[Lorric]

kill it.

basically i agree with everything nyct said on the matter.

if we lose members over it so be it. poldisc drives away as many members as it retains, it seems, and if losing it drives away the members that were only here for poldisc in the first place and nothing else, it is of my opinion that nothing of value would be lost in the first place; as compared to poldisc existing causing drama driving away people that are actually here for more than political ****flinging

Yes, I don't know enough about forums and what drives traffic to them and retains it to respond to MP-Ryan's post back there about why we should retain Pol Disc, I can only trust he knows what he's talking about as he usually does and seems confident, but it's a meat grinder. People go in and dead meat comes out (people leaving.)

It's telling that there isn't one post here speaking of the value of Pol Disc in terms of gaining pleasure or insight out of it. And the thread was started by the most avid Pol Disc poster.

[mjn.mixael]

I value PolDisc. I gain insight into other goings on in the world that as a US citizen I don't always notice. I enjoy the well thought out posts from people like The_E, Karajorma, Mongoose, etc.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong... but Mongoose was a long-time GenDisc/PolDisc only person until this year when he finally decided to install FSO again because he saw things going on in the rest of the board.

[Grizzly]

I find poldisc a lot of fun but I don't want to be ruining other people's fun.

It's all fun and games until somebody gets sued

[karajorma]

If it weren't for pol dis, I'd have probably stopped checking HLP every day long ago. As for it causing problems, again, this is mostly a case of people remembering the old days. Do you know how many official warnings that forum has generated in the last two years?

Zero. Not a single one.

[Grizzly]

I'd argue it should've. There's been plenty of trolling going on in there, some of them by now-former admins!

[Lorric]

I do find some value in reading Pol Disc threads, but not participating.

[Asteroth]

I have never and have no intention of ever touching PolDisc with a 10-foot pole, but I think it's fine to stay. I don't think the recent fallout was specifically a political thing.

[DefCynodont119]

Poldisc is a ok place to get peoples thoughts about what's going on in the world without the endless social media echo chamber / slap fight, like, compared to the rest of the internet this place is "usually" tame.

Plus I value the opinions of people I work/mod with.


I don't feel to strong about it either way, but I do agree that pol talk is gonna happen anyway so it's better to contain it then stop it.

[Mongoose]

I would be vehemently against getting rid of PolDisc, but very much in favor of rebranding it and strongly clarifying the rules that apply to it. As others have noted, there are certain topics that are going to come up no matter how hard you try to stamp them out, and it's far better to have them directed to the proper channels than to attempt to put out wildfires springing up all over the place. Make it the place for anything that's potentially contentious, and put clear standards of conduct in place for it. What happened over this past month was spurred on by a political topic, but its root cause went far beyond politics.

More broadly, some people have questioned why a modding site needs any sort of off-topic section. I don't remember who it was exactly, but one of the other staff members said it best recently: it's about fostering a community, especially during those dry periods between major content releases. There are people around here who don't play much (if any) FS anymore, who maybe don't have much left to discuss about a 20-year-old game. I'm arguably one of them, as I haven't played much at all over the past few years--not because I love the game any less, but because there are 500 other entertainment options pulling at me. So why am I still here?  Because it's home. Because I've been a member for nearly half my life, and almost all of my Internet life, and I enjoy talking with people here. I can't "go somewhere else" to have these discussions, because they wouldn't BE these discussions without the people I know.

So please, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Edit:

Also, correct me if I'm wrong... but Mongoose was a long-time GenDisc/PolDisc only person until this year when he finally decided to install FSO again because he saw things going on in the rest of the board.

I wouldn't say only, because I'd usually poke my head in some of the modding boards to generally keep up with things, but it's definitely where I spent most of my time, and still do. And even if I still haven't gotten myself to play much, seeing all of the crazy FSU work over the past year or two was what got me to get on the Knossos train and make an up-to-date install, so that it's there waiting for me when I next get the itch.

[Phantom Hoover]

I value PolDisc. I gain insight into other goings on in the world that as a US citizen I don't always notice. I enjoy the well thought out posts from people like The_E, Karajorma, Mongoose, etc.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong... but Mongoose was a long-time GenDisc/PolDisc only person until this year when he finally decided to install FSO again because he saw things going on in the rest of the board.

Personally I think that you guys who actually like talking to each other about politics on HLP are better off doing so in an environment that you can moderate yourself to keep the participants friendly (that could even maybe still be PolDisc). The reason PolDisc got so ugly, in my opinion, was a fetishisation of 'neutral civil discourse' that said it was basically fine to have a board with thread after thread of Goober calling everyone else brainwashed leftist liars and everyone else calling him a Trump-loving loon, and looking in it was clear that this was insanely, pointlessly toxic for everyone involved and the board hosting it. If PolDisc is going to stick around it needs to be a place for discussion of current events and non-confrontational sharing of views where people have enough sense to avoid idiotic fight club threads where they try to own each over other irreconcilable ideological differences.

