is happening over on ETC. But if this sort of thing stresses you out, avoid it.

Just responding to a direct invitation. We're in agreement on the correct course of action. Cheers

 RiTides wrote:
There are two challenge questions for signup, but you only have to answer one and it's kind of random which one you get. Auston, looks like you got the one I need to fix the wording on where people get it right but it's not technically accurate (AlmightyWalrus pointed this out, too, but I forgot!). LordofHats, looks like you got the other one

Its not the end of the world but I am a VERY detail oriented person and it just tickles that spot. Once it told me the answer was wrong I knew what to put.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Spoiler:

 Scrabb wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Because a forum of people who disagree with you is the best crucible to refine your own opinions and make them better. We are all wrong somewhere, but it can be tricky finding out where.

Of course for someone unwilling to alter their own opinions such a situation will simply be stressful and unproductive at best, but given you stopped to ask the above question in the first place I doubt that is the case.

Why didn't you leave your first reply to RiTides request for conservative posters up?


And to the invitation.... No thanks

Just this past month I've witnessed my sister walk out on my father because he didn't respect her wishes to not continue a political conversation after she had said her piece. Apparently it was cool for her to come under his roof and raise her voice at him for this wicked ways but he wasn't allowed to respond because of her boundaries.

Had my brother walk out on me after I called him out on sniping me in conversation and only talking about my problems. He agreed with me then left.

Posted stuff on fb. Had two friends ridicule and belittle me without any rebuttal. A third posted "bye bruh" and then blocked me.

I unfriended an otherwise (as far as I knew) decent fellow from high school age over a reframed inglorious bastards meme with a maga hat instead of a nazi uniform he posted. I think you know the one.

Just not worth it. Certainly not for strangers. The political climate is deteriorating. Seeing some of your most prolific posters... They're exactly the sort of people I don't have time for.

Cool story. None of that kind of thing is happening over on ETC. But if this sort of thing stresses you out, avoid it.

It is a 100% political post where he is criticizing left-wing individuals he has encountered in his past, equating them to be representative of the entire left wing community, and extending it to cover the forum. But I guess that doesn't violate the politics ban, because at this point I am convinced the mods decide what is or isn't politics by dice roll.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Spoiler:

 Scrabb wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Because a forum of people who disagree with you is the best crucible to refine your own opinions and make them better. We are all wrong somewhere, but it can be tricky finding out where.

Of course for someone unwilling to alter their own opinions such a situation will simply be stressful and unproductive at best, but given you stopped to ask the above question in the first place I doubt that is the case.

Why didn't you leave your first reply to RiTides request for conservative posters up?


And to the invitation.... No thanks

Just this past month I've witnessed my sister walk out on my father because he didn't respect her wishes to not continue a political conversation after she had said her piece. Apparently it was cool for her to come under his roof and raise her voice at him for this wicked ways but he wasn't allowed to respond because of her boundaries.

Had my brother walk out on me after I called him out on sniping me in conversation and only talking about my problems. He agreed with me then left.

Posted stuff on fb. Had two friends ridicule and belittle me without any rebuttal. A third posted "bye bruh" and then blocked me.

I unfriended an otherwise (as far as I knew) decent fellow from high school age over a reframed inglorious bastards meme with a maga hat instead of a nazi uniform he posted. I think you know the one.

Just not worth it. Certainly not for strangers. The political climate is deteriorating. Seeing some of your most prolific posters... They're exactly the sort of people I don't have time for.

Cool story. None of that kind of thing is happening over on ETC. But if this sort of thing stresses you out, avoid it.

I saw some insults and calls for people to be shot. But to be fair, there will always be those types and it's much better than I would have expected. I still don't have a lot of hope though.

NinthMusketeer wrote:
It is a 100% political post where he is criticizing left-wing individuals he has encountered in his past, equating them to be representative of the entire left wing community, and extending it to cover the forum. But I guess that doesn't violate the politics ban, because at this point I am convinced the mods decide what is or isn't politics by dice roll.

