Politics

Is there any plan to deal with politics on lainchan? Clearly it cannot be ignored. Most threads are created with the intention of annoying the other side of the political spectrum, not necessarily to discuss anything. /r/ is a pretty neat board when you have a diverse set of threads about subjects that don't deserve their own board, having a flood of weak, biased politics threads will probably kill that aspect of /r/. I believe something has to be decided, please discuss that here. Use proper arguments, nobody gives a soykaf about your political beliefs, this is a discussion about inconvenient posts (as in that do not promote discussion nor add any value to the community) in a good board. This is not about your preferred political religion. The focus of this thread is "how to solve this issue" not "how to create lulxD!!!".

I think we need a way to discuss particular political issues, but we also need to keep from degenerating into namecalling. It's a balancing act that depends on moderators making reasonable decisions on a case by case basis and trusting the users, but also on the users making sure to act in such a way that shows we deserve that trust.

>Most threads are created with the intention of annoying the other side of the political spectrum, not necessarily to discuss anything. I'm yet to see an anarchist thread here that was made just to annoy others.

>>2151 >This is not about your preferred political religion. The focus of this thread is "how to solve this issue" not "how to create lulxD!!!". Then they probably were not. Most does not imply all. This is not a thread about politics.

>>2149 Expanding on this, I think that the easiest tool to use would be to temporarily ban users who make clearly awful political threads ASAP, and permaban repeat offenders. (The clear problems being dynamic IP, proxies, and TOR.)

I say we make a containment board, and only allow politics related discussion there. Than I can just hide that board and be left with a politicks free lainchan.

>>2187 Containment boards don't work. Those users don't only post in the containment board: the board attracts them, they have soykafty conversations in there, and they also post on other boards making similarly little effort.

>>2187 I agree with this fellow

>>2187 Problem is that it doesn't work like that at all. As was evident by /civ/. Having a politics boards, as aforementioned, only attracts more people that want to have low quality discussions. If we had a politics board with STRONG moderation, then it could work. But i'm not sure if it's even worth the effort.

>>2188 It's true. A certain much larger website most of us used to visit tried that and not only did the idiots congregate and grow and spill over onto the other boards, they spilled over into vast swaths of the internet (including here).

>>2192 if you keep unregulated discussion of politics then I think there will be more of peopple like that nazi guy coming here

>>2193 They are kind of all over the internet now though, it's inevitable. Sad losers in their basements who need someone else to blame for their failures. They can't go out in public so they cry on message boards instead. Like mosquitoes.... puny and small but there's just so many of them.

>>2196 >types a paragraph cuz of e-drama I guess someone is projecting about that whole basement dwelling ordeal

>>2198 Not even close. You replied thoug, so by your own logic (not mine) that would mean YOU were projecting. Also if typing a paragraph seems like a large effort to make, I feel bad for the children who went to school in whatever country you grew up in.

>>2200 >spacing out his sentences for easier reading uhhh man you seem to care a lot about this e-drama I suggest you get offline for 5 minutes, go make yourself some tea or something

>>2202 Should I type more like a retard for your benefit?

>>2206 >>2202 >>2200 >>2198 >>2196 This is all one guy altering his writing style every other post.

A sane /civ/ board would contain well-read people, which won't be the case here. Instead it will indulge itself in rule breaking, as already evident in https://lainchan.org/r/res/1683.html & https://lainchan.org/r/res/1592.html. I would love to engage in actual conversation of political theory and exploration of such, but there is a strong tendency for people to pick a side and declare an enemy. Both sides then claim having a conversation with the other is impossible. The most difficult thing that neither of them do is attempt to place themselves in the position they either don't understand or are against. And it's no wonder they don't, it's difficult to always argue in faith. It's not just about not lying or attacking the established other side but also not deceiving yourself, and at the young age we all are likely at (roughly 17-24), what the hell do we know? I view this as a lack of humility and the breaking of rule 3. Most lainons detest "normal people" but the only difference I'm seeing between facebook users and lainons is that one likes SEL. If I could advocate anything at the moment, it would be stronger and stricter moderation, and culture shaping. To see genuine discussion is something we can fantasize about but I'm not optimistic. In this very thread we have lainons attacking each other, disregarding each others points. It's too easy to not care. How sad is that.

