Ludeon Forums

Please keep any discussion civil and to the point.

For reference;

Would this infringe on free speech rights?
https://www.quora.com/Is-moderation-in-forums-violating-Americans-right-to-free-speech
(https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-6effe40de36f0f142913f85e3638d867.webp)
Answer; no.

Do other forums do this?
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4045-USHJ-3810
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/2228414323
Answer; both Steam and WoW, probably the two single largest gaming communities, already do so. I haven't looked at others.

The reason political and religious topics are often forbidden (even if by house rules) is you can talk about without having to prove anything. A strong opinion is enough and you can start shouting.

Careful there,
Discussion (of any sort) aren't the problem. Beside it would be hard, if not impossible to ban a specific range without encroaching upon good topic.
Propaganda, disinformation and smear campaign are what have been a problem recently.

Yes these are difficult to distinguish, but not impossible. This is up to Moderators to set up rules, check what get reported to them, forgive the accident, warn the ignorance, but ban the deliberate infraction.

Sure, some people look just insignifiant harmless enough you want to overlook their accidents. But when they start feigning ignorance and clearly intended it. It's no different from keeping a drunk from driving again after he caused an accident.

In short I don't think we should ban any topic (unless it doesn't fit here and there's nowhere to move it), just ban certain ways of bringing a topic.

"Propaganda, disinformation and smear campaign are what have been a problem recently."
If we could all agree what is propaganda and disinformation, we wouldn't need to have this discussion. Given that the subject of politics more often than not leads to a discussion with neither end nor merit, it's much simpler for everyone involved to just blanket ban political discussions. There are many forums on the internet devoted to these discussions, and gaming forums aren't (or at least shouldn't be) one of them.

I'm probably in a minority with my opinion, but I believe that political discussions (and religious and other hotly debated topics) should NOT be banned.  (Note: This is all personal opinion. I'm not speaking for Ludeon or Tynan or anyone else.)

If we ban political discussions, then it's because we think it's doesn't need to be discussed (or at least, not here).  If we think we don't need to talk about it here, it's because we think it's unimportant.  If we think it's unimportant, it's because it has no impact on us personally.  And if it has no impact on us personally, it's because we're both privileged and disconnected from the non-privileged.  And I think that's unacceptable for any community of people.

Think about the world we live in, and the problems we face.  Then consider how that would change if we all lived as if we really are connected with one another.  And then ask yourself which world you would rather live in.  I think it's an easy question to answer, even though it demands a lot of hard work up front.  Work that I don't think we should ban.

I believe that your chances of recruiting that 99% difficulty tribal raider to your colony is a piece of cake compared to discussing politics/religion/etc with anonymous people on the internet. If they are passionate enough about it to engage in a conversation, I can almost guarantee that there is NOTHING anyone can say to change their mind or sway their opinion. Heck, I've seen real life friendships and families divided because of political or religious differences. People on a random internet message board? No chance.

I agree with Milon that it's important to discuss these things, but anonymously on the internet is not the place.

Just my two cents.

I think you're making a couple mistakes in your logic, Milon;

Specifically, the idea that banning political discussion here somehow means that it won't go on elsewhere. It also seems that you're working with the assumption that NOT banning it here somehow leads to connection between the privileged and the non-privileged.

The fact is, this is a forum for a particular game. Discussions should all relate to the game in some fashion; There are other, better communities and venues for discussing things that are not Rimworld. Having the Off-Topic forum and allowing political discussions there does not mean that people who wish to remain disconnected will be somehow connected to politics; All it really does is give a venue of people whose primary (only?) connection is a fandom for Rimworld to talk about stuff that isn't Rimworld or in any way related to Rimworld. Those who come here for Rimworld don't have to, and often won't, ever read or post in those threads. However, those threads can, and demonstrably do, interfere with how people communicate elsewhere in the forum.

Further, discussion of politics on the internet, especially with strangers, is... just a risky idea in general. Text is an isolating medium, so it's easier to forget the person; To dismiss their basic humanity, their lived experiences, and to relegate them to a 2-dimensional caricature. We do this instinctively, even if we mean better. Case in point, your recent lauding of Fluffy's post on the immigration thread as being level-headed, when that thread made a truly stupid exaggeration about American ideas about free-speech (Love you Fluffy, but saying that eventually shooting people will be considered protected free speech was a really stupid thing to say).

Politics is super important to people. In my experience this is true even, possibly especially, with people who claim to hate politics and political discussions. This means that it's going to tend to raise hackles and incite emotional responses; Emotions aren't bad in and of themselves, but they often lead to people saying things they don't mean, or having trouble saying things the way that they mean. Given the difficulties already inherent in the medium, this is just another layer of miscommunication.

Given all of that, it's just wasted bandwidth, here.

Caveat: Political discussions that actually bear on Rimworld, I think are still appropriate topics here. The discussions that stemmed from the article about how Rimworld handles sexuality and gender, for example, were appropriate topics, and were definitely political. (Note: I don't think they were good topics, at all; Lots of ugliness and over-the-border statements in the aftermath.) But they were appropriate for this forum, because they dealt with the game we're all here to talk about.

