In all honesty, I actually agree with this.

Must be easy to lure out the idiots to give them a nice, long ban. 

I agree. Its a gaming site. I come here for gaming news.

I thought you could filter out some topics when using an account? I personally only check hot topics and ignore all the political stuff since I don't give a shit about it, people should learn to do the same or simply move on from the site. Apparently a decent amount of people have left lately and I wouldn't be surprised this is one of the main reasons.

Another solution might be to divide the Hot Topic column into 4 segments (Gaming, Sales, Website, Off-topic). That way all discussion types would be more evenly represented and it would prevent the entire hot topics column from being swamped with threads on one subject (remember NX speculation threads).

Dividing the hot topics column could allow you to go one further and control the weighting of the hot topic types. For example, of the 16 currently displayed, 12 could be dedicated to Gaming and Sales sections, with 4 dedicated to Website and Off-topic. Doing this would reduce the number of political threads that appear in Hot Topics, control where they appear on the front page, while still making them prominent enough to entice those who are interested.

One advantage of having the four forum sections showing as sub headings in the hot topic column, is that they provide immediate visible links to the forum sections users might be most interested in browsing - something that is only possible via a drop-down to the forum index, currently.

Here's one example of the many ways in which the Hot Topics column could be divided and weighted.

Edit: A second, simpler alternative would be to divide the column into just two areas, "Hot Topic" and "Hot Off-Topic" - one including the Gaming, Sales and Website sections and a second (smaller) column containing the Off Topic section.

Hot Topics advertises what's going on in the community and I think that removing politics discussion or any other subforum from Hot Topics could risk misrepresenting what the community as a whole is currently talking about. Also taking the entire Hot Topics column out completely would reduce the visibility of the community to first time visitors and lurkers. It's too good a feature to lose, I think.

These solutions - if they're possible to do - make a compromise and are flexible - they allow users and visitors to see what's being discussed in Hot Topics without one section overpowering any of the others.

I agree with the OP the simplest solution is for those who don't like seeing politics threads to ignore what they don't want to read, but on the occasions when politics threads are choking the Hot Topics, I can see why they might prefer to just leave the site.

Well you have the filter option, When you join the site you should be wise enough to use that option.

Secondly I have posted this a lot:

Give mods the option to be more strict and ban users from some certain groups of threads. For example someone who would post hate in the Sony/MS/Nintendo sub forum instead of banning him for a few days from the forums just ban him for a month for the sub forum.  In my previous experience on a other forum it is way more effective, less alt accounts and less drama;

I agree. Get all political/non-gaming threads off the front page. This is a website about gaming and that's why I come here. I don't come here to hear about some kid who got run over by a bus. It's ridiculous imo.

I think this is the best solution. People who want to talk about off-topic stuff will still have easy access to it, and people who only want to participate in gaming threads won't be bothered by off-topic threads anymore.

There are many solutions to those who don't wish to see politics threads on the front page. The ones you mentioned are good, the ones already implemented are also good.

I don't understand why many of you want to solve this issue in radical way that would displease others instead of taking a more reasonable approach like the one Hedra42 is taking here. 

Whatever change you want to see, it will only happen when higher powers interfere (ioi or Trucks), and this happens once in a blue moon. So mods might as well take their time to find the right solution that would please everyone.

A simple filter for the front page would work best. Dividing the hot topics into sections like it used to be during vgc 2 days is also a good idea. Radically removing the sections you don't like from the front page is the laziest of the 3. 

Removing the Hot Topics would be my ideal, one I've brought up in the past, but the thought is that forum visability is what keeps the site afloat, unfotunately.

So the next best thing is removing non-gaming topics from the front page, especially politics.

Are you living in Turkey?! Just asking cause that's exactly how things are handled there.