>>2208 conspiracy man trying to foil my plans at it again darn it

I'm really not sure there's a way to discuss politics on an imageboard like this that won't lead to soykaf-flinging and entrenchment in whatever camp you're part of. Not that it can't be done on an imageboard, but at the moment I can't think of a way to keep things generally civil without either a) more moderators and/or a highly moderated containment board (which is a bad idea, as others have pointed out) or b) banning political discussion outright, which I have mixed feelings about, but am mostly against - it is also clearly the impression of the mod team that the reactionary political drama of today's soykafposts is an attempt to get this outright banning implemented. Perhaps the middle ground is to allow political discussion, but only if it can demonstrably be linked to cyberpunk themes? Maybe write up some guidelines & critera for what qualifies as appropriate political discussion - appended to the global rules, or stickied in relevant boards (namely /r/) - and strictly enforce posts that don't meet those standards? This approach is as flawed as the others, but it at least provides a reason for people to put some effort into their posts*, as well as providing a (mostly) neutral ground ("cyberpunk") to bridge the divide between two disagreeing parties. *Which is nice, but as evidenced by user's threads, even attempts to have civil discourse are generally met with low-effort, ideologically-driven refutations, with little earnest discussion and debate happening.

>>2210 >>2208 >>2206 >>2200 >>2198 Stop the bullsoykaf, this thread is not about you bickering. Go on IRC for that or create your own thread. >>2209 >stronger and stricter moderation, and culture shaping. I agree, enforcing rule 3 and 4 is more than enough to solve the political issue.

the only thing that will happen is that people living in a dream world of an ideological cyber crusade come here and soykaf things up. /civ/ should never return

>>2209 >A sane /civ/ board would contain well-read people, which won't be the case here. This falls apart on two things. Moderators deciding who is "well-read" and moderators and other people calling you "not-well-read" because you are opposing their ideology, which for most people is more of a personal attack than actual personal attack.

>>2215 I don't dare suggest making a rule of being well-read. Any kind of thing would indeed entice either "side".

Interesting... Nobody was talking about politics and now this clusterfuck of soykafty posts all over. I wonder who might be behind it...

>>2147 Simple, block all discussion of politics not related to current technology related issues (ie, new laws being passed). /civ/ was a twice failed experiment, there's no point in trying it a third time and expecting different results.

It's simple. You ban politics.

I don't think banning is acceptable. Good politics threads are pretty good, even if i'm not involved in them most of the time. Bad politics threads are just as bad as a thread about tech, aka "ARCH THREAD BECAUSE GENTOO is like kicking dead whales down the beach!" is just a plain bad thread, and should be deleted on the same grounds as "Fascism is great and anarchy is for pussies!". I think we just need the rules 3 and 4 to be enforced effectively. Ideally we should have a culture of good, healthy discussions instead of simply banning.

>>2227 >I think we just need the rules 3 and 4 to be enforced effectively. Ideally we should have a culture of good, healthy discussions instead of simply banning. /civ/ already showed that doesn't work, twice.

>>2228 I honestly cannot say much about civ, i ignored while i could and when its users started spreading i just left Lainchan entirely. But everything i've ever seen about /civ/ was always obviously toxic, clearly breaching rules 3 and 4. I cannot say if it ever stabilized, rules were enforced and even then it didn't work. The problem though is never a political opinion or a political side, it's always how people behave and their particular interests with a thread. If you create a thread in good faith about the most despicable or useless type of government you can think of, with the interest of learning more about it or fostering a healthy discussion, people will come and discuss it. And they do when these threads pop up, thus the problem is not inherently with politics, it's how the rules are enforced and what type of conversations are punished.

fuarrrk you Appleman, and your whole family

>>2231 Calm down, it is a word filter being triggered by your use of "pol", which is inherited from kalyx.

