Running a Non-Partisan Political Forum? 116
cptnHaddock asks: "The internet was supposed to give a new breath to democracy. While there has been some interesting initiatives, I feel a lot more could be done. Do you have any experience, tips to share, about running a non-partisan political forum? How to encourage well-thought postings and filter out the cynical ramblings, and how to moderate without censoring? Is there any good software that you would recommend for that task? Are there other solutions even better suited to running a policy-oriented discussion board?"
Impossible (Score:1, Funny)
Next question?
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My recommendation would be to limit debates to only between two people or two groups which have an equal amount of people. Otherwise the common forum habit of teaming up against an opponent occurs.
Additionally, I would only allow information in a debate that qualifies as a highly verifiable source. Noone should be able to
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Re:politics/Multiple Point of View (MPOV) is not N (Score:2)
The important part is having simple, clear guidelines (that work) and respecting them.
The problem is the "that work" part since I can't see any set of rules without its problems. Especialy since in a debate it's expected to use whatever means to win. How long will neutral issue statements resist? Either they'll lean towards a POV, or they'll be contested as leaning, or both. Anyways, I promise I'll take a lo
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You know what I do care about? That I can find the Naruto list of story arcs there. Yes, even the fillers. And it's pretty up to date, too.
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Unfortunately, politics in the United States have become so very partisan that most open discussion of this sort will devolve quickly into shouting matches between kneejerk liberals and dittoheads.
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I would have to agree. How can you have a non-partisan political discussion? It's an oxymoron these days.
I suppose you could set up something of a debating blog on current issues. But how you would go about filtering out the political from the non-political opinions would itself be highly subjective. It's like legislating taste.
How would you defend the following: I publish an opinion/discussion about why I think abortion is evil. You block my post because you believe it is too partisan biased a disc
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+1 Funny (Score:3, Funny)
Simple (Score:3, Funny)
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Restrict access to only those people you like... (Score:3, Insightful)
That pretty much limits it to just yourself. But it's a start!
Politics and religion are two of the hottest flame-war topics EVER. You either choose to moderate EVERY comment (you are "censoring" your own board) or you accept the fact that there will be heated disagreements and non-polite exchances.
Re:Restrict access to only those people you like.. (Score:5, Informative)
There are rules that people are expected to follow regarding respecting those you are discussing with. While there are occasional flame wars (and people are suspended from posting for a brief period of time when it gets out of hand), it doesn't require anything particular draconian. Requiring respect in a public discussion is not censorship.
ornery.org for those interested.
LetterRip
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By the way, nice to see you here, LR. This is PS.
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Parent sure has a point though.
Re:Restrict access to only those people you like.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Also consider having three forums: one for liberals, moderated by volunteers within the forum; one for conservatives, moderated by volunteers within the forum, and one non-partisan. That way, the people who really just want to be partisan can talk amongst themselves, and they can censor the oth
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That's a bad idea because it provides two nurturing pools for partisan extremism to let people gear up for battle before going all out in the "non-partisan" forum.
Running a Non-Partisan Political Forum? (Score:1)
Oxymoron... How about a forum where the partisans don't just degenerate into having a flame fest.
No this isn't troll, just an observation that all political discussions, in any forum, are partisan.
One might hope for non-partisan consensus to emerge from a forum... but I wouldn't count on it.
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OT re sig (Score:1)
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That's neither true nor relevant. I have certain opinions on varouus political questions, such as Iraq, stem-cell research and so on. If I were running a political forum, I'd rather see posts supporting my position than attacking it. To the extent that I'd have an agenda, that would be it. However, even if I didn't understand that, I could still keep that forum nonpartisan. All I'd have to do is allow posts on all sides of thos
A Few Tips: (Score:5, Insightful)
We use phpbb with a few mods, like quick reply and a captcha system that doesn't really work. Most of our top posters have mod abilities, so that really helps us control the spam posts. Amazingly, for a religious forum, we haven't censored any posts in six months. Basically, just encourage rational debate and I don't think you will have any need to censor.
Re:A Few Tips: (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Start small. There's no need to create all of your forum topics at once. Start with a few and create more as they are needed.
2. Welcome new members. It can be tough joining an established forum. New members don't always know the forum etiquette and they don't know any of the "in jokes". Welcome them and thank them for contributing.
