[Politics] Move all political threads to the bear pit?

[GT49er]

Great idea

Not really. Lately I've been browsing other clubs websites (to see how our loanees - and some of our recent departees - are getting on and being received at their new/temporary clubs). A lot of them do this - a section for xxxxFC football, another section for other club's football, maybe a section for non-football threads; in some cases a separate section for match day threads.

None of them are as interesting and vibrant as NSC. Mostly they don't have anything like the footfall of NSC either, uness you look at the likes of Chelsea or Spurs. Keep NSC as it is - just remove threads which become vitriolic, or spiteful echo chambers like the Brexit thread, to the Bear Pit good and quick.

How does that expression go? ...... If it ain't broke, don't ............. err ... whatever it says!

 

[BadFish]

With out having any idea of how much work it is for you, A third option of a politics site.

I would prefer they stay on the big board but this would be the next best option.

Putting them in the near pit would lead to more traffic in the near pit and more problematic posts in there. It is better as the barren waste land of a few posters screaming into the ether.

 

[BadFish]

It's probably possible, yes - but is it really necessary? There are threads I see most days on here and I just scroll past them - it ain't difficult and I certainly don't see it as a problem.

Exactly, it doesn't seem that hard.

 

[keaton]

This.

It won’t be hidden away.

NSC’s Tory or Labour haters will just be one click away from the echo, echo, echo chambers.

The Main Stuff will look a lot tidier, with a wider breadth of subject matter at first glance.

For them to be echo chambers everyone would have to be of the same view which is not the case otherwise they wouldn't be arguing

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I think a lot of people (myself included) are interested in politics but not politics on the internet. I will enjoy watching the BBC coverage this morning and have been watching the events of the past week in horror and had lots of discussion about it. The mistake I sometimes make is in contributing to a political debate on here and because the subject genuinely interests me but then running into rudeness that I don’t encounter in real life. The people that use NSC to behave in this way will bitterly defend these threads but that won’t change the way I feel about their presence on the main part of the forum.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I think a lot of people (myself included) are interested in politics but not politics on the internet. I will enjoy watching the BBC coverage this morning and have been watching the events of the past week in horror and had lots of discussion about it. The mistake I sometimes make is in contributing to a political debate on here and because the subject genuinely interests me but then running into rudeness that I don’t encounter in real life. The people that use NSC to behave in this way will bitterly defend these threads but that won’t change the way I feel about their presence on the main part of the forum.

Genuine questions (my interest here feedback, not antagonism). Why would you find it easy to ignore a sub-forum like the Bear Pit but not a thread with a title like "Liz Truss" on the main board? And, as a follow up, what then would your feelings be if you opened a thread with the "football" tag entitled "Gary Lineker" and found it to be a rant about his politics on Twitter?

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Genuine questions (my interest here feedback, not antagonism). Why would you find it easy to ignore a sub-forum like the Bear Pit but not a thread with a title like "Liz Truss" on the main board? And, as a follow up, what then would your feelings be if you opened a thread with the "football" tag entitled "Gary Lineker" and found it to be a rant about his politics on Twitter?

Easy questions to answer.
I have completely ignored the Liz Truss thread. I am very interested in the subject but from the economic debacle angle. I did make some economics comments on another thread (I think) but it doesn’t seem possible to make a point in isolation without being dragged into someone’s confirmation bias.
Ignoring a sub forum is easy because I never open them.
If I opened a thread on Gary Lineker and found it to be a rant about his political views on Twitter I would be irritated and likely as not close my NSC tab and do something else.
I’m not actually bothered what happens. It’s just that the conduct on the political threads does drive people away, which of course is not my concern.

 

[Seagull27]

I use NSC as my main news source, there's very few places like it for getting up-to-date info from multiple sources and opinions. I would therefore be quite disappointed if all political threads were moved to the bear pit as I think a lot of the decent posters would stop posting on them.

A subforum could work - and posters could use the "watched forums" tool to make sure they see posts from both the big board and politics if they wanted to. However, imo this would only work if the politics subforum was moderated in the same way as the big board, ie thread bans for tedious posters, bans for abusive/offensive posts, derailed threads moved to bear pit etc.

Personally I'd prefer it to remain as it is, but perhaps have stricter rules/moderation on posters who try to start political debate on threads that didn't start as political.

The "ignore threads" plugin would also be a great move. I would love to be able to ignore the "word association" thread, the Wordle thread, or countless ones for posting music videos. Clearly others find these interesting, but I'd prefer not to see them - I imagine others have the same view on political threads

 

[Bold Seagull]

Probably the people that don’t realise they are antagonists, don’t realise they have their own inherent confirmation bias, are the ones who get most upset when challenged in political debate. We all carry some form of bias, our upbringing, the context and belief system of our lives. If you are unable to acknowledge that in yourselves there is little chance of accepting other opinions in a debate if it’s only everyone else that has a bias.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I use NSC as my main news source, there's very few places like it for getting up-to-date info from multiple sources and opinions. I would therefore be quite disappointed if all political threads were moved to the bear pit as I think a lot of the decent posters would stop posting on them.

