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

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

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

Changes in how we moderate the forum are being discussed. Specifically, we're looking at how to deal with trench warfare but other topics are being discussed also.

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

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

This is actually a good example of what can derail a thread. (Not picking on you here Wolfe Tone, you merely provided a succinct example for me to use)

Instead of continuing the debate we get a sub-debate justifying contributions to the initial debate which may in themselves have been a related sub-debate of the main debate and so on.

It's not meant to derail the thread, and this is the key, I don't think a lot of the people that are dragging threads into trench warfare actually understand what they are doing, they are merely responding to what's in front of them automatically.


And yes, I realise the irony of this post since I am derailing this thread by making it.

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

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

One distinction that works is:

Saying she was a tout and deserved to die = championing murder

Saying she was a tout and this was why the IRA thought she deserved to die = not championing murder unless the poster appends "and the IRA were right".


Defending the right for the IRA to murder touts = championing murder. Explaining that the murder was due to the IRA thinking she was a tout = not championing murder and merely explaining the causality of the situation.


That isn't a catch-all definition though and it is a grey area and difficult to police. Clever posters could get around any hard and fast legalistic rule on how to word statements and a clear ironclad definition rather than an explanation of the general concepts involved creates more problems than it solves.

bonkey

FOllowing from nesf's post...

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

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

Where its "away we go" or not depends an awful lot on how you'd respond to a question like that.

Lets imagine that we had a poster who was a full-on champion of killing anyone who got in the way of their chosen cause. Clearly, expressing such an opinion would be against the rules...so said poster would have a choice:

They could choose to not answer the question. I don't mean to refuse with a "my answer would get me banned" comment, because that's enough to say "yes, I champion murder", but rather a comment about how their personal opinion on the rightness or wrongness of such actions was not the topic of the discussion...that they were posting to offer insight into why they believed the events happened, and not what their opinion of the events was.

They could choose to give a less then honest answer, and say "of course I don't condone the murder. In fact, I condemn it. However, I have to face the reality that all sides in this conflict have condemnable actions associated with them, and can only encourage that we move away from such and towards a peaceful solution".

Or...they could champion or justify the murder, using language which made it clear that they not only supported such action, but saw no need to move away from such activities in the future. This, of course, would be in clear violation of the charter, at which point, they're heading down the road of getting banned.

So when you say "away we go anyways", there's a myriad of different ways we could be going....its all down to how one chooses to answer such questions.

The simple reality is that if someone holds an opinion which is clearly against the charter, they're going to find it difficult to stay out of trouble whilst trying to honestly convey their opinion. They can either choose to convey a different and more acceptable opinion, or they can try the path of not stating where they stand on issues at all...but ultimately they have it tough, especially because in most cases they'll feel that their particular belief shouldn't fall foul of the rules at all.

It reminds me a lot of the "I'm not a racist, but..." type of stuff we'd see from time to time. People would spout the most bigoted opinions imaginable...but were genuinely outraged (IMO) when they were told that these opinions were bigoted to the point of being unacceptable.

Very few people feel that their own opinions are anything less then perfectly reasonable. That doesn't mean they're right.

RDM_83 again

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Eh there's been huge carbombs throughout the troubles and even in the last 2 years.

Al-Qaeda's numbers are higher because to them everyone is a legitimate target. The Dublin/Monaghan bombings also killed dozens because it was civillians targeted. It is much harder to kill members of the security forces for obvious reasons, nothing to do with not having the bombs

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Here we go again. Poor old misunderstood IRA.

Mods opinion on the reply post, is this worthy of being reported, to me it does not meet the minimum standards of a post and will probably result in more of the usual trench warfare and is a result of a fairly factual post in which Bottle_of_smoke does not express any support for illegal activity etc etc

Wolfe Tone

So basically it boils down to not being allowed to argue justification for any IRA activities, or at least pretending that you don't feel that way.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

So basically it boils down to not being allowed to argue justification for any IRA activities, or at least pretending that you don't feel that way.

Kind of. You can argue that the IRA activities were internally consistent with how the IRA saw the world which is a justification of sorts for IRA activities but doesn't go as far as to champion murder of individuals. The consequences of not having such a rule is a pitched battle over whether the IRA were justified or not which does not have a right answer! every time we have a Sinn Fein thread.

This cuts both ways though, we will be as much clamping down on people arguing that others are championing murder or trying to force people to say whether they think the IRA were justified or not as we will be clamping down on people championing murder.

Nodin

...all very subjective, IMO.

nesf

Nodin wrote: »

...all very subjective, IMO.