First off for my answer : absolutely not. Banning free speech of ANY sort is what leads to larger amounts of speech being banned, and this is the BEST way to force an agenda : you cannot fight back against totalitarianism if you cannot FIRST call a spade a spade

There's a lot of talk about disinformation and smearing campaigns, and while this is an issue, I think this should take a methodical approach for addressing, taking each individual claim and seeing if there is any merit behind it, any truth, if its ad homin, fallacy, or if there is any logic behind it : and this cannot be merely accused, this must be explained carefully WHY it is invalid, as baseless accusations are just as bad, if not worse than the disinformation itself. Likewise, the accused should have an opportunity to defend allegations.

Another thing I would have to say is with the global climate, there is a WAR on freedom of speech : you see it in Europe, in Canada, in universities : where if you state opinions which are skeptical of certain "protected groups" you are metaphorically lynched : fired, arrested, assaulted, banned from the college you payed for ect : its an effort to silence any and all criticism. This is what fascist, totalitarian governments did in the past : if you criticized the head honcho, you got your head cut off, got drawn and quarted, or some other vile act. Except rather than 1 person, its trying to push an agenda.

Another thing to keep in mind is frankly, I think it SHOULD be allowed here BECAUSE this is not expressly a political site : politics and other subjects often have the approach of "do not bring it up anywhere ever", except they are brought up, just in private, and often breeding more extreme views, since it being in public would otherwise moderate certain views.

Beyond that we must ask "what is political?"

Well, its anything involved with public policy : and this is the scary thing.

If we ban discussion of "politics" you effectively ban anyone from discussing any opinion that a moderator determines as "political".

What if genocide ended up occurring? Is that political? its a banned topic

What about if war is erupting and a user is on the brink of having their family killed? Is this a political topic? Banned too.

What if theres a significant problem facing a community? is that political?

At very least if we are going to do that, we should make a DAMN CLEAR definition of what is political, and DOES NOT have bias on the left or right : except I feel this would be impossible without people seeing how ridiculous it is. Because LGBT rights, Islamophobia discussion, and other elements can ALSO be determined as "political" if they are ever involved in politics : does this mean we will ALSO ban these?

But thats my main problem : IF you ban political discussion, have a VERY clear definition which applies EQUALLY to all people : meaning if one were to be banned for bringing up immigration which endangers others, one could also not bring up LGBT rights, Islamophobia, and other issues, because those are ALSO politically involved terms.

See the problem with this? its up to the moderators discretion if they indeed CALL something banned or not, and any mod can ban any person if they see fit, because anything could be described as "political" and one could simply throw that title on something they personally disagree with to remove it.

Not saying that WILL happen with the mods here, but its a very real possibility, and we should have accountability and fairness, and I honestly DO worry about a severe left wing bias on this forum being made worse IF this happens. I've already seen cases in discussions where I may post cited examples of things which are "politically incorrect" and others will result to straight ad homin, and I will get more scrutiny from users and mods alike : which is a bit concerning.

This is only made worse when you consider the logistics behind things : I'm American personally, and the supreme court determined hate speech is still FREE SPEECH, meaning no words, talk, ect, can be banned at all.

However, I'm also aware Tynan is based in Canada as far as I'm aware, and several moderators are from Europe : which provides a very distinct conflict

I come from a country where freedom of speech is still upheld, and other countries are having freedom of speech is compromised in favor of protection of certain groups: Thus I see it one way, and others see it another.

I can even understand that people from these countries might have discomfort : after all, what I can say FREELY, without risk of prison or jail, would get tynan or milon perhaps thrown in jail : this is true (depending where they are of course) and I can see why this might make a bit of discomfort, hearing someone say what you would be jailed for, but then you must ask what your course of action would be.

Would you :

A : Allow freedom of speech to spread, potentially even allowing it back into your countries which have revoked it

or

B : Use your platform to further destroy freedom of speech for others because it does not fit with you not being able to do the same

I DO feel sympathy over the frustrations of people in such countries, but remember : your frustration would be better placed on your government than myself. Remember, your right to speak as you wish is being outlawed, I'm merely speaking my mind : which is more immoral?

@darius wolfe : if your argument is bandwidth, why not remove old pictures, old posts, and remove the drunkard thread / the post to 9000 before tynan posts threads? Seriously that seems like more of an excuse than anything else.

I admit i must of missed the comment about free speech = murder, but thats obviously silly : words don't kill, idiots, the emotionally fragile, and the primitive do.

Rather than ask why we should KEEP political discussions, ask yourself why you want to GET RID of political discussions?

My guess is because this offends some people : Which is fine, people have a right to be offended, but the offense does NOT give the right to silence someone else.

But if you have any other answers, let me know.

@mistervertigo : you bring up an interesting concept with anonymity, except this is actually very reliant to points I stated above : if people cannot voice opinions in public for fear or murder, arrests, stalking, assaults, ect, why bar them from a place where they CAN do it anonymously? You might even tell people to post on places like stormfront or whatever, but would you REALLY rather push people you disagree with to the fringe where they are made more extreme, rather than allow discourse and keep them more moderate?

As a final statement, I think we ALL need to keep in mind a few things

1 : we are NOT all from the same places, backgrounds, beliefs, religious background (if any) creed, world views, or culture, and just because someone is somemthing which is JUST outside our "norm" does not mean we should refuse to accept them because of it. This goes both ways : if you wish to criticize, please do, but the argument should consist of more than simply "you aren't the same as us, therefore get out", there MUST be some solid reasoning behind it. If you don't understand something, or something makes no sense to you, ASK. If you are asked such things, ANSWER. If you cannot answer, consider that you might possibly be incorrect, or must find answers. This applies to EVERYONE, be them LGBT, muslim, european, christian, conservative, liberal, chemical interest, teetotaler, ect. NOBODY should have an excuse not to do this, and if you don't you shouldn't be involved in the discussion.

