Thirith on 17/9/2018 at 14:43
I think it's absolutely possible to discuss politics (and religion) in good faith and without the discussion derailing. It just takes a lot more moderation, and willingness to moderate, because there's more of a risk of the discussion going bad. Whether TTLG in 2018 is the place where this is feasible I can't say. I think it'd be sad if actual political discussion was impossible on the forums, but then I think there's very little actual political discussion going on at the moment, but a fair bit of trolling, shitposting and outright lunacy - which may mean that I'm not engaging in good faith either, for all I know.
heywood on 17/9/2018 at 19:57
Well, this situation happened because some people weren't happy with the moderation, so I don't know that it is the solution. Other special interest forums I've been on that tried to accommodate off-topic political discussion have found it nearly impossible to moderate in a way that seems fair to all the members, and it's a totally thankless job.
I think we are fortunate that most of the crap on TTLG is contained in relatively few threads, and the disagreements there aren't spilling over into the gaming forums like they used to. If that starts happening again, I think you'd have to consider either banning people or banning politics, and I'd hate to see a community that came together over a common interest break up into tribes over politics.
Azaran on 17/9/2018 at 20:20
Quote Posted by heywood
banning politics
Please. Enough is enough. For the last 2-3 years, over half my friends on FB devote most of their online time to obsessive angry tirades or mockery of a certain figure that I will not mention here. Thankfully here on TTLG it's mostly restricted to one dedicated thread, but spill over does occur sometimes
"He picked his nose during a speech? Let's write 300 blog posts analyzing the significance of that gesture"