Maybe create a Politics sub-forum?

Kyriakos

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There are obviously a lot of threads in OT about politics. Imo it deserves some thought whether it would be better to make a forum just for political threads. It seems to work fine in similar game forums.
Another idea (not sure if possible/easy with the server used) would be to ask that any political thread has a special typed acronym (ala RD) and then allow for all such types to be ignored by a user if they want to, same way as it works for individual user posts if they are on ignore.
 
But what if you want to discuss Greek politics? :mischief:
 
Threads that last longer than a day or two sooner or later get infested with political discussions anyway. How would we prevent that? Strict moderation? I don't know, that seems like it would be a lot of work for little benefit. There's an "unwritten rule" that most people seem to follow, which is that the "smalltalk"-threads are more light-hearted and mostly kept free of such discussions, but other than that, I think "OT" and "Politics" will always flow back and forward into each other, as the demographic that is using the OT forums is very much focused on politics.

And the number of threads that get created daily isn't really that high. Overall, I don't see much benefit, it would just split the userbase, which is already rather incestuous.

If anything, I would like to have a "ignore thread"-function so the individual user can get the big political threads out of view if they don't like them, but it seems like that's only possibe via an AddOn.
 
Why would this be a good idea? It's not as though we have so many new threads and posts that it's hard to keep track of them all, so that the non-politics ones get buried beneath politics threads.

The last OT forum split did not go so well, and that was with a higher level of activity than today. If we split OT with the current level of activity, we'd just end up with two forums that each had considerably less activity than the old OT, likely speeding up the decline. Consider as well that we already have WH, A&E, S&T, and Sports, and none of them are very active.
 
It amazes me that we can go from musing over how OT is dying to arguing that OT should be split up so easily.
There was a time when TrekBBS made a temporary sub-forum for US election threads. It was nice to not have to be inundated with threads about a slew of people and issues that mean nothing to non-Americans.

Once the election was over, the threads were merged back into the main forum (their version of OT).

Now that it's a XenForo forum, however, they just have two or three threads, and they're very, very long.

I dunno... maybe an "All Things Trump" thread? And just let the thing get as long as it gets, since apparently XenForo doesn't put the same restrictions and difficulties on thread lengths that vBulletin did.

Why would this be a good idea? It's not as though we have so many new threads and posts that it's hard to keep track of them all, so that the non-politics ones get buried beneath politics threads.

The last OT forum split did not go so well, and that was with a higher level of activity than today. If we split OT with the current level of activity, we'd just end up with two forums that each had considerably less activity than the old OT, likely speeding up the decline. Consider as well that we already have WH, A&E, S&T, and Sports, and none of them are very active.
A&E would be more active if certain people would actually use it and if the OT staff would enforce that.

I might occasionally mention NaNoWriMo in OT (just in passing), but I wouldn't be posting my 3 times/year threads about it in OT. Writing threads should, in my view, go in A&E - since that's one of the main reasons why that forum was created in the first place. If Zkribbler and I don't have a problem using it, why should the other writers?

Sports and S&T should be merged back into OT, tbh.
Please let us not get into arguments over merging other Colosseum forums back into OT. It's an argument that can get vicious sometimes, and I really don't have the mental energy to engage in it at this point.
 
Why would this be a good idea? It's not as though we have so many new threads and posts that it's hard to keep track of them all, so that the non-politics ones get buried beneath politics threads.

The last OT forum split did not go so well, and that was with a higher level of activity than today. If we split OT with the current level of activity, we'd just end up with two forums that each had considerably less activity than the old OT, likely speeding up the decline. Consider as well that we already have WH, A&E, S&T, and Sports, and none of them are very active.

It is just that a politics sub-forum would be viable, and would be more honest imo to have those threads in their own forum. As Valka said, the vast majority of the threads are about american politics anyway, so even more alienating to (something like) 1/3 of the ot crowd?

I do agree, though, that it's not like there is that much posting in ot in the first place, so removing politics would just make it more visibly dead.
 
OT needs to be bigger, not smaller. Activity generates more activity. Sub forums like S&T, History, and A&E only create barriers that keep people from posting.
 
