New (maybe temporary) forum rules regarding politics + COVID related posts.

frostfire · April 23, 2020

Hi Guys,

A comment was made by Teelak earlier today about the state of the board and the number of COVID and Political posts going up on it right now.

This is a really hard topic to police in any real way for a couple reasons - first because COVID is a very important subject and has a very huge impact on all of our lives and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Its a health matter, and a science matter... and in a perfect world it would NOT be a political matter. But it has been hijacked by politicians around the world and made in to a political matter.

I will not be banning COVID related posts or removing them to purgatory because the subject is of such importance to the entire world right now - but going forward we are going to have a strict no politics rule on all posts outside of the politics section of the forums, including the COVID threads. This is going to be super-hard to moderate because there is so much misinformation out there which is politically motivated. We will err on the side of science. Meaning that if a post contains content that is being used by a politician or group of politicians to try to steer conversation in a particular direction, then its political be it true or not. For example: hydroxychloroquine. No matter which side of that fence you sit on, that entire subject is too highly politicized to have a place in COVID discussions outside of the political forums. So are any other drugs (if any) that are touted by politicians. Those subjects are now taboo outside of the politics section, even if there are studies backing their use. If politics are involved, it does not belong on the open forum, period.

Threads that are political in nature (such as topics regarding hydroxychloroquine) will be moved to the politics section.

If a post is made in a non-political thread about things that are political in nature the post will be hidden/removed. If the poster keeps posting stuff like that they will receive a warning, and eventually be banished to the purgatory section where they can post that crap to their heart's content.

Political jabs are also hereby forbidden from outside the politics section. Even veiled ones. No comments about how this or that politician or group are better/wiser/stupider etc. If you really want to play those games, do it in the politics section.

I will leave it up to the mods as to the removal/moving of threads that already exist, or the posts inside those threads. If they are overly acidic, move them. If not, then not. But new threads going forward will be handled with the above ideas in mind.

This "rule" will not be posted to the board rules page, at least for now. We will relax it again after the November elections when things quiet down and there is a little less hatred being spread around (we can only hope). Until then lets consider it a temporary rule brought on by the times.