The Mudpitting of Deny Politics

[UltraBudgie]

I very much appreciate the change that Deny Politics threads no longer show up in the active thread list.

Since Deny Politics is a hierarchy of forums, it is a little cumbersome to see what's new there, if one is curious. Other than the "Latest At Deny Politics" list relegated to the bottom-left of the home page. Is there an active thread list for that branch of the tree?

Or perhaps a button or check-box (that clears every visit) on activethreads.php to include them?

[Maxmars]

Only speaking for myself, I would be keen to see how you might propose
structuring the framework to better self-curate the discussions...

It might make it easier to digest for new comers, if it's done harmoniously.

I have to admit, I saw the word "mudpitting" and became just bit tense.

I will be honest with everyone,
I didn't feel the mudpit was productive...
merely entertaining - if you like being taunted into a rage.
it was political theater crystalized into the 'street fight'
the media so wants it to be.

There were no revelations, no logic, only tiresome inflammatory sniping,
and out of control personal attacks, all too frequently the emotional 
outburst spilled over into the regular board...

Then it became "glorified"... that's a "no" from me.

It's like political theater... "Don't teach people to debate ... give them rotten tomatoes to throw."

[Encia22]

I very much appreciate the change that Deny Politics threads no longer show up in the active thread list.

Since Deny Politics is a hierarchy of forums, it is a little cumbersome to see what's new there, if one is curious. Other than the "Latest At Deny Politics" list relegated to the bottom-left of the home page. Is there an active thread list for that branch of the tree?

Or perhaps a button or check-box (that clears every visit) on activethreads.php to include them?

For just viewing the DP section topics, try the Search Function - filtering by selecting Deny Politics from the list of forums and typing ... (three dots) in the search by keyword field.

ETA: And here is a shortcut with the above parameters already selected.

:beer:

[TzarChasm]

Only speaking for myself, I would be keen to see how you might propose
structuring the framework to better self-curate the discussions...

It might make it easier to digest for new comers, if it's done harmoniously.

I have to admit, I saw the word "mudpitting" and became just bit tense.

I will be honest with everyone,
I didn't feel the mudpit was productive...
merely entertaining - if you like being taunted into a rage.
it was political theater crystalized into the 'street fight'
the media so wants it to be.

There were no revelations, no logic, only tiresome inflammatory sniping,
and out of control personal attacks, all too frequently the emotional 
outburst spilled over into the regular board...

Then it became "glorified"... that's a "no" from me.

It's like political theater... "Don't teach people to debate ... give them rotten tomatoes to throw."

100% correct. The mud pit is antithetical to intelligent and productive discourse.

[UltraBudgie]

For just viewing the DP section topics, try the Search Function - filtering by selecting Deny Politics from the list of forums and typing ... (three dots) in the search by keyword field.

ETA: And here is a shortcut with the above parameters already selected.

:beer:

Oh sweet, that triple-dot wildcard is a nice tidbit. Here is a link that does what you describe:

Deny Politics - Active Threads

Only speaking for myself, I would be keen to see how you might propose
structuring the framework to better self-curate the discussions...

I'm not sure I would presume. The "forum" structure is a bit of an anachronism, do people here really restrict their browsing to only a few particular forums? And the boundaries between different forums are somewhat vague for many threads, sometimes I've decided which forum to post in just because I like the icon better haha. So from a purely functional point of view, perhaps something like a hashtag system with various predefinied standards would be more appropriate, it could allow for example tagging something as both #ufo and #politics. But from the point of view of 'flavour" and experience, for a place we love, the current instantiation is just dandy.

[BeyondKnowledge]

Only speaking for myself, I would be keen to see how you might propose
structuring the framework to better self-curate the discussions...

It might make it easier to digest for new comers, if it's done harmoniously.

I have to admit, I saw the word "mudpitting" and became just bit tense.

I will be honest with everyone,
I didn't feel the mudpit was productive...
merely entertaining - if you like being taunted into a rage.
it was political theater crystalized into the 'street fight'
the media so wants it to be.

There were no revelations, no logic, only tiresome inflammatory sniping,
and out of control personal attacks, all too frequently the emotional 
outburst spilled over into the regular board...

Then it became "glorified"... that's a "no" from me.

It's like political theater... "Don't teach people to debate ... give them rotten tomatoes to throw."

You fail to see that the mudpit was very useful. It allows those that just want to engage in arguments of lesser logic such as 'Your moma!" without spreading into other parts of a site with that nonsense.

Some want to argue but have no real point to the argument so they just blow off some steam. That is what the mudpit was for.

When it was eliminated, the rest of ATS suffered for it.

[Maxmars]

It's the whole... "without spreading into other part of the site" that I call fallacious.

That mud-pit spirit celebrates toxicity...

Can you feel it circling?

[theshadowknows]

DP will remain isolated, just as Above Politics was before it. The moment Above Politics was folded back into ATS marked the beginning of its downfall.

However, I'm working on updating a script that will allow users to opt out of seeing political threads altogether. That may be the answer here. More soon.

Thread closed.