Feedback Request:

I would go:


Irish Politics (local)
EU Politics (including all Irish issues relating to the EU)
international politics (US/ME/*EU when involved internationally* etc)
Political cafe (for theoretical debate)

With subforums for budgets and elections as they come.
The less forums the better. Irish economy can go if you ask me, it's a cesspit of rhetoric and bad economics.

Eliot Rosewater

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

With subforums for budgets and elections as they come.

The permanent elections forum really exists to smooth administration. If one wants election and budget sub-forums to come and go one has to get admins involved which slows the process somewhat.

thebman

nesf wrote: »

It's abused definitely and I seriously have a problem with people thanking a post that abused someone and the original poster gets banned.

That said, it does serve a valuable purpose and when used right it is a good way of showing support for a position in a debate.

I consider a bug in Vbulletin that when a thread gets locked, you can still thank posts in it. Hopefully something they fix in the future.

I think circular argument threads need to be locked faster like the David Norris thread and Sean Gallagher ones in the presidential election.

Especially where arguments are only circular because points are brought up that were dealt with and torn apart only a few pages ago as if they were new information or new points. Really annoying and hard to see the point.

It was like they were trying to convince people to vote one way or the other hoping new people reading the thread would only read the last page TBH.

Another issue is people that have their arguments torn apart completely in one thread so start another. This is kind of like circular posting except with new threads basically.


Another problem is when posters start asking people to prove something that isn't actually possible to prove. Hard to think of an example but I like that people should back certain points up but sometimes discussions aren't at that level and asking for proof is being used as an idiotic way to kill discussion because someone doesn't like that everyone on the thread isn't agreeing with them.

It isn't quite restricted to boards.ie I should say as certain posters (could be from here too) have been doing same on politics.ie too. I think asking for evidence is abused when people don't like the topic of the thread in general on the forum and then continuing to badger people about it over and over again. I think if someone doesn't state something as being a matter of fact that proof should not really be necessary, nice and someone can request proof but if they keep badgering someone about something then action should be taken against the person badgering.

The last point is basically irrational posting. Someone that posts something that they basically consider to be a statement of fact but it is up for debate among everyone else who insist on repeatedly stating that supposed fact and borderline insulting anyone that disagrees or asks them to even just explain why they think that point of view is correct. This one is probably the hardest one to put up with I think. When someone isn't even asked to prove their opinion but just reason out why this is their opinion and basically acts like this is insulting them in some way and starts throwing thinly veiled insults at other posters. Just immature posting I guess.

---

Oh and if I do any of the above, don't hold it against me, I'm only human too :P The short version of the above is repetition is annoying and people should be polite and be willing to explain their point of view even if they can't prove it.

Eliot Rosewater

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

The permanent elections forum really exists to smooth administration. If one wants election and budget sub-forums to come and go one has to get admins involved which slows the process somewhat.

Well yeah I suppose they are already permanent and work quite well. They are needed to keep a lot of the crap out of the Irish politics forum. They could be sub-forums of it in my list.


Other than that I would say bravo on the moderating, these are pretty much the only forums I use on boards and the internet in general due to their quality of thought and writing.

Fair play, I say

Suryavarman

edanto wrote: »

Would it be possible to find people that wish to start and adjudicate debates in that forum?

I was only saying this to myself the other day. It would be nice to have the occasional serious debate instead of the free for all's that we usually have.

nesf

thebman wrote: »

Another problem is when posters start asking people to prove something that isn't actually possible to prove. Hard to think of an example but I like that people should back certain points up but sometimes discussions aren't at that level and asking for proof is being used as an idiotic way to kill discussion because someone doesn't like that everyone on the thread isn't agreeing with them.

Well asking someone to prove a negative is in general a nice way to ruin a thread.

nesf

Suryavarman wrote: »

I was only saying this to myself the other day. It would be nice to have the occasional serious debate instead of the free for all's that we usually have.

I'd be all for nominated teams debates. With polls for which side won or something similar to the Economist debate series. Or perhaps a team of judges too?

I'll take it to Dav and see what he thinks about it.

20Cent

It would be good to use the political theory section more, you find unrealistic minority ideologies being applied to actual events and situations derailing the threads. If something has never happened anywhere ever and is unlikely to ever happen surely it should be kept in the theory section as opposed to the other parts which deal with reality.

raymon

I would like anyone using multiple accounts to have their ip address banned.

Also there should be swifter action against posters who try to derail a thread by deliberately taking the thread off topic. This seems to be tolerated for some reason.

southsiderosie

I definitely don't think the forum needs more sub-forums. As I said in the Feedback thread, I think stronger enforcement of OPs can make a huge difference, and it does seem like there has been some activity there.

I like the idea of political theory being more heavily moderated than the rest of the forum - it's kind of a bookend to the Politics Cafe. However, given what some people think is interesting or useful discourse on theory (i.e. showing no actual familiarity with theorists - or how to construct an argument - but raging against it anyway), I have to wonder how this would actually work in practice.

