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Bloody Politics

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stu neville

stu neville

Commissioner.
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Mar 9, 2002
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Following another politically-inspired spite-fest overnight, and given the proliferation of such discussions in the past couple of years, I have decided to segregate all the political threads with absolutely no Fortean angle into their own dedicated forum, called Politics. I will start shifting threads into it today. The main intention is that it should contain these volatile (and at times tedious) discussions into one place that people can safely ignore.

From this day onwards, ANYONE who starts politicising a non-political thread without incredibly good justification will immediately be served with a yellow warning. This will be rigidly enforced.
 
I'd also like to add a few words of explanation.

We now know for a fact that we have lost both long-standing active members and recent arrivals as a result of political argument. A few have even had to be removed.

Beneath are some of the reasons and issues as far as we are able to divine:

1) Given the link with the magazine and the masthead atop the page, people arrive here in search of Forteana; some are dismayed to find such a large politics section.

2) As political debate is fuelled and refreshed by news reports, polls and commentary, political threads are updated extremely regularly and routinely hold multiple top positions in the standard 'New Posts' search all day long. We are unable to implement a satisfactory technical solution to this situation.

3) Because a great many political threads are sustained by a devoted core of regular posters, the debates very often resemble private conversations (at best) and private feuds (at worst). Past debates, known positions and real world biographical data (actual or assumed) are regularly referenced, which can be most forbidding for even the keenest political newcomer: it looks far too much like a private party at which you know nobody, and to which you are arriving self-invited.

4) It is not yet a problem at this stage, but from an ongoing observation of the browsing habits of the active membership, lurkers, non-registered browsers and the bots from search engines, it's clear that the political threads are garnering a significant amount of traffic. Moreover, the greater the quantity of such content, the more politically-focused web searches lead here and the more the Fortean flavour of the board is imperilled; the proliferation of political content is at risk of becoming self-fuelling, as it were.

5) We have in the past had to remove content that is likely illegal--or at least actionable--under defamation and libel law in the UK. In the worst cases, one or two posters have just plain made up accusations with no evidential basis at all and posted them as fact. Being wrong about the identity of a poltergeist is one thing, falsely accusing a public figure is quite another. While the chance of genuine litigation against the magazine is (thankfully) fleetingly small, the owners of such a minor publication expect the moderators to err on the side of caution in these waters. They and the editor of the magazine grant us a very great deal of independence, but it is certain that they will not permit the focus of the forum to stray very far from that which they expect to find--doubly not if it potentially involves lawyers' letters.

6) Perhaps to an even greater degree than most other subjects, Fortean discussion attracts a very wide range of participants. Not only is it a very broad umbrella under which a host of disparate topics shelter, but there are a number of social groups that feed into certain debates and need have almost nothing whatsoever in common with one another, politically speaking (the religious, academics, political radicals, zoologists, geologists, alternative medicine champions, movie enthusiasts, historians etc. etc.) Despite this heterogeneousness, the shared interest in honest enquiry has thus far engendered a surprising degree of goodwill--a goodwill that is simply absent when it comes to a cultural and political landscape that is bitterly divided on both sides of the Atlantic and elsewhere.

Finally, despite our feeling that a slightly tougher line is required from now on, the current moderators continue to be committed to listening to the views of the membership (sorry if that sounds like advertising copy). To say that our door is always open might sound condescending, but we are usually receptive to suggestions and happy to provide clarification and explanation for our actions (as I have attempted here); whisper it quietly, but we have all been known to change our minds when presented with good reasons.
 
Well done chaps! I was about to make a suggestion along those lines.

I come here for entertainment and discussion about interesting stuff. Politics is neither of those (to me).
 
I have been guilty of stirring the political pot, knowing full well that it was non-Fortean (bizarre, surreal, and other-worldly at times, but not Fortean). I respect the decision and will try to be a good boy from now on.:)
 
I think this is probably the right approach.

There used to be some excellent debate on the mainstream news/political threads but of late it has deteriorated into unpleasantness. It is I am afraid the wider political atmosphere in microcosm - far, far more tribal than in the past and with people who ought to know better egging on the mob.

Been away from the board for a couple of weeks and I was in two minds whether to return given the unpleasantness from some quarters. This helps I think.
 
stuneville said:
Following another politically-inspired spite-fest overnight, and given the proliferation of such discussions in the past couple of years, I have decided to segregate all the political threads with absolutely no Fortean angle into their own dedicated forum, called Politics. I will start shifting threads into it today. The main intention is that it should contain these volatile (and at times tedious) discussions into one place that people can safely ignore.

From this day onwards, ANYONE who starts politicising a non-political thread without incredibly good justification will immediately be served with a yellow warning. This will be rigidly enforced.
Click to expand...
Good idea!
 
I once started a thread 'Fort in Sport'. I really wish there was more Fort in politics but it does seem to be a particularly dry zone.
 
UnknownUnknown said:
Just wanted to say Thankyou! I am one of those who has at times stayed away because of unpleasantness. Not directed at me, but still can make one feel very unwelcome. Looking forward to re-engaging!
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I'm with you. Things got very bad recently, and I disengaged so much I was thinking of quitting altogether.

But today has been much better, rather like the good old days when posters exchanged ideas and information rather than opinions. Perhaps I'll stay...
 