And that's what makes moderating a politics forum so hard.

Nodin

Makes moderating this Boards one harder and perhaps unnessecarily so.

I always viewed it as a kneejerk rule which should have been handled by something more specific relating to dissident activity, or perhaps 'gloating' (subjective, but a bit less so, I think). As it is, it would seem somebody could get a clatter for 'championing' mass bombing in WWII or the North of Vietnam in the 60's (and of course if they didn't get one, it raises the question of hypocrisy). A can of worms, really. Rather thee than me.

nesf

Nodin wrote: »

Makes moderating this Boards one harder and perhaps unnessecarily so.

I always viewed it as a kneejerk rule which should have been handled by something more specific relating to dissident activity, or perhaps 'gloating' (subjective, but a bit less so, I think). As it is, it would seem somebody could get a clatter for 'championing' mass bombing in WWII or the North of Vietnam in the 60's (and of course if they didn't get one, it raises the question of hypocrisy). A can of worms, really. Rather thee than me.

Difference is the instances you mention were wars, the IRA activities were terrorist/freedom fighter. A hard line to draw I agree but I don't think anyone sensible would compare military actions in WWII with bombings by the IRA in London and actually try to say they're the same thing while not pulling the piss.

Wolfe Tone

Difference is the instances you mention were wars, the IRA activities were terrorist/freedom fighter.

Guess we better not be saying the men of 1916 were justified so.....

K-9

Nodin wrote: »

Makes moderating this Boards one harder and perhaps unnessecarily so.

I always viewed it as a kneejerk rule which should have been handled by something more specific relating to dissident activity, or perhaps 'gloating' (subjective, but a bit less so, I think). As it is, it would seem somebody could get a clatter for 'championing' mass bombing in WWII or the North of Vietnam in the 60's (and of course if they didn't get one, it raises the question of hypocrisy). A can of worms, really. Rather thee than me.

I'd say some could argue that it was part of the collateral of war, but I'd doubt anybody would revel in it.

Again it comes back to how you word it.

It comes down to a choice, do people want thoughtful, thought out responses or knee jerk ones, like p.ie or current Republican threads on here.

People arguing for changes need to realise these changes will apply to themselves, not just your "adversaries".

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Guess we better not be saying the men of 1916 were justified so.....

Tricky isn't it? Got to do more with what's socially acceptable than what a group's actions are in many ways. Some day the IRA's actions might be broadly accepted in the South as necessary and justified. Right now, they aren't and as such moderation will be based on this. I'd personally view the IRA as being little different to Collins et al in their activities against the British but it's not my personal opinion that counts here.


The problem at its core is: Saying Collins was justified to do what he did won't automatically create 30 pages of trench warfare. When IRA actions are like this then we can relax the rule about discussing them but that's at least a generation away*.


*More complex than this actually. I was raised, in school, to view Collins et al to be correct and right in their fight against the British. General public acceptance of the IRA won't happen until a similar thing happens in either people's homes or in schools. It is indoctrination and is in many ways brain washing little kids to follow a certain view. That's why you get people holding logically incoherent positions like Collins et al were right but the IRA weren't even though they were effectively doing the same thing in many respects (though not all to be fair).

Unfortunately, we have to moderate with what we have and are stuck with how people have been conditioned on these issues and that means there is an enormous divide between those who view the IRA as justified and those who view their actions as unjustifiable and we need to moderate this area because it bluntly is a negative thing for the forum to have the two sides fighting the same fight over and over again.

Nodin

nesf wrote: »

Difference is the instances you mention were wars, the IRA activities were terrorist/freedom fighter. A hard line to draw I agree but I don't think anyone sensible would compare military actions in WWII with bombings by the IRA in London and actually try to say they're the same thing while not pulling the piss.

There was a thread a while back where I was arguing with a guy who supported the Pinochet regime......now whether or not they jump up and down waving a 'viva pinochet' flag or not, that kind of thing is not unknown. Personally, as long as the opposition are prepared to argue the case and answer the questions put to them, I'm happy to argue away with them, but not everybody is going to take that view, and could quite well use the report as an option.

nesf wrote: »

A hard line to draw I agree but I don't think anyone sensible would compare military actions in WWII with bombings by the IRA in London and actually try to say they're the same thing while not pulling the piss. .

Could be Vietnam. Could be Cambodia/Laos.....And while gloating is obviously out, and rare enough, I've seen those championed many times on other boards as the correct, nessecary thing to do and 'should have done more of it - might have had a better result'. Can such discussions happen when we've views like below bopping about?