I pm-ed RiTides an example of a discussion on ETC that informed my decision making on whether or not to join in on his forum prior to this post.

So your summation of events is incorrect. If I incorrectly interpreted the explicit invitation to conservative posters as providing leeway for us to share our impressions of the site atmosphere I apologize and will take my discipline.

But it isn't talking about the site atmosphere, is it? It's a thinly-veiled criticism of a political spectrum. You didn't have to detail you specific life experiences, but you did. In a thread about ETC, in response to an invitation for members of the other side of the spectrum. If I had a forum about cooking and threw out a post asking for more vegetarians to come in and add their voice to the discussion, then someone came along and talked about specific meat farms and how horrible they were, it would quite reasonably be viewed as a criticism. And one with an over generalization fallacy at that.

I think the key thing is ETC is an opportunity to share your views and concerns Scrabb, and perhaps try help the young board develop a culture of not trying to "WIN the internets" against idological opponents, but rather set the tone of "let's explore together." So come on over and try it out. Be reasonable, and I think you'll find some reasonable people. If someone wants to have a slug match, you don't have to join in, just ignore. Frankly it's a good exercise for all in self moderation.

 RegularGuy wrote:
I think the key thing is ETC is an opportunity to share your views and concerns Scrabb, and perhaps try help the young board develop a culture of not trying to "WIN the internets" against idological opponents, but rather set the tone of "let's explore together." So come on over and try it out. Be reasonable, and I think you'll find some reasonable people. If someone wants to have a slug match, you don't have to join in, just ignore. Frankly it's a good exercise for all in self moderation.

"Please please, we need a token."

 BlackoCatto wrote:

 RegularGuy wrote:
I think the key thing is ETC is an opportunity to share your views and concerns Scrabb, and perhaps try help the young board develop a culture of not trying to "WIN the internets" against idological opponents, but rather set the tone of "let's explore together." So come on over and try it out. Be reasonable, and I think you'll find some reasonable people. If someone wants to have a slug match, you don't have to join in, just ignore. Frankly it's a good exercise for all in self moderation.

"Please please, we need a token."

Do you have something against this project working, BlackoCatto?

 Dysartes wrote:

 BlackoCatto wrote:

 RegularGuy wrote:
I think the key thing is ETC is an opportunity to share your views and concerns Scrabb, and perhaps try help the young board develop a culture of not trying to "WIN the internets" against idological opponents, but rather set the tone of "let's explore together." So come on over and try it out. Be reasonable, and I think you'll find some reasonable people. If someone wants to have a slug match, you don't have to join in, just ignore. Frankly it's a good exercise for all in self moderation.

"Please please, we need a token."

Do you have something against this project working, BlackoCatto?

How would BlackoCatto abstaining from joining ETC prevent the project from working?

I've looked over ETC and I'm impressed with what RI Tides has done it's a nice site and I'm glad everyone is getting along there, all the threads look like civil discussion to me. I can see the desire to have more viewpoints to liven up discussion, some threads don't seem to have much back and forth but I don't feel compelled to join up to have like the 5th iteration of the gun control discussion thread from Dakka OT, just typing that made me feel tired. I do think a lot of the threads there would benefit from shifting the perspective of politics away from the my team vs your team viewpoint. Limiting ourselves to a 2 party system does a lot of inhibit progress and prolong problems rather than building coalitions to solve them. You don't need more "conservatives" to have more lively discussions. I see better, more honest and insightful criticism of the Democratic establishment from ardent Progressives than I do from Republicans. It's the same the other way too, people who vehemently support individual rights and adherence to the Constitution criticize the Republican establishment far better than Democrat politicians and pundits looking for a soundbite or to promote propagandized talking points.

One individual abstaining for joining? Not a lot.

However, implying that the only reason people are being asked to join is so they can be a token representative of a given viewpoint hardly looks supportive, does it?

 Dysartes wrote:
One individual abstaining for joining? Not a lot.

