I think most people have now read the announcement and we have had a fair bit of discussion off the back of it - so i have taken it out of the main u2 chat section and stuck it and the resulting chat into this thread.
Time in my view to just crack on now and hopefully discuss more interesting things - most people don't have any issues at all being civil to others anyway.
Cheers and thanks to all who have been much more civil of late...it is appreciated and it makes our community better.
There has been an increase in civility recently, and that is good, but I remain to be convinced of why anyone should give respect to posters who genuinely think that Russia is the offended party as regards the current conflict. I'm just not seeing pro-Putin propaganda, which some posters spread, as morally, ethically, or factually equivalent to what is actually provably happening in the real world.
You would, I'd hope and assume, admonish posters who thought that America deserved 9/11, or that Manchester deserved the arena bombing in 2017, or that the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists deserved to be murdered for making cartoons that some people decided to find offensive. And I correct on those points? I hope that I am.
Because I don't see any difference between Putin's attack on the Ukraine and those other events I've mentioned.
Currently, we have posters who think that Putin's Russia is the real victim of the current war, and we have posters who think that the mass murder of children in Sandy Hook was faked, and we have at least one poster who thinks that a former PM of your country should be executed 'for getting Brexit wrong' - as though these were perfectly normal things to believe, within the spectrum of acceptable free speech - and that doesn't sit well with me. And I don't think I'm alone in that opinion - it really isn't a controversial opinion.
The odd angry post directed at the posters who spread lies and bullshit along the lines of the above is not a personal attack. It's how any citizen, when confronted with dangerous madness, should behave.
I, and others, have politely and civilly tried to engage with the posters who spread the ludicrous conspiracy theories I've outlined above - using facts, and evidence, and logic. And all we've gotten is more nonsense. So how, An Tha, do you expect us to react?
I, for one, am not going to claim that black is white, or that night is day, or that false and delusional opinions should be treated as equivalent to fact-based opinions, on spurious free speech grounds, or just for the sake of 'keeping the peace', or appeasing deranged posters. It's just not how I roll. At times, if it quacks like a duck, looks like an actual duck, and swims like a duck, then the strong probability is that it's a fucking duck.
I'm going to be watching this place over the next few weeks and months, and if necessary years. I hope and expect improvement. Not to bring into 'my way of thinking', debate, argument, free speech all should be welcome - but not of the type that has disfigured the politics section into a weird Alt Right echo-chorus.
I'm not going to deny I can be a bit of a c*** myself at times, I'm not saying I'm perfect, far from it, but Jesus Christ. Posters saying that the mass murder of 20 kids was a hoax? Based on no evidence. That is not normal, and horribly offensive to the bereaved families and the kids themselves. How would you feel if someone came on here claiming that Hillsborough was a hoax, and never happened? Ask yourself honestly.
In particular, An Tha, I hope and expect that you will be reaching out to the posters who have been bullied off the forum - I strongly believe that you have a moral and ethical duty to do so.
Thanks.
You are so deep in the trenches in what is a battle that you have been engaged in long before this forum was even created that frankly i feel anything short of a total "let's appease FG and run this forum to exactly how he wants it to be run" policy is unlikely to make you happy.
Not I or any of the admin or mods here have any sort of "moral or ethical duty" to reach out to anyone who has been as you put it "bullied off here"..... I know of numerous ocassions where i and or other members of the team have reached out to various individuals down the years here and i like to think we have always acted fairly and decently with people - we have in my view been very communicative and very open and very willing to engage with people - but ultimately people make their own choices about whether they wish to be a part of anything in life - here included....i'd love to see a number of people choose to engage here again - but it is their decision to do so or not - end of......it is impossible to please everybody even when you may want to....it is even more impossible online when all you have is the written word to comminicate with (and all the complexities it brings) and when you have a mix of people from all kinds of different backgrounds, with different ideals, mindsets, beliefs, all kinds of different personalities etc etc etc and when you don't really know them or they you...
We try our best and i think we do a pretty good job in the main.....maybe some people disagree, maybe some agree - that will always be case.....for every fan there is someone who thinks you are no good - that is life and it is amplified up to 11 online!
All i know is this team try their best and i know i do my best personally - i care more than i should and i try with my limited intelligence to communicate as best as i can and to be as fair, open and reasonable as i can and to try and find balance.
I wonder why i bother at times - it often feels like too much agg for what it actually is here....but hey whilst i am here i'll give it 100% of my limited "skills"....
The policy here from day 1 has been clear, consistent and very easy to follow - i am not going to go over it yet again - anyone who has paid even a tiny bit of attention and who has been able to do so without bias knows what it is - we have been more than fair, more than reasonable, we have been consistent and we have been very clear......I don't need to repeat it all over and over again - I have done so many more times than I should have had to or wanted to already.
For your information i personally am about as left wing as you can get (by UK standards) i am a lifetime Labour party member, a long time trade union member, a staunch republican, fiercely anti monarchy, a socialist and was brought up in a pretty poor family in Liverpool.
My own political compass orientation is very, very different to those you call "right wing" or "alt right" or whatever else you call them - here is the rub though - i am (and i am going to steal from my old sparring partner and right leaner TD here) capable of accepting that others have divergent social, political and economic viewpoints to myself....and i don't take that they do personally and so then don't personally attack the people whose views I disagree with - even when those views are a long, long way from my views or beliefs or experiences.
