Boards.ie Politics forum is a poor man's Politics.ie

tbh

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

With all due respect what does this add to the discussion?

It's a perfect example of what's wrong, IMO, with the politics forum.

Wolfe Tone

@scofflaw

Some of those posts are mine.


As I said previosuly, had I stated

"The IRA believed the woman to be an informant who put their numbers at risk and hence executed her"

The immediate response would be "and do you think thats justified" and away we go anyways. I bypassed that.


It seems ridiculous that you expect one set of posters to look at things objectively and another to blast away with all the emotive stuff they want. If you want to stop that on both sides terrific, thats the type of discussion I have wanted to have on the dissident threads.

That's not arguing a position on the PIRA, it's an in your face statement that the poster doesn't give a flying fsck about anybody else's opinion.

And what is "SF are murders, Id never vote for terrorists etc etc?"

Scofflaw

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

@scofflaw

Some of those posts are mine.


As I said previosuly, had I stated

The immediate response would be "and do you think thats justified" and away we go anyways. I bypassed that.

Indeed you did - by making it clear that it wasn't open to discussion. The result was a series of exchanges that wasn't a discussion, which is the problem.

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

It seems ridiculous that you expect one set of posters to look at things objectively and another to blast away with all the emotive stuff they want. If you want to stop that on both sides terrific, thats the type of discussion I have wanted to have on the dissident threads.

And what is "SF are murders, Id never vote for terrorists etc etc?"

Either a political position, or the other side of the trenches, depending on context. In general, it's a political position, just as "FF are economic traitors, I'd never vote for them" is.

cordially,
Scofflaw

K-9

tbh wrote: »

It's a perfect example of what's wrong, IMO, with the politics forum.

It's grand when it is somebody agreeing with them doing the sniping.

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

And what is "SF are murders, Id never vote for terrorists etc etc?"

If they believe that nothing, absolutely nothing, you say is going to make a difference so why bother? It's like somebody saying all members of the British Army are murderers.

Biggins

Haven't read all the prior posts but in response to the OP I say this.

I find that the politics section of Boards.ie is better.
Not only in layout and readability but in the fact that the mods I feel do their job well and curtail any wayward trolls/rule breaking.

I have read politics.ie and (I admit I could be wrong) I find the posters in there a lot more derogatory, intimidating and insulting at times - and they get away with it more often than not.

Our politics section here is much better refined and controlled (definitely some members that certainly know their stuff - and I've learned a lot!). It might be smaller than politics.ie - but bigger does not always equate to "better" anyway.

FlutterinBantam

Nodin wrote: »

I have a problem with a banned offender using a politics thread on Feedback to continue try and justify the onslaught they were banned from politics for in the first place. Having foxes comment on henhouse security is generally frowned on, or so I thought.

I'm not trying to justify anything, last I heard 'Feedback 'was the name of this thread and that's what I am doing, giving feedback.

I have great respect for the Politics Mods. they do a thankless task extremely well, and I have said that before.

Nodin

tbh wrote: »

None of your business what he was banned for, surely, or have I missed something? Was your pop at bantam intended to be constructive in a way that's gone over my head, or was it indeed what it appeared at first, a pointless jab that adds nothing to the discussion?

It's pointing out the obvious - that somebody banned for being disruptive in any number of threads in the politics forum talking about the activity of others being disruptive when few could come close is tantamount to madness.

And pointing out the reason a person who was perhaps the most disruptive member of that forum for a considerable length of time who is - for reasons that escape me - allowed to try to influence proceedings and give himself some cloak of respectability was banned is indeed "my business" as it is of the many, many, many members that had to put up with it.

And yes, your failure to grasp a hold of that does indeed indicate that its gone way over your head.

tbh wrote: »

It's a perfect example of what's wrong, IMO, with the politics forum.

No, you'll find that it isn't. Probably the largest recurring problem is the need of some to go over Irish history for anywhere between 60 to 800 years in any given NI/SF related thread. The short term, non-kneejerk reaction is to take a harsher line with on topic/off topic comments in all such discussions.

tbh

Surely the obvious doesn't need to be pointed out.

Surely if I point out that something is my opinion, you don't get to say that it's not.
That's kind of the point.

GuanYin

The topic we're discussing is directly related to FB in many ways, if nothing else it clarifies the rationale of the actions of the Pol Mods so I see no reason whatsoever that he shouldn't contribute.

In fact, noone is really trying to censor anyone, here, or in Politics. The issue is making your point in a dignified, civil and respectful manner to other posters.

If you can't do that, you shouldn't be posting on that boards. Its' pretty simple.