Wouldn't it be lovely if we had a week without anything awful happening? Then we could concentrate on things that go bump in the night, and whatnot.
 
rynner2 said:
This is going to veer off into a "Getting out of bed on the wrong side" thread!

Our ancestors must have had much roomier accommodation than we normally suppose, if they could get out of either side!
Click to expand...

Perhaps the saying harks back to the days when 'bed' was a palliasse on the floor, and getting out the wrong side meant sticking an unprotected foot into the hot ashes of the fire.

Or a bucket of piss.
 
Or it comes from the Romans...
To be in a bad mood – to be grumpy or unpleasant from the moment you wake up for no obvious reason. In Roman times it was considered bad luck to get out of bed on the left side. Therefore, if you got out of bed on the 'wrong' side (the left side), it was thought that you would have a very bad day.
Click to expand...

I get out of the left side every day. That explains everything.
 
I've seen lots of queries, notes, and articles about arising from one or the other side of a bed, but ...

... I don't recall any of them ever specifying whether they're citing right / left as seen from above (e.g., from the foot of the bed looking down) or from a position on the bed (lying down; looking upward).

Is there some widely-acknowledged convention for bed 'right / left' attributions? If so - what is it?
 
EnolaGaia said:
I've seen lots of queries, notes, and articles about arising from one or the other side of a bed, but ...

... I don't recall any of them ever specifying whether they're citing right / left as seen from above (e.g., from the foot of the bed looking down) or from a position on the bed (lying down; looking upward).

Is there some widely-acknowledged convention for bed 'right / left' attributions? If so - what is it?
Click to expand...

A bed has a head and a foot so it's not difficult to work out the orientation can be deduced from the figure lying in it in the proper way.
 
Yithian said:
Surprised you made it this far to be honest.
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Everyone says that. However as Lemmy Kilmister says...

"To everyone all over the world that ever picked me (or even a leg or arm) up, I am always (although not always visibly) grateful and ready to do the same in return. As for the other kind: It's not working, is it? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
 
Update:

Back on topic, I've spent the past couple of hours dredging every last political thread from the depths of Mainstream News and moving them to the new Politics Forum. I'm sure that most of you would be astounded by the number of such threads, some dating back to 2002.

For a long period of time, we didn't really bother merging a lot of chat or mainstream news threads, so I've done my best to combine many of them into larger threads with more general titles, especially the considerable number of threads which ran to only two or three posts, the first of which was typically a quoted article or extract. I am not blind to the fact that large threads are cumbersome and uninviting, but our priority is to reduce the footprint of politics on the search function and new post list and this will further that purpose.

I've no doubt that some of you will howl that more specific topics require their own dedicated threads, but I've had to be hardheaded about the matter: the decision has been taken to condense (not end) political discussion, and this is one necessary step in the process. I want to stress that not a single post has been deleted in any of these moves and merges--nor will one be.

Accordingly:

  • If you cannot find a familiar thread, it will now have been subsumed within another, associated thread. The Politics forum is currently only a couple of pages long and the thread titles have been simplified in order to make content clear. It should, therefore, be straightforward to locate what you want. If you still cannot locate the topic you were discussing, a search of your own content via 'profile' will turn it up in no time.
  • We'd be very grateful if you would browse the existing thread titles in the politics forum before starting a fresh thread on a topic; in many cases the topic you wish to discuss will be capable of being added to an existing thread. By doing so you will be saving the moderators additional work--which we would appreciate.
Comments or complaints on this thread or Via PM if necessary.
Thanks for your patience.
:cooll:
 
Yithian said:
Update:

Back on topic, I've spent the past couple of hours dredging every last political thread from the depths of Mainstream News and moving them to the new Politics Forum. I'm sure that most of you would be astounded by the number of such threads, some dating back to 2002.

For a long period of time, we didn't really bother merging a lot of chat or mainstream news threads, so I've done my best to combine many of them into larger threads with more general titles, especially the considerable number of threads which ran to only two or three posts, the first of which was typically a quoted article or extract. I am not blind to the fact that large threads are cumbersome and uninviting, but our priority is to reduce the footprint of politics on the search function and new post list and this will further that purpose.

I've no doubt that some of you will howl that more specific topics require their own dedicated threads, but I've had to be hardheaded about the matter: the decision has been taken to condense (not end) political discussion, and this is one necessary step in the process. I want to stress that not a single post has been deleted in any of these moves and merges--nor will one be.

Accordingly:

  • If you cannot find a familiar thread, it will now have been subsumed within another, associated thread. The Politics forum is currently only a couple of pages long and the thread titles have been simplified in order to make content clear. It should, therefore, be straightforward to locate what you want. If you still cannot locate the topic you were discussing, a search of your own content via 'profile' will turn it up in no time.
  • We'd be very grateful if you would browse the existing thread titles in the politics forum before starting a fresh thread on a topic; in many cases the topic you wish to discuss will be capable of being added to an existing thread. By doing so you will be saving the moderators additional work--which we would appreciate.
Comments or complaints on this thread or Via PM if necessary.
Thanks for your patience.
:cooll:
Click to expand...

Well done!
 
Thanks also.

It's possibly the same sort of thing, but it irks me when people post crime news stories in the fortean forums which (to me at least) don't seem to have a fortean angle. Mostly they're just heinous or gross, like most of the ones in the 'beheading' topic.

Call me a fortean purist perhaps, but that's why I come here.
 
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