[MP-Ryan]

If PolDisc is going to stick around it needs to be a place for discussion of current events and non-confrontational sharing of views where people have enough sense to avoid idiotic fight club threads where they try to own each over other irreconcilable ideological differences.

[General Battuta]

Yall should consider that Goober, a COVID-enabler "main stream media" denier young earth creationist, was not a good fit for a forum about discussing reality. Maybe with him out of a position of power things will work just fine.

There's been much complaining and mourning that the "politics" side of the forum has stirred up so much drama in the "modding" side of the forum. The distinction is artificial. Goober's attitudes towards women were espoused in a thread about voice acting a campaign. He'd prematurely lock modding threads and shut down conversations  if they offended his personal sense of propriety.

There is no neutral ground or place of objectivity to retreat to. We are constantly deciding which opinions and viewpoints are tolerable in our communities, and which aren't. People pretend that some of these decisions are invisible and unanimous and 'objective' while others are controversial and 'political', but it's just a matter of degree. Like sliders in some Bethesda-ass character creator, we change the face of our communities by deciding what we accept and what we reject.

Even the subject of what is 'nonpolitical' is a choice. What if a user strongly preferred they/them pronouns? Would it be political for moderators to punish disregard for that preference? Twenty years ago people would have laughed at that request and called it crazy. Five years ago there'd have been screaming about SJWs. Today the request might be considered common decency. The definition of what is 'political' and what is simply human decency has changed.

The 'anti drama' stance is as political as any other; it is an argument for acceptance of the status quo.

HLP is a tiny community. Attempts to govern it by legalism and tabulated rules are futile, because it runs mostly on interpersonal dynamics. It's so small that individual users set the tone. Naturally the people who obsess the most over Posting have the most to say about it.

I don't care about PolDisc in particular because there are much larger and more informative places on the internet to have conversations about politics, but if it's a nice place for a few posters to hang out and chill and talk about, I dunno, missile emplacements in the South China Sea, why not let 'em have it.

Personally I don't care what yall do as long as I can post more BP if it gets made.

e:

If PolDisc is going to stick around it needs to be a place for discussion of current events and non-confrontational sharing of views where people have enough sense to avoid idiotic fight club threads where they try to own each over other irreconcilable ideological differences.

Brutal owns are actually the best things to come out of politics threads

[General Battuta]

I find that looking at change over time is a good way to avoid the trap of 'neutrality.' Sixty years ago, the question of the civil right movement would have been incendiary and political. Today, we'd consider anyone who opposes that movement a lunatic regressive. Ten years ago, gay marriage was a controversial topic in the US. Today, only the furthest right sees it as anything but a done deal. Fifteen years ago, we had arguments over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; today we can see how those turned out (not well).

There are topics in serious contention today that will be settled matters in fifteen years. (Climate change is almost certainly one of them!) We can preach the value of moderation and rational discourse, but in the end, one side is going to be right. Don't fetishize detachment and disregard. There are subjects on which reasonable disagreement is possible, but there are also subjects which history shows us end up having a right side and a wrong side.

[Lorric]

Well, you might as well burn pol disc to the ground then if there's a RIGHT way and a WRONG way. What's the point in talking about it if it's already been decided, apart from pwning the wrongthinkers.

[Phantom Hoover]

I think the upshot of all of this, really, is... can we just leave PolDisc as it is for a while? Because now that Goober's out it's a small, deliberately hidden annex full of people who generally seem to get along. Not really sure what's left is menacing enough to burn down.

[General Battuta]

Yeah.

I will also say, years ago I got kicked out of global mods for being a depressed angry teenager, and for ****ing with someone else's posts. It was the right call, I was a bad mod. I got over it. I kept making stuff for FS.

There's no intrinsic reason this needs to be any different.

Except the COVID denialism, that's ****ed up.

[Luis Dias]

There are topics in serious contention today that will be settled matters in fifteen years. (Climate change is almost certainly one of them!) We can preach the value of moderation and rational discourse, but in the end, one side is going to be right. Don't fetishize detachment and disregard. There are subjects on which reasonable disagreement is possible, but there are also subjects which history shows us end up having a right side and a wrong side.

My only remark here is to say that while fighting and debating for the righteous cause is something of a moral duty to many people here, and I would definitely include you in this characterization, many times I feel that some people lack a sense of proportion in all of these discussions, as if the state of the world is at our hands. Our community is small, as you have said before, and thus I do find myself consistently baffled at the way people treat big disagreements as the most terrible offensive things that could have ever been put into place in this planet.

I do hope that the de-admin of certain people will be enough to tame certain... huhh.... fervors. But I do suspect that the mere existence of the disagreement itself is enough to rile people up into incredible levels. To give an example, I am still baffled to this day at the manner to which NGTM got out of HLP, blaming everyone in the forum for having facilitated Trump's rise to power (by being critical of Hillary, etc.).