However, implying that the only reason people are being asked to join is so they can be a token representative of a given viewpoint hardly looks supportive, does it?

I agree that implying tokenism was a low blow and uncalled for but when the owner of a site that was created to house political debates feels compelled to admit that actual debate isn't happening because the overwhelming majority of posters all adhere to roughly the same political beliefs that's not exactly an enticing offer. I don't say that to impugn the ETC, it's a nice place with nice people but if lively debates aren't already happening, I don't feel compelled to go start one. I don't want to have to play devil's advocate to have a debate, but maybe that's just me being tired. I would encourage anyone interested to go check out ETC and join if they like it.

I’ve been posting there from the start and so far I can say that the worst problem I have encountered is just people wanting to retread the same ground rather than take a fresh look, but that’s a far cry from being harassed or insulted, which has not happened to me on ETC or, from the pages I have read, anyone else. (YMMV of course.)

I don’t think I have even close to the same political outlook as many or most (or all?) of the other posters there but all the same we tend not get involved in emotionally exhausting ad hominem campaigns. Like I said, the worst experience so far is just others don’t want to look at an issue from the same perspective I do and so in that situation there isn’t much further to say.

Just wanted to say thanks to the number of folks of conservative leaning who did sign up in response to the "call for members" . To clarify, as many noted I posted that really just looking to foster debate on the ETC, and to have a debate we've got to have folks who disagree with each other!

Obviously, if we did truly achieve a long-term balance of people with different leanings (in this case, liberal/conservative) it's a double-edged sword because then there are a lot more fireworks . We even saw that just from the spike of folks who "tested out the waters" in the space this week. But this really is the purpose of the space (to debate big issues), and so I think that's worth it.

Someone noted the space is a good exercise in "self moderation" and that is definitely going to continue to be the case, if it's going to work. I am sure there will be instances where I have to step in, but I am trying to make them few and far between. We have a limited number of members who are going to participate, and if we alienate one another, we just won't end up having a space / having anyone to talk to. So, hopefully folks can continue to "self moderate" and see the value in engaging with those who think differently.

Thanks very much to everyone who has participated so far! Wallflowers, you know where to find us

http://www.etcforums.com

Honestly, everything I suspected would happen is happening.

Glad I didn't waste my time.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly, everything I suspected would happen is happening.

Glad I didn't waste my time.

Could you give examples? I assume the mods would like to know them to make the forum a better place.

Gina Carano thread and the "conservative"(really more like Trumper tbh) replies defending or trying to downplay her garbage as just her being stupid or whatever nonsense.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Gina Carano thread and the "conservative"(really more like Trumper tbh) replies defending or trying to downplay her garbage as just her being stupid or whatever nonsense.

Sounds like a debate of opinions.

Difference between debating why someone said something and claiming something objectively false/true is not.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Difference between debating why someone said something and claiming something objectively false/true is not.

Fun at parties

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Difference between debating why someone said something and claiming something objectively false/true is not.

I can claim objectively that there is a debate happening.

Kanluwen, I can definitely respect that, and to be honest I myself prefer to read and think about more than actually engage on these topics, which works well since I've said I'm not allowed to engage over there anyway (since it'd be hard not to tilt the scales one way or the other if I was participating in the debate, too)

But just to take an example from this page, I think that Scrabb's reasoning and yours are kind of opposite sides of the same coin. And while I think it makes sense in both cases Not to participate if you feel that way, I think as a community we can benefit from talking about things. It is getting harder and harder to do so about important issues, for both of the reasons you highlight, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying imo.

Definitely more fireworks going on now that we've got folks disagreeing, though. The more level-headed people I can convince to participate and move us towards useful dialogue, the better

Alright, I signed up. Not sure how much I'll actually post (lately I haven't had much time, quite frankly) but I'll try to join in when I can if I see an opportunity to add to the discussion.

I joined, not because I am right leaning, more to lurk and chime in the odd time with scientific topics.