Yeah, that's it exactly. I want to ask stuff because no matter how many times I read the relevant wiki pages and watch episodes of The West Wing, there's still things I don't get. And I also can't believe anyone here would have different (i.e. incorrect) political views to mine!

Maybe an lj is the answer, but I'm not sure enough people from here would visit to make it a useful resource for us ignorant but interested Brits.

Also, with all due respect, spidey, there are plenty of threads here that are only tangentially related to entertainment, and plenty of others that aren't related at all, so I don't see how that's a valid reason to avoid a politics thread. I mean, if the idea is to avoid controversy or fighting, ok... but Snarkfest wasn't set up to be just another Fametracker. We have a community here which discusses practically every other aspect of our lives, and most of us are old enough to play nice or to choose to absent ourself from the discussion if we are aware that we can't play nice. I'm sure many of us have already exercised self-censorship here on occasion.

I'm going to have to stick firm to the no politics rule. I mean, I hate to bar something as simple as a simple technical question about how things work, but yeah I think asking snarkers on LJ would probably be the better route to go.

No politics on the board has been a hard and fast rule since the beginning of the board, and we're sticking to it. I'm sorry if that upsets you.

If somebody wants to make a livejournal community and point people to it from here or the blog thread in the community section, you can, but it won't be an official snarkfest thing and we won't moderate it.

(Political discussions always get dirty and messy fast, and since very few people involved are likely to change their opinions, it just turns into flame wars. I have never seen a reasonable political discussion that didn't turn out that way on any board. And as said above, if you want to discuss politics then there are plenty of other places online to do so.)

I've been saying this for years (about SF not really being about entertainment), but nobody agrees with me. I do think a politics thread is not manageable on SF, though. The problem with a political thread is not that most of us can't avoid fighting, but that a few of us definitely can't.

In my opinion, a technical question about how caucuses work is not really a discussion of politics. That's totally different from "let's all talk about the war and abortion and 2nd Amendment rights!" Whereas I (as someone with admittedly no authority) would be very, very opposed to the latter, I would in fact be interested in the answer to the former. How the fuck do caucuses work? That seems, to me, to be a completely legitimate question for Cultural Differences.

Ironically, the subjects of half of this year's motion picture releases.

You're entirely right. There are plenty of threads that are not 100% entertainment related. It's at our discretion, and a politics thread - whether or not it starts out with good intentions - it doesn't strike any of us as a good idea.

I agree that SF is more than an entertainment board, but it is still an entertainment/pop culture board at its core, in that that's what the SF community has in common and likes to discuss. We don't all have the same politics in common. And yeah, I'd like to be able to discuss politics with people I've spent years on the same board with, like, and trust. But the problem is, every single time in living memory that it's been discussed at any length beyond two or three sentences, it's gotten ugly. No matter what the specific political topic is, someone--a different someone each time, even--inevitably has some vehemently held opinion and it just goes all to hell.

Just as an aside, I've seen people talk about how quiet and "boring" SF is. I can't argue with that assessment at all, although I prefer to think of it as a very mellow lounge where a close-knit community comes to relax and sympathize. There are more exciting boards out there, to be sure, boards where people enjoy recreational arguing and a more rough-and-tumble sense of humor. And that's cool. There's room for everyone on the interwebs, and I think the very fact that we're unusually boring mellow is an argument in favor of our existence; it's our niche. And anything that is bound to harsh that mellow, I tend not to be in favor of. I don't like that we can't discuss politics, but I also know a pattern when I see one.

Well, yes, lezopez, it is at your discretion. Obviously. My point was that using "It isn't entertainment related" as a reason not to have a politics thread doesn't really fly, given the rest of the content of the forum.

And I wouldn't say the decision "upsets" me, vwlphb. I do however think you're giving us all less credit than we deserve in believing a thread to explain and discuss the mechanisms of the US electoral system in light of the upcoming elections will end up in a flamewar. Or perhaps I'm giving us all too much credit.

I'm going to drop this now, but before I do, I have to say that it's that very mellowness you mention, PrincessCleo, that makes me believe such a thread wouldn't implode.

I'd be interested to get mod input on Carmine's last point, because I think that she means something different by "a discussion of politics" than what the mods are responding to. Is it OK to have "a thread to explain and discuss the mechanisms of the US electoral system in light of the upcoming elections"?

I wish I could agree with you, but there was a thread this week that wandered off and got -*test*-('")y.

CNN canNOT stop going over the caucus process, so you can probably catch some ridiculous example, using snowboarders vs. snowballs or whatever, over there.

I'm sorry that you disagree with what I said, Carmine, but I do stand by it. Snarkfest was created mostly to discuss entertainment related issues and while we DO discuss other topics, most of the threads that were created have something to do inherently with either amusing or otherwise entertaining topics or the posters themselves. I don't feel that politics has a true place here, nor do I trust ANY of us (mods -- and myself -- included) to be completely objective about our views.

There are lots and lots of places on the internet to discuss politics. Does this really need to be one of them? Frankly, I'd like SF to remain one of the few places of refuge where that isn't an issue.

The mods have discussed it, and this is what we've decided as a general rule. We'll add it to the FAQ as well.

You can ask the factual stuff, but we'd prefer you use google as a resource first - for example, "What is a caucus?" gets some great results. However, be aware that there is a definite line which cannot be crossed between discussion of mechanics of elections and discussion of politics. If you cross that line or post a question that will clearly get answers that cross that line, you will be warned, suspended, or banned. The place for the acceptable questions is the Questions and Advice thread in the community section, rather than the cultural differences thread.


Like PrincessCleo pointed out above, just in the past two weeks we've had a situation of politics making people -*test*-('")y. We've also had occasions in other threads on this board where political discussion has gone on for a few posts before we stopped it, and it always devolves quickly. If you want more clarification or have more questions, feel free to PM any of the mods.

Can we have a finance/money issues thread?