A subforum could work - and posters could use the "watched forums" tool to make sure they see posts from both the big board and politics if they wanted to. However, imo this would only work if the politics subforum was moderated in the same way as the big board, ie thread bans for tedious posters, bans for abusive/offensive posts, derailed threads moved to bear pit etc.

Personally I'd prefer it to remain as it is, but perhaps have stricter rules/moderation on posters who try to start political debate on threads that didn't start as political.

The "ignore threads" plugin would also be a great move. I would love to be able to ignore the "word association" thread, the Wordle thread, or countless ones for posting music videos. Clearly others find these interesting, but I'd prefer not to see them - I imagine others have the same view on political threads

Yes, an ignore thread facility would be a decent compromise.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Probably the people that don’t realise they are antagonists, don’t realise they have their own inherent confirmation bias, are the ones who get most upset when challenged in political debate. We all carry some form of bias, our upbringing, the context and belief system of our lives. If you are unable to acknowledge that in yourselves there is little chance of accepting other opinions in a debate if it’s only everyone else that has a bias.

You are a little bit obsessed and your very obvious snide comments on here and the political threads illustrate the point perfectly.

 

[nicko31]

Yes, an ignore thread facility would be a decent compromisE

Everyone already has an ignore thread facility in their brain, its not needed

 

[Bold Seagull]

You are a little bit obsessed and your very obvious snide comments on here and the political threads illustrate the point perfectly.

The thing is NB, you never realise how provocative and antagonistic you are. I’ll leave others to read back through your posts, but your response illustrates why you find debate difficult if it doesn’t agree with you.

 

[Bozza]

I would say either keep all politics topics here or get rid of all of them, I find it really odd that we have a Trump thread but the Biden thread was moved to Bear pit. I find it weird that we have threads about that scumbag Alex Jones on the Big Board but Insulate Britain protests are moved to Bear pit. What is the classification? It's weird.

It wasn’t the subject matter that triggered the shift it was the way the debate had unravelled.

But it’s wrong that discussions on such heavyweight topics that affect us all were becoming marginalised such that, say, anyone with a Brexit observation had to go into the Bear Pit and air it, risking abuse in return.

…so I’ve moved a few threads back to the main board.

 

[GrizzlingGammon]

I voted no, but if it means that the main board is purged of all non-Brighton and Hove Albion threads then I will change my vote.

I have no interest in rugby league/Union, counting to a million, and I stopped playing Wordle. I wish that I wasn't forced to open and read these when I visit NSC.

 

[sparkie]

I wish the count to a million, wordle, infinite jukebox etc. would have their own "dull amusement" sub forum then I don't have to see them clogging up the main board.

Actually, I'm making that up as I don't care, but it does illustrate that different people prefer different threads on the main board.

I reckon decent thread display filtering functionality is the way forward.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

The thing is NB, you never realise how provocative and antagonistic you are. I’ll leave others to read back through your posts, but your response illustrates why you find debate difficult if it doesn’t agree with you.

Precisely. And it is very difficult to ensure that one always comes across in the manner meant, in a word-based internet forum. I have misunderstood NB on several occasions but have learned how to 'filter' him now, I think.

Personally, I'm still stinging from being described as 'hoity toity' by a poster, 20 years ago.

 

[Seagull27]

Everyone already has an ignore thread facility in their brain, its not needed

It's certainly easy enough to scroll post threads you're not interested in, but it would be cleaner if you could remove them from view entirely, if you knew that you would never read it.

 

[Is it PotG?]

The one thing about the political threads is that they do reveal the real character and mettle, unlike many other more trivial threads.

On reflection, it's probably best to leave them in the rich smorgasbord otherwise a slight edge may go missing.

 

[hart's shirt]

The late, great Lord B always believed in light touch moderation and leaving most things on the Big Board.
I'm still in agreement here although things seem to have become much more polarized politically in the years since.
The Bear Pit serves a useful function of providing a separate area of the NSC playground or pub for particular discussion.
It's not hidden away. It's freely available for anyone to participate in should they so desire.

What we don't need is masses of similar political threads on the main board fouling stuff up.
A separate Covid subforum worked to both keep everything together and protect mental health by eliminating Big Board doomscrolling.
I'd argue that the current economic crisis and political instability regardless of allegiance is causing similar unhappiness.
At the risk of appearing nanny state, we need to protect people as much as possible here on NSC. It's an 'across the house' thing.
One thread works fine in plenty of other areas such as mental health, running, NFL, racing, infinite jukebox, etc.
If anyone is unable to argue civilly, then a temporary 'take a break' ban from the thread might be in order.

In short, I'd keep a general politics thread on the Big Board, so I'm voting 'no' for moving all political threads.
But anything else or specifics other than the Politics thread could move to a Politics subforum or the Bear Pit.