Are we allowed political posts? (536 views)

Oh I hope so!  I vote (oh no pun intended) would be yes -- it was one of my favorite parts of the BB.   Seriously, I've learned so much, heard different viewpoints, had things explain to me that I wasn't sure about, and hey sometimes I just needed a place to vent. And, catbatty, I agree -- friendly and courteous! It does fall under miscellaneous, just like if I started a thread about favorite winter boots.  All miscellaneous.  Ha.  But of course, I'm not a moderator.

To show you how I feel right now, I think I've hit my saturation point. I have MSNBC on mute right now. Seriously. I flipped to Fox to see what they are saying and mute to that too. I'm going to order my groceries instead since that doesn't stress me out.

Oh, and be sure to watch Dr Oz for info on Trumps medical report.

I sincerely hope the Mods will include "no politics, no religion, no weapons rights, etc." rules for this forum.

Those sorts of topics have degraded the quality on so many forums we have belonged to. The ones we run have such rules in place:


"2. Conduct

You can challenge others' points of view and opinions, but do so respectfully and thoughtfully. Absolutely NO personal attacks will be tolerated, this includes insults, personal attacks, flaming, flamebaiting, inflammatory rhetoric, belligerence, insults, profanity, extreme anger, offensive comments about race, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin. If you believe a poster is in violation, please report the post to one of the moderators. Do not attempt to "settle" the issue publicly, as it will only serve to worsen the situation.

No discussion of politics, general government policies, weaponry rights or religious topics are allowed, if you want to discuss those topics there are forums that specialize in those discussion areas.

Be mindful of yourself and others. This forum is not a democracy; it is privately owned and run by volunteers. If rules are violated [name of forum] retains the right at our discretion to remove, edit or delete posts and if necessary ban or remove members. Any abuse toward our staff will result in immediate suspension / banning of your account.
We take these "Be Courteous" rules VERY seriously! We do not tolerate ANY rudeness."


I know I am only one user and not that frequent a poster (albeit a long time member) on CLBB. I stopped reading "Other Topics" on that board because of all the political threads. If such discussions are permitted (reading above responses it almost seems like they might be "encouraged" here), I will opt out of this forum.

Michelle

Michelle,
I don't see (above posts) where it is encouraged. I appreciate your input very much, and thank you for sharing the verbage about what is expected of posters in some existing forums.

Bev and I have barely been able to have a conversation about this kind of thing...so it's up in the air at the moment. We did talk about it and left it open to decide until we have more time.

At this point, we only know this: the place that many of us came here from DID have (away from the food section) the Other Stuff section and folks could post whatever they wanted. Nobody made anybody read or post  to that section; it was optional area, I mean. Can't folks who don't want to read about politics, just not go view those threads, folks will probably ask.

I can see your point and that is what I've also been thinking about. I hate to make for more divisions and angers/meanness than we can so easily find in the real world around us. And politics and religion discussion seem to bring it OUT in people (probably because both are about passions and beliefs). Also, if everybody seems to be of one persuasion (as seems to me to be the case in the old forum) then it will make others feel bad.  And yes, I would hate to see gun topics/religion battled over here...in a place that should be joyous and happy -- to my mind, at least.  I want us to be FRIENDS...a neutral place. And I agree, if folks want to talk the other stuff...yes, there are other places to chat.

As I mentioned, for the time being, I would be aware that decisions about all this have not been finalized. And please, if we do decide to allow these topics, should folks want to start threads and reply to them, in the Other Stuff area -- don't say you will leave the rest of the forum because of that. Couldn't you simply avoid the Other Stuff threads that are about the non-foodie world around us?  Just thoughts. I haven't a want for it or a non-want for it, myself. I am here mostly for the cookbooks/recipes. (And, if it's majority all agreeing on issues, it does leave the others feeling excluded or helpless to say stuff back. That's one reason I would probably vote NOT to have those things here. I don't want anybody to feel bad about themselves or their fellow members. Or say things in the heat of the moment that they regret.)  This is touchy stuff. We shall have to think hard.

Edit to add: One thing I've learned from groups I've had elsewhere, is that the more 'rules', the more work the admin have to do...when folks break the rules.  Since we, Bev and I, have other stuff going on in our lives and this place was our way to try to super-quickly make a place for old friends and new...and we do not plan to admin forever...well, we are just volunteers and want to make it easy on ourselves. Me? I'd rather play around with recipes than monitor rule breakers. Just other thoughts that came to me...

