Politics Café?

Black Swan

Should there be one sub-forum under Politics that has the more relaxed atmosphere of a café, where you meet with posters and casually discuss political issues of the day, as if over coffee or tea? This Politics Café would have relaxed standards for content and discussion, allowing for more freedom of expression than permitted by the serious requirements of the other Politics forums.

For example, there may be political humour threads, video-driven threads, smiley face posts, and many of the threads now moved to AH could originate or be moved to the Politics Café. In like manner, AH may move similar relaxed political discussion threads to the Politics Café.

If the Politics Café existed, the mods could then enforce very strict standards for topic and content on all our other forums, thereby meeting the needs of those that want more rigourous discussion in Politics, while at the same time having a place for relaxed discussion in the Café.

It is envisioned that the Charter for the Politics Café would essentially correspond with the "Boards.ie Terms of Use" guidelines that all boards.ie posters agree to follow when registering, and be completely separate from the specific and existing Politics charter, policies, practices, guidelines, etc. To refesh your memory, the boards.ie “Terms” can be found at the bottom of most boards.ie pages. Terms Link: http://www.boards.ie/terms/

Our Politics mods have been discussing the creation of this new Politics Café sub-forum, and have suggested that we could try it out as a 3-month experiment, subject to review at that time.

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

johnnyskeleton

Would there be the same topics discussed in both? Would you have one Israel thread in the Politics Cafe which is a lighthearted thread or one for people with no fixed views and another thread in Politics for the hardliners?

Would, for example, the people who think that the garda tapes today was no big deal go into the Politics Cafe while those who feel that it is a massive human rights/women's rights issue discuss it in the main forum?

Would that not then be simply an attempt to put the angry posters in one box and the lazier posters in another? I'm not sure that will work because the angry people like nothing more than telling people that have no fixed view on an issue that there is only one view and it is theirs, so they would simply post in both fora.

Also, what happens when someone starts what they think is a serious thread but the mods don't feel it is that serious and put it into the politics lite forum. That would be somewhat offensive to some posters.

If people want to shoot the breeze about current afairs, that's what After Hours is there for.

K-9

I like the idea of a humour thread, I've seen a few humorous posts that are frowned on or infracted, not necessarily because they are humorous, more for consistency of modding. Would be a good place for them.

Tbh, I don't see it working as a AH type forum, more a humour, trivia, funny video type thing.

gandalf

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

If people want to shoot the breeze about current afairs, that's what After Hours is there for.

That would be my thoughts on this. After Hours already provides this function why complicate things more when it is not needed.

Lighted hearted stuff stays in After Hours, serious sincere discussion on political issues stays in Politics and is moderated to ensure discussion quality.

Red Hand

Can one post Fox News in The Cafe without being declared a right wing Fox lover?

Killer Pigeon

Less strict moderation perhaps? It could turn into another AH.

Eliot Rosewater

I think Politics Cafe lies between Politics Serious, that people now want, and AH.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Would that not then be simply an attempt to put the angry posters in one box and the lazier posters in another?

No. It's an attempt to compromise between those who like the forum as it is right now, and those who want it improved.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Also, what happens when someone starts what they think is a serious thread but the mods don't feel it is that serious and put it into the politics lite forum. That would be somewhat offensive to some posters.

The alternative is that the thread be locked, which is obviously more offensive than it being moved to Politics Cafe (if, of course, you are in the habit of taking offence at such things).

Permabear

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Overheal

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

Can one post Fox News in The Cafe without being declared a right wing Fox lover?

So long as it doesn't become Fox and Friends.. (now thats a show with slack standards, know what Im saying?)

Soldie

It could be an interesting experiment, but it could also be a can of worms in that I can see the rules being stretched in what would essentially just be a politically-themed After Hours. Why not just create a "Political Humour" sub-forum for those who want to post videos, images and other, more explicitly light-hearted topics, and leave the fiery, quasi-political banter to After Hours?

For what it's worth, what kind of forum structure do the mods have in mind?

Something like this could work, I think:

- Politics
`- Current affairs
`- US Politics
`- EU Politics
`- Political Theory
`- Political Humour (?)

The US Politics, EU Politics, and Political Theory forums serve their purpose pretty well at the moment, so that would leave us with 2-3 forums which would have names that would make it clear to even casual browsers what the forum is all about. A "Politics Café" forum is a little bit ambiguous, and let's be honest, the vast majority of posters probably don't bother to read forum charters.