2 : ludeon IS an international community : and international relations are inherently a little messy of course. This is the nature of having multiple cultures, peoples, religions, ways of life bumping into each other : there will be disagreements, there will be conflicts. But this does not mean we should bar conversations about differences. Instead we should hold every person accountable for how THEY act, and THEY respond. If someone is spewing slurs or adhomin, sure, punish them,  but if someone reacts nastily to comments they don't like, they should ALSO be punished.

The rules on ludeon are to be respectful of others, but respect does not mean you cannot criticize someone. Disagreements are a good thing, a chance to sharpen others or yourself : what we need to look out for is NOT controversial topics, but people who do not properly engage in polite discussion, and resort to personal attacks or try and stifle discussions.

....I also want to point out nobody cared about this AT ALL when they were mad about trump being elected, and this is only being pushed because there's a discussion on European immigration that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. and if this is enforced as a rule, I would hope there would be EQUAL punishment for right AND left leaning political comments. Theres a LOT of hostility against right leaning comments, and I fear this topic is only a symptom of it.

QuoteLove you Fluffy, but saying that eventually shooting people will be considered protected free speech was a really stupid thing to say

I was mostly in jest, but frankly, I find the US supreme court rulings that corporations are people, that the spending of money is an application of free speech, and that therefore corporations can make unlimited donations to politicians and parties without any oversight to be almost as ridiculous.

Anyhow, that was not the point of this thread, and I otherwise completely agree with Darius and Vertigo.

I've only skimmed over humble's comments (I've spent my energy in the other thread), but I would like to make clear that what I'm proposing is indeed a blanket ban on political discussion on any end of the spectrum.

You might say that fluffy, but honestly I care not what you say, I care about what rule is put in place

If it was indeed a blanket statement, would you then not agree your statement about corporations being people would ALSO be a political statement that should be banned? What about calling it ridiculous?

These are both political statements too, and would fall under your ban you are proposing. Yet you aren't even leading by example.

I am generally in agreement with your proposal to ban political discussion; My only caveat is as noted: Where the discussion of politics is actually related to Rimworld.

Also, I agree that speech is speech (and writing, and recordings, films, TV, movies, etc); Spending money may be a statement, but it is not itself speech, and shouldn't be protected in the same fashion; Nor do I think corporations should enjoy the same freedoms as actual citizens, given that the whole point of a corporation is to limit legal liability to persons. A corporation should enjoy some freedoms of speech, but not the same as actual citizens.

I also learned a while ago that there are people I try to limit discourse with, on any topic.

Edit: Hell, to be honest I'd go even further and propose the removal of the Off-Topic forum entirely, though I doubt that'd get any traction.

See, my problem with that is then it even gets into a MORE slippery slope, but with mass crevices of sharp rock along it as well : Then one could argue if any talk it relevant to rimworld, in a rimworld topic, about rimworld.

This is already an EPIDEMIC on ludeon, I've seen dozens on threads get chopped up, seperated, and moved around by mods because the intricate nature of rimworld inherinetly means a LOT of off topic discussion. if I had a dollar for every time a thread got spliced up, I could easily pay my phone bill with it.

SO WHAT THEN!?

What if theres a topic about say, a new faction feature, and discussion is simply removed entirely because its discussing finer details of things? Posts simply thrown away into the void because not only are they off topic to the topic at hand (but still relivant to the discussion, which is a big problem) but are political, so they are simply deleted?

Do we really want a iron fisted policy that limits our freedom? What if you guys want to bitterly complain if trump gets a second term?

I really think you guys aren't thinking this through at all, and are either only pushing this because of the immigration topic (because this is exactly why this thread was made) or because its just an apathetic look from people not weighing all the factors involved.

I should really make a list of all threads which would be removed under this rule, because it is absolutely ridiculous this proposal.

Beyond that, I struggle to take serious someone who makes an (I assume) awful joke like saying a father should give cookies to terrorist who blew up his daughter.

You know, I'm annoyed by the prevalence of topic-based (PHP) message boards on the internet. They are harmful to free thinking and intelligent discussion. It's natural for discussion to flow and jump from one topic to another. Imposing artificial bans on what is said where really bothers me (except notoriously incendiary topics like religion and politics).

I much prefer old-school forums based on newsgroups, usenet, and Disqus (but I hate the fact the last one is centrally controlled, slow, and very heavy on user tracking)

Quote from: DariusWolfe on June 27, 2017, 10:26:02 PM
I am generally in agreement with your proposal to ban political discussion; My only caveat is as noted: Where the discussion of politics is actually related to Rimworld.

Also, I agree that speech is speech (and writing, and recordings, films, TV, movies, etc); Spending money may be a statement, but it is not itself speech, and shouldn't be protected in the same fashion; Nor do I think corporations should enjoy the same freedoms as actual citizens, given that the whole point of a corporation is to limit legal liability to persons. A corporation should enjoy some freedoms of speech, but not the same as actual citizens.

I also learned a while ago that there are people I try to limit discourse with, on any topic.