Derailing threads, soapboxing, championing murders and all the other things we prohibit in Politics, do not promote, civil, respectful, civilized discourse.

As demonstrated above in Scofflaw's post, you can make the same point, in a non inflammatory way and an inflammatory way. We only allow the non inflammatory way.

Wolfe Tone

championing murders

I really think this needs to be expanded and a clear definition put out there as to what this actually means.

Overheal

If anything I've seen a lot of legitimate queries/talking points descend into faux pas outrage/personal attacks because a poster tried to objectively discuss the actions of the "murderers" and found themselves being called murder-supporters for the mere act of presenting the argument for political/theoretical debate. Even if the mods can tell the difference between someone encouraging suicide bombers etc. and someone simply saying "you have your facts wrong, they didn't target civilians" it seems some people on politics have been unable or unwilling to make those distinctions in some circumstances.

Dudess

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

the small coterie who immediately arrive like jackals to a fresh kill, to feast on the entrails,once someone has the temerity to take a contrary view to that held by them.

Are you not even slightly mortified every time you post that same tired rhetoric at how applicable it also is to you? Or do you just not realise it...?

Then the endless Gaza/Israel/anti-US/NI threads which arrive with repetitive regularity, instigated usually from the same quarter, can be contained in an area of specific interest and avoid the coat-tail dragging and kerb-painting attitude coupled by questionable signatures designed to stimulate conflict.

By doing this, those posters who like get involved in these circular arguments and drilling things down to head-of pin discussions can batther away to their heart's content and only those who really want to discuss these areas need bother subscribing to these threads.

Would leave the main Politic's thread more attractive to the less 'driven' and less single issue contributor.

Translation: "Please stifle any opinion that is in conflict with mine, i.e. left-wing and no matter how logical and fair it is - e.g. disagreement with Palestinian civilians being murdered en masse - but those rules need not apply to views which I agree with, expressed in a similar manner." Lol at you pretending you'd like to see mere discussion too, as if you wouldn't belittle views that oppose yours no matter who expressed them.

Nodin makes a perfectly valid point - there's a lot more to what he says than merely taking a dig at someone he doesn't like (something which FlutterinBantam does with aplomb, on a loop, and with little provocation) Tbh.
And also, I'm not a Sinn Féin supporter but I do agree there does seem to be regular shouting down of even moderate nationalist views on the Politics forum - as if it's the same as the hate-filled violence-supporting stuff (which certainly exists on Boards but the place isn't exactly rife with it either, thankfully).

FlutterinBantam

Dudess wrote: »

Are you not even slightly mortified every time you post that same tired rhetoric at how applicable it also is to you? Or do you just not realise it...?

Translation: "Please stifle any opinion that is in conflict with mine, i.e. left-wing and no matter how logical and fair it is - e.g. disagreement with Palestinian civilians being murdered en masse - but those rules need not apply to views which I agree with, expressed in a similar manner." Lol at you pretending you'd like to see mere discussion too, as if you wouldn't belittle views that oppose yours no matter who expressed them.

Nodin makes a perfectly valid point - there's a lot more to what he says than merely taking a dig at someone he doesn't like (something which FlutterinBantam does with aplomb, on a loop, and with little provocation) Tbh.
And also, I'm not a Sinn Féin supporter but I do agree there does seem to be regular shouting down of even moderate nationalist views on the Politics forum - as if it's the same as the hate-filled violence-supporting stuff (which certainly exists on Boards but the place isn't exactly rife with it either, thankfully).

I hesitate in getting this thread in to personals, as after all it is Feedback and drilling down into personal stuff is not what should happen.

What I would say though, is that waves of threads, instigated from the same gene pool,with the same somewhat less than critical interest topic for most normal thinking Irish people, coupled with provocative signatures,to me is as much trolling, as some of the more obvious stuff we complain about.

To me, that is using a forum to push forward your views and hanging a 'troll' tag on anyone who 'dares to differ or dispute'

Other posters may differ,Mods may differ, but that's the way I see it;)

Dudess

Anything that you disagree with is trolling and "abnormal" to you, Flutt...

Nodin

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

What I would say though, is that waves of threads, instigated from the same gene pool,

"gene pool"? Would you be as good as to explain....?

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

with the same somewhat less than critical interest topic for most normal thinking Irish people,

What is "normal thinking"? You'll have to parse that one out for us.

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

coupled with provocative signatures,
,

The last time I looked, there was a specific way set up to report "offensive" sigs and a procedure for dealing with same. I take it you reported whatever it was you deemed "provocative"?

