For whatever my opinion as a poster is worth, I will add my support for a dismantling of the american politics boards. The Trump thread, political correctness thread, and (usually) culture thread are all mostly divisive garbage/bitching/moaning. They've done far more harm than good for the community and are especially destructive in the offseason.
That's a damn short sighted mindset if so. Long standing posters that are a treat to read are worth their weight in gold for a site like this. The politics shit will die down, and at this rate only the trolls, uninvested, and mediocre posters will remain. (Likeme.gif)
Political conversation has been a part of this board since it was started in the early days. IrishEnvy was not started just to be a football board.
Over the years there has been sparks now and then between particular posters but usually through the influence of the moderators that was kept in check. Those that didn't get the message after repeated warnings got to post elsewhere.
It's only been since October 2016 that "the mostly divisive garbage/bitching/moaning" really took off in attempt stifle any dialog. Those unhappy with the result of that election took to the board with Strzok like messages, in essence, "We'll stop it!" and if we can't stop it we'll get any discussion removed from the boards.
For the first time in the history of IE political discussion was relegated to a back room because the triggered crowd needed a "safe space". Yet there had been always a safe space, one had to go to the Leprechaun Lounge to read those kind of topics, and if they didn't want to read them, they didn't NOT have to CLICK on the title. And what onerous titles they are:
"Politics" started by BobD in 2012
"2016 Presidential Horse Race" started by DomeX2 eNVy in Nov 2014
"Liberalism & Conservatism" started by that master troller WhiskeyJack in Jan 2015
"Foreign Policy" started by WhiskeyJack in Jan 2015
"Immigration" (About Germany not the U.S) started by Calvegas04 in Feb 2016
"Healthcare" started by Legacy in April 2016
"Police State USA" started by LAX in Apr 2015
"Feminism" started by IrishinFL in Aug 2015
"Culture" started by WhiskeyJack in May 2016
"Trump Presidency" started by BGIF in Nov 2016
"Racism" started by Cackalacky in Apr 2017
"Another Shooting" started by Son of Oahu in Nov 2017
"2018 Midterm Elections" started by Buster Bluth in 2018
One of the earliest political posts was "I'm becoming a democrat" by StoneBreakerwasgod in April of 2007 ... 11 years ago.
Yet in the past year, those titles became onerous to the tiggered crowd if they appeared OMG on the front page. The same page they appeared for more than a dozen years. They had to be segregated to "hidden" space, the "Political Threads" because of complaints of a few that couldn't stand to see the name "Trump", the word "Feminism, or whatever they didn't agree with. If you don't want to read about it, don't click on the topic.
Long standing posters that are a treat to read are worth their weight in gold for a site like this. The politics shit will die down, and at this rate only the trolls, uninvested, and mediocre posters will remain.
According to the front page there are over 69,000 members of IE, I suspect that includes 50,000 or so bots. The IE Membership List shows a lot less.
As for those "long standing posters that are worth their weight in gold" ... the membership lists about 300 with 1,000 or so posts. Of those 3,000 about 50-75 left back in 2007 -2008 when the board changed ownership. Another 50 or so were banned over the years. Another 50-75 (or more) like WabashFalcon and Praetorian moved on with family/career demands or maybe they just outgrew us. Everybody gets older but some stay immature forever.
Point is, there are probably about 100 or less regular posters on IE perhaps more in the neighborhood of 50. Some post in a variety of threads, most stay in a few areas such as football and recruiting. Sorry, greyhammer but despite your misconception "only the trolls ... remain" is patently false. The mods for years have dealt with that issue. Posters who were funny but foul mouthed, or bigoted, or just asses are gone. Sadly some good posters in sports topics couldn't carry the same level of conversation in other topics, be they the segregated political topics, or just chit chat.
Their inability to carry on a reasonable conservation without spilling their bowels verbally was not the fault of others not of the topics. It was their own. Buster got to the point where he could not discuss any topic without insulting the intelligence of anyone who didn't see things his way on any topic. His M.O. became rant by ad hominem.
That's not the fault of the topic, that's the fault of the poster. Some posters in their zeal for their point of view posted tweets from bloggers who simply took a headline and rewrote it for sensationalism, with little or no substance. Frequently posting a host of "articles" (one line tweets by different twits) trying to demonstrate overwhelming news when all it was, was circular regurgitating. When someone pointed that out, retorts were hurled of racist, bigot, Nazi, communist, neocon, liberal, libertarian, or any other ism to disparage the poster. Again that's not the fault of a topic, that's the fault of posters incapable of making a viable argument.
Shutting down threads because a few posters have hissy fits and are intolerant of others, whatever their viewpoint, is wrong. Chastise or punish the miscreants not those who behave.
And for the record, I'm a lifelong GDI, God Damn Independent. I piss off both the left and the right with regularity.