I have an opinion that killing people is wrong, for any reason,

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=70149281&postcount=23

Bottle_of_Smoke

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Mods opinion on the reply post, is this worthy of being reported, to me it does not meet the minimum standards of a post and will probably result in more of the usual trench warfare and is a result of a fairly factual post in which Bottle_of_smoke does not express any support for illegal activity etc etc

Strange. Was actually thinking of reporting that post but I actually have a feeling FF misread it and replied too quickly or didn't read what I was replying to.

Just to get away from the whole border thread issue. I wouldn't mind seeing a 'politics elite' restricted forum. Though you would not be able to apply for access. The mods would simply choose people they think are good posters to give access to.

It might encourage people to put more effort into their posts in the general politics forum.

Wolfe Tone

nesf wrote: »

Tricky isn't it? Got to do more with what's socially acceptable than what a group's actions are in many ways. Some day the IRA's actions might be broadly accepted in the South as necessary and justified. Right now, they aren't and as such moderation will be based on this. I'd personally view the IRA as being little different to Collins et al in their activities against the British but it's not my personal opinion that counts here.

Well thats pretty much blatant censorship of a political view just because the majority don't agree with it.

So, republicans are not welcome on the politics forum unless they pretend they are not republicans and the views they present are not their own.

And this is in a climate where it is looking very possible that SF will be the main opposition party?(bit optimistic perhaps but you get the idea)

If people are going to come on and say they think SF/republicans are murdering terrorist scum I should be able to tell them why I think they are not.

The problem at its core is: Saying Collins was justified to do what he did won't automatically create 30 pages of trench warfare. When IRA actions are like this then we can relax the rule about discussing them but that's at least a generation away*.

Someone could say he was a filthy murdering traitor(or in nicer terms) and it very well could go down that road, should that be banned too? So because the majority believe he was justified someone should be punished from deviating from that because lots of people will disagree?(to the trenches!)

phantom_lord

can we not just get a northern ireland forum and dump the threads in there?

Wolfe Tone

phantom_lord wrote: »

can we not just get a northern ireland forum and dump the threads in there?

When SF(they are an all island party) threads start to derail a mod could siphon the offending posts off and send them there in a new thread.

GuanYin

How about this, take it for granted that ANY instance of people championing/gloating over murder is not OK.. if it's happened and we've missed it, our apologies, we didn't intend to.

Now, instead of running through past instances and hypotheticals to compare/contrast/justify doing something we have clearly said is banned, how about in future, if you see us miss it in some context we report the post and we'll get right on it.

Wolfe Tone

I cant see on the politics forum atm as I still have a week or so to go on my ban, but no doubt there is a thread on Egypt with people supporting and/or justifying riots, insurrextion. etc

No doubt that falls under championing violence and those posters can expect to be punished.

Nodin

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I cant see on the politics forum atm as I still have a week or so to go on my ban, but no doubt there is a thread on Egypt with people supporting and/or justifying riots, insurrextion. etc

No doubt that falls under championing violence and those posters can expect to be punished.

That one didn't occur to me but yes - in the case of an actual armed uprising, say in Zimbabwe. While I don't imagine theres going to be many overly gloating about it, certainly the use of violence to end the regime of Mugabe and his clique would in fact be widely praised.

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Well thats pretty much blatant censorship of a political view just because the majority don't agree with it.

So, republicans are not welcome on the politics forum unless they pretend they are not republicans and the views they present are not their own.

And this is in a climate where it is looking very possible that SF will be the main opposition party?(bit optimistic perhaps but you get the idea)

If people are going to come on and say they think SF/republicans are murdering terrorist scum I should be able to tell them why I think they are not.

Eh, since when has been a republican automatically meant believing the IRA were justified in killing people? It really isn't a stretch to find Sinn Fein supporters that didn't support the IRA and wanted a peaceful solution to the problems in the North and a peaceful reunification of the two States.

There is not an anti-republican bias here. What is being searched for is a clear and simple line to draw that will limit the amount of trench warfare on Sinn Fein threads and NI threads in general.

nesf

Nodin wrote: »

That one didn't occur to me but yes - in the case of an actual armed uprising, say in Zimbabwe. While I don't imagine theres going to be many overly gloating about it, certainly the use of violence to end the regime of Mugabe and his clique would in fact be widely praised.

It's a bloody messy problem for us as mods. Right now, Zimbabwe and Egypt aren't hugely contentious issues so don't merit special attention. Palestine, the IRA and SF do merit such attention and stricter moderating because the issues are so polarising and contentious.