FlutterinBantam

Nodin wrote: »

"gene pool"? Would you be as good as to explain....?



What is "normal thinking"? You'll have to parse that one out for us.



The last time I looked, there was a specific way set up to report "offensive" sigs and a procedure for dealing with same. I take it you reported whatever it was you deemed "provocative"?

I'll just quote that famous line from Pulp fiction " You heard me punchy"

K-9

Dudess wrote: »

Anything that you disagree with is trolling and "abnormal" to you, Flutt...

He isn't alone on that, sorry Flutt!

Some people are going to be outraged with the example Scofflaw pointed out, posters justifying and I'd say, relishing in, the murder of a supposed "tout" just on IRA say so, just to make a point or soap box. Sorry for picking the IRA as an example but it happens on Palestinian threads too. They then try to justify it in certain circumstances, but say it's wrong now!

I think the mods have updated the charter on that, so fair play.

Tragedy

I recently tried joining politics.ie, posted on a number of topics(from Ivana Bacik to the FT), and it only took two days to have someone calling me a sock puppet and telling me he knew who I really was. Needless to say, I didn't stick around. People go to p.ie to espouse an entrenched viewpoint, no-one is interested in learning (or perhaps even changing).

Politics on boards isn't massively different at this stage. The same posters post over and over. They post (basically) the same message in every thread, tailored so it's slightly relevant and they can get away with it. There is no debate. There are no questions. There is no learning.

Someone posted a thread asking "Are you going to vote FF?" and instead of being genuine curiousity, it turned out to be more point scoring "I made the OP because I was curious to know why an 'ordinary' voter having witnessed the destruction of the public finances on the FF watch would choose to 'reward' them with their vote.". The thread was also full of posters attacking those who responded to the OP which was completely uncalled for, and typical of the politics forum now.

Another recent thread was "Why you will vote for Fianna Fail?", which was solely a vessel for the OP to troll and to attack anyone who bothered to respond to his thread.

Any thread vaguely FF related is latched to on by the usual suspects, who jump on anyone posting in it using emotive rhetoric rage filled language.
A subset of these also apply the same techniques to FG/Lab/SF varyingly, depending on who they hate the most next.

It's also full of posters telling other posters what they should be doing and why. The politics forum should not be a vessel for posters to tell other posters how to vote(with DeVore being equally guilty). It should be a little bit more positive and a lot less negative.

It's disgraceful. The most common thing I'm running into day in day out, is simply people my age who don't know much about politics, want to vote, but don't know how to learn. Boards.ie could be a brilliant vessel for this, but instead the Politics forum is a hate filled cesspit.

To sum up my problems with it:
1) Too much emotion and anger
2) Too much rhetoric
3) The same few posters taking over all the threads and agenda setting
4) People are not allowed to have an opinion without being verbally attacked and shredded

Wolfe Tone

K-9 wrote: »

He isn't alone on that, sorry Flutt!

Some people are going to be outraged with the example Scofflaw pointed out, posters justifying and I'd say, relishing in, the murder of a supposed "tout" just on IRA say so, just to make a point or soap box. Sorry for picking the IRA as an example but it happens on Palestinian threads too. They then try to justify it in certain circumstances, but say it's wrong now!

I think the mods have updated the charter on that, so fair play.

Thats just silly. If one says Michael Collins squad was justified does that mean they are saying that Gerry Adams was justified in using a similar type group? Of course not. Everything depends on the circumstances and context in which the action took place.

K-9

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Thats just silly. If one says Michael Collins squad was justified does that mean they are saying that Gerry Adams was justified in using a similar type group? Of course not. Everything depends on the circumstances and context in which the action took place.

To you it does, to others it doesn't. I've been through this with you on AH though and am not going to go through it again here. Some other time!


Anyway, to get back on topic, politics is often partisanship as shown by p.ie and here.

It comes back to my original point. Make your point respectfully, open minded and willing to countenance another opinion and you'll be grand.

Make it absolute, somebody will be absolute right back at you and nobody gets anywhere.

People should be aware of that if they are posting on politics for a while.

And we're back at another excellent point on this thread, do you want to win a debate on an internet board or open your mind?

Scofflaw

Tragedy wrote: »

I recently tried joining politics.ie, posted on a number of topics(from Ivana Bacik to the FT), and it only took two days to have someone calling me a sock puppet and telling me he knew who I really was. Needless to say, I didn't stick around. People go to p.ie to espouse an entrenched viewpoint, no-one is interested in learning (or perhaps even changing).

