How do you handle political discussions on your forum?
 

At the best of times, it can be hard to keep things civil when political topics comes up. Now, during this exceptionally contentious political season here in the USA, it's damn near impossible.

I pulled out of one administration position on one site and a moderation position on another some months ago because I was already getting tired of dealing with it. None of the sites I own currently have the traffic levels to worry about such, but if they did, I would probably delete the political/social forums all together. The closer we come to November, the worse it is going to get.

you need a proefficient political manager, that's all... not a moderator, an editorialist who people will read and understand... someone who will be able to close topics that contain flaming etc...

and yes, the americans are hystericals when elections are coming...

dont knock it at least they talking aint they.

I run a music site, and my politics forums are VERY busy. Every moderator on my site is a Super Moderator, there's just no point (to me) in assigning people to different forums, and it's a lot easier to keep the forums clean when any mod on at any given time can take care of business.

That said, my mod team is pretty vigilant in the politics forum, and believe it or not, it's almost never a problem and I've never had to actually ban/temp-ban anyone because of political differences. There are some great discussions going on right now and since my memberbase is only about 50% American, it's made for some good conversations/debates.

I tend to let them debate and fight. The mods only intervene when a topic becomes way off topic and it becomes about mothers only.

Some political discussions tend to become pretty heated when we have some visitors from Romania or Slovakia debating with the die hard right wing Hungarians, it's funny to watch right-wingers fight each other over a story that ended 100 years ago. But I don't intervene, because truth is, they will do that debate no matter where they are. I just soften the obscenities.

Please read: http://www.communityspark.com/the-re...tors-revealed/

I love you Hillary!!!
[lol]

I support political discussions, but I'm a hard-ass about flaming, and I tend to repeat the same seven words every day: Talk about the topic, not the users.

My site doesn't have a debate forum as the topic doesn't really call for one. I try to avoid 2 things. Politics and religion, although I can get some good religious debates going from time to time. Anyone who really knows me avoids opening up that discussion. I have no time for politics as no matter who wins, we all end up losing.

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You use that as your bible, don't you? ;)

I have a strict rule - no debating of politics and religion. I also run a debate forum (linked on the main forum index) for debate. It costs me an extra licence, but it's worth it - it generally means that any ill feeling doesn't spill out onto the main board.

Of course, this rule is broken every so often, so we tend to close threads and start new ones for people on the debate forum (they rarely follow across).

Funnily enough, PETA sparks just as much ill feeling as either of the other two topics.

Rapscallion

On my site, they are PITAs. ;)

<i>I let them debate to their hearts' content and I'll only step in if they go off-topic or start attacking each other.</i>

On the big community I used to run, the owner instituted a ban against topical debates such as religion, politics and especially ethics/morality. The site was family friendly and a forum based AD&D site, there was absolutely no need to turn it into a debating ring, so we didn't. Worked out best in the long run.

Same for the WoW guild forum I administer now, we ask our members to be considerate of each other and avoid religious/topical debates.

I think a good debate, if controlled, can add some atmosphere to a site. We have had some child abuse debates that really turned out informative and helped some people see both sides of the debate, good and bad. It all depends on the subject and how far you are willing to let it go.

I set up a members only area for the hot topics and removed those threads from the 'new search' function..

So you really have to WANT to get into it all to visit those sub forums.. and casual visitors and lurkers aren't freaked out by seeing the off topic heavy thread titles..

Something along those lines, yes haha.

I don't care at all, I let them go at it if they want.

As long as they don't break standard flaming rules and stuff like that, don't bother me any at all. It's never got to that point either.

With a religious site the worst one's are actually when people of different churches or whatever, start acting up, then it gets intense. Or the infamous atheist vs. religion, or controversial topics like homosexuality come up.

Pssh, people are used to it by now though and kind of get the vibe. I just like people to allow the chance to speak there minds, we allow attacking idea's and perspectives, truly challenging people, but not attacking the person that made those statements, and yes there is a fine line.

<a href="http://www.irishrepublican.net" target="_blank">www.irishrepublican.net</a> > All about politics.
You can imagine how tough it is.

I got some great mods that watch over the forum and if anything gets out of line, they know what to do. I personally allow them to post all they want as long as it doesn't get personal. Surprisingly the problems don't come from that area though.