Gallant Pig

Yes since those often turn into political discussions on our government's policy. Burley's letters to the editors for example.

X

So you're proposing sort of a Current Events Forum then?

If wrestling were included it could be called the No Particular Skill Required Forum - Show Up, Rumble and Get Dirty.

Well, I guess you wouldn't have to include wrestling there.

Gallant Pig

=

Blade

Other is for talking about daily life topics that don't have a specific forum. Politics, like it or not, infuses your daily life. I don't see how you could really seperate politics from Other. All you would be doing is getting rid of the "hot button topics."

If the mods were that fed up with the hot button topics (and I wouldn't blame them if they were ), then they should just declare them off topic. Shunting them off to another forum won't change that, and will also further exagerate the different perspectives in the threads, as only those who really care about a topic will be looking around in a Politics forum. You'll lose the input of the mildly interested who click on "political" threads out of curiosity, or boredom and decide to add their own 2 cents.

Surf Monkey

No. Bad idea.

minifigg

Yes. That way I could be a liberal asking what people had for lunch in peace!

For a <strike>Conservative </strike> *cough* Political Sub-forum!
mini

minifigg

Yeah, but I am TIRED of going into a thread, adding my .04 and then being hounded for it in other threads.
If there was a sub forum, I would never go in there and could post again in peace.
mini

Groucho

Do we really need a political discussion forum? NO. In fact, I'd like to see a halt to political discussion altogether. In times like this, we need to all stand behind our president and give him all our support...and political dissidence is not the way to do that.

Surf Monkey

You're kidding right?

Bushdog

Given his posting style, I'm 99.99999% sure that yes, he's being sarcastic.

DodgingCars

Definately no. When the all othe other forums opened (music, books, sports, etc), Other received much less attention. The only posts in Other are: political, news, and jokes.

I certainly don't want to have to switch through another forum to read posts here.

Gallant Pig

The people against are the most vocal inside the thread, but they can't seem to claim the majority in the poll itself.

Gallant Pig

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I took a look at other and just to rebut that other is only political, news, and jokes. I put stars on ones I thought would be moved to the forum I am proposing. Of course, we could come up with a clearcut guideline of what topics are moved and what aren't so the mods don't need to spend any time deciding and so that users won't be confused in where to post what. If I counted right, 13/35 are moveable.

Geofferson

The political threads have gotten rather heated as of lately. I say YES to a sub-political forum where people posting in there know that it could get rather intense.

Having this will weed out all the political threads currently in Other and bring the fun back (or rather take the seriousness away) from Other as in the past.

However, at the same time it can be difficult deciphering which threads have political agendas and which do not. Many threads that start out non-political end up being very political. mini's Richard Gere thread example is a good example of this - however this thread turned political because of Gere's public opinion on politics, so it was sort of expected.

Surf Monkey

There's plenty of thread abuse going on that the mods never even touch though. I just got out of a thread in which a person was asking what to do about a stray cat. The cat was left out in the sub zero weather and this person was asking if people thought it was a good idea to try and bring the cat in or call the ASPCA. The third post in the thread started going on about how the cat was treated better than many women in Islamic nations. Now, I understand that it was supposed to be funny but it was a completely inappropriate attempt to bring a political spin into a thread that was anything but political. I thought that keeping this stuff in check was what mods were for. I think that a little tighter moderation is called for before splintering the forum.

RandyC

Sigh. And you must have quickly reported that post to a moderator? NO... YOU DID NOT. How in the hell do you expect all of us volunteers to know about every post? Frankly, SOMEONE ELSE did report it, and it was the first I knew of it, and I went and read the thread and agreed that the post was out of line. And I posted a warning in that thread, which IMO is enough.

But to assume that the moderators have the time to read every post is silly. If we did, there would be no need for the Report This Post to a Mod button. How many times do we have to tell people to use it?

Surf Monkey

Yikes! Sorry. I'll report it next time. I've reported things in the past and nothing ever happens. I assume that the mods thought that my report wasn't worth acting on but a confirmation of my report would have been nice. Since there was never any feedback I just gave up on reporting things.

RandyC

You are right most likely that a report was viewed and decided to not be acted on. It's still worth reporting, in that the mods see how the users feel about something, and if there is a trend developing, or maybe something the admins/mods need to discuss.

The thing that makes it difficult to reply is twofold. One, you can't hit reply because the forums mails us. So we have to get your email and hit reply. And sometimes (specially for me lately), it's hard to do that when you have limited time. The other issue is that with a number of mods, you don't know if someone else is taking care of it, or replying.

A valid criticism for sure Surf Monkey. We should strive harder to reply to those that reported a post.

LurkerDan

The fun has left the forum!

Gallant Pig

Would it make a difference if this was done for a given period of time - let's say 2 months or until this whole war thing blows over?

