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Who Would Like Permanent Political Thread ?

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.

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 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.
 
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.

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.
 
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.
Ok fair enough.
 
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.
 
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'll add this and not much more I can say after this other than I hope you reconsider..... but to look at it from both sides, we also have posters in the political thread that never post in the weather threads. So I guess there could be an argument that what attracted them to this site was discussion other than weather, again it's not an easy answer but I do know running sites aren't free and they need traffic. There are lots of factors to consider.
 
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 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.
 
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.

Understood.
 
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.

Yeah unfortunately when it comes to things like politics emotions run high, people feel strongly about the issues and it is difficult for people to keep that in check. You also have some people who don't care about being civil because they think the other side deserves the harsh treatment and verbal attacks.
 
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 was going to suggest this, make it request only...this is used on a few other boards I am on.
 
I stay quiet on this forum a lot but I do like having the option to read others opinions even ones that are different than mine about any topic. I just don't like the name calling and insults that have occurred because we are a community and like a family and we all came here for weather. Summer weather can be boring and repetitive so I get why the low posts on weather. I say keep all the threads and we just act like adults better. If you don't want to read it, don't read it!
 
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.
 
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.
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).
 
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).

That’s my major concern of having a political or any highly argumentative topic. I would hate to see hard feelings come out of that thread and seep into the rest of the forum. That’s when a political thread becomes very destructive to the entire board.

So if we can find a way to keep that from happening then I’m all for it! I just don’t want to see the weather threads suffer because (user x) is mad at (user y) from their political fussing so (user x) is just always against anything (user y) has to say regardless of what it’s about. That’s a sure-fire way to destroythe community we have all worked together to build.

If the only way to avoid this is to not have a political thread then so be it. If there is a middle ground option that works let’s do it! I’d just hate to see the entire board pick sides as has occurred on other board(s).

There probably is no 100% correct answer. But I hope we can figure out something that preserves the community we have and also allows us to talk abt as many topics as we possibly can. As for me, I’m here because this is a weather forum. I wouldn’t be if it wasn’t :)
 
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