Politics/current affairs sub-forum-Poll

[Ben@Forest]

It wouldn't have to be called specifically 'Political/Religion/current affairs' etc.I've seen 'Get it off your chest' or 'Adult Themes' used with the subsection having an separate set of rules anyone entering must agree to with sin bins/red&yellow cards used etc,etc.Some are self moderated.
Rarely do the full time moderators have to step in and even rarer is a thread getting locked!

I don't understand the logic of this. You want seperate moderation, but why would this better or fairer than current moderation? Why would agreeing to yellow or red cards or a sin bin work better? What is self-moderation? And surely all the moderation is part-time? Do we have 24/7 moderator coverage?

[PDQ Mobile]

Are there any similarities between helmet and political threads that we're missing?

They are both for nuts?
Hard and soft.
Though which way round ....... is hard to asertain.

[Ride-sleep-repeat]

It wouldn't have to be called specifically 'Political/Religion/current affairs' etc.I've seen 'Get it off your chest' or 'Adult Themes' used with the subsection having an separate set of rules anyone entering must agree to with sin bins/red&yellow cards used etc,etc.Some are self moderated.
Rarely do the full time moderators have to step in and even rarer is a thread getting locked!

I don't understand the logic of this. You want seperate moderation, but why would this better or fairer than current moderation? Why would agreeing to yellow or red cards or a sin bin work better? What is self-moderation? And surely all the moderation is part-time? Do we have 24/7 moderator coverage?

It tends to work much better,no thread locking,no deleted posts,no snipping bits of posts.Self moderation means it's moderated by either an elected person(s) who is not currently one of the Forum mods or it has no official moderation.IME once the novelty of less strict moderation wears off you will get a smallish group of users who frequent the sub-section and it basically moderates itself.
It just works and works very well.As has already been mentioned thread locking and deleting posts just does not work as the 'theme' crops up again and again in completely unrelated threads.By locking threads the moderators are basically creating extra work as it's just a quick fix.
It's just an idea that could be discussed and worked out to suit this particular Forum and it's members.What works somewhere else would possibly not work here.For instance and old MTB Forum I was a member of had 'Soap-box' area where basically anything went.I couldn't see that working here as the membership is mainly folk over a certain age but something could be made to work.There was a chap(I think) who joined that Forum who basically posted mainly racist/sexist opinions/jokes etc.He was pretty quickly shot down by almost everyone else and left saying that "I'll stick to Forum-X as no-one there complains about my posts"no need for the mods to bother doing anything.

TBH I can't see it happening anyway as judging by the current number of votes in the poll there wouldn't be enough interest.

[Tangled Metal]

There's already such a place it's called CUK forum!

Seriously, there's people here who could turn the driest of technical, bike queries into a political argument. Even IF everyone was in agreement. It's what you live with if you come here, no separation between areas of political debate and areas of other discussions. Or very little.

I occasionally visit another bike forum which has a lot of long running political threads. They seem to keep things more civil and separate political into a social, anything goes area. Of course pro bike racing section also gets heated arguments, perhaps more than the political ones, but they're about racing matters without politics. They're also a bit more fun with the regulars with strong views being more fun with it. There are better ways it's just people on here don't want them. It suits their needs as it is.

[francovendee]

Maybe this is a reflection of our divided nation.

Perhaps it's always been divided and we never realised?

Remember when right at the start the racists popped out of the woodwork? Where they temporary or merely emboldened?
What about Trump supporters? No shortage of extreme views there, temporary or emboldened?

Social norms are what keep the more extremist elements in check and as the political landscape slides towards an extreme (in any direction) there are always those a bit further in that direction prepared to stick their head over the parapet and give the line a tug in their direction.

That about sums it up, once you let the genie out of the bottle it's hard to put it back.
It does seem more common to hear people express extreme views, maybe not helped by the media giving them disproportionate airing.

All I do no know is I don't like this trend. I've never found being uncivil gets your argument across.

[reohn2]

Should there be a seperate politics/current affairs section?
I can't see how that will help,the same agruments will still go on in or out of a seperate section.