I do not think that these discussions will suddenly change the beliefs of many people in here, and thus, despite all the "love" that certain elements have for "PWNAGE", perhaps a simple sense of proportion and scale and respect for the size of this community would endear all of us into a state of more respect towards each other.

I, for one, am terribly unconvinced that PWNING people online has ever changed the world for the better. As far as I am concerned, that stuff is also part of the online culture that has *brought* the current state of affairs.

[Phantom Hoover]

I think the main thing that needs to change is potential, not actual: when the hypothetical next guy barges in to tell everyone that redheads should be surgically sterilised and all the posts that disagree are committing the logical fallacy of felis ardens sum, the mods don't tell the entire sane population of the forum that they're breaking the rules by not calmly continuing civil discourse.

[DefCynodont119]

I think the upshot of all of this, really, is... can we just leave PolDisc as it is for a while? Because now that Goober's out it's a small, deliberately hidden annex full of people who generally seem to get along. Not really sure what's left is menacing enough to burn down.

I Agree 100%.

I can post more BP if it gets made.

And I Agree with this as well. 

[General Battuta]

Here is why rational well-informed people become angry ****posters

A better analogy would be if someone walks into a championship tournament, says "GEE I THINK I MAY HAVE TRANSCENDED THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOME OF YOU GRANDMASTERS HERE, WANT TO JOIN MY NEW SCHOOL OF CHESS STRATEGY?", then loses by scholar's mate twice in the first round.

This person then refuses to leave his seat, claiming that he needs additional proof that the queen in f7 actually ontologically exists before he will admit defeat, and that the rules of the CHESS ESTABLISHMENT were unfairly biased against him by disallowing the possibility of his king being able to leapfrog pieces.

Then he pulls out an ancient shopping list from 1905 and claims that "1. Eggs" means 'The King', "2. Butter" means 'can', and "3. Milk" means 'leapfrog'. This is admissible evidence for his case because he has lived according to the dictates of this list since he was a teenager, and it has drastically improved his quality of life. When the referees tell him that this makes no ****ing sense, he drags them into a three hour debate over the precise meaning of the words 'makes', 'no', '****ing', and 'sense'.

When people point out that there is more than enough evidence to suggest his list is just a scrap of paper from some long-dead housewife's purse, he rather proudly points out how close-minded they are in dismissing outright the possibility that the list was in fact a secret coded message on the best way to live life, originally formulated by Atlanteans and passed down through the ages disguised as everyday documents. After all, if one starts with the presupposition that such a document exists, then it would be very fair to argue that it is indeed in the form of his shopping list.

Never mind that his previous interpretations of the list led to three convictions and time served for robbery, hate crimes, and murder. These were just unfortunate misinterpretations on his part of the list's true intentions, he says. The list itself is blameless. In fact, the Atlanteans deliberately obfuscated the true meaning of the list in this way, so that it would require multiple failed misinterpretations before one would happen across its TRUE meaning, and in doing so appreciate it all the more.

In fact, he does have some evidence to back up his claims. Why, just last week during his daily meditation on the list, he felt it telling him that something good was about to happen in his future. And yesterday, wouldn't you know it, he found a twenty dollar note on the sidewalk! Evidence of the list's prophetic powers if I ever saw one. And believe him, he has many more stories where that came from.

By now, the debate has splintered off into innumerable tangents, with the one man against literally every other player and referee present at the tournament. Finally, he graciously accepts the possibility of defeat in some of the myriad topics now being covered. OK, maybe the tallest player doesn't always get to go first. Fine, I will concede that there isn't much evidence to support my third-invisible-knight hypothesis. But that's all irrelevant. What he wants to concentrate on, and what nobody has yet been able to disprove, he adds, is the ability of the king to leapfrog over other pieces.

The argument drags on for weeks. Finally, one afternoon, the beet-faced referee exhausts his last reserves of decency and throws his arms up in frustration and despair. "YOU ****ING IDIOT, HOW CAN YOU LAY CLAIM TO KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT CHESS STRATEGY WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN GRASP THE MOST BASIC RULES!?" He shouts, just as a new entrant walks through the door. "I'm sorry," replies the man calmly, "I simply cannot discuss the rules of chess with such an 'official' if you insist on using such strong and uncouth language. Please retract your insults or I will be forced to plug my ears whenever you say anything from now on."

Seeing only this last exchange, the new entrant pipes up. "He's right, you know. If he did something wrong, then you as the referee have every right to tell him he is so, but it should be done with a patient and thorough explanation of the details of his error. Hurling ridicule at him solves nothing and won't change anyone's mind."

The lazy eye of the smooth-brained List-following, King-leapfrogging man twitches almost unnoticeably, as he cranes his head towards the source of this new voice. A welcoming smile cracks, inch by beaming inch, across his face. He licks his lips. He clears his throat.

"So glad to know decent people like you still value a polite discussion. Care for a game?"