Politics on boards isn't massively different at this stage. The same posters post over and over. They post (basically) the same message in every thread, tailored so it's slightly relevant and they can get away with it. There is no debate. There are no questions. There is no learning.

Someone posted a thread asking "Are you going to vote FF?" and instead of being genuine curiousity, it turned out to be more point scoring "I made the OP because I was curious to know why an 'ordinary' voter having witnessed the destruction of the public finances on the FF watch would choose to 'reward' them with their vote.". The thread was also full of posters attacking those who responded to the OP which was completely uncalled for, and typical of the politics forum now.

Another recent thread was "Why you will vote for Fianna Fail?", which was solely a vessel for the OP to troll and to attack anyone who bothered to respond to his thread.

Any thread vaguely FF related is latched to on by the usual suspects, who jump on anyone posting in it using emotive rhetoric rage filled language.
A subset of these also apply the same techniques to FG/Lab/SF varyingly, depending on who they hate the most next.

It's also full of posters telling other posters what they should be doing and why. The politics forum should not be a vessel for posters to tell other posters how to vote(with DeVore being equally guilty). It should be a little bit more positive and a lot less negative.

It's disgraceful. The most common thing I'm running into day in day out, is simply people my age who don't know much about politics, want to vote, but don't know how to learn. Boards.ie could be a brilliant vessel for this, but instead the Politics forum is a hate filled cesspit.

To sum up my problems with it:
1) Too much emotion and anger
2) Too much rhetoric
3) The same few posters taking over all the threads and agenda setting
4) People are not allowed to have an opinion without being verbally attacked and shredded

We had much the same complaints over the public-private warfare last year, and I have to make the same point I did then, which is that when political tempers are running high, the forum tends to lose a certain amount of gravitas and rationality, and there's a limit to the extent we can counteract that without closing the doors of the forum and booting out half the existing posters. Unfortunately, we've now had three consecutive years of excitement, between Lisbon 1, the bank guarantee, NAMA, Lisbon 2, the IMF bailout, and the government being forced out of office. We're now heading into an election, and there will be a lot of partisan posting. If it oversteps the bounds of discussion, we can do something about it - but we cannot moderate people's opinions.

cordially,
Scofflaw

K-9

Tragedy wrote: »

I recently tried joining politics.ie, posted on a number of topics(from Ivana Bacik to the FT), and it only took two days to have someone calling me a sock puppet and telling me he knew who I really was. Needless to say, I didn't stick around. People go to p.ie to espouse an entrenched viewpoint, no-one is interested in learning (or perhaps even changing).

Politics on boards isn't massively different at this stage. The same posters post over and over. They post (basically) the same message in every thread, tailored so it's slightly relevant and they can get away with it. There is no debate. There are no questions. There is no learning.

Someone posted a thread asking "Are you going to vote FF?" and instead of being genuine curiousity, it turned out to be more point scoring "I made the OP because I was curious to know why an 'ordinary' voter having witnessed the destruction of the public finances on the FF watch would choose to 'reward' them with their vote.". The thread was also full of posters attacking those who responded to the OP which was completely uncalled for, and typical of the politics forum now.

Another recent thread was "Why you will vote for Fianna Fail?", which was solely a vessel for the OP to troll and to attack anyone who bothered to respond to his thread.

Any thread vaguely FF related is latched to on by the usual suspects, who jump on anyone posting in it using emotive rhetoric rage filled language.
A subset of these also apply the same techniques to FG/Lab/SF varyingly, depending on who they hate the most next.

It's also full of posters telling other posters what they should be doing and why. The politics forum should not be a vessel for posters to tell other posters how to vote(with DeVore being equally guilty). It should be a little bit more positive and a lot less negative.

It's disgraceful. The most common thing I'm running into day in day out, is simply people my age who don't know much about politics, want to vote, but don't know how to learn. Boards.ie could be a brilliant vessel for this, but instead the Politics forum is a hate filled cesspit.

To sum up my problems with it:
1) Too much emotion and anger
2) Too much rhetoric
3) The same few posters taking over all the threads and agenda setting
4) People are not allowed to have an opinion without being verbally attacked and shredded

The FF, NAMA etc. bashing is a bit tiring at this stage but well, it's an election and their record is up for discussion.

I suspect the majority of people bashing FF/Green now will be bashing FG/Labour then.