Edit: Hell, to be honest I'd go even further and propose the removal of the Off-Topic forum entirely, though I doubt that'd get any traction.

I'm pretty sure honestly that the moderators are capable more than enough to discern between legit, game-related talk and between posts that have clear intent for becoming political. Also, I support this proposal 100%, although I fear it would probably mean ridiculously much more work for the moderators.

I'm going to put it out here as well that one option is to do just have "political" subsection in offtopic which would be locked away completely from people who have not reached past a certain amount of activity in forums (measured by amount of posts). Biggest issue with that, that I can foresee, is that it might encourage even more political talk which means even more content that likely requires absurd amount of moderation.

But if only options is to not have political discussions vs. status quo, I'm completely for non-political discussions only. And this is coming from a person who engages in them often (mostly because I read some woo which I must correct) and enjoys them. There's better places for political discussions IMO and, keeping this as friendly as possible to what seems like constantly growing audience, will probably mean that this issue has to be dealt in one way or another.

Quote from: Kegereneku on June 26, 2017, 06:33:39 PM,
Discussion (of any sort) aren't the problem. Beside it would be hard, if not impossible to ban a specific range without encroaching upon good topic.

1. It's not impossible and has been done before. Check the second post by Fluffy, which already gave two examples of biggest gaming communities (Steam and WoW).

2. Talking about only costs while ignoring benefits is pointless. There are benefits of not allowing political topics at all. For one, moderators would likely have easier time after people adjust to it and for two, some of these topics deal with issues that touch people personally and that might disencourage those people from, say, creating good topics in these forums. And let's give a third as well: this sort of stuff can lead to degradation of reputation of a gaming community in general. I've seen some people here writing certain posts that kind of make me wonder what would happen if they were far more vocal.

Quote from: Fluffy (l2032) on June 26, 2017, 04:50:25 AM
For reference;

Would this infringe on free speech rights?
https://www.quora.com/Is-moderation-in-forums-violating-Americans-right-to-free-speech
(https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-6effe40de36f0f142913f85e3638d867.webp)
Answer; no.

Do other forums do this?
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4045-USHJ-3810
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/2228414323
Answer; both Steam and WoW, probably the two single largest gaming communities, already do so. I haven't looked at others.

I would like to state, WoW administrators dont give two shits about political discussion. Have you ever payed attention to trade chat for any length of time? Give it 10 to 20 minutes tops, and theres a political argument, nothing comes of it

Quote from: mumblemumble on June 27, 2017, 10:25:04 PM
You might say that fluffy, but honestly I care not what you say, I care about what rule is put in place

If it was indeed a blanket statement, would you then not agree your statement about corporations being people would ALSO be a political statement that should be banned? What about calling it ridiculous?

These are both political statements too, and would fall under your ban you are proposing. Yet you aren't even leading by example.

Fair enough, I care about the rule put into place (or not put into place) as well. You're right, that statement would be political, and would not be allowed. I'm not leading by example because there is no ban yet, and I was replying to another poster.

That said, let's keep this on topic.

May I add another option? I've been living in a strange political situation on Brazil that a single sentence can start a Riot in the big cities, or at least small fights between two political parties. Banning the discussion is something that would only be considered in extreme cases (Like Tynan post an update notice and people start talking about "Political/Religious Stuff")

I'd vote for the option of flagging the discussion with "Sensitive Topic" or something like that. I for one jumped into many discussions, but skipped many others since they were too time consuming.

Also, I like the way the devs are handling many cases right now, splitting the topics and etc. It may lose some sense, but I believe it is one of the better ways.

TL;DR - Make a Flag for sensitive content, keep the rest as it is.

Quote from: mellowautomata on June 28, 2017, 04:29:29 AM

Quote from: Kegereneku on June 26, 2017, 06:33:39 PM,
Discussion (of any sort) aren't the problem. Beside it would be hard, if not impossible to ban a specific range without encroaching upon good topic.

1. It's not impossible and has been done before.

1. I can agree with your first but that's only because I believe said "ban" more like a promise of stricter Moderation. Many community who forbid X topic rarely do. Nobody report it to the moderator and when those do remark it, it only lead to ban for reasons that apply even to politically-minded forum.
Discussing politic isn't bad, letting some person believe it mean "I can call for hate against people I don't like", that is bad.

2. Talking about only costs while ignoring benefits is pointless.
That's not me quoting you, that's my answer. There are benefit allowing political topic just the same. You do not want to discourage someone making a topic about a Game with politically oriented context (or say criticizing a game for its cheap/bad use of politics)
The Moderator have the same jobs as always, no matter the topic: keep the discussion civil and fun for everybody.

My third is a wonder about what it would give if we replaced "political discussion" in the polls by the name of some of those vocal troublemaer (like that arrogant Kegereneku, not that I have anything against him).

Quote from: DaemonDeathAngel on June 28, 2017, 06:16:42 AM
I would like to state, WoW administrators dont give two shits about political discussion. Have you ever payed attention to trade chat for any length of time? Give it 10 to 20 minutes tops, and theres a political argument, nothing comes of it

That depends on whenever it is reported or not. And it is different at times — I do remember that back before presidential elections in US, /2 was full of political stuff and nobody seemed to get banned. But I've also seen guildies getting banned for engaging into them at other times.

