| super_etecoon said: I really feel bad for the moderation team here at VGC. These people all volunteer their time to help out a website that's about videogames. That's why we're here. And then the real world and all its BS encroaches on that and everyone feels like they should just be able to say whatever they want without repurcussion, as if saying "no offense, but..." is all that is needed to make their statement protected by some ridiculous "free speech" clause that most people don't seem to understand doesn't apply to private websites. As I've mentioned before, I don't think it would be useful to remove the Politics section as it does provide people with a place to discuss these issues and it keeps the other forums free of such volatile subjects, but the amount of moderation required to keep the Politics forum civil is a fulltime job in and of itself. It's not even the content of many of the posts, but rather the tone and tenor of many of them that make them the most incendiary. Anyway, the only point of this post is to express my sympathy for the moderation team and to accept whatever decision they make. This isn't a paid job for any of them and babysitting this website is difficult enough in the Console Wars sense, let alone the real world dumpster fire we're all currently living through. |
| SpokenTruth said: Keep the board. It filters that content out of general discussion. Hide it from guests /not logged in from the Hot Topics list. Communicate the option to Opt-Out or filter specific boards with the community (update forum threads, send private message or email to make the feature more known) so those that don't want Politics, don't see it. Bring on more mods with the wherewithal to handle the Politics forum. I feel this would satisfy the largest percentage of the community. |
I'm with super_etecoon in terms of the effects this has on the mods, and I feel that's not good for a community for the mods to feel that way or for people to feel that way about the mods. I'll support them no matter what they do, but I really think we should consider moving all discussion of politics to a Discord server for VGChartz members, perhaps multiple such servers to accomodate multiple sets of tastes in how political discussion should be handled. Don't like the anything goes server? They probably don't like you, try the more heavily moderated server. Feel like the moderated server is stepping on your free speech? Go to the anything goes server. I don't see why everyone couldn't be satisfied with that. I get that these discussions need to go somewhere, but if you moved it to Discord like some of the NSFW threads did, people still have a place to express their opinions in a way that doesn't turn off potential newcomers to the site. You don't end up needing more mods for the site since the people that want the discussion to happen would create the servers and make the rules, and could make a new server if they didn't like the rules. Things would settle eventually, and the main site would lose all the controversy that's dividing us. If people tried to bring politics into other discussions, threads could be locked, warnings could be given out to anyone that forgot or didn't know the rule, it wouldn't have to be that big of a deal.
If we kept the board, definitely hide it from guests, but I'd say it should be opt-in, not opt-out. The same logic of "if you want politics, you can see it" applies, but no one is ever slapped in the face with it on the daily, and newcomers who don't know any better don't have to learn how to filter out shit that makes them feel unwelcome. If anything, at the very least it would make it less likely for people to leave before they get attached to the community if the first thing they see isn't toxic politics. If they start by exploring the gaming discussions and only go to politics once they grow to like the place enough to stick around and get to know people and are curious about the other boards, you'll see less of them driven away. There are certainly several ways of handling this, but the concern should be on growing the community and keeping members, not the right of current members to blast their ideas as loud as the site will allow them to. Who cares if politics is opt-in? Like I and many people have said, this is a gaming forum, so who cares if there's politics at all? If it's going to be here at all, it's no cost to anyone who wants to participate in politics discussions to have to click one or two more times to opt-in to the politics board.
Last edited by HylianSwordsman - on 11 March 2019
