Poll: Role of Political Advertisement on ChiefDelphi

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I most definitly think that these discussion should remain, however, I selected "Moderators should keep a very close watch on these threads" for a reason. Referring a recent thread, moderator David Kelly quickly closed it after noticing the pattern it took. See thread in chitchat. It was necessary and it was taken care of. I've also noticed that there are a few users out there who make it a point to step in and try to help sort things out when there is a conflict.

No matter how much conflict we allow, there is a line between personal attack and discussion, and it's battled like mad every time there is a controversial thread. If one can't control their behavior in a post, they're generally informed about it in a reply or a private message. I don't think there is any need to ban political threads if this self - moderation continues, but it's still unreasonable to expect a large number of educated people in this situation to pull off a flawlessly sportsmanlike discussion.

So is there a reason behind the banning of political material from signatures? Personally, I think our signatures should be held to the same account as our posts: fine as long as its not personally attacking someone. Banning signatures because they are of a political nature does not seem fair. Why isn't this ban extended to religious or ideological signatures also? Drawing the line on the topic of discussion, instead of the type of argument seems dangerous.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=30697

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Originally Posted by SilverStar

So is there a reason behind the banning of political material from signatures? Personally, I think our signatures should be held to the same account as our posts: fine as long as its not personally attacking someone. Banning signatures because they are of a political nature does not seem fair. Why isn't this ban extended to religious or ideological signatures also? Drawing the line on the topic of discussion, instead of the type of argument seems dangerous.

I have not seen a single signature on this site with a caption similar to "My religion is better than yours because...". You make a good point that it needs to apply, but I think this is a reasonable ban. While I had no problem with political banners, a few users did, and it was getting to the point that people were arguing over their signatures. I think if there was a problem with religiousness in the signatures, it would be brought to light and fixed. The question is, what do you define is a problem?

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Eugenia Gabrielov

I have not seen a single signature on this site with a caption similar to "My religion is better than yours because...". You make a good point that it needs to apply, but I think this is a reasonable ban. While I had no problem with political banners, a few users did, and it was getting to the point that people were arguing over their signatures. I think if there was a problem with religiousness in the signatures, it would be brought to light and fixed. The question is, what do you define is a problem?

Not only that, some banners were jumbo sized, most of the time larger than any posts they ever made on CD. No offence meant to them, but it got annoying, and did not create an friendly-family type of environment. I like debates and stuff, but not to the point people go bluntly and attack each other. Some of the banners clearly had inappropriate content. In all seriousness, all it takes is common sense, think before you post.

[Steve W]

For the record, I was one of the people that requested that the political banners AND size of banners be addressed. I am Canadian and really don't care who you vote for or support. I do care that I come to CD for robotics. I really got tired of seeing half page political banners every post or two while I was trying to read a thread. I guess you should ask the question "Why are you here?" If for politics, I ask why CD. There are plenty of places that you would be welcome to debate politics.

To support David Kelly, I would have closed the thread if he hadn't. As moderators it is impossible to get to all of the threads just as they are starting up. As it is I spend 2 - 4 hours a day on CD and the amount of posts at times makes it tough to keep up.

The only way that I would agree to see political discussions on CD would be under a Politics thread. I could then disable it from appearing on my portal. I wouldn't ask to be a moderator so to me it would be as if it didn't exist.

When I was growing up (no comments) my mom gave me some good advice. "Don't talk about religion and politics." To have a one on one discussion with a person I know is even tough. People tend to be as passionate about politics as they are about FIRST maybe even more so. What do you think would happen if people started talking the opposite side of FIRST on these threads?

Let's stick to FIRST and robotics, that's why I am here and that's what I believe that CD is about.

[Jeff_Rice]

Note: I'm using myself as an example in this post

Looking at this thread, I noticed it had not input from anyone with a rep less than 4, so I figured I would try to represent that group. It seems to me that the majority of people on chiefdelphi are here as spectators, occasionally dropping a post here and there.

Something such as political discussion often just seems like clutter. Most of the time you aren't going to change anyone's opinion. It usually takes a vocal encounter to do that in my experience.

The reason? Chiefdelphi is on the Internet. It is hard to trust anything on the internet, as your English teachers no doubt will tell you when you are doing a research paper. Though it has a decent reputation, it is made up of people, and people are fallible, and will let their ideal end (changing the opinion of the reader) justify their means.