Quote from: Kegereneku on June 28, 2017, 03:10:00 PM
Discussing politic isn't bad, letting some person believe it mean "I can call for hate against people I don't like", that is bad.

Problem with this approach is that there will be likely lot of differences between what people think should be moderated and what not. So by moderating specific messages will likely not work out well because others will interpret arbitrarily however they want. To some degree, this risk also exists with moderating political topics completely, but it's still much easier in comparison to moderating only certain kinds of replies that belong to the category of "political".

Quote from: Kegereneku on June 28, 2017, 03:10:00 PM
You do not want to discourage someone making a topic about a Game with politically oriented context (or say criticizing a game for its cheap/bad use of politics)

Honestly, I doubt that there is much of a danger to this. It's game-related discussion. Take in for example a forum I am a regular user of; KVR forum. As I mentioned earlier in my first post to this thread, they have an actual subforum for political topics, "Hyde Park Corner". Does that mean that they do not have political topics at all outside? Quite on the contrary. For example copyright laws are often discussed there, critiqued or defended and so on, outside of Hyde Park Corner. Despite the topic being political, it is very relevant to music production, hence it's allowed elsewhere. Same principle can be used here: political topics that belong completely to offtopic and have no relation to Ludeon themselves, could be prohibited.

Quote from: Kegereneku on June 28, 2017, 03:10:00 PM
The Moderator have the same jobs as always, no matter the topic: keep the discussion civil and fun for everybody.

This might sound nitpicking, but rules have this exact function and they can be changed if it seen that changing the rules serve the community better.

Quote from: mellowautomata on June 28, 2017, 03:57:35 PMProblem with this approach is that there will be likely lot of differences between what people think should be moderated and what not.

Just like there is lot of difference between what "political discussion" people will agree to see bannedmoderated away and what they will find frustrating to not be able to mention.

Moderators don't have the time to check if any discussion is getting too political and if they did it would risk being too overbearing, leading to complaint if no one can't even discuss the news between person who are mature and rational enough to appreciate it.

In the end it would only average as stricter rules and I'm all for it. It's not because a topic fuel great discussion that it doesn't have limit we should never cross.
I think we do actually agree on this, so I won't bore you with forced antagonism.

Maybe instead we could get a forum thread JUST for politics, so politics is potentially removed from "unwanted places" and is still allowed?

Also to clarify the comment on freedom of speech, its not that fluffy is advocating the removal of my first amendment right, its that my ability to EXERCISE it would be removed here

A right is pointless if it cannot be exercised, which is why I'm saying he would be removing that freedom : currently I have a freedom to post such things on here, and this freedom to post  this here would be stripped away with this rule. This doesn't mean my first amendment right is completely revoked but it DOES mean my overall "freedom" is diminished within the scope of this website.

Either way though, banning political discussion on the website would be an absolute nightmare : people getting posts edited, removed, possibly banned for legit discussion, and disagreements abound about what is / is not political, or if it was relevant to a topic if it indeed can be viewed. Heck, hypothetically if rimworld got banned in a country, debating THAT would be political, but also incredibly on topic...

This slope is super slippery guys.

Quote from: Kegereneku on June 28, 2017, 05:01:38 PM
Just like there is lot of difference between what "political discussion" people will agree to see bannedmoderated away and what they will find frustrating to not be able to mention.

As I said earlier, I do not think that this will be a significant problem because there already exists communities which fare just fine (such as KVR example). It's much easier to consider general categories with some quantifiable measure than it is to consider completely qualitative categories. And, there is no need to not allow game related talk that might touch politics one way or another. That talk should be still about the game itself, not about politics. The immigration topic for example, has obviously no relation to this game, to Ludeon, to gaming industry. It's just one person who is seeking inflammatory political debates with a clear purpose. It's very easy to distinguish such a topic from a topics that clearly are about the game, for example.

Quote from: Kegereneku on June 28, 2017, 05:01:38 PM
Moderators don't have the time to check if any discussion is getting too political and if they did it would risk being too overbearing, leading to complaint if no one can't even discuss the news between person who are mature and rational enough to appreciate it.

Report function is useful here to direct their attention where it's due. And if these rational people want to discuss politics, then there's always PM's and other forums where they can do that.

Also let me make it clear: I do not think that you have to enforce the rule with a heavy banhammer. Topics can be deleted only, temporary bans that last for 1 day can be given and after multiple attempts, these bans could extend more. Some games, such as Path of Exile, have (mostly) good policy for muting for example: first offense you will be muted for just one day. Within 6 months, if you get muted again, that will be extended and the period again resets (so within next 6 months, if you get muted again, that time will increase and it will reset again et cetera). 6 months sounds kind of steep though, but even 1 month period will probably be enough.

Do you really want us to count and classify topic which do not have a explicit relation to
a)video game
b)Rimworld/Ludeon
c)Ludeon game
Here? Isn't it the whole point of an OFF-TOPIC forum?

Private Message do not let new persons join in the discussion and doesn't let other people just read it and learn new point of view. That's why we create all sort of topic here and ignore all other topics that do not interest ourselves like we do all the time.
But if you still notice a problem to difficult to ignore? Well yes the Report function is useful, in fact I would say it's all that's needed:
Step one: Identify the problem making you annoyed by (say) political discussion
Step two: click report, explaining concisely the reason it make you want to quit the forum
Step three: Let the Moderator decide if there's something wrong.

