Goodbye Perhaps?

[Alien826]

Of course, that would remove all of them.

What I fail to understand is why the idea of a person using personal preferences to opt out of the political forums is so much more troublesome than the idea that one can choose not to be a part of the Eros forum.

I wouldn't object to a general selection mechanism where all subjects were treated equally. That would be fair. But to single out one particular subject is effectively saying there's something wrong with it.

Maybe if we had the 'opt in' choice for politics? When you sign up, its a private forum you can sign up for?

(And the immature part of me snickers because only a small part of the world is affected by American politics, but everybody is affected by sex! After all, its how we got here.)

Again, I'd want equal treatment for all subjects. What might be universally acceptable would be the ability to construct a personal list of areas that would be displayed individually.

 

[Vinayaka]

I don't use Reddit.

How do you feel its being confused for it?

I use it more than here. There are currently 159 000 members on the Hindu subreddit. Almost always something where I feel I can contribute. I can also see how users at both places could get occasionally confused, as the way things are organised or done are a bit different but similar enough to lose track of which one you're on.

 

[Spice]

Not everyone here is from the US though and are pretty tired of dealing with US-centric politicised issues all the time. If you can't discuss religion without it being politicized I doubt this is the right place. I'm a Brit and have a very different experience of religion. This shouldn't be used as a venting and ranting board for angry Americans. Others would like to join in and have other discussions.

Are the US political threads preventing other discussions in some way I haven't noticed?

 

[Vinayaka]

Not everyone here is from the US though and are pretty tired of dealing with US-centric politicised issues all the time. If you can't discuss religion without it being politicized I doubt this is the right place. I'm a Brit and have a very different experience of religion. This shouldn't be used as a venting and ranting board for angry Americans. Others would like to join in and have other discussions.

I do find it very Americentric as well.

 

[Rival]

Are the US political threads preventing other discussions in some way I haven't noticed?

I think it's not your fault but Americans don't realize how much they monopolize and this can be very irritating to others. It comes across a bit like always being talked over by someone louder than you and you yourself never being heard.

For instance, talk of Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy is rarely to almost never discussed here.

There are very few Muslims. I can think of 1.

It's very US-centric and this is very draining for those of us who want to have fresher discussions that mean something to us. We need more space for other views without them being swamped.

 

[Spice]

Not everyone here is from the US though and are pretty tired of dealing with US-centric politicized issues all the time. If you can't discuss religion without it being politicized I doubt this is the right place. I'm a Brit and have a very different experience of religion. This shouldn't be used as a venting and ranting board for angry Americans. Others would like to join in and have other discussions.

So would discussions on the Isreal/Gaza conflict also be outside of "religious interests"? How about the deportations of Pakistan? Thin line happening here....

 

[Rival]

So would discussions on the Isreal/Gaza conflict also be outside of "religious interests"? How about the deportations of Pakistan? Thin line happening here....

Have you not seen how the US elections are on here? It's a nightmare zone and every election cycle people hate it more and more.

Yes, this is picking one issue. It's the one issue that is too tribalistic, such that most of the forum userbase want to put it to one side where those who want to discuss it can, but leave others not to see those discussions.

The US political scene is frankly too toxic and that is the problem. We have been told most of the membership doesn't want to see it.

 

[Spice]

I think it's not your fault but Americans don't realize how much they monopolize and this can be very irritating to others. It comes across a bit like always being talked over by someone louder than you and you yourself never being heard.

For instance, talk of Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy is rarely to almost never discussed here.

There are very few Muslims. I can think of 1.

It's very US-centric and this is very draining for those of us who want to have fresher discussions that mean something to us. We need more space for other views without them being swamped.

I agree 100%. I'd LOVE to hear more and learn more about many ideologies. But I don't see where popular threads prevent new threads from coming aboard.

 

[Alien826]

I think it's not your fault but Americans don't realize how much they monopolize and this can be very irritating to others. It comes across a bit like always being talked over by someone louder than you and you yourself never being heard.

For instance, talk of Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy is rarely to almost never discussed here.

There are very few Muslims. I can think of 1.

It's very US-centric and this is very draining for those of us who want to have fresher discussions that mean something to us. We need more space for other views without them being swamped.

I truly don't understand how a subset of membership can "monopolize" a forum that has capacity for (effectively) infinite threads. A million political threads would not remove, or prevent someone reading, one religious thread.

If there are less threads on religion it's because people aren't creating them.

 

[Rival]

I agree 100%. I'd LOVE to hear more and learn more about many ideologies. But I don't see where popular threads prevent new threads from coming aboard.

Because those new threads are easily drowned out, basically, especially on this new software.

