Now that would be lovely. I have a feeling that banning just a few members from certain parts of the forum would change things quite a lot.

Well, I guess I will throw out my opinion on the subject (not that my opinion really matters, as I am not really involved on either side of this issue).

Personally, I have never liked nation threads. They are too big, hard to follow, and by their very nature, exclusive. They are redundant, they are basically a forum within a forum within a forum. I feel like there could be greater discussions and friendships without them... In a perfect world...

However, this is not a perfect world... Especially when involving topics on Xbox, wii u, or vita. Any new topic about a failing system (wii u, vita) or one that is in general despised (xbox) is quickly derailed by haters and trolls. It can be quite obnoxious, especially for Xbox fans on here. these nation threads are a result of the behavior of the overall community.

Now, in a perfect world you could just moderate those people that were breaking the rules and be done with it. But it is more than just the posts that are breaking the rules that drives these fans into hiding. It is the overwhelmingly oppressive negative opinions that crush fans of certain systems. Everybody can freely express opinions on here, but if all you are doing every day is trying to defend your own opinions to various people that do nothing but attack them, then the drive to come here will soon go away.

This isn't a problem that can be solved by closing the nation threads. Perhaps adding the ability to ban people from posting in certain forums could help some, but it is ultimately a question of the makeup of the community itself. People will always have different opinions and people with negative opinions want to share them just as much as people with positive opinions. with the fanbases so lopsided, it will always feel like people are getting ganged up on.

Basically, there is no good solution to this problem...

I think a solution that can help is one that will take a long tim to adjust. It deals with what Carl said in the nature of moderating. How mods actually choose to moderate certain discussion. Getting rid of the trouble makers, locking them out of threads, etc. A lot of the stealth trolling might be alleviated through this method as well. 

By getting rid of a lot of the stealth trolling I feel some people will feel better about posting outside the hub threads. I do agree that people should consider at least contributing to outside threads such as Xbox. I do understand hoever the safeness and security you get in staying within that bubble, and I do get that people don't have to time to dedicate themselves to this forum, but posting outside a Nation hub won't hurt from time to time. 

I agree entirely. The mod team is definitely at fault for allowing stealth trollers to get away with so much for so long. Fortunately, that's something that I believe is being rectified , though it might take some time before any notable changes can be seen on the forums. 

Hopefully people will realize that we're not out to get the Nation threads and, in turn, trust us and the mod team a little more. The reverse is also true. We continue to clamp down on repeat offenders and stealth trolling which curtails discussion; people continue to post outside of the thread and create new threads; before long it won't even be a minor issue because the MS discussion should be safe enough and with enough threads that conversations and threads will start themselves. The XBE thread survives, it's used as more of a hub because the forums are less toxic and everyone is happy. Same applies for the other Nation threads, too.

Obviously this is in an ideal world and things will likely never be perfect. So long as we realize that it's an issue which is best resolved by working together rather than rash actions and knee-jerk reactions then I don't see there being any issues.

*low whistle*

Well now, this is pretty awesome. *laughs*

Loving the debate and the willingness to see other viewpoints. This is awesome.

And no, as I said in the OP, I'm not talking about this as Smeags the Head Mod, so I have no intention of locking the threads and throwing away the keys. I just wanted to put out my opinion on the matter and see what the community had to say. They obviously have a lot to say.

But anyways, I just wanted to thank you all for presenting your views and opinions in a solid and respectful manner, and to try to come together to seek solutions and compromise. That honestly tells me a lot about this community overall, and that it is good.

I can see the positives and negatives of the nation threads. Just speaking from my experiences with the Xbox thread though, I truly believe the positives have been far outweighing the negatives to date. The reasons for which have already been explained by several others.

Personally, I probably would have left the site if it wasn't for Xbox Empire, and that's not because I can't handle negativity or people with bad attitudes trolling Xbox news on other threads nonstop or anything like that. Hell there's very little anyone can say online that phases me in the slightests. That's not what puts you off, it can be annoying of course but it doesn't turn you away from the site, what turns you away (from any community) is the feeling that there's nobody (or barely anyone) that you actually share interests with.

If there's nobody around for me to actually have any discussions with on the things I care about, because everyone posting on the subject is just there to tell everyone how much they really just want MS to go take a hike and leave Sony to a gaming monopoly or whatever (just one example).....well then you and me simply have nothing to talk about. When that kind of atmosphere encompasses a majority of the community, which just so happened to be the case shortly after I joined the site, well then what is my possible interest in sticking around? Just to go bump heads with everyone I run into? No thanks

I love a heated debate as much as anyone, and if I see something that rubs me the wrong way, you can be damn sure I'll have a go at you, but if that at any point becomes all there is then it's obvious I'm in the wrong place.

The Xbox Empire thread fixed that. It's brought in new members, encourages good healthy discussion (including differing opinions on various subjects) by people who actually have a genuine interest in whatever the topic is, and I think the new users they attract feel more confident posting outside them too because the most prominent members of the Empire thread don't shy away from conversation elsewhere.

Also, while it is true they are hard to follow if you don't read them daily, I don't think it's in any way this insular community some might believe where it's hard to just jump in now and again to strike up a convo if you so choose. I personally sometimes don't post there for weeks at a time, but when I do have something to say there I just go and I do it, and regardless of whether I'm doing it to argue with someone, poke fun at them, discuss news, or whatever I never get any kind of "yo you ain't a regular bitch, fuck off" attitude.

So ya, ideally you wouldn't need them, and perhaps they can be toned down/scaled back where we're at now, but I think that if you're someone who cares about this site and the diversity of it's user base then you should be glad they sprang up, because if they hadn't this site would have been significantly poorer for it.

That backs up my points because you never see vita threads bring made.  The vita nation thread just makes it feel like there's no vita fans on this site. 

lock em, thats what i say. lock em forever, and do so fast before those bastards make the xbox empire reach 100k posts.

just keep the vita thread open, to mock them by showing how irrelevant they really are.

Yeah check my mod history from last year and you'll see that I was baited time and time again by people who knew the rules better than me.  Constantly ganged up on by a group with a cult like attitude that a certain nation thread created.  It's even evident in this thread.  Ganged up on as usual.  

These nation threads divide the forum and as smeags says renders the Microsoft section useless.  

And about my mod history.  I've no bans in 2015. I don't think I'm the one who should be questioned in that regard.  

It's no one else's fault, but your own for taking that "bait." 

And see, look, you just go after MS. Smeags never targeted one Nation thread over another one. If you're talking about the MS section being useless, maybe it's simply because right now, nothing is happening. Only news I can think of of relevance has been FM6 announcement. Rare had a small bit of news, but nothing that was that big to make a thread over. 

Where is this "constantly ganged up on by a group with a cult like attitude..."? Shinobi at least provided concrete links. And then your point about "even evident in this thred." So... if it's present in this thread, should this thread be gone too since it's a problem as well?