I did it myself, and it did work. I would do it again but from me it might look biased.

Quote from: Kegereneku on June 28, 2017, 06:14:24 PM
Do you really want us to count and classify topic which do not have a explicit relation to
a)video game
b)Rimworld/Ludeon
c)Ludeon game
Here? Isn't it the whole point of an OFF-TOPIC forum?

...and are political in nature. Which most of topics right now as I'm checking in offtopic, are not.

Quote from: Kegereneku on June 28, 2017, 06:14:24 PM
Private Message do not let new persons join in the discussion and doesn't let other people just read it and learn new point of view. That's why we create all sort of topic here and ignore all other topics that do not interest ourselves like we do all the time.
But if you still notice a problem to difficult to ignore? Well yes the Report function is useful, in fact I would say it's all that's needed:
Step one: Identify the problem making you annoyed by (say) political discussion
Step two: click report, explaining concisely the reason it make you want to quit the forum
Step three: Let the Moderator decide if there's something wrong.

I did it myself, and it did work. I would do it again but from me it might look biased.

I'm not going to report anyone just because their topic is completely political when it's not explicitly stated, that political topics are not allowed. I might think the post is made by a cryptofascist promoting his ideas in obscure way (which is very often the way they do it), the moderator might also agree with this, but the moderator can't legitimately just ban the person and/or delete the topic / post on those grounds. If political discussions are banned all the same, then there's no real need to wonder whenever it's a cryptofash promoting hatred against humanity in obscure way, because it's still political.

And as for people not being able to join the discussion, well, that's why you wanna do that discussion elsewhere then. There's numerous of places where you can have political discussions freely to your hearts desire. This is a forum for an audience of a specific game. There is no innate need to allow completely political discussions here that are irrelevant to the game, it doesn't really limit anyones freedom of speech because, again, this isn't the necessary place for such discussions. Of course, that is left to the discretion of the people who actually get to decide what this place is or isn't, but there is no principal issue here with not allowing political discussion.

This entire thing boils down to this. If you cant keep your cool, and refrain from being a whiney little asshat when someone else has a differing opinion from you, then you need to leave the internet, or society in general, until a point which you can be respectful of others rights to their own opinions, and can have an open discussion involving somethig which effects everyone, calmly.

Be an adult, not an entitled little nancy boy/girl/what ever the fuck you are.

Quote from: DaemonDeathAngel on June 28, 2017, 06:59:10 PM
This entire thing boils down to this. If you cant keep your cool, and refrain from being a whiney little asshat when someone else has a differing opinion from you, then you need to leave the internet, or society in general, until a point which you can be respectful of others rights to their own opinions, and can have an open discussion involving somethig which effects everyone, calmly.

Be an adult, not an entitled little nancy boy/girl/what ever the fuck you are.

I would like to add onto that, don't enter into a discussion if you refuse to read what other people say : this is a huge problem, where people ignore other peoples valid points then act like they are wrong.

If you want to debate, DEBATE

if you are going to half ass it, get lost.

this has been an issue for a long time on here, people accusing others of racism, sexism, homophobia, or any others in a laundry list of labels as an argument, and then refusing to address the points brought forward.

You cannot say someone has an invalid point if you refuse to address the point brought forward.

Quote from: DaemonDeathAngel on June 28, 2017, 06:59:10 PM
This entire thing boils down to this. If you cant keep your cool, and refrain from being a whiney little asshat when someone else has a differing opinion from you, then you need to leave the internet, or society in general, until a point which you can be respectful of others rights to their own opinions, and can have an open discussion involving somethig which effects everyone, calmly.

Be an adult, not an entitled little nancy boy/girl/what ever the fuck you are.

Sounds to me like you're having a hard time with people in this thread who have an opinion that differs from your own opinion

Quote from: mellowautomata on June 28, 2017, 07:29:07 PM

Quote from: DaemonDeathAngel on June 28, 2017, 06:59:10 PM
This entire thing boils down to this. If you cant keep your cool, and refrain from being a whiney little asshat when someone else has a differing opinion from you, then you need to leave the internet, or society in general, until a point which you can be respectful of others rights to their own opinions, and can have an open discussion involving somethig which effects everyone, calmly.

Be an adult, not an entitled little nancy boy/girl/what ever the fuck you are.

Sounds to me like you're having a hard time with people in this thread who have an opinion that differs from your own opinion

Not at all, because if you have an obscenely retarded opinion, I tend to drop the discussion, or ignore you, specifically when it pertains to polotics or religion.

If you have an opinion, and viable information to back said opinion, I am more than willing to listen and discuss my thoughts on it.

That being said, if you are going to be a fuckhead and be all "KEK, I HAZ OPINION BECAUSE OTHERS TOLD ME TO, AND MY FRIENDS DO EET TEW" Then Im going to have to be forced to call you an idiot that cant think for themselves, and ignore you.

Seeing as I have a pretty damn good understanding of how the US Government works, seeing as I worked for them in multiple fields.

Quote from: DaemonDeathAngel on June 28, 2017, 07:48:28 PM
Not at all, because if you have an obscenely retarded opinion, I tend to drop the discussion, or ignore you, specifically when it pertains to polotics or religion.

