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I've been posting on this forum for a few months now, and it still shocks me to see the lack of reasonable, civil debate around here. I'm a member of several other political forums, and none of them seem to reach the level of vile nastiness that I constantly encounter on city data. Of the mean spirited things I've heard:
1) Accusing gay people of being pedophiles
2) Obama supporters are communists
3) Minorities all want handouts
3) The tea party is like the taliban
4) Conservative posters should take their opinions to storm front
5) Republicans/Democrats are stupid
6) Obama should be impeached (for what???)
7) Republican/Democratic policies are akin to Nazism
8) Gabrielle Giffords is manipulating people into supporting gun control and should just go away
9) All conservatives are vehemently opposed to any kind of diversity
10) Hoping the country dissolves because of who is in office
It's all just vile sickening things on this forum. That's the problem with online communities. Chances are, none of us will ever meet in person so some of us feel like there's no need to be civil or decent to each other when we're all behind a computer screen. We forget that we're all people worthy of respect. I apologize for any harsh post I've made as well. I hope we can improve on this. It will make the forum a much better place.
Last edited by workaholics; 02-03-2013 at 02:14 PM..
It's too bad this forum doesn't impose a basic level of quality rule. Reporting someone for flaming another user makes sense, but I don't think the mods would do anything about a post reported for factual inaccuracies and half-truths.
Asking people to make sane, factual, and reasoned arguments without the loonies resorting to crazy crap like that is like asking a 747 to dance on the end of a pin. You also take away about 90% of their material.
You can boil down all of the insulting and weird arguments down to a single point "I am angry and I don't understand what's going on"
The forum would probably a lot less busy if we were all held to higher standards. But unfortunately politics seems to bring out the absolute worst in people.
Forums like this provide a useful public service by easing the task of the NSA.
Every time someone launches into a tirade involving secession or resisting the government with arms or denouncing the president as an illegitimate usurper or whatever, a little transactional NSA angel is born.
Forums like this provide a useful public service by easing the task of the NSA.
Every time someone launches into a tirade involving secession or resisting the government with arms or denouncing the president as an illegitimate usurper or whatever, a little transactional NSA angel is born.
The forum would probably a lot less busy if we were all held to higher standards. But unfortunately politics seems to bring out the absolute worst in people.
Maybe so. I just wish you could report people for things like what you listed. You can basically only report people for trolling and flaming. I'm not saying that every post needs to be backed up with reliable sources cited in MLA format, but they could at least let us report things like "Obama is a commie!" or "why do the Republitards hate minorities".
Actually, I don't think the crazies on this board can express themselves with out calling our Hillary Clinton "ugly", or make fun of other parts of people's appearance. Usually women, of course, but not always.
For some reason, "Obonzo" offends me more than other ugly nicknames for our president. The farthest I ever went with Bush was "Dubya," and only because I understood that to be a widely-used nickname for him among friends and family.
Personally I strive never to refer to "Repukes" or talk about how fat Rush Limbaugh is. I just think it says a lot more about the people who say stuff like that than it does about the people they're criticizing.
And the above poster reminded me of how much I absolutely LOATHE the use of "tard" as a pejorative.
I totally agree with everything the OP said. This place gets a bit ridiculous at times.
My hot-button irritants:
1: The god damn race card. Really? Are you that lousy of a debater and are your arguments so weak that your only recourse to discredit another poster's opinion is to call him/her a racist?
2: The ease at which posters here are able to call another a fascist or Nazi. Again, is your argument so weak that you cannot at least listen to another's argument and consider that there may be something constructive to take away and add to your stance on an issue?
3: A total lack of understanding or even a willingness to try to understand another's opinion. If it doesn't already jive with a city-data poster's current narrative, almost instantly, swords are drawn.
There's a lot of information in this forum, but I don't think there's a lot of learning going on.
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