3. Don't censor. If someone steps out of line, just ask them nicely to "tone down" their posts. When the subject is politics, you have to be very careful to ensure that the poster doesn't feel like their view is being unfairly silenced.
4. Allow guests to post. You will need a good captcha system, but allowing guest posting really helps to get the "lurkers" involved in the discussion.
5. Start the discussions. Write a few posts everyday that you know will generate discussion. Start a poll that asks if abortion should be legal, and before you can say flamewar you'll have a hundred new posts. I also spam my own forum with "in the news" links. It can really help get the ball rolling.
6. Forum games and offtopic posts. Create a lounge section for members to discuss issues that don't relate to politics. Forums should be about discussing issues with friends. Solve an online puzzle like www.antiriddle.com together, and the members will set aside their political differences and have fun together. Also, little games like word association and photoshop tennis can help strengthen the community.
7. No ads! Don't put google ads between every post. That is annoying, and people don't want to join an online community created strictly for profit.
Hm... (Score:3, Funny)
Hm...
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Replies, even if informative and correct can be downmoderated if moderators detect even a hint of pedantic tone or the slightest "flame" even when directed at someone who is a complete idiot.
Forums like Fark and others offer a much more relaxed and less formal atmosphere because of their "immature" users, and if I'm> going to spend a lot of time on a forum, I sur
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Not if you ever visit any of the 'intellectual property' threads here, where you're likely to see hordes of posters who haven't the slightest clue about the differences between patents, trademarks, and copyrights; nor the slightest desire to learn.
Nonsense, the vast majority of slashdotters are well aware of the differences.
Just because people object to the current implementation of those concepts, and want something new, doesn't mean they don't understand them. Your position is the typical conflation
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Right. I can see it now:
Topic: Intellectual Property Rights:
farkguy1024: liberz suck!!!
farkguy720: -inline photo of a half naked gay man saying 'you go girl'-
farkguy882: bomb those ragheads!!!
farkguy 882: -inline animated gif of a nuclear explosion with Saddams head flying out of the frame-
farkguy1222: Where are the boobies?????
deleted post of an inline photo of a naked obese woman or possible tubgirl/goatse
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I second that. You don't really appreciate the intellectual level of
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WOO-HOO!!
OMG!! RAOTHLMFAO!!!
Now I have chocolate milk all over my monitor!
Thanks for brightening my day!
-john
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Is this some sort of anti-Da Vinci code??
Let me guess... (Score:2)
Yes, and the Pope is infallible.
Impossible-ish. (Score:2)
I think the best you can hope for is for everyone to be civil, but even that's only enforceable if everyone's already civil: uncivil mode
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Moderation? Easy. (Score:2)
You need maximal freedom of speech for proper discourse.
Not that easy. (Score:2, Interesting)
Speaking as someone over the years who has been derided on political forums as both a far right rightwing extremist and a left wing nut job, when it comes to politics, trolling is often in the eyes of the beholder. What would be considered trolling in a left wing forum would be seen as a valid opinion in a right wing forum and vice versa. This is due to the different "hot buttons" partisans of different parties are programmed to have.
I'm currently struggling with
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Hiya
I'm curious - how do you/these people act on their political views (in real life)
Direct action, single issue stuff (pro/anti GM, etc), industrial action (strikes/ direct confrontation, etc. All of these, none, some I haven't mentioned?
Ta
That really is the question (Score:1)
I don't know how the forum will turn out. It has not been launched yet. I have secured a server for it and am in the process of configuring the software and choosing a layout. My plan is to attempt to draw independent minded people to the forum and then see where the chips fall.
but, I can tell you how I handle this so far...
Direct action, single issue stuff (pro/anti GM, etc), industrial action (strikes/ direct confrontation, etc. Al
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I don't really understand some of the issues that you mention ('memes and cult like group think', 'some partisan friend of mine emailed me to sign a petition.') - these aren't ways that I see people operating in In the UK, and EU)
I still don't get where people who 'refuse to dirty themselves through alignment with a political party') actually *do* anything about things they disagree with.
How do you/ they attempt to change society/ the world/ their neighbourhood?
When you mention memes and petitions, I th
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Do you understand what a meme or a cult is? The definition of meme is debateable, so I'll focus on cults as that's the more serious of my accusations anyway.
