It’s a real shame as the majority of posts there were informative and well balanced. Unfortunately the minority who went out of their way to be obnoxious and argumentative seem to have won
I think, given the one of the best things about this site is how it brings Charlton fans together, having a section that seemed to cause endless division which had utterly nothing to do with football means it probably is better off closed.
I enjoyed the HoC part, but I don’t think it’s a massive loss for it to be consigned to the dustbin.
Most people manage to make sensible posts, sadly there are those whose only contribution is to make flippant remarks often with no relevance to the topic being discussed.
Those that think the forum is better off without the HOC have no need to look at it, that would leave it free for those of us who do.
There are many topics on the forum that I have no interest in, so I don't bother looking at them. I would never suggest that those threads be closed.
But why do you want to comment on politics on what is essentially a Charlton specific/football general forum?
There are other forums you can use for your political chat.
I feel much safer posting on this forum than one than one where everyone is a stranger. It's testament to this forum that although I've never met most people on here, it feels more like a family.
It was great to have a politics section, away from the main forum. There were a lot of informative posts. Nobody was compelled to look at that part of the forum, so I don't understand why others want to get it closed down.
Those that think the forum is better off without the HOC have no need to look at it, that would leave it free for those of us who do.
There are many topics on the forum that I have no interest in, so I don't bother looking at them. I would never suggest that those threads be closed.
But why do you want to comment on politics on what is essentially a Charlton specific/football general forum?
There are other forums you can use for your political chat.
Politics is life just as charlton is life- hard if not impossible to segregate each from the other. This is the crux if a lot of the disagreements I think. It tends to be those on the right that want to segregate politics from everything else, and the core reason i was never in favour of a seperate HoC area off the main forum. It's like the old 'no politics nor religion at the dinner table'. Stupid idealism and usually damaging for everybody over time. We go again
Bottom line, we have a number of posters who just can’t have decent debate with those with opposing views. Mature adults who should know better. Most of the time they just cannot see they are part of the problem and think it’s the others.
It was spoiling the forum so we created an area (HoC) to try and keep it seperate and that worked to a degree as it took the silliness away from the main forum. However, once sides become ‘entrenched’ and you know who your opposition is, then some form of flare up, nastiness, ganging up was becoming too frequent and too widespread to just get rid of one or two posters.
Additionally (and importantly), I barely get time to look at here like I used to and would go months without looking at HoC, and had no real wish to. So the moderation for that was firmly in the hands of others like Stig and Ali . They are lovely people who repeatedly go out of their way for others and probably deserved to be treated far better by many people.
I appreciate it’s ‘an interesting year’ politically, there were a number of decent posters and a lot of people really enjoyed it. But it does bring unecessary problems, differences between posters and some quite pathetic behaviour. We’ve absolutely no interest in policies featuring back to n the main forum (even though some can’t help themselves even though they know it’s not wanted).
Whether we re-open HoC or something similar in the future, who knows. In the meantime, there are lots of other platforms online you can go and have silly political spats with people.
That's what the Argument Alerter was for, so we could all go and watch with our pop corn. 😉
Those who moaned the loudest were those who wouldn't accept evidence that contradicted their world view, no matter how much it it stacked up.
If people who presented opinion as fact, people who pretended those with an opposing view had said something they clearly hadn't and people who made stuff up to "back up" their opinion had been stopped from doing so, it would have been better.
Sadly they are not used to their opinion being contradicted because of the media they consume (although they often lied about that too).
It was nice to have a platform to contradict the bullshit that many people believe without question. For me, it was never about persuading the entrenched to change their minds, it was about showing the neutral where and why the entrenched were wrong.
I think it is good and healthy to talk about and indeed speculate about politics. It affects all of our lives. What is not good is when it gets too personal. When posters are accused of being this or that from both sides of the argument. There is a difference between a heated debate, which is fine, and personal digs/attacks. It opens and the usual suspects will be on there doing that almost immediately. I would prefer to see those people instantly banned from it with no return, rather than the whole thing being closed. It would possibly make everybody a bit more careful about what they post, but I understand why it is closed.
Those that think the forum is better off without the HOC have no need to look at it, that would leave it free for those of us who do.
There are many topics on the forum that I have no interest in, so I don't bother looking at them. I would never suggest that those threads be closed.
But why do you want to comment on politics on what is essentially a Charlton specific/football general forum?
There are other forums you can use for your political chat.
Politics is life just as charlton is life- hard if not impossible to segregate each from the other. This is the crux if a lot of the disagreements I think. It tends to be those on the right that want to segregate politics from everything else, and the core reason i was never in favour of a seperate HoC area off the main forum. It's like the old 'no politics nor religion at the dinner table'. Stupid idealism and usually damaging for everybody over time. We go again
That's something that hadn't occurred to me, but I don't think a football fan forum is made poorer for a lack of political comment, other than when it concerns legislation around the game, or influences how the governing bodies of the game operate, which I'm sure would still get picked up on here one way or another.
I don't get it. There are loads of forums on the internet when you can discuss politics. Why do you want to discuss it here?
Could it also be the difference between feeling like a big fish in a small pond on here compared to being a small fish in a big pond elsewhere. Just a thought. I don't really know.
I don't get it. There are loads of forums on the internet when you can discuss politics. Why do you want to discuss it here?
To debate with normal people, those whose life is not defined by politics, but who are savvy enough to realise that a great deal of what happens in everyday life is political, like it or not, and want to chat about it occasionally. Political forums attract those that are obsessed by politics, and are usually populated by the extremes of either side of the spectrum and usually very boring - they are often so close to each other it's hard to tell the difference, except to them...
Out of interest (and i say this as someone who probably looked on that part of the forum twice in my life) why does it need to be moderated? I'd imagine there's quite a few people on here who probably didn't even know it existed.
If a select few want to waste their days arguing amongst themselves on a part of the forum that hardly anyone goes to, then why not just leave them to it?
I don't get it. There are loads of forums on the internet when you can discuss politics. Why do you want to discuss it here?
To debate with normal people, those whose life is not defined by politics, but who are savvy enough to realise that a great deal of what happens in everyday life is political, like it or not, and want to chat about it occasionally. Political forums attract those that are obsessed by politics, and are usually populated by the extremes of either side of the spectrum and usually very boring - they are often so close to each other it's hard to tell the difference, except to them...
If you want to debate with normal people this isn't the place.
Comments
And it is much better without them.
There are many topics on the forum that I have no interest in, so I don't bother looking at them. I would never suggest that those threads be closed.
There are other forums you can use for your political chat.
Would make the main forum much more enjoyable, for 7 days at least.
It was great to have a politics section, away from the main forum. There were a lot of informative posts. Nobody was compelled to look at that part of the forum, so I don't understand why others want to get it closed down.
If people who presented opinion as fact, people who pretended those with an opposing view had said something they clearly hadn't and people who made stuff up to "back up" their opinion had been stopped from doing so, it would have been better.
Sadly they are not used to their opinion being contradicted because of the media they consume (although they often lied about that too).
It was nice to have a platform to contradict the bullshit that many people believe without question. For me, it was never about persuading the entrenched to change their minds, it was about showing the neutral where and why the entrenched were wrong.
quite funny to see everyone foaming at the mouth as Biden/Trump/Tories/Labour get into power
Could open an Israel/Hamas - whose side are you on - thread, as a juicy Welcome Back bonus to the HOC
can also move the climate change and ULEZ threads in there
Edit - lets not cross swords over it 😉
If a select few want to waste their days arguing amongst themselves on a part of the forum that hardly anyone goes to, then why not just leave them to it?