OK, coming from my (years of) experience as a moderator/admin on other forums...  this is meant to give you insight and be helpful as I want this project to succeed:

My observation about political posts being encouraged here - that is because you, as an admin, responded to and expanded on the discussion of the political joke posted in the original post of this topic.  That sent a message to the membership, whether intended or not, that you are encouraging political discussion.  By participating in the discussion yourself, you are showing approval.

To be a successful, respected admin/moderator you must step away and not participate in discussions that can be controversial/alienate users.  You must appear to be a completely neutral party.  This is VERY difficult to do, as it's human nature to respond.  No matter how passionately you may feel about a topic or a user, if it is a controversial subject that might incite heated discussion you must not show your opinion as it indicates to the membership a bias and it will cloud the membership's opinion of those running the board. 

True, CLBB did allow rampant discussion of such topics in Other Subjects.  Unfortunately, there were so many, especially in this contentious election year which has also dragged religion and race into the fray, that users won't even open that section because they don't want to be bombarded with the subject titles.  Who wants to scroll through a bunch of controversial titles to find the (few) real topics in a board?  An example might a topic asking for help choosing a particular appliance or maybe asking for feedback on a college program.  There are so many fewer users who will ever read that subject because they won't open the off-topic board at all because they simply don't want to read the political/religious/what have you topic titles.

You also cannot contain the bad feelings to just that board.  Heated discussions in off-topics will overlap into how users respond to each other in your on-topic boards.  We have seen entire forums destroyed by such things.  This is my heartfelt warning and recommendation to draw the line early.  Most members will appreciate it in the long term when your forum earns the reputation for being a friendly, non-confrontational one. 

And yes, enforcing a user agreement does require a lot of work, and it's going to feel like thankless work at times, particularly as you grow from having "members" to having "users".

Michelle (stepping off my moderator soapbox ;-) )

Think we were both members of certain forums. I'm familiar with the "This is not a democracy" statement.

First kudos to catbatty etc who scrambled to find a place for longtime members elsewhere to hook up and stay in touch. You went above and beyond.

My overall impression of the other place, after a long hiatus from same, was an abandoned, unmoderated free for all that had nothing to do with what the site was about and thrown into a back room with little space. Hey it was free and ad free and members connected on some level and wanted to stay in touch.

I'm not knocking the topic. In honesty I was hoping for a cooking forum, not copy and paste. There are so few out there. The copyright thing set my teeth on edge years ago. There are some old MSN groups that still copy and paste, but are in denial and irate when the topic is brought up. I think there is a copyright policy in place on this site.. I am not an attorney, but have been on the receiving end of nasty threatening PMS from nasty mods and administrators who deleted them. The site is an empty shell of what it once was, wi h banning members for no reason except favoritism. 

I can understand not wanting to be the bad guy that enforces a bunch of rules.  I do agree about staying neutral and out of the fray. 

Heard about that today. Trump has no idea that Dr. Oz is a quack who belongs in the sideshow at the local carnival.

Reality show doctor for our reality show candidate.

Look for announcements. Bev and I had a minute to talk about the group within the group feature that is optional here at our forum. 
Bev made some comments to read. There could be a group...but would require work on your part. (Your = anyone who wants to make one, etc.) Rest of our forum would restrict politics or whatever. I have zero idea how we could monitor that...as volunteers who cannot be here all the much. I am not experienced enough to chat about this optional feature further. Please stay tuned for more info please.

It was mkc, all lower case.  community.cookinglight.com/member.php?16582-mkc

I think that is a great idea! That way those who want to discuss "hot topics" can, while those that don't can easily avoid them. Sounds like something that would work for everyone. 

Andrea - one can't easily avoid them if one uses the "Recent Posts" link to see the latest posts on the forum.  That's why I'm suggesting that the groups be private groups.  If I opt-out of the group then I won't have to scroll by those posts at all since I won't be able to see them. 

I'm suggesting the use of groups not to create exclusivity or cliques, but rather to allow me to filter out the stuff I don't want.  The intention is that people can freely join the groups and that way they can CHOOSE to see the posts for themselves.  Others can CHOOSE NOT to see them by not joining the group.

I think I should set up a test group/board to demonstrate.