Tragedy

Scofflaw wrote: »

We had much the same complaints over the public-private warfare last year, and I have to make the same point I did then, which is that when political tempers are running high, the forum tends to lose a certain amount of gravitas and rationality, and there's a limit to the extent we can counteract that without closing the doors of the forum and booting out half the existing posters. Unfortunately, we've now had three consecutive years of excitement, between Lisbon 1, the bank guarantee, NAMA, Lisbon 2, the IMF bailout, and the government being forced out of office. We're now heading into an election, and there will be a lot of partisan posting. If it oversteps the bounds of discussion, we can do something about it - but we cannot moderate people's opinions.

cordially,
Scofflaw

My sole point would be, now is the time when we need the most gravitas and rationality - not the least amount of it. Perhaps boosting the mod team temporarily and attaching a strict no off-topic policy would go some way to alleviating the problems?

I suspect the majority of people bashing FF/Green now will be bashing FG/Labour then.

Unfortunately, there are already plenty of people bashing FG/Lab/SF/Ind too.

Wolfe Tone

More mods wont make any difference

Scofflaw

Tragedy wrote: »

My sole point would be, now is the time when we need the most gravitas and rationality - not the least amount of it. Perhaps boosting the mod team temporarily and attaching a strict no off-topic policy would go some way to alleviating the problems?

As Wolfe Tone says, adding more mods makes little or no difference. During an election, people will, with the best intentions in the world, tell other people how to vote. You've already highlighted the fact that DeVore is in the forum urging people to vote Independent - and I don't have any doubts over DeVore's dedication to making Boards a good place to have a discussion.

We're courtesy police, not censors. We're not there to say what is and is not up for discussion, we're there to try to keep discussion within certain limits of courtesy. The one thing we obviously can't do is ask people to leave their political opinions at the door, no matter how partisan, trivial, or narrow-minded those opinions may sometimes be.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tragedy

Scofflaw wrote: »

As Wolfe Tone says, adding more mods makes little or no difference. During an election, people will, with the best intentions in the world, tell other people how to vote. You've already highlighted the fact that DeVore is in the forum urging people to vote Independent - and I don't have any doubts over DeVore's dedication to making Boards a good place to have a discussion.

We're courtesy police, not censors. We're not there to say what is and is not up for discussion, we're there to try to keep discussion within certain limits of courtesy. The one thing we obviously can't do is ask people to leave their political opinions at the door, no matter how partisan, trivial, or narrow-minded those opinions may sometimes be.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I didn't suggest adding more moderators in isolation, I suggested it with a strict no off-topic rule. People are constantly dragging every thread off-topic by varying means - usually by bringing up historical events(whether an individual politicians, or a partys) as a tool to attack whatever posters opinion they find offensive to their sensibilities.

You aren't just courtesy police, you are also there (I think?) to ensure the discussion follows the remit of the politics forum and adheres to its charter/ethos.

Scofflaw

Tragedy wrote: »

I didn't suggest adding more moderators in isolation, I suggested it with a strict no off-topic rule. People are constantly dragging every thread off-topic by varying means - usually by bringing up historical events(whether an individual politicians, or a partys) as a tool to attack whatever posters opinion they find offensive to their sensibilities.

You aren't just courtesy police, you are also there (I think?) to ensure the discussion follows the remit of the politics forum and adheres to its charter/ethos.

Which is largely about courtesy, in its widest sense - I wasn't suggesting we're there just to ensure nobody says a bad word.

We're there to facilitate the largest number of people having the best possible discussion. Sometimes, the second factor is the more important, and sometimes, particularly at times when political events are really dominating the affairs of the country, the former is more important.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Wolfe Tone

Scofflaw, are there any charter changes being discussed or put together behind the scenes to try and address the issues?

K-9

Scofflaw wrote: »

We're there to facilitate the largest number of people having the best possible discussion. Sometimes, the second factor is the more important, and sometimes, particularly at times when political events are really dominating the affairs of the country, the former is more important.

cordially,
Scofflaw

To me, AH caters for that, otherwise why have political discussion on AH?

It isn't fair on the regular contributors that the quality of discussion gets down graded, just because of an election. Might as well just leave for a few months and let them get on with it?

Sure the mods are countenancing a lesser standard of discussion?

We''ll come back in March and normal service will resume.

Tragedy

Scofflaw wrote: »

Which is largely about courtesy, in its widest sense - I wasn't suggesting we're there just to ensure nobody says a bad word.

We're there to facilitate the largest number of people having the best possible discussion. Sometimes, the second factor is the more important, and sometimes, particularly at times when political events are really dominating the affairs of the country, the former is more important.

cordially,
Scofflaw

That implies that the second factor acts as a limit on the first. Is there any evidence that it does? Why would enforcing the best discussion not facilitate having the largest number of people either contributing or reading?

Also, I'd argue that the latter is always most important in a forum such as politics.