Designated Political Arena constructive criticism & suggestions for improvements thread

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madcap_magician said:
I am a bit concerned that outright removal of the PA subforum would only make moderating politics out of the rest of the forum too hard.
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Well, as I'm sure you know, that's the reason that forum (and W&C) exist; to funnel that kind of discussion away from the areas where it's not wanted.

I don't want the PA shut down, for the reason I just mentioned. It does just fine in that regard.
 
I haven't logged on since early yesterday. Boy, what a ruckus.

I am in favor of taking the PA threads off the Home Page. I can't prove it, but I suspect I was shunned by a knifemaker here because of my participation.
 
I don't want to see BF impaired or taken down due to the overheated politic division in your country. I read regularly and participate sometimes in the PA, however as I am from Germany, it's more to see how deep the waters are there.
Now as the discussion and scrutiny over your 1st amendment is heightened, I would actually take the step and remove the PA from being seen, same as W&C. It is biased towards conservative views, and the moderators are so as well.
This does not come as a surprise, but even without first language skills, you can see much hatred there.

This Forum is a wonderful place for people that love knives and I truly appreciate it.

I also wholeheartedly agree that the PA keeps the other threads clean of politics and is a needed outlet. So don't get rid of it, just make it less conspicuous.
 
A more serious suggestion, as @Casinostocks pointed out, requiring members to pay for an upgraded membership not to see PA is pretty unlikely to achieve much. That said, you could very easily reverse that and have a specific membership in order to access the PA or to talk politics. The PA is already restricted to paying members, as a non-paying member I don't see it at all. Allowing members to but into the PA rather than buy out of it, particularly when simply not having a paying membership already makes it disappear, seems like it might be a solution that would go over better.
 
Spark would it be possible to place the whole of the PA in a private closed group sub-forum requiring moderator permission to join?

That way posts would not be seen by regular members and those who want to participate in the PA can do so in private with moderator oversight after agreeing to the PA forum rules and conditions. Members who break the PA rules are simply removed from the group.

As I have said in the past Bladeforums is very important to me and so many of us who are alone and living through really crappy times. It would be tragic for me and so many to have something happen to our little corner of the net.

Thank you for all you do and your proactive response to this.
 
Another forum I visit had a NSFW thread that was password protected, I wonder if that could be a route? If you buy a gold membership with access to PA you get the password.
 
Steven65 said:
Spark would it be possible to place the whole of the PA in a private closed group sub-forum requiring moderator permission to join?
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That's essentially how it is now, save that the forum posts show up on the new posts page.

Edit: :rolleyes:
 
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lieferung said:
That's essentially how it is now, save that the forum posts show up on the new posts page.
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No it is not.

At the moment paying members can simply click on the PA forum and read and post.
My suggestion is to take the forum completely private and only allow access to members who request it, after approval by a PA moderator and after agreeing to the special terms and conditions of the PA forum.
That way the PA forum becomes a closed private space but member can request admittance.
 
Spark said:
Maybe I should make the political forum posts flash & have animated gifs so that they stand out.
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Yes but that might be counterproductive here.

I generally request new customers who are interested in buying our product to join Bladeforums and participate in a sale here. This helps us keep up with things, and it also helps maintain the size and quality of our membership here. But drawing attention to our political forum posts when a chunk of the conversation there are conspiracies and nut jobs can alienate a significant chunk of the "regular normal not insane" folks who I try to introduce to BF.

The argument "boohoo for the woke fragile flowers who simply can't help themselves but to read something that offends them or those who can't tolerate the existence of this discussion" ignores the fact that a new member coming to this forum for the first time is going to see PA posts right there in the feed and a lot of it is stupendous nonsense that makes all of us dumber by association. A person coming here for the first time could easily get the impression "oh, it's one of those nut-ball sites".

A lot of the PA is not high quality rational discussion between respectful adults. A good size chunk of it is childish fantasy and echo chamber BS that, in my opinion, should be hidden from view.
 
Willie71 said:
I think moderation in that forum would be much better if there were mods a bit left of fascist. I’m not being hyperbolic here. The two mods are extremely conservative, and rarely see anything wrong with what republicans say or do. Now, I’m Canadian, and have no dog in the 2nd amendment argument, but most of the people I know here own guns, and I have no issue with that. I also believe after nearly three decades in mental health, some people are too unstable to be trusted with shoelaces, let alone guns.

When peer reviewed research from respected scholars/journals/universities gets branded leftist propaganda, there is a problem. The mods keep saying support your position, and when you do, they dismiss the source. On the other hand, white supremicist sources posted by certain members are seen as credible.

