Poll on Patricipants

[Ray]

Happy Easter, Berthold.

Yes, your English is apparently the issue, but it's your understanding of my statements, not the other way around.

I have no interest in restricting anyone.

I enjoy hearing others' opinions, as it exposes me to points of view I may not have considered. I may-, or may not agree with them, but for the most part, I try to consider them different, not right or wrong.

What I object to the most is the name calling and insulting characterization of others in the manner that has developed in this context.

I still think it's preposterous to equate a despotic, dictatorial country with a privately owned forum.

 

[Berthold]

I have no interest in restricting anyone.
I enjoy hearing others' opinions, as it exposes me to points of view I may not have considered...

I still think it's preposterous to equate a despotic, dictatorial country with a privately owned forum.

I did not equate a dictatorial country with a private forum but I show a similarity in one point between this both institutions if some users of the forum postulate a ban of all off topic discussions which they are not interested in.

But if You change Your mind in between we are on the right way.

If You don't understand my post, it's my English of course. In that case I suggest to proceed discussion in German.

 

[Tom Reddick]

I don't think it is a question of banning off-topic discussions in which many are not interested. In fact I would argue politics is tricky because everyone is interested- often very deeply- and thus you run a higher risk of conversations becoming unpleasant and eventually ruining the overall quality of the forum. Plus, as fibre alluded to, you have the even greater audience that sees something they find offensive and either comes to the forum less often, or never again converses with the person who offended them. You will never hear that person complain- but they will quietly spend less and less time on the forum, and eventually you have a serious problem.

In my experience- and I say this more generally because while the political forum here can certainly get heated, it is not nearly as unpleasant as many I have seen- political pages on hobby forums tend to require the greatest amount of active work by moderators and also create tensions and animosities that can spill over into other hobby-related parts of the forum. And at the end of the day, the discussions in political forums do not even have anything to do with the original purpose of the forum.

I see your and Secundino's points, and in a perfect world every hobby forum could have a number of off-topic pages where just about anything can be discussed. But in practical terms it just seems to not work with politics.

And even having such a forum carefully moderated can create trouble as people who are having their posts edited or deleted will often- again in my general experience- start accusing moderators of using censorship to promote their own political agendas or to play favorites.

I have not cast a formal vote, and will remain here happily either way, but just wanted to point out some of the reasons why it is worth considering whether a private forum with a specific hobby mission should have a political page.

It certainly does not happen in real life. Most hobby groups I have belonged to where you have meetings in person have a mission statement or charter which specifies the purpose of the group. And usually there is a specific statement that at no time may members make use of the group's mailing list, newsletter or public meeting times to engage in any political activity whatsoever. That is in part because it could result in the revocation of a group's tax exempt status, but also to keep the focus very clearly on the group providing a place where anyone can come and freely discuss and share the hobby without interference.

 

[Berthold]

In my experience- and I say this more generally because while the political forum here can certainly get heated, it is not nearly as unpleasant as many I have seen- political pages on hobby forums tend to require the greatest amount of active work by moderators and also create tensions and animosities that can spill over into other hobby-related parts of the forum. And at the end of the day, the discussions in political forums do not even have anything to do with the original purpose of the forum.

Tom I agree with Your post.

My view is following:
In my orchid forum we have a big part of off topics. It has more than 100000 posts which means nearly 1/3 of all.
We are interested in users with scientific base and a wide general education and knowledge and interests.
Over a longer time it is too boring for me to discuss only orchid problem with users I know via forum for many years already.

So the off topic area is divided in
- politics
- economy
- science and technology
- art and culture
- feuilleton

I can assure You there are a lot of hot discussions, also with severe problems of insults which is illegal in German forums.

To keep everything cool it really needs a hight qualified moderation by persons with wide knowledge and good nerves.
Biggest problem is to find out in a struggle the originator. There always is only one originator at the beginning.
It is not a successful moderation to give all participants a warning. That normally extends the problem.
In all the time of about 10 years we didn't have to ban a single user but some users left the forum by themselves.

So, if You want a forum with general interesting off topic discussions the first step is improve the moderation.
Exception are pet threads.There are only 2 types of post:
1. That's a cutey
2. oh my dear, I am so sorry.

p.s. Sorry for my English, but mostly the problem is not the language, the problem is located between the ears.

 

[Tom Reddick]

My view is following:
In my orchid forum we have a big part of off topics. It has more than 100000 posts which means nearly 1/3 of all.
We are interested in users with scientific base and a wide general education and knowledge and interests.
Over a longer time it is too boring for me to discuss only orchid problem with users I know via forum for many years already.

Good deal- if I understand correctly what you are saying is that you and many users prefer to have a place where they can not only talk orchids, but a bunch of other things all in the same place versus having to hop around to different forums or stop and think every time if it is okay to post something or not.

If that is what you are saying- I see your point. The concept of the forum as more of a social interactive place than a specific place to discuss a specific hobby and nothing else.

That seems to be the question that faces many forums I guess- at least when it comes to having politics be a topic.

 

[ehanes7612]

I understand Berthold's desire too...but the fact of the matter is...there are only a handful of people who engage in the politics section..it's not useful as a tool in any scope of a social experiment

 

[Berthold]

If that is what you are saying- I see your point. The concept of the forum as more of a social interactive place than a specific place to discuss a specific hobby and nothing else.

That is correct.

 

[Berthold]

I understand Berthold's desire too...but the fact of the matter is...there are only a handful of people who engage in the politics section..

There is not only politics. There is also:

- economy
- science and technology
- enviroment
- art and culture
- feuilleton
- other curiosities of the life

In which of these fields are You interested? I could tell You a lot about holocaust, what You don't know, I guess.

