I'm bundling a few comments together, since I feel they're related:

8 hours ago, fleabay said:

Take the damn politics somewhere else along with any other off-topic nonsense.

I don't know why the mods/admins here think that it is a good idea to have political discourse here. It's not like there are not hundreds of sites just for such purpose.

6 hours ago, Makusik Fedakusik said:

All what you need to know about political discussion in the internet:

Politics is something many people misunderstand.  Sadly in many sub-groups --- ESPECIALLY among people under age 30 or so -- politics is a trendy thing to hate upon.  Among younger people it is hard to go wrong by decrying that politics are bad and politicians are evil. That demographic happens to fit a large part of our users.

Politics is simply the exercise of power. That can be government politics where governmental power is used to do things, or office politics where corporate power is used to do things. 

In governmental politics there is often partisanship, where different sides have created firmly entrenched positions. In US politics the partisanship is currently at highly toxic levels, which makes it even easier for people to misunderstand what politics really is.  If all you see are two sides that are actively working to sabotage each other it is easy to lose perspective on the nature of politics.

3 hours ago, Unknown33 said:

I think what's interesting is when a Trump bashing thread lasts for several pages but a similar question about the future of liberalism is closed immediately, followed by serious discussion about only allowing certain people to participate in political discussion.

We actually discussed in a discord chat minutes after you started the thread. Whether intentionally or accidentally, your thread had a major difference that was presented as a minor wording change. There is an enormous difference between the post that was closed and the earlier post that was left open with the warning on top.The earlier post was about a specific person in office, and a specific set of policies.  Your post was about the abstract concept "liberalism".  In debate the two are radically different, and your topic appeared to have been skillfully crafted to mask that difference.

In the earlier topic, a specific person with specific events and policies CAN be civilly discussed and debated. Shortly after posting a warning was placed on it as a reminder to keep the discussion based on concrete events and concrete examples. Several times in the discussion people needed to be reminded of this. The discussion included many different viewpoints from different groups. Some were more liberal, some more conservative, some independent of the US political parties, but as long as they referred to concrete examples, the topic was allowed to continue.

In the topic of "liberalism" there is no specific policy or event to discuss. It is an abstract philosophy defined in relative terms. If there was a specific policy or event it would have been different, but the post was clearly a troll designed to mimic the earlier pattern.  While reification and analogues are sometimes appropriate in discussion, they're a fallacy in this context. Said differently, sometimes you can use examples of an abstract idea to discuss the idea, but in some cases such examples are logically invalid. 

Since many different sides (including both of the US political parties) were fairly well represented in the previous discussion, it is unfair to say the site rejected a criticism of "liberalism".  People using the site run the full breadth of the political spectrum. What we reject is the blatant trolling.

10 hours ago, khawk said:

Many communities outright ban Politics in forums. I believe that is the lazy way out and refuse to do that here.

I agree that discussion of politics in the Lounge is a good thing for the site. Overall our community has mature and civil behavior.  Programmers tend to be highly intelligent and it shows clearly in the discussions here. Sometimes the discussions veer into the realm of the abstract, but overall people are able to remain civil. People on the site are generally good about acknowledging the diverse range of backgrounds and beliefs and experiences. We may not agree about solutions, but we can hold discussions and remain in disagreement.

I've seen in most of the political debates over the years the people involved all agree that something should be done, or that some action should be taken (or not taken) even when the people involved never reached a consensus on what actions it should be. For some examples from past posts: everyone agrees we want to see less violence but many people disagree on the methods of reducing violence; everyone agrees discrimination is harmful but people disagree about specific effects and about actions needed to address it. Those have included topics on racial discrimination, gender discrimination, age discrimination, religious discrimination, and nationality discussions. We've had discussion about nudity and violence in games where people expressed their viewpoints about what their effects were and what (if anything) should change regarding policy. The discussions remain civil far longer than they would in communities like Reddit, and often reach a natural conclusion without moderation.

