Hello there good fellows!
Saw earlier a political thread in our beloved forum, and it made my stomach to churn and felt disgusted about having this stuff here. So I will voice my position:
Every community has a guideline, a set of rules.
I want to express my concern about these topics: politics, war, religion, erotic. Please, for the love of what is good and right in this world, don’t taint this very forum with those subjects.
These are seeds of hate and pointless discussions who always bring the worst from people.Opening threads with those subjects should be avoided and threads closed. Why wasting time, bandwidth and storage space for nonsense?
As I understand, this forums has a goal of helping computer enthusiasts to learn more about EOS and the Arch way of doing computing. This is NOT Farcebook or your place to take a stance on political or religion matters.
Please, please keep those topic as far away from this forum. It will benefit us all, from now and for the foreseeable future. This place is for having a relaxed chat about Linux, general computing and software, in the most academic, productive way possible.
This is what I consider about out forum and I think that the vast majority will agree.
Cheers,
I am sorry Bryan, I was aware somehow this community has a set of rules. Just could not help myself writing about those topics.
Irked me to no end to see those kind of threads, even that earlier you addressed those matters.
Well, I hope I didn’t bothered too much.
We want to be a community, right? What’s the point of the Endeavour pub if you can’t talk about other things? Sorry, but this goes in a direction that reminds me of the (new) Manjaro forum. And if someone in our midst feels like talking about such topics, why not? Otherwise just close the pub again and that’s it! But I also see it as problematic to want to spread indirect messages here. Neither political nor religious … Amen.
Well you’re not exactly right i think, it’s not at all like Manjaro.
Having such rules makes perfect sense, if we want to keep community healthy and not loose main point of interest which is: OS, Linux, technologies
Those topics are doomed to be divisive here, not at all because they are illegitimate (especially this days ), but because there is a very small percent of people capable of having rational and civil conversations or debate.
And truth is - we all would like to avoid Social Justice World War III and just enjoy things that actually heal the divide, not create more separation
P.S. There is nothing preventing you or anyone who want to speak out to create PM multi-user chats to discuss anything btw
P.P.S. Personally i see nothing too out there or overly-political in what @Alexander posted btw
I doubt it can change anyone’s opinion on anything political, except just some laughs to be honest…
Well unless maybe if accidentally some 4 years old child with tablet will watch it, since it’s now for some reason became parenting 101
Any subject - subject to strong opinion - is a potential disaster - that goes for any IT topic as well.
Just to mention - browsers - which can be kind of religious - I don’t mind talking about religion - in fact I love it - but I know very well that people who are atheists will immediately laugh and be outright rude if some where to express thoughts which oppose theirs.
Don’t take it too hard @Alexander. It is not that anyone got offended completely. It is about peoples natural instinct to take up a cause. Some may find it offensive some not. The result in a forum usually is a conversation starts between both sides. Then the conversation turns into an argument. Eventually if not moderated it turns into insults and flame wars. It is easier simply to make rules to prevent such flare-ups (fires) so that the moderators and helpers can spend more time doing what they do best…helping
Was just thinking the exact same thing. Off Topic section is for any discussion on most forums and has always been a great way to keep the rest of the forum on track.
I’m sorry but simply NO. People can get heated about their browsers, but even kind of religious about them, simply no,
I love having discussions about religion and politics, but I notice that recently, I just get in fights with most people when I do it, and suddenly everyone seems to hate me.
So I try to stay away from such topics…
I think it is a good personal advice to anyone else who is like me and likes engaging in debates. The times are not right for that, the division between opposing political ideas is like a powder keg, and people tend to get irrational really quickly and take it very personally. In effect: if you are vocal about your political beliefs, about 50% of people will hate you, no matter what those beliefs are.
Yeah, 50% is rookie numbers, everyone can easily reach that with only politics and religion. I’m sure I could get it to 80-90%, if I allowed myself complete lack of inhibition.
And I’m pretty sure most people could… Usually, people who have no enemies are the ones that stand for nothing.
These sorts of discussions can work when they are set up with the correct intention. There were several enlightening threads in a certain #off-topic section where participants went in with the aim of sharing and understanding other perspectives rather than getting into an argument. I think the reason those threads worked was because they were kept on topic - the discussion didn’t start on another thread, it didn’t de-rail anything - and the participants went into it with an open mind rather than trying to persuade others of their own viewpoints.
In general, though, I agree with keeping the most controversial topics away from technical discussions - Linux-related technical issues can be complicated enough already!
Well, I like both. I like to hear other people’s views, but I also like arguing. I like the intellectual challenge of it, and I like winning an argument, and the feeling of smugness that comes from that. However, I also realise that when I lose an argument, that ought to force me to re-evaluate my positions, thus make them more consistent, more rational, more in accordance with empirical evidence and logic. I’ve changed my positions several times, throughout my life, just by hearing a better argument than the one I had to offer. I used to see it as a win-win situation.
Nowadays, however, such discussions degenerate into unpleasantness. We are living in a very anti-rational era.
A couple of years ago, if you suggested to me that topics like religion and politics ought to be forbidden on a forum about an operating system, I would probably think of you as some KGB censor. I would say: “it’s impossible to avoid politics, it is everywhere, especially concerning FOSS”. But now, it seems reasonable not to allow anything that is even mildly controversial, as almost nothing productive can come out of it. It’s just knee jerk reactions from all sides.
), but because there is a very small percent of people capable of having rational and civil conversations or debate.