Maybe the charter could be simplified, but how much of a difference does that really make anyway? Personally I think if people followed the 'don't be a dick' rule then that would be a massive improvement, but at the same time, politics tends to invoke a certain level of, shall we say, dick-ishness by its very nature, so this is certainly subjective!

Ultimately, I think the forum ebbs and flows - if there are no big political stories, in some ways it's actually better because it's not flooded with wanna-be comedians and/or cranks (aside from the resident cranks, of course ). But I also think that in general the more the merrier - I guess the key here is making the culture and ethos of the forum clear to newcomers...although that is clearly easier said than done.

Eliot Rosewater

20Cent wrote: »

It would be good to use the political theory section more, you find unrealistic minority ideologies being applied to actual events and situations derailing the threads. If something has never happened anywhere ever and is unlikely to ever happen surely it should be kept in the theory section as opposed to the other parts which deal with reality.

I'm sorry 20Cent, but given your history on this website it's no longer possible for your digs to be in any way subtle: we all know what individuals and points of view you're actually just attacking behind these broad statements.

The problem (and it is a problem) of the dominance of libertarian discussion on this forum is, directly at least, not primarily the fault of any libertarians. The problem is mostly caused by the people who try to take any opportunity they get to attack it. Example: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=76058886#post76058886 This post doesn't even attempt to be relevant to the topic at hand: it just goes for a quick short and irrelevant attack. Too much of this on the forum, in my opinion.

whatstherush

raymon wrote: »

I would like anyone using multiple accounts to have their ip address banned.

There might be genuine posters from the same ip though especially if boards is allowed through a company firewall.

Sunnyisland

Can anything be done about posters who quote a post but edit it so it comes across with a more different meaning and can be taken completely the wrong way by follow on posters ?

nesf

realies wrote: »

Can anything be done about posters who quote a post but edit it so it comes across with a more different meaning and can be taken completely the wrong way by follow on posters ?

Report that and it'll be dealt with harshly.

Sunnyisland

realize wrote: »

Can anything be done about posters who quote a post but edit it so it comes across with a more different meaning and can be taken completely the wrong way by follow on posters ?

nesf wrote: »

Report that and it'll be dealt with harshly.

I don't mean they change the wording they take out sentences from the post and then answer that sentence which when not in the full post do look a bit extreme/stupid etc .

Memnoch

I would like to know if the issue of ad-hominems should extend beyond individuals to groups of individuals?

For example there have been numerous posts in US politics maligning the occupy protesters with repeated attempts to delegitimise them and undermine them rather than actually trying to address the issues that the movement was trying to raise.

Ironic that permabear was one of the posters leading the charge on this issue.

I would also like there to be stricter rules on the issue of flame baiting, I find that posters are allowed to get away with these kind of posts far too often.

edanto

nesf wrote: »

I'd be all for nominated teams debates. With polls for which side won or something similar to the Economist debate series. Or perhaps a team of judges too?

I'll take it to Dav and see what he thinks about it.

Well if anyone want to suggest some topics for debate etc, here's the start of a thread in that forum. .. . http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056486366

nesf

edanto wrote: »

Well if anyone want to suggest some topics for debate etc, here's the start of a thread in that forum. .. . http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056486366

Edanto, not even I have permission to post in that forum. The only people with access are the ones who participated in previous debates.

nesf

realies wrote: »

I don't mean they change the wording they take out sentences from the post and then answer that sentence which when not in the full post do look a bit extreme/stupid etc .

That'll be dealt with on a case by case basis. Report it and we can check it out etc.

Overheal

wes wrote: »

I think something should be done about Astro turfers, who sign on to discuss one topic, and basically make false accusation against other posters, and generally drag down the level of debate, more so than usual, and essentially provide arguement found on other sites and provide nothing to the discussion.

This.

So much noise gets generated from needless back and forth posts. "Oh typical X response." "How am I an X?" "Your post history bla bla bla" "Oh yeah well prove it".

I'm sure, allowed to reach its logical conclusion, such nonsense would get settled out but honestly I say just put a hard No Rule on it and keep that crap out of the discussion. Ad Hominems - especially those in regard to other posters - do nothing for the discussion and shouldn't be considered acceptable. And believe me, there are a small handful of posters I would gladly dig in to if this were some other piece of **** politics website but I don't think it's fair to this forum and I won't be doing it. Other annoying examples include "Oh your source is unreliable", when in most cases it's a very simple matter for that user to not be lazy and provide an appropriate counter-source. It shouldn't be acceptable to simply dismiss an argument because of the sources it uses, you should at least be able to provide some verification (not just an insinuation) that the information cited is indeed false.

gandalf wrote: »

Sub Forums need to be relevant and those that are not working should be shut down. If for example the US Politics forums is too quiet then I would wholeheartedly support it be transmuted into a World Politics forum.

edanto wrote: »

Yeah at this stage the idea of US politics being the most important in the world is fairly out of date. Though the way they may be trying to destroy the euro at the moment is a thread I might start in that forum!

Would it be possible to find people that wish to start and adjudicate debates in that forum?

