Mal: You are very much lacking in imagination. Zoe: I imagine that's so, sir.

'Out Of Gas'


Voting Discussion: We're Screwing In Light Bulbs AIFG!  

We open it up, we talks the talk, we votes, we shuts it down. This thread is to free up Bureaucracy for daily details as we hammer out the Big Issues towards a vote. Open only when a proposal has been made and seconded according to Buffista policy (Which we voted on!). If this thread is closed, hie thee to Bureaucracy instead!


Aims - Apr 01, 2004 2:11:48 pm PST #3527 of 10289
Shit's all sorts of different now.

Can arguments in a politics thread STAY in the thread?

Meaning, not bleed over into other ones? I think for the most part, yes. There might a bit of crossover like with other subjects brought up, but if a bigger scale discussion rows from the initial cross over, say a GWB joke or something, at that point, as members of this community, we should say, "Toepick" and the discussion could be moved or, if the participants did not want to continue, then it would die.


Dana - Apr 01, 2004 2:13:40 pm PST #3528 of 10289
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.

Can arguments in a politics thread STAY in the thread?

I don't see how. Part of the reason people are talking about the thread is because political discussions in other threads almost always turn acrimonious, right?

The first time someone calls someone else a fascist or a neo-pinko commie scum, I think it's going to cause a fracture, and it'll be felt elsewhere. (Yes, I am ultimate Non-Confrontation Girl.)


flea - Apr 01, 2004 2:16:30 pm PST #3529 of 10289
information libertarian

Have people had experiences at other boards with maintaining polite relationships with those they argue with in politics threads? Anyone got some anecdotes? Was anyone here active in politics at TT?


Connie Neil - Apr 01, 2004 2:16:58 pm PST #3530 of 10289
brillig

If this passes, let's call the thread Las Vegas. Because what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

We hope.


DXMachina - Apr 01, 2004 2:17:44 pm PST #3531 of 10289
You always do this. We get tipsy, and you take advantage of my love of the scientific method.

The thing about the server, whether dedicated or hosted, is that it wasn't the posting volume that was the problem. It is a bug in MySQL that is the primary problem. We have to be on the dedicated server until the code gets changed so that we can do the kind of tweaks to MySQL that we wouldn't be allowed to do on a hosted server. We were never close to our bandwidth maximums, IIRC.


NoiseDesign - Apr 01, 2004 2:26:21 pm PST #3532 of 10289
Our wings are not tired

Thanks for that clarification DX, that's what I remembered about the server.


tina f. - Apr 01, 2004 2:28:42 pm PST #3533 of 10289

I haven't caught up in Bureau yet but my immediate thoughts are this:

I'm a politics junkie. I loove talking about that stuff. But I avoid posting politics stuff here for the most part because I've just seen internet communities too often get really ugly when it comes up. Even here, people I really like and respect have written things that totally offended me in just offhand political comments. Of course, being used to reading offensive stuff when politics is discussed, it's not really a big deal, I'm sure they didn't mean to offend me or anyone, and I just let it go. But that is just in regular everyday Natter.

As much as I enjoy politics - I would probably avoid the thread. I can handle arguments that come up here and there and am fine with confrontation - but I it's not like I enjoy confrontation.

Politics threads at TT where I participated where segragated. It was clear if you were a rabid Gore supporter or whatever - you went to this thread - if you wanted to talk about the intricacies of the legislative process and avoid election talk - you went to that thread. With just one - it seems more likely you will have people who disagree with each other all in one place.

Nothing invites the troll like a politics thread. Nothing. And there are a huge population of folks who just go out there with the sole purpose of finding internet communities to flame when it comes to politics. No matter how much you are aware of this - it still affects the community negatively.

Right now, I'd probably vote against it.

One more thing: I feel really guilty because there are times, like last night, when I drop into Natter specifically to talk about the OC. I know it annoys a lot of people. But I want to discuss the show. Personally, I think it makes more sense to talk about in Boxed Set - especially given that the shows that BS was set up for are almost never discussed there - but it's been discussed that OC talk should go in Natter. I don't want to annoy the Natterers who don't want to talk about it or deal with the whitefont - but I don't want to go against the preference to not make Box Set the de facto TV thread. My point here is that I certainly understand the desire for a politics thread. It sucks to feel like you are hijaking the thread with a discussion that the majority of people there don't want to participate in.

I don't know how to solve that problem. But I do know that I think a politics thread would solve that issue for some, but, right now, I'm afraid it would cause more harm than good.

That said - I think everyone has to keep in mind that with the election coming - politics talk is going to happen. And it is going to get confrontational. These are some f-ed up times - no matter who you support. People are frightened, frustrated and angry. And that leads to short tempers and we all just have to be aware of that.


Jesse - Apr 01, 2004 2:31:20 pm PST #3534 of 10289
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

I don't think there is any specific plan to go off the dedicated server, though -- to me it feels like a "maybe someday" kind of thing.

If this passes, let's call the thread Las Vegas. Because what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

I like this thought.

I'm not sure how I feel on the thread, but the 6 months rule applies to everything, right? We could shut the thread down shortly after the election, depending on how it's going.


JZ - Apr 01, 2004 2:40:09 pm PST #3535 of 10289
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

I had a whole long thing half-thought-out and quarter-written, but upon consideration (may change my mind later), careful reading of tina's post, and reflection upon my own experiences in the TT Politics threads, for now I'm'a just say, "What tina said."


Rob - Apr 01, 2004 2:40:48 pm PST #3536 of 10289

Based on my study of the Phoenix code, MySQL, Apache and PHP, adding a politics thread will not significantly increase server load, nor will it make it any harder to return to a shared hosting environment in the future.