Ok, so I just deleted a couple of post because this is the talk about having a political thread, not the political thread.... hope y'all understand. Thanks!
Why would your interest in discussing weather go away if there is a political thread active? Even if posting declines slightly in the summer when the political thread is open, this is still the best forum for weather discussion....unless you want to talk mid-Atlantic garbage or New England weather.
I certainly hate to hear that and that you feel that way. It's not that we want to lose any member, trust me, but there seems to be a desire for additional threads. As RC pointed out this is a community and we should be able to discuss things cordially, when it doesn't go that way, it gets handled as best as possible. Don't think there is an easy answer, just don't visit the thread, block those you don't agree with but hopefully leaving is a last resort.
Trying to figure out how we can ignore threads without ignoring members, there is likely a plugin on the market to do thatI just blocked the thread long time ago, and in a galaxy far far away.
I do wish i didn't have to block BamaRavens just to not see the thread.
Ok fair enough.When the weather thread has 3 people posting on it because everyone is talking politics, then yeah my interest in discussing weather is pretty low because no one will see it and/or discuss things. Also, the emotions from the political thread do spill over into other areas of the forum. I have no issue with other off topic threads and banter, but politics is one that causes more harm than good imo.
I personally haven't seen a lot of crossover of hard feelings besides 1 or 2 posters, if you have examples and want to PM me I would be happy to look into that more. I found it positive that posters who have obvious opposing views in the political thread were able to shoot the poop in the non political thread with no issue. The issue that we run into will be lost posters in either direction, if we delete most of the off topic threads posters will go to other sites that are more of a 1 stop shop and leave this site behind, if we keep the threads people will go look for a smaller more weather centric site so what do you do? It's awesome that we have become the main board for the region and posters from other sites have chosen to come here for their discussion but we all knew that these crossroads would be reached at some point or another and it's really cool that we can have this kind of dialog among us all to discuss the future of the site. I personally hope that we can all come to a consensus that will be not only beneficial to the site but keep members interested in coming back to the site.Yeah I know there isn't an easy answer, and I have no issue with other threads, the political one is the main one that has changed this forum and not for the better IMO. There are some other issues that I have also discussed in PM that are a factor as well. The main attraction when I joined this forum was the focus on weather and the community. With time things have grown and I remember when the mods biggest concern used to be whether something belongs in banter threads or specific weather ones. Once the political thread came online though things began to change with more personal attacks, less weather discussion, less community and friendly atmosphere, etc. and I am done with that. What attracted me to this forum is gone since the advent of the political thread so there isn't much reason to stay.
Yeah I know there isn't an easy answer, and I have no issue with other threads, the political one is the main one that has changed this forum and not for the better IMO. There are some other issues that I have also discussed in PM that are a factor as well. The main attraction when I joined this forum was the focus on weather and the community. With time things have grown and I remember when the mods biggest concern used to be whether something belongs in banter threads or specific weather ones. Once the political thread came online though things began to change with more personal attacks, less weather discussion, less community and friendly atmosphere, etc. and I am done with that. What attracted me to this forum is gone since the advent of the political thread so there isn't much reason to stay.
I personally haven't seen a lot of crossover of hard feelings besides 1 or 2 posters, if you have examples and want to PM me I would be happy to look into that more. I found it positive that posters who have obvious opposing views in the political thread were able to shoot the poop in the non political thread with no issue. The issue that we run into will be lost posters in either direction, if we delete most of the off topic threads posters will go to other sites that are more of a 1 stop shop and leave this site behind, if we keep the threads people will go look for a smaller more weather centric site so what do you do? It's awesome that we have become the main board for the region and posters from other sites have chosen to come here for their discussion but we all knew that these crossroads would be reached at some point or another and it's really cool that we can have this kind of dialog among us all to discuss the future of the site. I personally hope that we can all come to a consensus that will be not only beneficial to the site but keep members interested in coming back to the site.
Like I mentioned though I'm fine with other off topic threads and banter, I don't see those as detracting from the forum and they are fun when weather is slow like it is now. The regular banter threads, things like hunting and fishing, food, etc are all fine with me and don't cause the same issues that the political thread does. I'd rather have a site that has high quality posts/discussion like this one originally did vs a bunch of OT discussion with little actual meat on the "weather" side of things.
One problem I've noticed on every forum is that those topics that belong in political threads almost ALWAYS end up cluttering other threads and spilling over. Even if a political thread is problematic I think it helps keep that problem contained for the most part and gives mods a chance to move unrelated posts into their proper place.
Civility and understanding goes a long ways also.
I don't think there is a way for me to do a hard stop where you can't see the non weather threads or anything like that I will continue to look.
We might be able to do a user group where you would have to request access to a political forum or something idk.
I like the limited post idea, not sure if we can do that or not (I'm not the tech guy) but that would make some think more before posting I believe.I like having the political thread to read and enjoy the debate. Perhaps you just make the suspended thread routine a regular thing. When the debate gets too personal or dumb, lock it down for 48 hours to create a bit of a reset.
Or perhaps a daily posting limit on the thread so you have to make your posts count and it cuts down on the one-off snide remarks that tend to stoke the flames a bit? Not sure if that's possible, but could be a different kind of solution.
We just need a thread to argue over what the post limit should be, of course.I like the limited post idea, not sure if we can do that or not (I'm not the tech guy) but that would make some think more before posting I believe.
I would say keep it mostly weather. We all know there's two subjects you want to avoid, religion and politics. Being part of the Americanwx site from its start, I was very disappointed on how the political thread and then the offshoot site was handled. I got to the point that I disliked some posters, whereas beforehand I though they were decent weather posters. Basically folks in this country are too polarized to keep level minded discussions (...of course my opinion).