As such, many people avoid such threads, having informed themselves of issues via more reliable sources than an unrestricted membership forum. Most of them already have an opinion based on the information they have gathered, and reading what others say on that topic probably won't have any effect beyond wasting their time. To these people, the thread in question is just a link taking up space, bumping the one they were interested in down one notch.

To sum that up, to the casual surfer, the political threads are a small annoyance. That annoyance is outweighed by the benefits of good healthy debate experienced by the people who choose to participate in it.

[Wetzel]

Argument - A course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating truth or falsehood.

The discourse would be much better if people wrote on it as if it were a formal paper. Rather than just 'Lavery is an idiot', support it! 'Lavery is an idiot because he let us know where he lives.'

Also, looking at the list of people who don't post in those threads speaks volumes about what they don't say.

Wetzel

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

Argument - A course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating truth or falsehood.

The discourse would be much better if people wrote on it as if it were a formal paper. Rather than just 'Lavery is an idiot', support it! 'Lavery is an idiot because he let us know where he lives.'

Also, looking at the list of people who don't post in those threads speaks volumes about what they don't say.

Wetzel

They casual poster may not be posting here but they are reading it and making thier own decisions. Just not here.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

They casual poster may not be posting here but they are reading it and making thier own decisions. Just not here.

I was trying to say something along the lines of - look at those with high rep and see who doesn't post in the political and other polarized chit-chat threads. It is a fairly big list.


Wetzel

[JohnBoucher]

IMHO The discussion on CD should be free from politics and religion. I appreciate the focus here. CD has the final word on this forum. Period. EOS.
If users want different discussions, please open up your own site and host those discussions.

[Ryan Albright]

I like the political discussion and watching the political threads before the election, i was very pleased on how everyone acted. We had quite a few debates about John Kerry and George Bush but for the most part everyone respected each other and had a logical debate and for the people that tried to be idiots, the moderators were on top of it and did a very good job. The reason why i think we can hold political threads in CD, is because we are all peers or colleagues and have a mutual respect for everyone here, even if we have never met each other we have all grown together reading each others post and threads.

[Melissa Nute]

Moderators need a keep a close eye on the political threads. Before the election, the amount of political posts was getting out of control. I remember posting in one thread(http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...109#post283109) listing the multitude of them.

A while back, someone posted a link to a site that political debates were commonplace. That link should be posted in the political threads when the debate turns too sour for CD's taste or when there are multiple requests to close it.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

I dont think threads involving political issues should be banned, but they should be taken care of. Throwing them in the Chit-Chat section IS NOT taking care of them. The Chit-Chat forum covers such a broad area of topics.. which is pretty much everything, beside FIRST robotics. I enjoy reading and posting on certain topics in the chit chat section, but I do not enjoy seeing political chat on this website. But, does my opinion speak for everyone else on these mesage boards.. No. I am simply a user of the system, and therefore my opinion is exactly that.. an opinion.

I believe that people should have the right to express their opinions, whether they be over politics, religion, etc... but I also believe there should be an option for the common users to be able to choose whether they see these posts of opinion or not. Whether this may be a new sub section of the chit chat area or an option to classify your post as "off topic and possibly offending", I (and possibly others) hope that in the future this issue will be addressed.

Also, this brings up an issue with CD that many people notice but few talk about. While this is a serious discussion forum, it is still a DISCUSSION forum. We just happen to talk about robots here. Robots are machines that work with little need of human input. They dont show emotions, have a sense of humor, or argue. They do what they are told by creator.... People do in fact have all of those things. Now, there are many people on these forums who I would say act more like robots than a humans. People are going to argue, its in their blood. People are going to say stupid things, its in their blood. Bad Talking/neg repping/closing off/banning these people and their posts is not going to do any good. I believe the CD community as a whole needs to just.. cheer up and exersize that sense of humor that I know everyone has. Theres a time for serious business.. but 95% (guess) of the people who post and look at these boards are teenagers, and most teenagers arent very serious. I'll stop now before it turns into a rant.

Tom

[phrontist]

Everything is politics. If you have a group of people, interacting, and if even one of them has an opinion, it's politics. I personally don't see why the ACLU thread was closed, but I do think it would have been better if the origional poster had written a careful explanation of why he thought people should support the ACLU on this plan of action.

Full Disclosure: I'm a card-carrying ACLU member, so I guess I'm biased.

[phrontist]

Oh, and isn't this kind of metaironic...

This is a political thread!

How about a politics forum? Keep it seperate from everything else? It could be a chit-chat subforum. Read it if you want, forget it even exists if you don't. Everyone is happy.