I fully own going over the top on a mod who I believe I caught lying about his professional life, and own that. However, the abuse heaped on myself and other members there was never addressed. It was reported many times. People who would be considered far right extremists even in Alberta were called leftists there, as if that is supposed to be pejorative. Repeatedly calling out the whole of leftism as being welfare queens, unemployed, stupid, or weak should not be tolelated by moderators, yet they often are the ones making those types of comments.
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Who exactly was the Mod that "you caught lying about his professional life", Willie?
If you claim that's me you are a damned liar.
Also, your claim about peer reviewed journals being dismissed is garbage since you never have answered or refuted or even understood a single scientific proposition that was challenged, and there were many peer reviewed articles cited against you
Yours are nothing but sour grapes because you "volunteered to be a Mod" and were refused and were refuted time and time again as to the substance or lack thereof of your comments.

I am not abusive or biased to the leftist members of this board because of their views and I stand by that and the honest members can confirm it even from numerous inteventions and conversations recently.

I don't do ad hominems, but I won't sit by for lies and defamation.
 
Spark said:
When there's an issue with mods you bring it to supers, then me. Given that you are on my radar prior to this, & your attitude in the other threads the failure may not be the mods.


Last things first, being Jewish I know fully well what stormfront is. That's not a citation.

Second, you were banned off the site for your inability to keep from sassing mods and were only allowed back with the understanding that you'd stay out of the PA. When warnings are issued we have a thread automatically generated for discussion in the moderator area and the consensus among 5 different mods was that you were out of line, acting irrationally & it was a noticable, spiraling pattern of behavior that caused concern for your well being. After your ban & subsequent reregistering there was discussion about it being a bad precedent as you are prone to blame shifting & the inability to take responsibility for your own actions. Upon review it's looking less like you have a valid complaint and more about a long standing grudge on your part.

Now here we are again, with you making allegations about Stormfront being an accepted source & mods being fascists (but it's totes not a prejorative, pinky swear!). I searched for dailystormer & stormfront and found no links to either site, so I have to wonder if you are deliberately poisoning the well considering that you went full Godwin.

Do. Not. Fuck. With. Me. Regarding. Neo. Nazis.
Do not make baseless accusations about tolerance of neo-nazism. Do not imply that I support Nazis, or white supremacy, or any other bigotry you want to toss out there. I've got a few red lines and that is one of them because for me it's really, really personal.
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I’m not fucking with you. QM supported his attitudes policing blacks with links from those sites.

Secondly, fascism is far right on the political spectrum. Authoritarian version of anachro capitalism. Mussolini style fascism, not german style fascism. There is a difference. You would think the mods in political (not you, I’m referring to them) would know this.

My family left germany to get away from naziism after WWII. My grandfather was a POW. I take this personally too.

if my statements are so out of line, why did I get 25+ likes for my posts? How many people are saying the same thing as me? If it was just one or two people feeling this way, you could dismiss us.

I owned my sassing the mods.

I’m bowing out of this discussiom
 
Boru13 said:
This thread is for constructive criticism and improvements, it is not for taking cheap shots at members or Moderators.

Consider this a first and last warning.
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I don't believe I am alone in thinking that the mods in the PA are a big part of the problem there and this thread is for constructive criticism of the PA.
I know you are saying "Don't take cheap shots at the mods" so I'm guessing that "constructive" shots at the mods would be ok, but the difference between those two seems like it could be pretty subjective, which makes your warning here a bit of a damper for people that might come here to express their opinions on this matter.
 
HJK said:
Who exactly was the Mod that "you caught lying about his professional life", Willie?
If you claim that's me you are a damned liar.
Also, your claim about peer reviewed journals being dismissed is garbage since you never have answered or refuted or even understood a single scientific proposition that was challenged, and there were many peer reviewed articles cited against you
Yours are nothing but sour grapes because you "volunteered to be a Mod" and were refused and were refuted time and time again as to the substance or lack thereof of your comments.

I am not abusive or biased to the leftist members of this board because of their views and I stand by that and the honest members can confirm it even from numerous inteventions and conversations recently.

I don't do ad hominems, but I won't sit by for lies and defamation.
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You did defend me from the personal attacks on many occasions. I fully acknowledge that. There were other issues I won’t go in to. I said my piece. Others have too. I wasn’t going to respond again, but did want to acknowledge that you did actually defend me there, in spite of our differences. As an aside, regarding citations, do you not remember the numerous links to scientific journals I posted? Neither here nor there, but just sayin’.
 
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