It makes little to no sense to say one rule for this situation and a different rule for this other really similar situation but we may have to stoop to this in order to bring about order to the forum. It's a messy solution and I'm not fond of it but I'm really not seeing a better idea here unless we go on a mass banning spree which is a solution I dislike even more.

nesf

phantom_lord wrote: »

can we not just get a northern ireland forum and dump the threads in there?

The idea of a Northern Ireland forum and a Middle East forum has been mooted. The issue is this doesn't solve the problem, just moves it off the main forum page. This is politics.ie's solution to the mess and one I've some respect for but honestly I'd prefer to try and solve the mess before trying to use sub-fora to shift the problem out of sight.

Also it's not just NI related threads that are derailed but any thread with a mention of SF in it. So it's not a simple problem to separate the offending material away from the main forum.

Wolfe Tone

GuanYin wrote: »

How about this, take it for granted that ANY instance of people championing/gloating over murder is not OK.. if it's happened and we've missed it, our apologies, we didn't intend to.

Now, instead of running through past instances and hypotheticals to compare/contrast/justify doing something we have clearly said is banned, how about in future, if you see us miss it in some context we report the post and we'll get right on it.

nesf wrote: »

It's a bloody messy problem for us as mods. Right now, Zimbabwe and Egypt aren't hugely contentious issues so don't merit special attention. Palestine, the IRA and SF do merit such attention and stricter moderating because the issues are so polarising and contentious.

It makes little to no sense to say one rule for this situation and a different rule for this other really similar situation but we may have to stoop to this in order to bring about order to the forum. It's a messy solution and I'm not fond of it but I'm really not seeing a better idea here unless we go on a mass banning spree which is a solution I dislike even more.

So whats the position?

A banning spree isnt a solution at all imo, just a short stopgap.

nesf wrote: »

Eh, since when has been a republican automatically meant believing the IRA were justified in killing people? It really isn't a stretch to find Sinn Fein supporters that didn't support the IRA and wanted a peaceful solution to the problems in the North and a peaceful reunification of the two States.

There is not an anti-republican bias here. What is being searched for is a clear and simple line to draw that will limit the amount of trench warfare on Sinn Fein threads and NI threads in general.

Sorry, I should have said "a republican like me" and its definitely not a huge leap to say that a large amount of SF supporters would feel that armed campaign was justified.


Would a better solution simply not to have tougher punishments for going off topic? So when occasions arise where it is on topic to debate justifications it is allowed?

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

So whats the position?

A banning spree isnt a solution at all imo, just a short stopgap.


Sorry, I should have said "a republican like me" and its definitely not a huge leap to say that a large amount of SF supporters would feel that armed campaign was justified.


Would a better solution simply not to have tougher punishments for going off topic? So when occasions arise where it is on topic to debate justifications it is allowed?

Tougher punishments for going off-topic is a banning spree by another name. Current thinking is going along the lines already discussed asking people not to condone murder and giving this policy some time to see if it resolves the issues. Also, generally, we don't think condoning murder is conducive to serious political debate in general without derailing it into outraged shouting matches between those who view murder as acceptable under certain circumstances and those for whom it is never acceptable.

FlutterinBantam

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Strange. Was actually thinking of reporting that post but I actually have a feeling FF misread it and replied too quickly or didn't read what I was replying to.

Just to get away from the whole border thread issue. I wouldn't mind seeing a 'politics elite' restricted forum. Though you would not be able to apply for access. The mods would simply choose people they think are good posters to give access to.

It might encourage people to put more effort into their posts in the general politics forum.

Good idea, then those minded to do so could try to, metaphorically speaking, try to write the Encyclopedia Brittanica on the head of a pin and argue ad finitum amongst themselves, in convoluting viscous threads in which every word,nuance, inference cand be drilled down to bedrock.

Thumbs up on that one:eek:

Yitzhak Rabin

I have to say I think that the new policy, if I have my head around it, is a very regressive step.

If we continue with the comparison of 1916 IRA and modern RIRA, I have argued before, and still believe that there is very little difference between the two. However under the new policy praising 1916 is fine, however simply condoning modern IRA is a bannable offence.

That is the complete opposite of what I think a politics board should be about. Forums like these (for me at least) are a place to come to challenge my beliefs, confront those who hold opposing views, and maybe learn a little about the other side. Suppressing a view, simply because it is in the minority is very regressive. The great thing about message boards is you can discuss emotive topics like NI, from the safety of a keyboard. Its something which I have an interest in, but I would never discuss down the pub, or in a social setting.