 

[Heather]

I just want to be very clear here. I have no issue re-opening the politics forum. The issue I have is dealing with moderating it when it gets out of hand. It is indeed the hardest section to moderate. Again, we could password protect it and you guys could go at it all you want but I don’t want to hear about it when it gets nasty.

I’ve now both lost and gained members as a result of closing it, same as last year when we started it.

I have very little interest in running this forum at all anymore, frankly, but I’m still doing it to keep this place going for those of you who enjoy it and because the members still support it. I personally don’t care one way or another, but if the forum is going to survive, the interest of the forum is to have the most supporting members.

The only reason I am still running the forum is because the only people interested in taking it over wanted to ban off topic discussions and I refuse to turn the forum over to someone that would jeopardize the integrity of the forum.

 

[ehanes7612]

There is not only politics. There is also:

- economy
- science and technology
- enviroment
- art and culture
- feuilleton
- other curiosities of the life

In which of these fields are You interested? I could tell You a lot about holocaust, what You don't know, I guess.

all of that is covered in 'tell me about it'

 

[Berthold]

all of that is covered in 'tell me about it'

No, politics is not part of that.

 

[ehanes7612]

No, politics is not part of that.

yes, I know

 

[Berthold]

Oh I see, You are Not interested in politics

 

[ehanes7612]

I am not interested in conversing with you anymore...you turn EVERYTHING into politics...so until you leave this earth ..I totally support no politics on ST

 

[troy]

Who posts the most about politics?? Or is totally devoted to move everybody to one specific side or shut them out, and insult them??? One or more should ask themselves!!! Thats the problem......

 

[ehanes7612]

'totally devoted' ??? I think you overestimate people's intentions here. I don't see anyone 'totally devoted' to anything on here except for people just wanting to keep ST around (for the orchid's sake) and of course Berthold's devotion ...which is fine, although if he has an orchid forum that is so diverse in Germany, why is he pushing so hard for this here??? I dont get it...and TBH..Slippertalk is not, by any means, important to the narrative of political speakeasy or anything besides orchids ( I have by far more significant non orchid social interactions on Facebook and face to face)..I have always held this opinion..there are plenty of other forums to get your political rockers off ..the importance of this aspect of ST is way overblown, SEVERELY OVERBLOWN. I find it silly that we are even having this conversation. Maybe peopel should ask themselves how insignificant they will feel if the political section is taken away permanently..I could care less myself because I have a life. Anyway, I have said enough, wasting my energy here

 

[Tom-DE]

Political guys always like to blame on others but themselves...no surprise here!
As long as someone(you know who!) is trolling the politic forum or trying to say the last word on any topics, the chaotic situation will stay. I find the chaos(especially created by idgits) quite amusing from time to time, but if I vote, I would vote to shut it down for good.

 

[Tom Reddick]

I just want to be very clear here. I have no issue re-opening the politics forum. The issue I have is dealing with moderating it when it gets out of hand. It is indeed the hardest section to moderate. Again, we could password protect it and you guys could go at it all you want but I don’t want to hear about it when it gets nasty.

I’ve now both lost and gained members as a result of closing it, same as last year when we started it. [/b]

In case it is helpful Heather, tonight I went to my main wine forum and signed into the special political forum, plus I read through the sticky post at the top with the rules and history.

Your idea I think is the best since that extra step to log into it will help keep people from casually wandering in there and maybe getting turned off.

On the wine board, where I have been an active member for 9 years, I tend to know who everyone is that posts regularly. In the politics section I was surprised to see a number of users with thousands, or even tens of thousands of posts, that I do not recall ever seeing post in the main wine forums. So, it clearly attracts users who may be into wine- but want to talk politics. Note that this forum has a huge member base- well into the thousands and perhaps over 10,000- plus we who donate annually have a special designation by our user names. So there is quite a bit of money out there for the owner to potentially justify the extra moderation work.

Generally speaking it was fairly tame, though far more argumentative than insightful. I did note one good friend of mine who posts in the wine forums all the time and often gets ribbed or fussed at for being so argumentative. He is not usually like that in the wine section- but in politics... So there is some spillover effect of animosities coming out of the political forum- not significant, but noticeable.

Final note- a couple of times in the past decade the politics forum- even in this private form- was shut down completely because inevitably there are reported posts and requests for mods to get involved. So even isolated with a big warning that it is a Wild West zone- there is mod work.

But one final positive point- the existence of that forum keeps the politics well-isolated and gives the moderators all the justification and general group support they need to mercilessly delete anything remotely political anywhere else (and that does not have to happen too often.)

As I said before, I am good either way and will still support and participate in the forum. Just offering the above in hopefully very non-biased terms to show some of the pros and cons from a site where the political forum has existed for years.

 

[Berthold]

Slippertalk is not, by any means, important to the narrative of political speakeasy or anything besides orchids ( I have by far more significant non orchid social interactions on Facebook and face to face)..I have always held this opinion.

Very great :rollhappy:

It's exactly You who started the very most threads in the off topic area in this Forum, including from politics to climate change, nearly everything. I am only missing a pet thread from You. I started one.

I am interested in finding and discussing this things in a culture environment which differs from German language users. It is interesting for me what a real Trump hater and a real trump voter thinks.

The price I have to pay for that is meeting users like Tom-DE.

 

[Tom-DE]

The price I have to pay for that is meeting users like Tom-DE.

Dude, what is in your head now is far more ******-up than I thought....and FYI, I am not here to have a pissing contest with sickos like you.

Based on how often you've posted and how you have been interacting with others(picking fights), I can conclude that you want to be THE troll of the politic forum....You really don't have a life, do you?
PS, your English is lousier than my grandmother's German. and she only had a "PH.D" of home economics. when you improve your English, then we talk!