When people post stuff you or anyone else disagrees with - you/they are absolutely free to counter it, and counter it as passionately as you wish, just do so with civility and decency towards the other person.....I'd also just remind everybody that when you are making posts about sensitive political, social and news/current affairs issues etc that you make those posts with our community rules in mind....they can be found here:
https://forum.talku2.com/index.php?topic=60.0That is all we are asking you and those you have been engaged in your battles with to do too...this of course applies to everyone here - although it does not need repeating over and over and over and over to the overwhelming majority of people here because they get it and they don't have a problem just doing it.
For what is the very last time to you - the announcement that i am about to copy and paste below that was originally posted a couple of weeks or so ago about the change in moderation policy is the top and bottom of this conversation.....
I invite you to re-read it and ask you to engage with it in the same spirit of genuine desire to see civility here that it was written in.
Thanks
Announcement
Due to the inability and or unwillingness of people to communicate with each other in a decent and respectful manner - mainly in the politics threads - we have decided that it is time to introduce some changes to our moderation policy.
Before we get to that we just want to say that the vast majority of people who visit and use here and indeed the vast majority of people who have ever visited or used here, are people who do or did abide without any trouble by our community guidelines/rules - they made our community better for all by doing so and we thank them for that.
Sadly, the same can't be said for a small but vocal and incredibly persistent group of posters - a group of posters who have been engaged in personal battles for years, not just here but on other forums too.
Their disrespectful, disruptive and frankly unpleasant behaviour was often ultimately not tolerated or welcomed on those other forums and it is not welcome here - we offered everyone a clean slate here with no baggage affecting anyone, we offered you more freedom than you were afforded anywhere else, we have been incredibly patient with you (quite probably to the detriment of the wider community here), we have tried and tried and tried to encourage you to engage with respect and decency and been more than fair in not being heavy handed and treating you with respect.
Sadly, you have been unable or unwilling to show the same respect to each other, to the forum as a whole and for the rules.
A poster made a post recently which we think summed up the problem quite nicely:
The sad fact is that some people are simply unable or unwilling to accept that others have divergent social, political and economic viewpoints to themselves. They take that personally and so then personally attack the people whose views they disagree with or call them a troll.
We couldn't agree more.
What also exacerbates the problem is that posts are also often made to deliberately illicit a certain reaction - a reaction that fuels the ongoing battles.
The problem we see all too often with the political talk is too many people on both sides get into this echo chamber where they can't or won't compromise with the other side or even try to see the other side's point of view. Yes, obviously, stuff like racism and homophobia should be condemned, and is and we will always act on stuff like that but I'm talking about understanding why someone may vote Democrat or Republican, why they may believe a certain way and trying to peacefully disagree. People here seemingly can't or won't do that, so we have these personal attacks of people and all this fighting and nasty back and forth.
It has been going on for 5 years nearly and despite all our efforts to broker a peaceful and respectful discourse on it goes.
We offered people here a really light touch moderated forum where free speech is encouraged and where people are treated like intelligent, responsible adults - all we ask is that people engage in that freedom with decency and respect - it really is very simple.....Most people have been able and importantly willing to do the very easy thing and help make it work - sadly some just can't or won't.
We came very close to simply putting a blanket ban on political threads, we are frankly sick of the bickering in them, we are sick of how the behaviour of people in them sours the atmosphere on the forum, how it has led people to feel they don't want to engage here anymore (and it is sadly quite a lot of people, we know this because they have told us it is case)
We are sick of the fact that regardless how hard we try and reason and encourage people to see reason and regardless of how we say to people "Feel free to disagree as much as you like, discuss (within reason) whatever you want, but just do so with respect for and show decency to each other", people just continue with the ugly, unwelcome and at times downright disgusting behaviour.
In the end we decided to continue to allow the political discussion - but we are putting in place a new policy:
1. We are putting in place a Warning System - this system will operate on a "Three Strikes System" - Simply put a user who gets three warnings will be banned upon receipt of warning number three.
The decisions on the issuing of warnings will be made by the admin and mod team and those decisions will be final.
2. Admin and Mods can't be here 24 hours a day - we are all volunteers here, and we all have things like jobs, families, hobbies etc....So to help us identify and deal with poor behaviour we would like to remind people that the best way to make us aware of problems is to use the "Report Post" function - doing so generates an email that goes to each of us...from there we can log in to the forum when free to do so and take a look at things.
We are all saddened we feel we must go down this route - but enough is enough.
The new policy will be applied across the whole forum and takes effect immediately.
Being absolutely frank, the people who exhibit the worst of the behaviour we now feel we have to deal with like this are barely welcome here whilst they continue to behave as they do - those people cause nothing but damage to our community as things stand - the only reason they are still here is because we remain committed to trying to foster a community where people engage with decency and respect and are allowed the freedom to discuss (within the boundaries of common decency) whatever they like.
We hope we never have to hand out warnings, we hope we never have to ban anyone - but in all honesty we'll do so happily if we have to, simply because it will be very clear to us all that if we have to that the people who have soured here and other forums for so long simply can't or won't buy in to the very simple rules and community guidelines we have here, designed to make here a welcoming place where people can enjoy free discourse without personal attacks and unpleasant behaviour.
Ultimately it is down to you - change or we'll ultimately wave you goodbye - and whilst we will be sad to do so, we'll do so safe in the knowledge that we will be making the forum a better place.
Regards
The Talku2 Administration and Moderation Team.