See, to me it sounds like you're saying that OP proposition is bad because hey, you can just drop the discussion and ignore it. That's kind of pointless reasoning given that OP didn't say that political discussions shouldn't be allowed because you can't personally avoid them. That's not the reasoning that was given by OP. Let me quote:

Quote from: Fluffy (l2032) on June 26, 2017, 07:10:57 PM
Given that the subject of politics more often than not leads to a discussion with neither end nor merit, it's much simpler for everyone involved to just blanket ban political discussions. There are many forums on the internet devoted to these discussions, and gaming forums aren't (or at least shouldn't be) one of them.

And I for one agree with this. I've read and participated on countless of debates in countless political topics. This is exactly my experience of them. No end nor merit.

Quote from: milon on June 27, 2017, 02:05:41 PM
If we ban political discussions, then it's because we think it's doesn't need to be discussed (or at least, not here).  If we think we don't need to talk about it here, it's because we think it's unimportant.  If we think it's unimportant, it's because it has no impact on us personally.  And if it has no impact on us personally, it's because we're both privileged and disconnected from the non-privileged.  And I think that's unacceptable for any community of people.

Let me provide some reasoning, as a person who has wasted so much of my life into this stuff. This post is long as you can see and I hope that you can bear with it. There's multiple of points I'm going to make. The main argument is that there are other reasons to ban political discussions than to say that they are not important. But, as for actual points I'm trying to make, they will be about why political discussion in contemporary western world might not be all you hope it to be.

So, do these political debates actually do anything? According to my experiences, no. They're absolutely trash and useless. I know this sounds outlandish — I mean, most of us live in supposedly democratic countries and the leading principle of democracy is that people have more or less rational discussions with each other and, you know, mutually come to conclusions at the end of the discussions, be they friendly debates or whatever. But I can tell you right now that somewhere along the way, we got off from that path and never returned.

These political debates far more often than not are malicious in their nature, especially ones that touch actual lives of people that, you know, are unhappy about stuff. You see, it's not at all about understanding and relating to others, now it's all about imposing your worldview on others. A person who lived in poverty will probably be concerned about poverty in future, a person who didn't, is far less likely to be concerned about poverty in qualitative terms. They don't really understand whats it like and it never will get through them. Some petty political discussions about poverty will not change this, they still won't get it. They're going to give that good 'ol talk about how it's a matter of choices you make and, in the end, you need to be content with the outcomes they give.

Or lets say me. Am I really concerned about how tragic it is for a rich person to pay larger amounts of taxes even in relative terms? Not really, I don't care in the slightest, I can't even begin to imagine what on earth could be so horrible about that. If they say, for example, that they are going to move into another country unless the taxes get lower, I'll just regard that as their petty attempt to make threats to public so that they could remain in their overly privileged positions. I don't really care whenever there's any legitimate concerns about them being taxed more. Now to avoid offtopic: I don't care about debating this at all. My point is, it's about imposing your worldview on others, not about relating.

Okay, that aside, there is more to debates obviously. A lot of people, after all, agree that for example we should have less poverty no matter how terribly they understand poverty in the first place. And as luck would have it, we can always present facts to each other and convince each other. No, I'm just kidding. Actually, you can prove pretty much any position you want if you know how to navigate in google (or google scholar) with proper keywords. Because there will be plenty of facts that go either way really, especially when they are statistical. So how it actually works is either that one of us will post a statistical fact and then, the other one will either counter that by accessing the methodology used to conclude at that statistic or question the interpretation of that statistic, question the data of that statistic, question the assumptions required for the inference et cetera or... just effortlessly google to come up with a countering fact. Maybe question the authority? Maybe appeal to authority? Oh and let's not forget that I've encountered endless amounts of people who just seem to not understand that forming an opinion based on statistics always involves an interpretation of the statistics. So there are loads and loads of people who seem to think treat their venerable opinions as facts, because they base them on statistics.

Really, you can go endless, seriously endless amounts to this. There will always be something. I've literally argued with members of Ministry of Finance in my country, only to have them admit, that they really don't know "but what else can we do?" in regards to their research and methodology being terrible and in particular that they don't admit it to the policymakers because else wise they would hesitate far more if the researchers were honest in terms of how reliable their research is. As if some Mayans arguing that human sarcifices may be terrible, but it's the best we can do.

There's even one stellar example, Rogoff and Reinhart controversy. I'm not going to go through it, you can read about that here (http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-reinhart-and-rogoff-controversy-a-summing-up). However, I am going to say that despise that controversy going public and being a huge embarrassment to the duo, nothing happened. Nobody apologized for basing policymaking with completely biased research. They are still influential, despite the fact that their "mistakes" were rather too grave to be just accidental humane mistakes. And as that article states, their result was bit too convenient.

But just like the bosses in Dark Souls, this isn't all there is to it. There's two more modern trends that are going to make things even "better" for us. One is fakenews and one is clickbait news. I think most of us knows what fake news are. Certain news outlets that are all about promoting certain ideology with no slightest regard to journalistic integrity. They do not use any kind of legitimate sources for their claims. Debating with people who rely on these is the best thing ever. Ask for a source, you get a source that's bullshit. Point it out and tell them to try again. You get another source that is equally bad. And the endless cycle continues.