Buford T Pusser

This was posted in another thread and it was thought it should be voiced here:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by grunter
Hear, here.

I'm all for a political/war forum. Punt the pundits into their own space.

The "Otter" farm has suffered of late from an extreme lack of good humor. It's nearly gotten to the point where I only click into a third of the threads in the forum anymore.

And that's just not right.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I wrote:



I tend to avoid the political threads and go for the light stuff here. I have enough serious dealings and pressure in the real world that I like to think of this being a way to just relax and have a little fun.


I guess I'm okay either way on this new forum. As I said, I tend to not click on the threads, although occasionally they appeal to me.

jfoobar

Couldn't agree more.

If you want a subdivided forum for each and every topic, there is always Usenet.

This is DVDTalk. One forum that has nothing at all to do with non-entertainment or DVD-related discussion is more than enough.

Gallant Pig

That's cool. No problem, it's up to Geoff of course. Calling it a "stupid idea" seems somewhat harsh, since it's just an idea, if you don't agree with it, that's fine. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

Ebb and flow.

Gallant Pig

Honestly I think part of wanting this has to do with randyc's post in Other about making it a civil place. It hasn't been a civil place lately has it? In fact, it's been downright ugly. I would have never been lured here in the first place if it was like this. The old debates were always pretty civil. When they got out of hand, actions were taken. Now this whole idea isn't even my own, like I said, I just grabbed it from that closed thread, but part of the reason I found it intriguing was I thought if we could just put all the uncivil posts in one place it would be nice. Just avoid the place altogether.

Now the poll may or may not be valid. I tried to make it as nuetral as possible and didn't put any spin the wording of it. Recently I posted in another thread telling people to voice in another thread something that obviously belongs in here (the unpopular opinions thread).

I don't know if Geoff realizes that some people are feeling this way, I'm guessing he does. I hope he realizes why as well (for my own pleasure). Geoff can do whatever he wants, it's his place! This place is the feedback forum. This thread is posing an idea to Geoff, hopefully giving him feedback. If you think that's stupid, that's too find. That's what this forum is about. Vote "no" and tell us why.

Is Other too segmented? One could argue that the most important segmenation of other, the one part that needed to be have its own place before others, was political/daily news talk. Today however, it's a new breed of political talk. It's the type of political discussion you hear on Rush Limbaugh when some angry liberal calls in and they both chastize each other and each other's opinions. The two sides never see eye to eye, they don't try. When it happens in others, it can be like a car wreck on the side of a road, you can't help but slow down to watch what's going on. Put it in its own place, you guys who love that stuff, you now have your own place. Folks that aren't as crazy about it, they don't ever have to see it.

Anyway, it all depends on how you see things. I could see someone who enjoys engaging in pure political discussion like scot or DVD Polizei enjoying a political forum so they wouldn't have to wade through all the other stuff. The change is radical indeed. It works either way for me really. I'll still visit this place no matter what happens. I don't feel bad for speaking up for this change though.

After everything that goes on here, it's just a forum to shoot the **** and not get any work done while using. Game on!

x-filesfan

Is a political sub-forum a good idea?

Honestly, I don't know. I know there are gobs of people here who have a much bigger stake in the future of other.

What I do know is that other has started to make me uncomfortable the same way that yahoo message boards do.

There is a lot of hatred lately. Not necessarily in the form of personal attacks, but more in terms of attacks on different ideology (anti-war versus pro-war, conservative versus liberal, dem versus repub, etc). I understand that this is the result of the political climate. But I have not read a political thread lately that didn't quickly degenerate into nose twisting and eye gouging, in true three stooges fashion.

If I wander into an obviously political thread, I should expect what I get. What concerns me more is reading a thread that shouldn't turn political and watching it do so. This seems to happen to me a lot lately.

It seems like people seek political discussion for two main reasons. The first is confirmation of their own belief system (tell me why I am right, I want to be with my own kind, etc). The second is the chance to persuade those with opposite viewpoints to join the right side, fight the noble fight. If a thread is opened with the title 'What you can do to stop the war' or 'How you can show your support for the war' and it degenerates into the other side coming in and explaining why the first side is so wrong or so unintelligent, it is threadcrapping, IMO.

Don't get me wrong -- I would put dvdtalk mods up against anybody else's mods. When things spin out of control in a thread, I am confident they will take care of it. The moderation here really is excellent. I am always impressed.

However, I've quit having fun. I am comtemplating taking a long vacation from other.

I will try and remember to use the dvdtalk links when I buy stuff, even if I am not visiting the site. The problem is other is often the initial draw for me. Then once I am here, I look around a bit and blow my cash. Without other, I'm not sure I will be bargain hunting and indirectly sending a little money your way.

Anyway, just some opinions. Thanks for hearing me out.

-- Jenny