A cult can grow around many different things. A charismatic leader, an appealing idea, etc... For the sake of clear exp
Obligitory: You must be new here! (Score:2)
Even with the mod system, the filtering in "pref's", and the karma system, most political battles^Wdiscussions resemble fireworks on the 4th of July, only with nukes, WMD's, and hookers...er, what was we talking about?
BTW, sorry I don't have something more positive, but good luck with that anyway- it should be an interesting experience!
it is possible (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly about ACs and flaming, we run it through a university society so most people who come on are from a university (and as such there is little flaming and trolling). We are open though for anyone to post on it, but I think most people wouldn't hunt out a small system on the net to try and troll. I know you get it on
I think If you want it to be non-partisan then you need to put up non-partisan stories and just let everyone have their own views and post them. You can even put up partisan stories but just try to make sure that they are fairly ballanced in number. For us me and a firend put up the stories, he's a Labour supporter (and a Blairite) whereas I'm a member of a conservative party. It's not normally that hard to see your own bias.
If you live in the UK getting access to non-partisan representations of the news is easy (because all our TV media has to be non-partisan). It might be harder if you want to do US news but you could always put up a right and a left wing interpretation of the story and then let people talk about where they feel that they are on it...
If you want to try and encourage well thought out discusion you should consider getting some friends and along with yourself post your own opinions on the stories in a well thought out way (especially at the start) so that people can see top quality examples of discusion and reason
As for moderation on the whole I'd say don't. I've had people say that they think that 9/11 and 7/7 were justified etc. and I've just left it, people can see bullshit and often don't even flame back (but can tear their poor arguements appart). I would delete something which used overly offensive language, or an obvious flaming comment (like "Bush is crap and likes to have sex with dogs and children!" - you know it's a lie and it has no point).
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I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry over that comment.
Here in the US there are many who insist that that UK news has a wildly liberal bias. "Fair and Balanced" over here means placing your required-to-be-non-partisan media at one "radical" end of the field... placing goal post right there and calling that one biased slant on the news, and then of course there is the oppo
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Consider that "0wns" means the vast majority of Americans listening to those media formats prefers listening to those views. The left-wing Air America got into talk radio with major financial backing, and is now floundering due to lack of listeners.
And although the Daily Show appears to slant left, I've noticed it pulls no punches when the left does stupid things. I'm actually wondering whether it would appear to slant right if a l
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Exactly. And the very interesting point to ponder of just what it is psychologically about the left/right audiences and the aspects of the two media formats that causes such an overwhelming and opposite effect in each.
The left-wing Air America got into talk radio with major financial backing, and is now floundering due to lack of listeners.
Air America is not just floundering, it took t
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Talk radio always seems to come off as a heavy-handed, authoritative voice -- and the left, pretty much by definition, reacts against traditional authority. A single speaker telling it like it is has to choose a topic to focus on, a viewpoint, and how far that viewpoint should be carried out.
In some ways, it's almost like a sermon, and you can see where that's going.
A conservative and traditional viewpoint is easier to preach to: Things were fine before the liberals started messing around. Follow
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Not all conservatives are Christian social conservatives. Others are the more libertarian wing of conservatism, just get the government out of where it doesn't belong and return to the plan laid out by the Constitution. This view pisses off both social conservatives and leftists since it's against the grand design of both.
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The left fails in talk radio because everyone who is remotely liberal is already listening to NPR, and has been from an early age. NPR is everything the left is looking for: broadminded, skeptical, eclectic. No startup can compete with that.
2 simple rules (Score:5, Funny)
2. no Swedes
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120 years ago, Norway's declared independence from Sweden was still not recognised.
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not quite right (Score:2)
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If I may just correct you there... (Score:2)
I'm being OUTRAGEOUSLY pedantic!
Political Forum Idea (Score:1)
I, too, have often thought about creating a forum where well-reasoned ideas could be expressed and debated. However, actually allowing for democratic participation usually results in the debate turing to jingoism and argumentum ad hominem. I have formulated a plan in an attempt to overcome these problems, but failed to implement it due to the amount of time required. I will describe that plan forthwith so that you might consider it as a possible answer to your inquiry.