Denerick

I like it, a good idea. I feel that I've met some interesting people here on the politics forum, some whom I pretend to hold malice against, others whom I really hold malice against. Would be good to josh back and forth in a less formal setting, with all the backslapping and hand wringing as required.

Eliot Rosewater

Soldie wrote: »

For what it's worth, what kind of forum structure do the mods have in mind?

The General Election 2011 and Budget 2011 forums are being decommissioned. Based on the feedback here and in the NI subforum thread, the two subforums may be added. Combined with a new stricter approach to moderation and a review of the trouble-spots, this forms the strategy for dealing with the issues brought up recently (but brewing, of course, for quite some time) in Feedback.

Soldie wrote: »

A "Politics Café" forum is a little bit ambiguous, and let's be honest, the vast majority of posters probably don't bother to read forum charters.

True, but there are forum norms that tend to be adhered to. The Humanities forum has very little silly posting because is the norm of the forum, and posters there seem to "fall into line" (or go somewhere else). If faced with a normal Politics forum and Politics Cafe a new person would probably go for the latter, instead of throwing themselves in the deep end.

Wolfe Tone

So it would be a "politics related stuff only" AH? Why wouldn't I just use AH?

K-9

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

The General Election 2011 and Budget 2011 forums are being decommissioned. Based on the feedback here and in the NI subforum thread, the two subforums may be added. Combined with a new stricter approach to moderation and a review of the trouble-spots, this forms the strategy for dealing with the issues brought up recently (but brewing, of course, for quite some time) in Feedback.



True, but there are forum norms that tend to be adhered to. The Humanities forum has very little silly posting because is the norm of the forum, and posters there seem to "fall into line" (or go somewhere else). If faced with a normal Politics forum and Politics Cafe a new person would probably go for the latter, instead of throwing themselves in the deep end.

I think it will depend on how they come across the new forum. If it's through the new posts facility, they'll probably just post on that board and move on.

If it's through browsing the menu, they might see politics first or go back to it after posting in this new forum and post in the same manner in the main board.

The problem is, how do they know they are held to a higher standard in Politics and an even higher standard in NI? Reading the charter? The majority don't do that!

My worry is you've the normal Politics fora with quite strict rules, an NI forum with stricter ones and a Politics Cafe sub fora with a more AH ethos.

I'd have to refer to what sub fora I'm in before posting, imagine a new poster, far too complicated!

gandalf

gandalf wrote: »

That would be my thoughts on this. After Hours already provides this function why complicate things more when it is not needed.

Lighted hearted stuff stays in After Hours, serious sincere discussion on political issues stays in Politics and is moderated to ensure discussion quality.

Agreed.

Nodin

K-9 wrote: »

I think it will depend on how they come across the new forum. If it's through the new posts facility, they'll probably just post on that board and move on.

If it's through browsing the menu, they might see politics first or go back to it after posting in this new forum and post in the same manner in the main board.

The problem is, how do they know they are held to a higher standard in Politics and an even higher standard in NI? Reading the charter? The majority don't do that!

My worry is you've the normal Politics fora with quite strict rules, an NI forum with stricter ones and a Politics Cafe sub fora with a more AH ethos.

I'd have to refer to what sub fora I'm in before posting, imagine a new poster, far too complicated!

Indeed. 'This thread is not AH, but could be (but not quite Cafe) but a bit politics.....'

I thought this a good idea yesterday. 'upon mature reflection' I don't see it working.

Bottle_of_Smoke

How about having this but as a subforum of after hours rather than politics?

later12

Good idea, I'd be very enthusiastic about the establishment of that sub-forum. Politics forum can be quite an aggressive environment at times, which is of course all part of politics and that's fine. However, it would be nice to have somewhere with a less formal approach to political discourse in which we could discuss political trivia or the political news of lesser consequence, or discuss the important news in a more lighthearted way, where appropriate. Perhaps even follow the Dail coverage as it happens, and so on.

I would think along the lines of Miriam Lord's column - relevant, topical and relaxed. Great idea.

DrumSteve

I don't think this would be a good idea... too many sub sections could kill the forum.

Dannyboy83

Great idea.
Definitely worth a shot imo.

And making have a sticky or two about recurring themes, such as why we can't prosecute bankers who don't appear to have broken any laws etc. etc.

Overheal

IMO this would more simply be tested through a sticky chat megathread

Lapin

Sounds like a Boards version of Phoenix Magazine.

Bring it on.

Nodin

Lapin wrote: »

Sounds like a Boards version of Phoenix Magazine.

Bring it on.

Libel action, here we come......

Wolfe Tone

Any updates on this?