The way fake news operate is simple: they allow practically anyone to write content in them and their content has no other standards than that it has to conform to certain ideology. They don't really care about truth, because they already know what the truth is and hence they're out there to spread the good word with disregard for anything else. And because anyone can write, there will be endless amount of content and hence, endless amount of sources for people who buy into it. These people won't even read whats in them, they just click on it, copy the link and that's all. And best part is? At worst, these sites don't even pay for their content creators, they just literally hire anyone who fits the bill to write whatever they want, because there's no shortage of young activists who want others to understand the truth.

There's also another kind of fakenews, let's say, a more liberal variant. This one is harder to explain shortly as it requires some more nuance. (https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/11/explaining-it-all) Lot of this actually is about that previous theme where you obfuscate facts with opinions because, hey, there are statistics out there.

Clickbait news? We all know about them too. But the thing is, it's not only normal news outlets. A lot of popular science is ridden with this and it makes searching for science related news at times way too difficult. Most often they operate by highly exaggerating finds of some study that found some correlation of almost insignificant magnitude between two things. Heck, sometimes the study doesn't even have to do anything with your clickbait. A study may say that positive attitude can benefit patients with chronic diseases. And common wisdom may say that men like seeing breasts. Bingo. (https://www.maxim.com/maxim-man/stare-at-boobs-to-live-longer-2017-3) (Exaggerated case, sure, but basically anything that doesn't resemble a peer-reviewed journal has a huge risk to contain this sort of journalism, no matter how "sciencey" it appears to be. To say that this sort of journalism doesn't care about what is true or not, is an understatement. It's also good to note that many news outlets actually practice both variants (fakenews and clickbaiting).

All in all, I'd say there are absolutely no prospects for political discussions or debates to be had. Saying that this kind of content is not the kind of content you want in a forum, for example, is not categorically equal to that of saying that political topics are not important. They might very well be, but we've already lost our ability to deal with them. I really don't know how people in ancient Greece managed to debate, but then again, empirical science and free will wooery wasn't what they were about anyway. They had the luxury of discussing through mythology and interpreting it and we can only envy the simple brilliance of that. The privilege aspect needs not to apply here if the actual reasoning isn't just a simple "we don't care". Ask yourself: how many times you have participated or witnessed a political discussion that was fruitful? Sure, maybe you feel like you've seen that at least a couple of times. But then ask yourself: how many times you've witnessed them overall? If that is significantly higher amount than the fruitful ones, then you know where the issue lies in.

Saddest thing is? I have merely merely scraped (http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124) the surface (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797611417632) here (https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2015083pap.pdf).

EDIT: Okay, obviously I am a pessimist. Maybe there are future prospects to be had, but this post is me casting huge doubts on that based on personal experience, personal observations and general accounts of how things are in realm of science that relates to policymaking which, in the western world, dominates public debates about policymaking, as values are seen meaningless; it's all about facts.

I don't think anything should be discussed in a thread if it derails that thread from it's topic. Be it political, religious, philosophical, or geological, if it is on topic, then it is appropriate. Let's do our best to keep the official topic in mind when we post in a thread.
Nobody will see anything that upsets them if people stay on topic and everyone avoids threads with what they find to be potentially upsetting topics. 1) STAY ON TOPIC and 2)DON'T CLICK ON THE THREAD IF THE TOPIC MAY UPSET YOU. No need to ban any (law abiding) topics! Am I being too idealistic?
Although I do wish that the person who starts a thread could ban individuals from their thread. I don't need Kegereneku comin' around my threads with his fancy accent and his foreign ideas! Oops, I went a little off the topic there :P

Political isn't the problem, Partisan is really. When sides are so polarized that they cause a ruckus. Then start insulting one another personally.

Talking about news, policy, and government are all political subjects more often than not. And banning something because people got angry over how the world is or isn't doesn't really make much sense.

Some people are just looking to cause trouble anyway. If two kids were insulting one another on Dogs vs Cats. Does that mean we should ban all talk about animals and pets?

Yes, to prevent more mumble mumble.

Mumble-type people aren't a problems, you just need to apply basics rules against deliberate sophistry (you win an internet if you already know the meaning of the world) and propaganda that goes against the most basics. HUMAN'S RIGHT.

Don't roll eyes. It doesn't take any degree to see when someone is deceiving you. It's up to us to decide if this is one of those "bad thing".
There is grey areas, but we've been denying this as a problem so long we don't recognize when something is burning black.
That's why there's a sudden wake up from social network remembering that "free speech" can be turned into a tool to impose an idea.

For example, if we were to censor "political discussion" without acknowledging that EVERYTHING can be made political. Then we will all lose.
Why? Because being honest and recognizing a topic is "political/complex" will get it censored before any good come of it.
Meanwhile trolls, fascist, and just plain liars will simply keep spreading their bias & beliefs into any trivia, confident that anybody will avoid refuting their bullshit so as to not get a normal topic censored.

Another example, honest people will avoid exaggeration or playing the popularity card.
Dishonest people will create an army of bots to support and spread their messages. You may disagree with them, but you wouldn't go against the wish of the majority do you? (btw, if you are to believe website like TheGuardian (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy), this method have been used to influence at least 2% of the vote for Brexit)

It's a shame, but one of the cost of anonymity on the internet is to allow multiple kind of social-engineering

Final note : Everything I've said definitely fit "political" stuff. And I'm definitely walking in the grey area between rhetoric and sophistry (phrasing this entire post as if a fact, rather than opinion). Would you censor this post? Do you think I'm deceiving people?

ps: I'm on fire right now.