I think the way nations/territories/regions/etc. around the world are dealing with (or not dealing with, as the case may be) this pandemic is inherently political given today’s world. Why not permit political posts that address this issue directly in that forum, but still ban political jabs and potshots that have nothing to do with the pandemic?
We discussed this at length when trying to figure out exactly what the forum would and would not be around. For several reasons, we decided that political threads and debate threads were better off in Politics & Elections / Great Debates.
Just to be clear, there’s no ban on anything. It’s more a matter of which is the appropriate forum for those types of posts. If you want to discuss politics related to the pandemic you are very much free to do so. Just place your posts in Politics and Elections.
That the appropriate forum for certain threads about the pandemic isn’t the forum dedicated to the pandemic might just not make sense to some of us.
Ya’ll decided to make a Quarantine Zone that’s way too MPSIMS and IMHO when it should have been GQ, GD, and the Pit.
Just MHO, obviously.
CMC fnord!
One question is who you are going to get to moderate it. We have a limited moderation team. I moderate GQ, while e_c_g moderates GQ, IMHO, and MPSIMS. I have absolutely no desired to moderate threads suitable for GD, P&E, or the Pit, and I’m pretty sure e_c_g doesn’t either. I would not have volunteered to moderate it if it were going to include those types of threads. It’s simpler to send those threads off to forums with moderators who typically handle those kinds of threads than to leave them in QZ.
The biggest problem so far with the forum is the number of political potshots compared with GQ. People are accustomed to the no political potshots rule in GQ, but not so much in QZ as a new forum. The rules about political criticism are looser in GD and P&E. Political threads by their nature generate more political criticism. Allowing such threads in QZ would just make it even harder to moderate.
We do allow discussion of how different countries are dealing with the pandemic, and this necessarily has some political component. But if the discussion is primarily political it’s better for a different forum.
To elaborate a little more, the problem that the Quarantine Zone was created to solve was that threads about the pandemic were overwhelming several forums. The problem was most severe in GQ, IMHO, and MPSIMS. Creating the new forum and defining it as it is now largely solved that problem.
There are very few coronavirus-related threads in other forums. Threads like “What’s on your coronavirus playlist” and “Are you baking more bread on lockdown” are better left in CS, rather than forcing people who might be interested in those specific topics to look for them among the many threads in QZ. And discussions of the effect of the pandemic on pro sports is going to be of most interest to people who frequent the Game Room.
I count only four threads related to the pandemic active in P&E in the last two weeks. So there is ample room there for discussion of political issues related to coronavirus.
That’s kind of awkward: we can start threads in P&E or GD, but there’s no mechanism for placing just a post there.
The problem is the underlying insanity of the USA being divided over whether there should even be a governmental response to the most dangerous pandemic to hit America in a century. This has politicized questions that would normally have been nowhere near being matters of partisan debate.
So when one is responding to a post in QZ, there things one can’t say about the most mundane issues of combating the virus without being political. I’ve done things like finish off posts there by saying something like “I’d say more but can’t without falling off the edge of the forum” but routinely finding oneself at that edge without having gone in search of it gets wearisome.
I don’t have any brilliant ideas for a solution, but I think we need to be honest about the source of the problem, and acknowledge that, due to the times we’re in, keeping QZ nonpolitical is inherently way more challenging than keeping MPSIMS or CS nonpolitical.
As someone who took a political potshot in the breaking news thread, (and was noted) I appreciate how much of a pain in the ass that must be to mod. Thank you for your patience!
IMHO, the mods are doing it right. Quarantine Zone should be a hybrid of General Questions and virus-breaking-news mixed together. Political stuff is hard to keep corralled as is.
I appreciate this policy. Off-board, I sometimes have to deal with people ranting about politics when I just wanted to talk about how much it sucks to be going through this time. I don’t want to have to get into a political debate or fend off political attacks.
I think the Quarantine subforum is nicer without political fighting or ranting.
I agree.
I would say there is no right way; there’s just kludges of varying degrees of awkwardness.
Given that underlying reality, I think the mods are handling this as well as anyone has a right to expect.