 

[Rival]

I truly don't understand how a subset of membership can "monopolize" a forum that has capacity for (effectively) infinite threads. A million political threads would not remove, or prevent someone reading, one religious thread.

If there are less threads on religion it's because people aren't creating them.

Would you like to wade through 20 religious threads to find 1 political thread if you were on Political Forums?

 

[Spice]

Have you not seen how the US elections are on here? It's a nightmare zone and every election cycle people hate it more and more.

Yes, this is picking one issue. It's the one issue that is too tribalistic, such that most of the forum userbase want to put it to one side where those who want to discuss it can, but leave others not to see those discussions.

The US political scene is frankly too toxic and that is the problem. We have been told most of the membership doesn't want to see it.

I'm certainly not too crazy about it either, but it us important for religious freedom. And it does roll over to other parts of the world. Did you notice the big change in France this week?

Of course I understand the juggling and hoop jumping staff members must have to endure in this situation and will respectfully accept whatever decision is made. I only hope it doesn't create more disappointment.

 

[Alien826]

I do find it very Americentric as well.

So what do you want? All Americans to go elsewhere? Or have some kind of participation limit?

Imagine you opened a shop to sell only hats. You find you don't have many customers. You can either find out what people want and expand your offerings, or put up with a lower income. What you don't do is open a shop that offers all kinds of clothing and then when most of your customers buy shoes, put up a sign saying "shoes are bad", or even shut that line down.

 

[Alien826]

Would you like to wade through 20 religious threads to find 1 political thread if you were on Political Forums?

Isn't this a problem of sorting though? Religious threads should not be on a political forum or vice versa. As a moderator, you can move threads that are in the wrong place, shut them down, or even remove them.

 

[Rival]

Isn't this a problem of sorting though? Religious threads should not be on a political forum or vice versa. As a moderator, you can move threads that are in the wrong place, shut them down, or even remove them.

Yes, that's what we're discussing. Politics can still be discussed, but only in an opt-in forum, so those who don't want to see those threads won't see them.

I don't understand why people are having issues with this, as they can still discuss politics.

 

[Quagmire]

I do find it very Americentric as well

I can't find the statistics now but back when it was actually possible to find something by googling it it always showed that more than 50% of the membership of RF lived in the US.

It's most likely still that way.

I think it's inevitable that a website compromised mostly of Americans is going seem focused primarily on things going on in the US.

 

[Spice]

Well, I'm confused. (Of course you are, George, you just woke up. Now, you're talking to yourself, too!)

Why would the 'opt out' idea regarding politics be bothersome to anyone? We have an Eros forum many people elect not to be a part of. How is it any different?

And to share another perspective on why the 'what's new' being filled with politics might be a problem:

I've got a very needy son I care for around the clock. I post 'on the run' most of the time. I get exactly 3 minutes(lets say) to read/participate in a post... I don't have time to scroll through 'Trump brushed his teeth', 'Biden sneezed', etc, etc. I assume there may be other posters out there who also have to ;post on the run', and being able to eliminate topics they have no interest in from showing in the feed might be helpful.

It wouldn't prevent those from hearing about politics from continuing to discuss it(or those who wanted access to a broad range of content from getting it).

But it forum users are filtering with an Opt out option, that doesn't eliminate the need for staff to monitor the political posts. @Rival was speaking of the hardships of monitoring the poo-slinging interferring with more "appropriate" threads.

What is the actual question of the poll, which I did not vote on since it was unclear,
Add an Opt-out feature
Or eliminate the American Politics firum.

 

[Rival]

But it forum users are filtering with an Opt out option, that doesn't eliminate the need for staff to monitor the political posts. @Rival was speaking of the hardships of monitoring the poo-slinging interferring with more "appropriate" threads.

What is the actual question of the poll, which I did not vote on since it was unclear,
Add an Opt-out feature
Or eliminate the American Politics firum.

Staff wouldn't have to deal with as much because the threads would be pre-filtered like with the covid forum. Even if that didn't taken place, the number of users joining would be much smaller than are currently discussing politics and I think most of the conservatives would opt-out (as the polling shows). In that case I think it's highly likely it would just become a liberal echo chamber, mostly, with much less frequent moderation necessary.

The feature would be opt-in, but I'm not sure yet if it would be all politics. I'm assuming it may well be.

 

[Spice]

In that case I think it's highly likely it would just become a liberal echo chamber, mostly, with much less frequent moderation necessary.

Explain please?

 

[Rival]

Explain please?

This forum is largely liberal and most of the people saying they don't want to discuss politics are conservatives. From the poll it seems those who want to discuss it are liberals. Logically that means such a forum would only be used by the liberals who say they want it.

Not seeing a problem with that?