There's at least 1 Mod who wants to remove Politics entirely but it's not our decision, I don't know what the majority consensus is, but it's not even in our ability, or our power, it would be up to the Staff Admin.

Personally, I lean against the idea of removing Politics. I think it's hard to avoid Politics now, Politics is in everything, I would hate to lose the Russia-Ukraine thread, I think that thread and Xbox Empire are two major reasons I've stayed on the site, it feels important to me, and I also think removing Politics would notably push the site towards the end of its life, Lol.

Removing Politics doesn't fix the sites 20 other issues but does remove a major point of discussion, so it would be an extremely risky move Imo, but I'm only speaking for myself, I don't know what the majority Mod view is, or the user view, or the Staff view.

Get rid of politics and this sites already declining activity will be cut in half

I think it would essentially finish the site off, Lmao.

But I agree with Trunks that Politics should be default hidden to non-logged in users, it should be Gaming as the focus, maybe Politics should even be turned off by default for new signups and like Super said, people can choose whether to participate or not, and people can hide Politics from their Forum list via settings, but maybe that isn't clear enough (I'm not sure how to make it more clear right now though).

Maybe.  Feels like to me less and less people are here to talk gaming, which makes VG a weak site for gaming news.  More and more are coming here for the politics, which is going to divide people and lead to bans.  Perhaps this place has already been run into the ground, thus it doesn't matter, but politics aren't going to help. 

Edit

If nothing else politics should be a sub forum that nevers shows up on the main page.  

Okay I think I have an idea on making it more clear but my editing skills are shit and it's time for Borderlands but I'll think on it some more later

This site isn’t a weak site for gaming news because of politics discussion, it’s a weak site for gaming news because forums are outdated in general and the other gaming forums have a much more modern layout.

I know I’m a broken record and have said this a bunch but the thing that made this site stand out from the competition was the weekly software/hardware sales estimates, without those there is little reason for someone to get their gaming news from VGChartz over ResetERA, InstallBase, Reddit or social media.

Even without political discussion, people wouldn’t be joining this site, it’s a relic of the past held up by a handful of us stubborn dinosaurs who have been visiting this site for ~15 years and continue to do so out of habit.

Anyone think it would be better to replace the scroller (which cuts off anyway) on the front page with the full filter option instead? So that people can pick and choose what topics are displayed, instead of it being hidden here: Video Game Charts, Game Sales, Top Sellers, Game Data - VGChartz since it seems like even regular long time users didn't know about this option.

Click - Displays a Tick - Only Those Topics Show - Simple.

Also very minor but we really should lock PotW's voting behind account based voting instead of IP based voting, firstly it would be far more accurate, and represensative of the site, less susceptible to manipulation, secondly I'm not sure why we're giving non-members the option to vote in polls, Lol. As mean as that sounds, some features should be locked behind accounts only.

What drove this site's activity during its heydays was console warring which naturally means a lot of trolling and flaming. Picking fights was what this site was about, with a minority being here to discuss things in earnest. People getting banned was something that made the site more interesting and desirable to be on, not less.

The loss of weekly hardware and software estimates played into the decline, but the decline started already before that. When the site had turned 10 years old, there was hardly anyone left on the boards who put enough stock into the weekly estimates to discuss them, because it was common knowledge how frequent adjustments could be, and said adjustments would just make most people in previous discussions look stupid for arguing over something that was never true in the first place.

The loss of the console wars themselves is what's really driving the dagger in. By 2016, which happens to coincide with the site turning 10 years old, it was clear to pretty much everyone that Sony wasn't going to make another handheld to compete with Nintendo. The handheld space was significantly less fought about on this site than the home console space, but it had sparked a lot of activity nonetheless. Only one generation later Microsoft threw in the towel, so we are down to Nintendo vs. Sony and even that comes with a major caveat: Development costs have risen to a point where virtually every third party publisher will soon support PC, PS and Switch 2 alike, making console sales rather unimportant.

These circumstances will lead to InstallBase inheriting the remains of the VGC forums eventually. Console wars are closing in on irrelevance, so the state of the video game industry as a whole is more meaningful and interesting to discuss. And when it comes to that, the moderation team on IB has beat the VGC team handily, because they curated the place from the get-go to protect it from trolls and discussions in bad faith. The important difference here is that IB was built by users for users whereas VGC was taken over by users to keep a site with an uncertain future alive, and I can't blame these users for not being motivated anymore. I myself hardly care anymore since years, so the erasure of my vast posting history wasn't something that made me feel bad, it was just "whatever."

And that's only half the issues! Lol.

And I think none of it can even start to change unless the site comes under new ownership, not until we have an owner who actually invests and shows they care. But it's likely too little, too late. I actually felt deeply embarrassed by that hack, and pissed off that it happened in the first place, annoyed that it was let to get to this state, upset for the community. I'm losing a lot of my heart for VGChartz over the past year or so though, I've tried to fake it, I've tried to reignite it here and there, I'm still trying to help where I can, but I don't think I have long left.

InstallBase is definitely going to gobble the rest of VGChartz up, not me though, because I ironically don't really care much for sale talk, Lol.