Politics Café.

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Again you are taking one comment/phrase and implying it is wide spread opinion.

Change takes time, we are in a period of change. I am of the opinion that this change should at least be given a chance. I can assure you that we are all more than open to suggestions but lets just see how this plays out.

However, I understand there may be wider problems among the politics forum that need to be sorted out and I suppose this thread is as good as any to try and iron them out.

You now have been diverting threads from AH to the Politics Café for a few months at this stage. Give change a chance, but you would hope for some slight positive vibes, no? Right now threads go there from AH and they die. That's not hyperbole.

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

But certainley not enough to merit that it is a widespread opinion.

It might not be a widespread opinion partly because some people don't realise threads are being moved (most users don't follow feedback or mod warnings / etc - they just wanna get their posting on) or have never looked at the Café. However, the fact that threads grind to a halt when they are moved there is not up for debate. It's not a matter where opinion really matters tbh - we have a few months data to hand.

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

To be honest with you, up until quite recently I didn't even know Politics Cafe existed. Why did it fail? It probably failed because at the time it was started was the time the AH and P mods should have got together and did what we are doing now.

AH doesn't want politics threads, they became such a problem that they clogged up our front page, very few AH mods have interest in political threads in AH because that's not where they are meant to be and it's not why we like to mod AH.

Every feedback thread we had complained about the number of them, people would complain on threads when another political thread sprung up.

It started slowly but soon grew. As a group we have to take responsibility for not acting sooner. Who knows, if we did what we are doing now 3 1/2 years ago, Politics would probably be in a much healthier position.

For the AH team, we are not shoving anything anywhere,only diverting threads to their rightful home. We are happy to work with the politics mods to make this work long term.

This is the crux of it though isn't it really?

Yeah, some people complained. And the mod team might want an AH that existed five year's ago, I don't know. But whatever the rights and wrongs of it, a type of discussion that existed on the site (large non technical and freewheeling politics threads with contributions from all walks of life) doesn't exist anymore as a result of the decision to move them from AH. They were there, generated lots of content, then they were gone and the content gone with it (even if the content may not be considered high quality by many).

There were people complaining alright, but lots of people posting in the threads at the same time. And AH continued on around those threads as it always did before.

Now, should the AH mods have the right to eliminate a type of thread from the site because it doesn't personally interest them? Some will say yes, some will say no.

And that is something I know very little about. For me personally, the AH/PC cross over is very much a live and active experiment and I believe with time will work out.

Your belief is admirable, but lacks supporting evidence at this stage.

oscarBravo wrote: »

It's hard to escape the conclusion that that's the perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"I don't post in the Politics Café."

"Why not?"

"Because nobody posts there."

"...!"

That's true, but it serves to misunderstand what people who enjoyed the threads we're talking about were fans of. I liked the idea that such threads would generate lots of content in a short space of time and the variety of the content. Slow moving versions of said threads in a small forum with little footfall is not interesting but more to the point - it fundamentally changes the character of those threads. I have no interest in discussing politics solely with people who chose to click into a Politics forum.

============

I think the site as a whole has the right to say 'that's content we don't want' or to say 'the AH mods do a great job and if they don't want to host a certain type of thread on their forum that's the way it shall be'.

But let's not pretend that the Politics Café is suddenly going to spring into life because of a link placed in AH...

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

To be fair, PC is starting to get a bit more lively now. Are there any statistics for posts and/or views of PC comparing now to before the link to AH?

If any subforum in Politics needs to be merged back into the main forum, perhaps it should be Political Theory.

PopePalpatine wrote: »

To be fair, PC is starting to get a bit more lively now. Are there any statistics for posts and/or views of PC comparing now to before the link to AH?.

As I type this, the forum has recieved 37 posts since Saturday afternoon. Slow.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

The Cafe doesn't and never had a community of posters. The trendy restaurant around the corner has closed and still nobody comes to the cafe.

Reducing the subforums in politics will help, people with some interest in politics will join the discussion if it's busy, people with just a passing interest mightn't bother. We always had posters who who would post away in AH about politics but come nowhere near politics.

I think some specific sub-fora are necessary - i.e. Cafe, US Politics and Political Theory. IMHO the rest are rife for overlap of discussions. I find it odd that posters would complain that they have to discuss politics in the politics forum; seems almost petty that they don't want to post outside of AH.

K-9 wrote: »

US and theory I can see a point in leaving. It's hard to know with US, more viewers in the main forum might garner more interest, or it could get swallowed up.

Cafe, well we're back to what we've been discussing.

I think US is good because, although it is low traffic, it keeps the quality of the posts high and ensures that topics don't veer back to the subject of Irish politics. If I was on a thread regarding the US in the main politics forum, my view would be to compare/contrast to Ireland; as opposed to simply discussing it from a neutral (or even American) perspective.

Politics Cafe has a purpose in being the "off topic" for the politics forum. It allows like-minded individuals (although often in disagreement) to discuss issues and have a laugh or whatever. I think it's vital in a forum like politics, where some topics create such a divide that the discussion can get personal (look at the water threads for example). Having a place where posters can go to casually chat could reduce that personal tension.

Perhaps that place is AH, but I would imagine that it's a different quality/standard of discussion there (although I'm writing this completely ignorant of anything that has been posted there for at least 3 years) and such topics might either quickly get swallowed by other things or would not be entertaining for the average politics poster.

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Politics Cafe has a purpose in being the "off topic" for the politics forum. It allows like-minded individuals (although often in disagreement) to discuss issues and have a laugh or whatever. I think it's vital in a forum like politics, where some topics create such a divide that the discussion can get personal (look at the water threads for example). Having a place where posters can go to casually chat could reduce that personal tension.

That my view of it, unfortunately it never really took off. It could well be the forum is too divided or set in its ways!

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I just don't understand the objection to posting in another forum? Can someone explain it to me? Presumably there is a similar objection to moving legal themed threads to the legal discussion forum?

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

There are people in AH.

AH Charter wrote: »

Do not post here to reach a larger audience.
Posting on After Hours to reach a larger audience is not allowed. If there is a more suitable forum for your thread, post it there.

.

Hold the Cheez Whiz wrote: »

Dunno if this is an issue for a separate thread, but in terms of merging the Politics fora (which I agree with in theory, with the exception of the US sub-forum and possibly Theory), I know one of the main concerns in the past has been the dominance of republican-themed threads on the front page. If everything dropped back into one forum, do you think that this would be an issue again, or the greater diversity of threads would even things out? I ask because if the discussion of SF/IRA in the Rules thread is any guide, the general relentlessness of a certain subset of posters interested in republican politics seems to insure that these threads will bounce quickly to the top of the page and stay there, seemingly endlessly.

That's certainly why we created the NI sub-forum, so quite possibly so.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

But it isn't really just a N.I. issue.

If Irish Economy is moved over, that might help the balance. Obviously Adams is the big Irish political story at the minute, it's no different to Russia/Ukraine/Israeli type threads in that respect.