One thing I do notice though is that those who won't accept the facts before them,and there are a few who can't,mostly turn to petty sniping,snide comments and name calling when cornered and their argument dismantled peicemeal.

[merseymouth]

I may fail in the process as I can't tolerate kill-joys and folk who have no trace of humour within them. It matches my inate desire to stick pins in inflated balloons & egos, hard to resist .
The English language has so many words with multiple meanings, so a desire to make a little mischief by employing such words creates those wonderful double entendres is tome an irresistible urge, sorry!
But hey guys & gals, exercise your chuckle muscles, it eases the worry lines on the visage. TTFN MM

[merseymouth]

Oh dear, I don't set out to wind folk up, but sadly some folk have to have everything in a totally boring form! political repostes with sharp with are so memorable, remember the line about Clement Attlee - "A very modest man with much to be modest about"! Even JRM sees the witty side of many of the pops at him. Politics may be a serious business, but one doesn't always have to be serious about politics . MM

[Vorpal]

I have removed a number posts with insults by innuendo, and subsequent responses. Please don't.

[Vorpal]

I haven't voted, and I don't intend to, but I will point out that this forum is primarily for cycling, and intended to be family-friendly.

Politics is not what we are here for.

[merseymouth]

Hi Vorpal, Sometimes it is hard to avoid politic, it might b that they are "Green", i.e. Re-Cycling"?? So many policies have been re-cycled over the years, old wine in new bottles!
But I doagree that sometimes disputing matters is turned into personal critiques, very sad. Pax MM

[Psamathe]

I haven't voted, and I don't intend to, but I will point out that this forum is primarily for cycling, and intended to be family-friendly.

Politics is not what we are here for.

Trouble is that things like EU visas and buying parts from overseas and cycle infrastructure are all very cycling related particularly given the previous incarnation of CUK (i.e. CTC). And those cycling and/or cycle touring topics are going to be political (and are not really appropriate to a special sub-forum for politics).

Ian

[kwackers]

I haven't voted, and I don't intend to, but I will point out that this forum is primarily for cycling, and intended to be family-friendly.

Politics is not what we are here for.

Trouble is that things like EU visas and buying parts from overseas and cycle infrastructure are all very cycling related particularly given the previous incarnation of CUK (i.e. CTC). And those cycling and/or cycle touring topics are going to be political (and are not really appropriate to a special sub-forum for politics).

Ian

I sometimes think about politics when I'm cycling, although usually it's more along the lines of pondering when we'll start making litterers spend their weekends picking the stuff up, or, who on earth thought it was a good idea to build that there, or, if only there were more police on the roads etc etc.

The only time I think about brexit is when I'm sticking customs labels onto post destined for the EU.

[Vorpal]

I haven't voted, and I don't intend to, but I will point out that this forum is primarily for cycling, and intended to be family-friendly.

Politics is not what we are here for.

Trouble is that things like EU visas and buying parts from overseas and cycle infrastructure are all very cycling related particularly given the previous incarnation of CUK (i.e. CTC). And those cycling and/or cycle touring topics are going to be political (and are not really appropriate to a special sub-forum for politics).

Ian

People are, of course, welcome to discuss those things. And I am willing to invest the time in moderating them. But if something becomes yet another Brexit free-for-all we will feel free to moderate it accordingly (which may mean locking the thread, removing stuff that isn't relevant to the topic, etc.)

[Tangled Metal]

I haven't voted, and I don't intend to, but I will point out that this forum is primarily for cycling, and intended to be family-friendly.

Politics is not what we are here for.

So why isn't it given the helmet thread treatment and put into its own ghetto and stopped from appearing in the new post searches? Indeed helmet threads have more right to be seen on a cycling forum than straight political threads.

Next you'll be removing best tyre threads to a ghetto, frame material threads or any other cycle related topic that sparks strong opinions. Then you'll eventually be left with political threads! We'll become a mix of DM, grauniad, morning star comments pages!

Seriously though, if we're a cycling forum why create a ghetto for cycling topic like helmet threads but not for political threads, at least the ones which are purely political? Was there an incident before I joined here that sparked the special treatment for helmets?