While each of those may not seem like politics at first glance, each one refers to making changes to policy or taking action as a group.  That is all politics means, it is all about the power to take action in that way.

Any time there is a group of people, politics becomes an emergent factor of the group. Having political discussions is a great thing in The Lounge, and it contributes to the vibrancy of our community.  I think overall our community is better for them.

As a conservative, if I were just coming to the site now as a fresh youngster looking to learn a new hobby, and I clicked the unread content button, only to see an entire page of either posts in a Trump bashing thread, or upvotes/down votes in the same thread, as I saw a number of times before that thread was closed, I would leave and probably not return regardless of the actual character of the discussion in that thread. I wouldn't stop and think "gosh, maybe this will be a hearty, respectable discussion where I can argue the nuances of my ideological opinions in a comfortable and safe environment with no danger of a heavily one sided pile on." Nope, I would think "oh great, yet another social media shit fest where I can go to be called a racist or a bigot, be accused of wanting to turn the country into the handmaid tale, be accused of bitterly clinging to my guns and bible, or be called deplorable." And I would check out without a backward glance; sadly, such is the level of toxicity of social media right now.

Now, I have been here for over 15 years so I know the community is much better than that, but that is knowledge gained over half my lifetime. A newbie won't have that; he will just have the contents of the unread contents page to go by, and in this day and age there are a thousand different sites a young conservative can choose to go to in order to either self-censor, or be called a -phobe Trumpist. Why would he want to wade into that here, when he just wants to learn to make games?

3 hours ago, frob said:

Overall our community has mature and civil behavior.  Programmers tend to be highly intelligent and it shows clearly in the discussions here. Sometimes the discussions veer into the realm of the abstract, but overall people are able to remain civil.

But what benefit are political discussions, in the context of casual internet forums not dedicated to political discussion?

Do they improve the participant's critical or rational thinking?

Are practical and clever solutions to problems invented?

Do people leave the discussion happier than when they joined it?

No.

The political discussions themselves are what are leading to increased toxicity in political culture.

21 minutes ago, Nypyren said:

But what benefit are political discussions, in the context of casual internet forums not dedicated to political discussion?

Doesnt this apply to everything in the Lounge section?  Most forums have some section dedicated to off-topic discussion, and typically that's there in order to further the community-building of the site.   Of course you could say you only want to allow "non-controversial" topics... which I guess is fine, but then who determines what those are?  I dont know.  My general feeling is that people should be allowed to discuss whatever they want, with as few limits as are needed.  Shutting down all off-topic discussion seems like a very drastic step.

21 minutes ago, Nypyren said:

The political discussions themselves are what are leading to increased toxicity in political culture.

I cant disagree with this enough.  This is a sort of "kill the messenger" argument.   

Political discussions are not what have created a toxic political culture in the U.S. (not sure about other parts of the world).  We have had more and more toxicity in politics since the 80's and Newt Gingrich in Congress.  More recently, we have networks like Fox News and right-wing talk radio who specialize in demonizing anyone who doesnt agree with them, turning their viewers/listeners against the media, against the establishment, against institutions of higher learning, and even against science and rational thought.  

And today, we have a President that takes every opportunity to try to de-legitimize the media and calls anything he doesnt like "fake news", guaranteeing that any time someone even points out the facts of what he does or says, his supporters will ignore it and just cry bias.  We have a guy who's such a pathological liar and created such a culture of lies, that his own supporters can no longer tell what's true and what's not... nor do they seem to care.  THIS is what's causing toxicity in our political culture... the rejection of facts for "alternative facts", the rejection of the free press and freedom of speech, and the promotion of a culture of lying and corruption.   But, it's pretty hard to even point that out when people start to cry about how just discussing such things is the problem.  Burying your head in the sand will not make the problems go away. 