OT needs to be bigger, not smaller. Activity generates more activity. Sub forums like S&T, History, and A&E only create barriers that keep people from posting.
:rolleyes:

OT is big enough, thank you. And I knew this would happen if anyone brought up merging. The holier-than-thou people who never use these subforums (and therefore aren't actually interested in those topics) think they should get to make claims like this.

@Birdjaguar, if you want to talk about writing, publishing, follow or discuss DYOS with the guys, talk about Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars, etc., there's absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that in A&E.

However, I have trouble believing that you really care about what's best for the writing enthusiasts here. After all, the last time you were involved in a writing thread (at least that I know of offhand), you threw a very ungracious tantrum about a contest you had agreed to enter (and yes, you knew the rules beforehand), and revealed part of the contents of a private message. I hardly think you have the higher moral ground here to say what's best for A&E.

Is it a "barrier" that keeps Civ gaming stuff in the Civ forums? Is it a "barrier" that keeps Site Feedback issues in Site Feedback? Or do we just post whatever we want, wherever we want?

Maybe I should start posting NaNoWriMo threads wherever I want. After all, Kyriakos gets to post "look at me" threads in OT, even though there's a perfectly good forum for them.

Categories and sub-forums exist for a reason - to organize the site. The writing threads would be overwhelmed and lost in OT. In A&E they're there, easy to find when needed, and no sifting among dozens of serial threads and US politics threads is necessary.
 
I don't think you can decry discussions of merging due to viciousness if you're the one being vicious towards others...
 
The holier-than-thou people who never use these subforums (and therefore aren't actually interested in those topics)
That's some bulllllllllhonkey.
 
I don't think you can decry discussions of merging due to viciousness if you're the one being vicious towards others...
Is anything I said factually inaccurate?

I'm expressing frustration with how the rules apply to some, but not all. If I started posting off-topic stuff in other forums on a regular basis, don't say that I wouldn't be told to stop it, because we both know I would.

I'm also expressing frustration with hypocrisy. For example, I'm perfectly content to leave the sports forum separate, as I have no interest in that. It would be hypocrisy if I were to jump on a "merge the sports forum into OT because nebulous reasons that don't really make a lot of sense to the people who use it even though I don't" bandwagon.


That's some bulllllllllhonkey.
Sorry, I must have missed your contributions to my Camp NaNoWriMo threads.

If you're interested in a topic enough to post in it, why should its location in a smaller subforum be any kind of "barrier"? Just click on the appropriate link(s) and post. It's not like you have to enter a secret password or pay $$ for it.
 
Sorry, I must have missed your contributions to my Camp NaNoWriMo threads.

If you're interested in a topic enough to post in it, why should its location in a smaller subforum be any kind of "barrier"? Just click on the appropriate link(s) and post. It's not like you have to enter a secret password or pay $$ for it.
The barrier is I and most of us don't want to juggle more subforums cognitively. My little brother, who played civ5 at a high level, found even the civ5 forums too divided for his taste. This is a common trait among people. I know you want it to be a different way but that doesn't change how it is.

Today I got asked if I was a writer by a stranger. I'm not, ofc, but I don't need to contribute to "your camp nanowrimo" to be interested in art/literature.
 
I think the status quo is fine - the other Colosseum forums exist so that people who prefer to post there can use them, but people are also free to post their material in OT. The only Colosseum forum I'd advocate merging into OT is S&T, which is pretty much dead and doesn't have anyone who really seems to prefer posting there anyway.
 
The barrier is I and most of us don't want to juggle more subforums cognitively. My little brother, who played civ5 at a high level, found even the civ5 forums too divided for his taste. This is a common trait among people. I know you want it to be a different way but that doesn't change how it is.

Today I got asked if I was a writer by a stranger. I'm not, ofc, but I don't need to contribute to "your camp nanowrimo" to be interested in art/literature.
Of course, I would like people to contribute to it if they were really interested, rather than dropping in, making a disparaging drive-by comment, and then vanishing - which is what would happen in OT. Which is why I prefer to keep it in A&E, where I know that the handful of people who have contributed comments, participated in their own projects, or asked me questions actually are interested.

There's no need for airquotes, btw. It's a legitimate avenue for some people to go on to be professional authors.
 
The Off-Topic forum is becoming convoluted.

If the political stuff is taken out, there's still no shortage of discussion in OT.

24 threads on page 1 out of 45 would survive a politics purge. 12 of which are serial threads.
 
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