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

I would go:


Irish Politics (local)
EU Politics (including all Irish issues relating to the EU)
international politics (US/ME/*EU when involved internationally* etc)
Political cafe (for theoretical debate)

With subforums for budgets and elections as they come.
The less forums the better. Irish economy can go if you ask me, it's a cesspit of rhetoric and bad economics.

US Politics is hardly a dead forum, it regularly has active threads and ups and downs. United States IP traffic is one of the higher demographics on the site after Irish web traffic.

It doesn't fall into an International Politics category either. The majority of threads relate to the United State's domestic politics. Only about 1/5th of threads deal with Foreign Policy, as most of those type of thread invariably end up in the Politics forum proper.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

20Cent

Keep the libertarian stuff in the theory section since its just a still untried theory.

nesf

20Cent wrote: »

Keep the libertarian stuff in the theory section since its just a still untried theory.

You know I'm kind of getting sick of your crusade. Keep it to the Theory threads, don't be dragging other threads off-topic with it.

Xenophile

1) The Blasphemy thread was not even given a chance to start.
2) Dissove or Disband FF.

Really sounds like over modderation, why did not the moderator delete the offending post rather than close the discussions,

Please reinstate these two threads if you do not want the posters to believe that their genuine efforts and individual thinking will be confined to the recycle bin if the mods do not like the content of the material.

In the meatime, plese justify a cass for closing the thrad for calling on FF to disband. The bebate was interesting civil and informative and at least 99% Respectful. Surely you cannot close a thread because of one off the wall post, this thread was beginning to liven up and who knows a lot of historically interesting material had the potential of originating here.

nesf

Put more effort into your OPs and thread closures like the Blasphemy thread won't happy. You should at minimum have stated a case for its removal from law and dealt with the implications of this not just presumed it.

The FF thread was locked because quite a few posts in it were substandard, we've done the topic ten times over and it wasn't going to get any better. It was that or I handed out 6 or 7 infractions which would be overmoderation at this stage in the process of change.


That and people are asking us to crack down on stuff below standard so we're doing it.

Victor

I went through the last 100 threads in the general politics board, not including sub-boards.

Topic Number of threads
Board management (this thread) 1
General (may belong in Political Theory) 3
Protests 1
Occupy 1

Ireland 59
Northern Ireland 1

Euro / EU / financial crisis 13
GB/UK (domestic) 4
Israel (domestic) 3
Germany (domestic) 2
Iran 2
Iraq 2
Russia (dom+int) 2
Syria 2
Afghanistan 1
Egypt 1
Palestine 1
North Korea 1
UN 1

I'm actually somewhat surprised at the variety - politics general usually appears to only deal with Ireland and Isreal-Palestine.

I'm wondering would it be useful to have the following boards within politics:

Irish Politics
Irish Economy
British & European Politics
USA Politics
Rest of World Politics
Political Theory
Politics Café

And then have "Politics" as a mere folder to hold the above. The exact lines between some of them may be blurred, e.g. is a Northern Ireland issue an Irish, British or European one? Is Russia part of Europe or Rest of World? What of 'international politics'?

Memnoch

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

That's a fair point and perhaps a regrettable choice of topic. The difference of course is that the tea party is a much more unified movement with apparent leaders and figureheads. Christine O'Donnell is one. Certainly a 'darling,' of the tea party if not a leader.

Also I did not associate her with witchcraft, she admitted, ON VIDEO to 'dabbling in it,' a link to which is in the thread. To me someone who talks about dabbling in witchcraft is a little crazy. It's not an adhominem if it's true is it?

Interesting though the fox news article in my post seems to have been edited to remove all reference to the witchcraft scandal (which is why I had linked to it originally.) They've done this kind of stuff before though.

Regardless, I still accept your general point.

But I'm confused. Are you saying that you are not in favour of stopping the mischaracterisations of groups through unproven adhominems?

I still find it desperately ironic that the same poster that wants to say that people's complaints about corporate greed and influence in corrupting governments become invalid because some of the people at a protest carried ipads, or that wants to dismiss an entire movement as violent due to the actions of a tiny minority, while at the same time not applying those same principles to organs of the state such as law enforcement, laments how the standard of posting has fallen so low in recent times considering his illustrious contributions to said decline.

In any case, I'm not interested in a back and forth with you. Your style of posting, as I've illustrated, is one of the reasons I've gone off the politics forum.

I hope the rules are amended and made stricter. I'll happily comply and accept that in the past I may have crossed the line. But, with respect, Sir. The line is a dot to you.

Overheal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxJyPsmEask

/OT

SupaNova

Memnoch wrote: »

It's not an adhominem if it's true is it?

Yes it is, you are attacking the tea party movement not for its aims or principles but because one member dabbles in witchcraft. It would be like someone coming to the conclusion that all professional footballers are despicable because El Hadji Diouf spat at a spectator.

You can attack the Tea Party all you want using strong logical argument against the ideas and principles they stand for, wild ad hominem rants don't cut it.

AhSureTisGrand

Memnoch wrote: »

It's not an adhominem if it's true is it?

It is.