The subject for the debate is poste
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I think rather than working on a schedule, debates should have long lives through use of an ongoing forum which is linked to a wiki summary of the respective pro and con cases, each case overseen by a group of editors.
In this respect, check out: makethecase.net. [makethecase.net]
Hm, where to start. (Score:3, Insightful)
1. I would think the first step would be to go out and attract/recruit the core group of people who share your vision and are enthusiastic about it. The core group is very important, as they set the energy and the mood for everyone else. They are also the ones you will eventually trust to place moderators when the forum outgrows your oversight.
2. Set clear and simple policies and rules that encourage the atmosphere/cooperation you want in place and enforce them consistently. Be fair and explain the actions you take and have the moderators explain themselves to the group when they make a decision, don't make decisions that are arbitrary. People can see when you are being fair or when you are taking sides due to varying factors such as cronyism, partisanship, etcetera.
3. No censorship of purely political speech. It may see like "no duh!" but enough political forums decide to censor views that are not compatible with the moderators/leader of the board. Even over objectionable views, there are ways to win over them without resorting to this.
Okay, that aside, let's discuss what you want. You want a non-partisan board. The origin of partisan is of course party, like political party. The role of the political party was always to band individuals together into a force that has power. The downside of a political party is that over time a member had to trade in his individual thinking and go with the groupthink of the group, sometimes with issues that had little to do with the original goal of the group.
Political parties/movements have done or promoted some good, such as the abolitionist movement, women's suffrage, and of course our own revolution.
Political Parties have also done a lot of bad: the Communist Party in Russia and elsewhere where they have actually taken power, the National Socialist party, etcetera. In America, Political Parties have not been this evil, but have set the current political system (which I think should be unconstitutional) and climate to their advantage and have wrought the current situation.
In this sense, the way to minimize partisanship is to get in your core group of people who are for independent politicians (no party affiliation mandatory) and where political parties have little meaning to them. Meaning that your core group should be people that don't follow a party line, but decide issue by issues. People who staunchly stick with their parties will always have a conflicting interest to be partisan as a show of loyalty/teamplaying for their party.
You will likely also want people who are not afraid to blast both sides equally.
Like many social human endeavors, since politics is the assertion of one's own ego, don't expect a lack of shrill bickering though.
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An easy way would be to also allow the community to modify words by adding hyperlinks to support or deride premises.
Pick your poison... (Score:2)
On the one hand, many of the free discussion forums are flooded with people who spout hateful gibberish about politicians they don't like or blind lovefest for politicians they do. To keep these people out, you might want to consider charging membership fees. People seem to pop off a lot less when it costs them money to do so.
On the other hand, charging a membership fee may create a problem with reach. Some people may be the sort to engag
A slash-based political website... (Score:2)
Very interesting (even if I'm not american myself and the site focus on US issues). It is slash-based, so provide the moderation system you know can help filter the comments. However, the site does not have that many comments yet.
A Constructive Suggestion... (Score:2, Insightful)
For example:
Abortion - pro or anti? -- Wrong!
To what degree should the law force dependency on a person? Can the law require a person to allow the use of their body to host another, even if it means the other may perish? Could we force a person to donate blood or an organ? -- Discuss the principal,
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For large-scale forums ... (Score:2)
If you have a large, public forum, and use a moderation system, it seems that partisans would mod their side up and the other side down. They may balance each other out; in fact, the flames that provoke outrage should attract more negative mods, and those that can make arguments that appeal to the other side would be left alone (or modded up).
You could also hand out many, extra, '-1 partisan drivel' mod points, maybe 1/day/user, to filter out the remainder of the
Not gonna work (Score:1, Troll)
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FTR, I'm not a Republican, nor a Bush fan.
Perhaps it would work (Score:2)
A Way to Stave Off Failure (Score:2, Insightful)
Some say don't censor, but that's wrong. You should. Too often the shrillest voices take over the discussion. Be fair though. Five years ago Jonah Goldberg fired Ann Coulter from the National Review Online,
lots of centrist blogs out there (Score:1)
Maybe what you're trying to do is to set up a centrist blog.
There is no such thing as nonpartisan polical discussion, but there are a surprising number of centrist blogs, running normal blog software, that succeed in perpetuating a culture of thoughtful comments, rather than paranoia or personal attack.
Spam's more of a real problem than trolls.
