I'd like your thoughts on the Politics, Laws and 2nd Amendment forum please

[rambone]

Point number 1:
If you truly want a reasoned and rational debate, it has to be moderated heavily to ensure the minority is heard (kinda like the Bill of Rights, eh?).

Does freedom of speech require heavy moderation? Does the "bill of rights" talk about such moderation? If you want your opinion represented on this site, then post it. The reason for having moderators is to keep things family-friendly, not to beg for liberals to give their point of view.

I voted to leave it. I don't care if I have to go through posts, when I see a title and think it's not interesting I don't click on it.

Some advice, grow a thicker skin if you're going to be posting on the internet. Try not to think every time someone disagrees with you it's a big attack. Have some fun with it, who cares if we don't agree, as far as I know we're not related.

Seriously. Click things you are interested in. Avoid clicking things that are boring to you. Don't ask us to keep quiet because the progressive point of view is under-represented on INGO.

If political discussions disappear on INGO, I will be looking for a new site to browse. I only have gun questions every so often. Keeping up with The Administration is an every day task.

 

[homeless]

If any changes are in order I would say that making Politics a "request only" sub forum. So if you don't want to see it then don't ask for it. This would also keep the politics threads from coming up in search streams. And while those of us in the politics pool might be adding substantially to our archives, we at least wont be the major face of the forum.

As far as a split I am against it. Most political issues are tied very closely. 10th amendment issues directly impact the second. If you are going to start talking about rights and laws then we are opening a Pandora's box. The only issues that don't seem to really fit are the religious only issues. Bringing up how crazy Hindu's Muslims or Christians are isn't political. However discussing laws or state stances on them is. So just because a Shaman says that western ideology is evil doesn't make it political, but him being arrested for making terrorist statements does.

This website is still fairly young, and we certainly are having some growing pains. The Admin/Mod staff are dealing with issues as they come up, and are asking for feed back. I like that idea, and I am starting to get a picture of where they want the site to go and what they want it to be. I would like to hear from them to solidify that picture though.

One of the hardest things is what to talk about to keep this site alive. If we limit this to firearms only then we will eventually just keep debating 9 vs 45 and glock vs the world. There are some serious problems with keeping gun related topics going, it is considered uncouth to trash even the junkiest of makes. I know about the guns I own and rarely have to ask for help, I do however keep myself available to help others. When I do ask about products it is regarding their quality and others experience. This place isn't craigslist but we do have a classified section that gets people to log on every day. We aren't a political forum, but our politics subforum keeps people talking.

Think about local gun shops, the people that hang out there aren't constantly talking about guns. We talk about our lives, we talk about politics, about finances, and about food. Guns come up when we have an issue, but looking at the racks and shelves of the same merchandise are not the reason we stop in twice a week.

I have been a regular member and poster on web forums for over 10 years, and keeping conversations is the biggest problem. If we specialize ourselves too much then people will only check in every few weeks, and that means that it takes longer to get an answer. Having political discussions means that people are constantly online arguing, and when we are tired of yelling at the other idiots we go and answer the questions in the area that we know what we are talking about.

So slap a disclaimer on the Politics subforum telling people that every one inside is an idiot, but let us argue over how the backyardagins are New World Order plants to indoctrinate our children.

 

[SavageEagle]

Split it if you want but keep it intact.
As gun owners we need to keep abreast of all things political, not just those items that pertain to the 2nd Amendment. As a community we are affected by the decisions of our elected officials. Having these discussions educates members and allows them to voice their support or concerns to their elected officials.
I don't understand what kind of complaints you are receiving.
If folks don't like the subject matter in a thread, they can choose not to read it.
Don't limit our ability to discuss topics just because someone else doesn't like it.

Exactly this. If we only concern ourselves with a single issue in politics, what's the point? If we only care about Gun Rights, how does that make us any different than the special interests in Washington D.C.?

Do away with the politics section if you want, limit it if you want, it's your website. Do as you wish. I advise against it though.

 

[hotfarmboy1]

Break it out if you like, but I'd prefer to keep it. Sometimes you just gotta have a place for a good politically-charged rant.

I like it how it is, but if its gonna change, I'd rather it just split like this. I know for me it makes it easier for me to keep up on the political news and updates since I don't have time to go checking diff sites around to find stuff out. I can generally find everything here fairly quick. I've been reading there, just not posting as much lately as I used to.

 

[ATM]

Having political discussions means that people are constantly online arguing, and when we are tired of yelling at the other idiots we go and answer the questions in the area that we know what we are talking about.

QFT

 

[kingnereli]

My vote went to the split if something must change. Although, I wouldn't complain if nothing changed. I think discussion of all aspects of politics should be a part of INGO. I'm not terribly concerned about the format.

 

[JohnP82]

another vote to split it into 2. either way it doesn't bother me too much because i do not go in there very often

 

[Cat-Herder]

i think it's fine the way it is ...nothing wrong with a good argument.

 

[SavageEagle]

When will we know the final decision on this?

 

[Pami]

When will we know the final decision on this?

[snark]When Fenway makes a decision.[/snark]

Probably a week or two. Our IT guys are hard at work vacationing.

 

[SavageEagle]

[snark]When Fenway makes a decision.[/snark]

Probably a week or two. Our IT guys are hard at work vacationing.

Thanks snarky! Here's hoping everyone has a good New Year!

 

[hornadylnl]

Leave it the way it is. I find that the more true something is the more it offends them. If you don't want to read about politics, then don't go there. If you are going to make the argument that this should be a gun only site, then I suggest the mods go through and delete every post that has the words "rep, repped, and bacon". What do those things have to do with guns? Deleting those alone would probably clear up 20% of the posts.

If you limit this site to gun only, you will lose a lot of the activity on this forum. Most of my reading is in the Break Room and the Politics subforums. Politics happen around us every day. Not many of us can afford to go out and buy, shoot, work on, etc. every day to have something new to talk about. As was said above, there are probably many of us who come here for the non gun topics and then move over to the gun topics while we are on here. I've been on specialty sites before and trying to get an answer on a subject is difficult when they have almost no members.

If someone is offended by political signatures while in other sub forums, you can always change the signatures settings in your forum options. I have the signature setting off just because it makes reading the forum 10 times easier. Especially from my iphone.