2 hours ago, JTippetts said:

As a conservative, if I were just coming to the site now as a fresh youngster looking to learn a new hobby, and I clicked the unread content button, only to see an entire page of either posts in a Trump bashing thread, or upvotes/down votes in the same thread, as I saw a number of times before that thread was closed, I would leave and probably not return regardless of the actual character of the discussion in that thread.

If you did that then you'd be confusing a thread about Trump with a thread about conservatives.   I havent seen anyone attack any conservative principles, and in fact people here are perfectly willing to discuss such things.  But Trump is a specific person with specific words and actions that are being discussed.  And what you might call "Trump-bashing" I might call "pointing out facts".  Is it bashing Trump to point out how he constantly lies, how he's constantly trying to undermine the rule of law, or how his own friends and allies call him incompetent and an idiot, who's so mentally unstable that they have to hide things from him for the sake of the country?

Sure, I can see your point about a conservative seeing such a thread and thinking that.  But, that person should look in the thread and make up their minds based on the facts and not their assumptions.   And if they equate pointing out facts about Trump to bashing conservatism, that seems like their problem, and not a cause for shutting down certain threads.

A reminder again, we are here to talk about discussing politics, not to actually discuss specific politics.

My argument was purely about perception. I didn't read the thread in question, because in my experience such things are always the equivalent of monkeys slinging feces, and nobody in the history of ever has been hit by primate shit and thought, "you know what? Maybe I'm wrong about my opinions." But if I were a newbie, and I saw the unread content listing just absolutely dominated by crap slinging from people whose leftist dogma I typically find quite repugnant, like it has been since that thread was started, why would I be willing to give the site a second chance? More importantly, why would anyone trying to build up a site like this want to potentially drive away participants? If having the "discussions" is so important, at least maybe they should be excluded from the unread content list by default, so that people who don't want to sift through the same tired old arguments don't have to.

7 hours ago, Nypyren said:

But what benefit are political discussions, in the context of casual internet forums not dedicated to political discussion?

 

Do they improve the participant's critical or rational thinking?

Are practical and clever solutions to problems invented?

Do people leave the discussion happier than when they joined it?

 

No.

 

The political discussions themselves are what are leading to increased toxicity in political culture.

Also fits a reply to @JTippetts 's posts 

It seems like you'e saying people cannot avoid reading or taking part in Lounge (or political) discussions. When we all know that those who are  not interested can ignore (with eyes, brain and software filters). As we all know there are people who have been members for many years and have never posted in the lounge. I for one know many. And they happily post in technical forums. 

You have a choice and control on where you want to participate.

What I can suggest for further improvement is: that filters be placed all over the site so that you see only your preferences

Quote

The political discussions themselves are what are leading to increased toxicity in political culture.

Its a double edged sword. Politics affects the lives of everyone and in forums like these -as long as the platform is a non-dedicated one, I think people who are interested should have a chance to engage in such discussions. Mis-Interpretation of what is considered toxic kinda exaggerates your point. Extreme views/stance either liberal or ultra-right shouldn't be considered toxic (it often is), only personal attacks and insults should be. This is clearly easy to spot out, thus should be flagged up for moderation immediately

5 hours ago, 0r0d said:

 My general feeling is that people should be allowed to discuss whatever they want, with as few limits as are needed.  Shutting down all off-topic discussion seems like a very drastic step.

Drastic step maybe. But this is what just happened.  I could not help but notice the Trump thread got shut down when the more pro-Trumpish side started to gain a foothold.  And then we had another pro-conservative thread that was quickly shut down (yes I know there were reasons given for both these things, wink wink). I say this as someone who dislike's Trump myself. I dislike his policies and given my family history, I have even more personal reasons to dislike him.

However what I dislike  even more is when moderation is not even handed (which it rarely is).  It would be nice to say just ignore the treads that upset you. I think this would be easier to do if those threads were left on their own and only moderated when spamming, threats or insults are involved.  However it does really start to bug me when moderation tends to push one point of view, by closing threads, banning etc... In my view if that's going to be done it's better to just disallow political threads altogether. 