It was started by a couple of people of centrist inclination getting together and recruiting a initial core. That's since changed drastically, but it's still
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But everybody thinks he's a centrist. No matter where you place yourself on any issue there will be extremists who will label you "leftist" or "rightist" (or "uppist" or "downist") because you are not as extreme as they are.
Impossible? Probably. Here's why... (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's a US-centric forum, you can't avoid partisanship. One of the very cornerstones of US political practice is partisanship - the system has largely been warped from a rational discussion of issues and direction into an "us vs them" argument ("this isn't an argument, it's just contradiction!" "No it's not..."). Of course, there'll always be a few truely non-partisan people around - the people you want to attract - but they always seem to end up being attacked by both sides.
And that's another point: you will be attacked. Trolls, swarming, astroturf, DoS, legal threats - anything and everything, every dirty trick, will be used by one or the other to destroy you. Because you threaten their beliefs, because you threaten their cosy bipolar system, and sometimes just because they need to rile up their army of like-mided followers to attack something.
(A little aside: every organisation of any power or size has some sort of hidden master/slave structure. In left-wing organisations, the two parts are sometimes called "members & militants". The militants are, well, militant; they make policy, choose targets, etc. Members exist so that (a) the militants can point and say "look, we have 30,000 supporters, so we must be right!", and (b) because 30,000 members turning up at a rally is much more impressive than 10 militants...)
Finally, it's impossible to keep it non-partisan. Gradually, in 100 different little ways, the group will show a consensus biased towards one side or the other. Even these little biases will attract one or two like-thinking members, and discourage one or two others. Eventually the tipping point is reached - and in these things, that point is almost invisible - and the bias becomes unrecoverable.
So, nice idea - and one I applaud tremendously; I can see my own country's political system becoming more and more party partisan every day because that's what the parties desire. But, ultimately, doomed to failure. It'd be a nice windmill to tilt at for a while, though...
NON-partisian != BI-partisian (Score:4, Informative)
As for the moderation issue, make it clear and make your users agree to a 'debate not argue' concept. By example, I was at a political rally for PeirceForOhio.com last week. A Green supporter, a Blackwell supporter, and I were having a discussion about poltics. We disagreed, but we were amiable and making points all around. Another rally-er came over and started ranting while we were having a nice conversation, irritated all of us.
Your users need to be reminded that a discussion forum is for DISCUSSION and is not a pulpit.
See also issues arising from Godwins Law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law [wikipedia.org]
A strategy that I use on a non-political board is NEVER to delete posts. I move, split, and edit and every time I have to moderate I make it clear why the thread was moderated. I and the other admins also listen to and respond to issues with moderation, but not in the moderated thread.
I've sort of done this... (Score:2)
http://www.positech.co.uk/forums [positech.co.uk]
I think I've been ok so far, even though the discussion is fairly sparse. One reason for this is that the nature of the game is entirely about politicl policies and actual implementation, rather than rhetoric or 'principles', so possibly that skews the discussion away from the more flamebait related areas.
One thing I suspect helps si that if I start a poll or topic, I always try to rpese
Having spent years arguing politics online... (Score:2)
Oh, the board will stay fairly-civil -- at first. But political boards suffer from a decay effect: over time, the conversation decays and devolves into mindless ad-hominem attacks and factless "IMO, this is what we should do" ideological partisan squabbles.
The problem is one of regression towards a mean value of quality. On any given board, as the population rises, the ratio of insightful, intelligent commenters to moronic, idiot blatherers widens. The behavior is very much
You're asking Slashdot? (Score:2)
I do not think this is the best place to ask your question HEIL HITLER!
Anonymity is only suitable for toy sites (Score:2)
If you want something seriously useful, then you need to consider various scenarios that a toy site can ignore: e.g. what happens if Karl Rove hires a few dozen people to get on your site, and pretend that they're several hundred different people, who all just happen to be presenting a simila
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In any case AC, to address the substantive points buried in your pos
hmm... (Score:1)
I believe the best and most civil forums have roughly 5-20 active participants. Any more and you just have fools who join strictly to post "all liberals hate America!" or "all conservatives are Nazis!" With a smaller community its much simpler to run because the extremists can always be bashed back into line (ie. www.tdtalk.com)
Anyway, good luck