Your opinion on the Trump Rants thread

[Huntress]

Hello everyone.

Some concerns have come up among the mod team regarding some of the political content on the forum, specifically the Trump Rants! #NotMyPresident thread on the Banter Board. We are worried that it is contributing to negative forum atmosphere and potentially making others uncomfortable. As you are all users of the forum, same as us, we thought we should ask your opinion. Do you think that thread serves a good purpose, or is it just fostering negativity? Please answer in the poll above or post any comments you have here. Or feel free to PM any mod if you have an opinion but would rather not share it publicly (though don't worry about the poll itself, as the results are hidden). We will decide what to do with the thread depending on feedback. Please answer honestly, as we want to act in the best interest of everyone involved, whichever way that swings.

[PFA]

idk how I only just noticed this thread ten days later, but my two cents:

It does kind of bother me because the forum rules otherwise state that we're not supposed to discuss politics or discriminate against certain political beliefs, but Trump is seemingly the exception to that rule. I avoid the thread because I personally hate politics, so I don't know how heated it gets in there, but it does sort of give the vibe that anyone who agrees even slightly with Trump is unwelcome here.

[Jae]

A counterpoint to your last remark is that the NTWF is one of the few places I've found on the internet to post an anti-Trump opinion and NOT get at least one death threat from a Russian troll bot in return. I personally don't care if people support Trump as long as they don't attack me for not supporting him, like I didn't attack them the 8 years they openly refused to support Obama. Also, as a further aside, the Banter Board isn't visible to guests, so unless someone is registered, they can't see that the thread exists.

Regarding politics, though, like... EVERYTHING is a matter of political opinion these days? I mean look at how many people immediately started fishing for real world comparisons to the current LD event in its thread. I'm not saying I want everyone who makes a political joke, regardless of relevancy, punished to the full extent of the board rules - I would actually be kinda put off if that happened. I'm just pointing out that the 2016 election shifted the goalposts with respect to what is considered acceptable political discourse in polite conversation everywhere. Getting rid of the Trump Rants thread isn't going to make peoples' opinions go away. They'll just bubble through elsewhere, like the LD thread, or when the Burrito in the Wall item was released. In that respect, having a dedicated thread or threads for it allows for those opinions to be kept relatively isolated.

Regarding the thread itself, I don't know Proboards forum capabilities, but would it be possible to make a political debates subforum somewhere and have the threads contained within it automatically marked as read so they don't appear in the last post column or as the last updated thread down in the info and statistics box? That way people who want to participate can find it on their own, but people who don't can more readily ignore it?

[Gelquie]

Just answering this right quick:

Nov 24, 2018 18:21:15 GMT -5 Jae said:

Regarding the thread itself, I don't know Proboards forum capabilities, but would it be possible to make a political debates subforum somewhere and have the threads contained within it automatically marked as read so they don't appear in the last post column or as the last updated thread down in the info and statistics box? That way people who want to participate can find it on their own, but people who don't can more readily ignore it?

From what I checked, there's no such functionality on Proboards.

There is a way to create hidden boards that could be found through sleuthing, but I think that'd be needlessly complicated. Especially since there's nothing a hypothetical political debates subboard could cover that Discussions and Debates doesn't already.

[Twillie]

Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on this topic, whether it be via a poll vote or a post on the thread.

The mods believe that enough time has passed to get a general idea of thoughts and opinions, and will now go forward accordingly. We will be using this provided feedback to discuss appropriate next steps to take, before implementing those ideas in the near future. In the meantime, this thread shall remain open.

Once again, thank you again for your participation, as well as for your patience as the mods review feedback.

[Ryanruff13]

Similarly to PFA, I initially hadn't even noticed this thread. I know that the moderators are already in the progress of forming a consensus, but I figured that I would still contribute to the discussion.

I consider myself ambivalent towards the thread. There is one part of me that makes me think that there is potential for it to contribute towards a negative atmosphere, and that closing it would help fight against that.

Conversely, I believe that allowing it to stay up would allow a certain sense of openness that allows NTWF to serve its purpose as being a hub for general discussion. Additionally, one could argue that Trump's situation is considered sufficiently unique enough to warrant a thread to serve as a healthy outlet for venting one's feelings about him. To drive in the latter point, I consider my politics to be right-wing and even I have serious qualms with the Trump administration.

If I had to choose one option: I'd allow the thread to stay up, to set a precedent for the aforementioned freer sense of open discussion. Although I wouldn't entirely object to it being closed either.

I also, by no means, would personally disallow political discussion in general on NTWF, as I feel that one of the strengths of NTWF is being a center where many different people, unified by a love of Neopets, can also socialize by discussing a variety of other, more general issues, though I would still emphasize caution with approaching certain political subjects to ensure that civil discussion is maintained.

[Zoey]

Same as everyone else, I totally did not notice this board until today, LOL!

I think this debate is quite relevant in terms of the current political atmosphere as well. Our country is very politically polarized, and part of it is because both sides tend to just debate among themselves and not listen to what the other side is saying. I think the average NTWF user is of a mature age where they can handle criticism and debate of politics. If someone doesn't like my favored candidate because of their policies, great, I can take that. It opens up discussion as to the pros and cons of certain policies. However, if someone doesn't like my candidate because of their gender, religion, race, etc., then that would cultivate a negative atmosphere that has nothing to do with politics and should be moderated appropriately. On a similar note, if someone starts attacking another user just because they don't agree with a lawmaker's policies, that's not good either, and in that case it would devolve into something other than a political debate and also should be moderated appropriately.

Overall, though, I think that by disallowing debate of politics, we would be propagating the problem--ie. political parties just listening amongst themselves and not hearing what the other side says, which I think is a dangerous mindset for this country and goes against everything this country was founded on.

On the other hand, one could argue that no one is going to listen to what some random user on the internet says about politics, and that we're too set in our ways to change our minds. I don't think NTWF is like that; I think most of us are pretty open-minded and try to be inclusive regardless of political views. And at the end of the day, if someone doesn't want to hear something negative about their candidate's policies, they can just choose to not view the thread.