I seriously think there is no need for this kind of garbage here.  There are plenty of places where people can go bash each other over Trump to their hearts desire.

10 hours ago, frob said:

I agree that discussion of politics in the Lounge is a good thing for the site. Overall our community has mature and civil behavior.  Programmers tend to be highly intelligent and it shows clearly in the discussions here. Sometimes the discussions veer into the realm of the abstract, but overall people are able to remain civil. People on the site are generally good about acknowledging the diverse range of backgrounds and beliefs and experiences. We may not agree about solutions, but we can hold discussions and remain in disagreement.

Highly intelligent people don't try to sway public opinion of politics on a game development forum and in general they altogether avoid things that they have no control over.

1 hour ago, Gnollrunner said:

I could not help but notice the Trump thread got shut down when the more pro-Trumpish side started to gain a foothold.  And then we had another pro-conservative thread that was quickly shut down (yes I know there were reasons given for both these things, wink wink).

Do mods want to chime in on why the thread was shut down so we can get some clarity? I was under the impression that my thread was shut down when some users started posted for the sake of being inflammatory and were not engaging in good-faith.

This isn't the first time we've had a thread on politics, or even specifically on Trump. We've done these sorts of threads before in the past, and had a fairly even representation of viewpoints. Rarely have these threads been shut down.

I do agree with you, however, that given the very nature of this topic, it's going to be very difficult for moderators to not be at least somewhat biased.

13 hours ago, Oberon_Command said:

There have been plenty of politics threads on GDNet before. It didn't destroy the site then, it won't destroy the site this time.

This is true. There have been a fair number of politics threads and many of them were directly about Trump. Many of the members on this thread have participated in them before. However, I do feel that the situation is far more different this time.

As both @0r0d and @krb have both pointed out, while politics can lead to good and interesting discussion, these days we are attracting bad faith posting amongst other things. @Promit suggested some heavy handed means of moderating political topics, and I'm somewhat inclined to agree that, though extreme, it might be the only way to moderate such threads.

I know, I know, I started this last thread, and I post a fair bit about politics. I feel that starting the last one may have been a mistake in some ways. 

7 hours ago, 0r0d said:

Sure, I can see your point about a conservative seeing such a thread and thinking that.  But, that person should look in the thread and make up their minds based on the facts and not their assumptions.   And if they equate pointing out facts about Trump to bashing conservatism, that seems like their problem, and not a cause for shutting down certain threads.

I realize that @jbadams does not want us to talk about politics themselves, but I think one thing worth considering is that with threads and politics about Trump, even the simplest things are difficult for people to agree on. Maybe the best thing to do is simply to ban all Trump related topics since those involved cannot agree even on the simpler points. As I understand it, all Gamergate topics were/are banned, no?

6 hours ago, grumpyOldDude said:

What I can suggest for further improvement is: that filters be placed all over the site so that you see only your preferences

I do agree that at the minimum, better filters would be very helpful. It would definitely mitigate some of the issues that political threads have. I think that one of the major differences is that in the past, none of the topics in the Lounge had such visibility on the front page of the site. We've had some fairly long political threads in the past that went on for pages on end, but they weren't displayed on the front page of the site.

7 hours ago, 0r0d said:

Doesnt this apply to everything in the Lounge section?  Most forums have some section dedicated to off-topic discussion, and typically that's there in order to further the community-building of the site.   Of course you could say you only want to allow "non-controversial" topics... which I guess is fine, but then who determines what those are?  I dont know.  My general feeling is that people should be allowed to discuss whatever they want, with as few limits as are needed.  Shutting down all off-topic discussion seems like a very drastic step.

This is a fair point, that we don't really know what a good metric is for a topic that's too 'controversial'. Would a topic about representation in games be too controversial, for example?

I will also say that I'm more than happy with no more political topics or with them being allowed. Whatever the community sees as best.