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It's interesting how many people in this thread consider setting up democrat-only and republican-only forums to be merely "echo chambers." I belong to a democrat-only forum elsewhere on the internet and we democrats are great at having all sorts of fight to the death controversies among ourselves and I suspect that republicans are no different. I can see how it would be helpful to have a space where each side could come together among themselves to discuss various issues, but I think these proposed forums would be hellish to moderate. Would a member have to officially sign up to be a democrat only or a republican only? Would that affiliation be visible to other forum members on City Data? If I were to declare myself to be a democrat, could I still read the posts on the republican forum and visa versa?
I would suggest that administration take a look at Democratic Underground if they don't already know about it. It might be helpful to see how that forum works when trying to decide if it's a good idea to create similar forums here.
Separate forums would just add to what is already considered a problem: Internet echo chambers. It's true that this forum gets very contentious, but it's theoretically an opportunity to present information to the other side - and to learn how the other side thinks.
No one is forced to join these sub-forums....the regular ole Political forum would still be open for business. Meaning that , for instance, you Clarallel, could choose whether or not to participate in discussions on the Democrat/Liberal sub-forum.
I, for one, would like to discuss with my fellow conservatives, issues like i.e. the NRA being too quick to give away our gun rights......you must know a topic like this would be quickly run off the tracks by liberals just bashing the NRA and guns in general.
I find it funny that the libs are (generally) against this idea and conservs seems to be (generally) the ones for it. To me it follows the party lines perfectly......
I just found this thread, but have not yet read all the comments. I appreciate that we are being asked about this. It is certainly something to think about. We do need a place to discuss politics without all the nastiness.
So, will you please give us a week or so (or a Halloween deadline?) so that we can draft some proposal how we think it could best be implemented?
Why cater to the people who don't want them when they can just keep posting in this forum?
For the NTH time—this forum is not going anywhere
People of any political persuasion can still post on Politics and other Controversies’ threads
They are NOT RESTRICTED based on their political alignment to posting on either/only Democrats/Liberals or GOP/Conservatives...
It is an OPTION—not a COMPULSORY
After mulling this over for a while, I am in favor. It will probably reduce the number of posts in P&OC and maybe that is a good thing. Give it a whirl, why not?
Managing the Democrat and Republican forums will be a much bigger job than P&OC, which seems generally hands off except for the most flagrant offenses. In these new forums, moderator will have to be watching for posers and trolls all the time. And will have to spend some time sorting out if a poster is "legitimately" Democrat or Republican.
It's been mentioned, but it might be wise to call these forums "Democrat/liberal" and "Republican/conservative" to be more inclusive of Independents.
One downside might be that declaring allegiance to one of these forums could be confining for those who sometimes go across the aisle to vote for the "other" party.
Last edited by GearHeadDave; 10-15-2019 at 04:57 AM..
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