That already exists. Go to Forum - my topics and you can expand the filters and select the boards you wanna see. In your settings you can say that in the hot topics only your selected boards will be seen.

I think Gamersgate went a long way to show that whether or not we want politics in the videogame pseudo-community it's going to be there, having an effect, either way. Politically non-participatory minorities have typically been the ones that are most victimised by politicians, so it's as well to continue to have a place here for debate, whether it appears to be fruitful or not.

Well, mod powers can be misused - always. Currently mods could lock a pro-Trump thread while letting a contra-Trump thread live (or vice versa). Mod power abuse should be punished (and probably there are already rules in place to handle abuse od mod power). Given, a tool with lower impact might be used less strictly. But it is also much easier to discuss, if you feel this mod decision was bad.

What about my other suggestion, that older threads are removed from home page/hot topics? This would be not defined by the mod leaning. All threads older than let's say three days are not shown on the home page. Quite frankly, I see a lot of topics I already seen before. I either posted in them if I am interested (or subscribed, a cool feature to keep track of thrreads, thank you), or not and then I probably won't do that. If these places are filled with newer threads I might even participate in more threads - as I see more new stuff more often. For instance of the 15 threads on the home page for me 8 are older than three days. Often official threads of some sort or some games. But if I want to participate in them I already did, or subscribed them. If these 8 spots are replaced by newer threads, I might find something to post into because I have a decidedly strong opinion about the topic. Oh yes, one thread (this one) is pinned, pinned threads should stay on the home page. Hell, make it a non-default options for users with account (or supporters). I would turn this option on.

Keep it, but make it opt-in to see.

Shouldn't be too hard for that tickbox in the filter for Political Discussion to be off by default. And while we're at it, do that for NSFW Discussion, too.

I think it should be kept. Some don't want to see it? That's fine there's an option to "block" it from your feed.

If people want to talk politics, let them in the politics section. It will just spill out into the general forum otherwise.

Honestly, I think it's obvious a lot of people in general just can't handle discussing politics without insulting or attacking each other.. Just look at the 2016 election stuff and how a lot of people on any "side" acted towards each other. It's always just people name calling each other the same shit like SJW or Racist/Nazi/etc and "i'm better than you" attitude. I personally don't care about politics, which is why you hardly see me posting in political threads to begin with, but I also wouldn't wanna associate myself with people acting like that to begin with. I made some similar sounding/poorly written posts that don't properly convey what I meant to say in the past here and it's cringey lmao, I don't wanna be associated with either "side" of these people if they act that way which is why I stopped.

With that being said though, I think the politics section should remain. If people wanna discuss it they should be able to, don't let the people who can't behave themselves ruin it for the people who can and would like to discuss these things civilly. As others have said, an option could always just be that they don't show up on the Hot Topics feed, maybe as a choice by user, but at the same time I don't see why it's so difficult for some to just not click on them? That's what I do, I just ignore them lol, but then again I can also see why people don't like seeing the same stuff in Hot topics everyday as it can get tiring, especially for those who primarily just come here for gaming discussion.

I also think there should maybe just be harder moderation in the politics threads, that way if the people who do go out of line are shitting up the thread it can at least be dealt with quickly and not ruin the entire thing for everyone else.

Sometimes there is just too much emotional attachement in political discussions ,the inability of distancing yourself from that and looking at the wider picture can result in the opposing side looking like bad human beings and this makes people revolt against eachother.

The ones i know that left this site because of politics discussion did behave this way and also like to toss around the terms toxic/SJW about others.

As much as it sometimes irritates me,keep politics but move it out of sight because foremostly this is a gamingforum and also in my opinion removing it would feel a bit like censoring free speech,not that censoring is always bad but it might cut of some active good users when doing so.

I think what removes allot of the potential for mod abuse is that... The mods talk to each other about issues that arise... And often we don't always agree, so we will push our cases forwards until there is a general consensus. It works more often than not, that's for sure... Prior forums I have been a moderator on, we didn't have such a process, we were left to our own devices... And you can bet mods would abuse their position on the odd occasion, simply because they could get away with it.

In saying that... The Mod team is only human, mistakes can be made (Heck, I have made a couple!), all part of the learning process!

But blatant abuse isn't generally going to overlooked. And nor should it.

Yeah, my intention was to say, that we shouldn't discuss a possible option for mods under the view that it could be abused - as every mod power can. And I hope the mod-team can handle that and act accordingly. We should discuss new mod-features under the view if it can be useful.

Personally, I think we should allow the toxic posts in Politics if we are going to use "free speech" as an argument for it. Also, from a practical standpoint, it is very difficult to mix politics and alcohol without trying to point out how dumb your opponent is; it makes the forum into a HUGE trap for people to get banned! =D
That is not good for activity.

If the goal of the forum is to have actual reasonable political discussion, it's not going to happen.
Most people there have clearly never taken even a basic poli-sci or logic course, but still act like they're experts because they once read a Fox News headline about something.
I am unsure if they are purposely acting dense/ignorant as some kind of roleplay, or if they are being authentic.
For a lot of people, the Politics forum is literally just an anti-social button-pushing hobby forum.

IN CONCLUSION

Politics is a literal idiocracy discussion forum.
I am all for keeping it as is, but not to ban people.
If you want a serious political discussion forum, it's not going to happen, you would have to ban about 90% of the people in there - and I wouldn't want that.
It is, and forever will be, a button-pressing/shitposting forum under the pretense of political discussion.

Although, I understand not allowing typical board-ruining things like spamming out threads with off topic advertisements for someone's Amazon affiliate site or something.