>>2226 Much of the discussion here revolves around cybersecurity, censorship and other topics involving the law. You can't ban politics. It's not like these topics exist in a political vacuum.

>>2233 I agree with you that politics cannot be derezzed, but your reasons don't really match to what really happens. The issue OP is talking about isn't tech-related politics in any way. More like "For every thread from the opposite political spectrum i'll create one against it. Because they're meanies!". Honest threads were never the problem. Threads with the clear intention of creating annoyance are the problem.

>>2234 But banning politics entirely will get rid of both, and also possibly threads about things like what laws there are regarding carrying encrypted drives across the border or what the Snowden leaks reveal about the security of certain protocols and algorithms in regards to NSA snooping.

>>2234 And I agree. But the post I was replying to just said: > It's simple. You ban politics.

>>2237 >But banning politics entirely will get rid of both, I don't think anyone here believes there should be a full zero tolerance policy. People don't have a problem with discussing legal issues around tech, they have problems with all the other soykaf people go on about.

>>2240 Then how is, "Ban politics," meaningfully different from, "Ban stupid divisive soycaf," which should be covered under rules three and four?

>>2243 It isn't. Politics isn't a problem, low quality threads and discussions are. Enforcing rule 3 and 4 is more than enough, sadly i don't think we have the mods to do it, or clear enough rules so that the modes feel confident in their decision.

>>2243 >"Ban politics," meaningfully different from, "Ban stupid divisive soycaf," which should be covered under rules three and four? When people say "ban politics", they mean ban general politics discussion. Simply enforcing rules 3/4 doesn't work because people will continue to constantly break them anyways, as was demonstrated by /civ/. Just because rules exist doesn't mean the community and mods won't get tired of sources of constant streams of rulebreakers that prevent decent quality discussion from occuring.

>>2230 >the problem though is never politics in theory, it's always because of politics in practice

Devils advocate: political discussion will always happen. its scandalous, controversial, and drives traffic to sites. sometimes its well argued and introspective discussion, other times its just name-calling. I feel like the question we're trying to address here is how do we deal with trolls. when a thread devolves into nothing more than vitriol and personal attacks, we should rely on the site rules.

Maybe we could just filter all the words people use to soykaffling (liberal, alt-right, dem, republican, etc) to , "David Bowie," or something.

Let's face it, total escape from politics isn't practically feasible, since ~90% of possible topics are tied to it to lesser or bigger degree, be it directly or indirectly. Even the most discussed things on Lainchan (computers and stuff) involve taking political stances, i.e. everytime when issues like freedom of software and such soykaf are raised. I agree with >>3116 though - such discussions, even those a bit inflamed and emotional ones are fine, but there should be a reasonable threshold, where mods stop tolerating things if they start going down to evident trolling, brewing soykaf, name-calling and attacking without having any substance and adding nothing to the thread.

>>3116 >how do we deal with trolls You don't feed them; unfortunately, just recognizing a subtle troll is a long-forgotten art.

It's definitely better here than other chans which is appreciated I don't think you're going to be able to stop it personally. People like to push other people's buttons and its really easy to do that on anonymous forums. We just live in a time where people are incredibly attached to their political beliefs which makes it the easiest way to bother a few people. If you really, really, REALLY want to get rid of it, there's nothing you can do short of getting mods in and removing it

>>4486 "More, better mods," is always a good solution, if you can make it happen.

>>2187 >I say we make a concentration board, and leave politics related discussion roam free there. ***Then*** I can just read everywhere else post from people from that board and be left with a politics lainchan. troll or retard?

>>3133 spotted the Madonnaboy