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New member-only political subforum - FHOPolitics- read here to join

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Danny, Dec 2, 2007.

  1. AllenZ

    AllenZ Active Member

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    Re: member-only political subforum - FHOPolitics

    Totally agree!
    And I am glad to see respected members like F8L to voice his objection. Lock political discussion into private room makes no sense at all. The reasonings OP stated are not logical. They don't need to make it private to separate political threads from Prius related ones. They can exclude those posts from the search result easily.

    I sense another force at play. Toyota? Big brother? I don't know. But I am sure Danny did not give tell us the complete story.

    Although I might qualify, but I am not interested and I am certainly will not feel privileged to be the member of that "elite club".
     
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  2. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    Re: member-only political subforum - FHOPolitics

    No other forces at play. For a very long time the political topics were part of FHOP. Unfortunately somehow a certain element who felt that they'd rather share their political views on a Prius forum in rather toxic ways emerged. We separted and made private the political forum to keep those who didn't want to see the posts in "new posts" feeds from having to view them. Subsequently in became such an onerous task to moderate that we've made it essentially unmoderated (within limits). It's crazy that people are complaining about how we've chosen to do this. The Priuschat forum was never designed to be a political forum. The FHOP became a great way for the community of people with things in common (the Prius) to interact about other, non-prius related, things. When politics emerged as a common topic and non-prius people started wading in and some hot headed prius people couldn't keep things from getting so toxic it became time to move.

    There is no and never has been any influence from Toyota or any other outside sources. This is a decision Danny made in consultation with us moderators.
     
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  3. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    Re: member-only political subforum - FHOPolitics

    Danny has received more "cease and desist" letters from Toyota than letters of encouragement and certainly no funding.

    I agreed to be a Moderator when there were about 5,000 members, most of us knew each other and the most off-topic discussion was a study showing that Banana Slugs chewed off their own penis after sex. Seriously. I will never forget that and now neither will you. We had non-Prius discussions about the role of religion in defining laws, about same sex marriage, about sports and about other things intelligent people can discuss while still being polite and respecting the other person's opinion.

    But then we had an election in 2004 and it was heated. For the most part, people behaved themselves. But during the midterms of 2006, all bets were off. I didn't agree to be a Moderator because I wanted to read every post to decide whether someone crossed a line, called someone a derogative name or otherwise behaved in a way that fundamentally undermined the civil discourse of Priuschat. I have always thought of Priuschat as a place even my mother could enjoy and in fact my mother-in-law is a Prius owning member. I simply would no longer tolerate those who peppered their replies with "Rightard" and "Democrap". There was a time when a New Posts search returned as many or more political posts as Prius posts. A Google search for political content would turn up a Priuschat link drawing in more political posters and some of the Prius regulars were complaining.

    Fearing the upcoming 2008 elections, we created FHoPol and told them to take their vile and venom in there. It's a private forum and therefore not searchable via Google. At first we tried to moderate it but even that became a chore so now it's the only place on Priuschat that is not moderated.

    You wanted to know exactly what powers are at play. All you have to do is pull up the list of Moderators. We are the powers at play and it was us who created FHoPol.
     
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  4. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    Thanks, Allen. To think I may be respected makes me smile but I think I am tolerated more than respected. Right, Tony? :D
     
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  5. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    Private dining? Far from it. 'Food fight' would be a more apt description. I can't shed any light on why you're still waiting to be seated, but trust me, the food is terrible, and it's more likely to be flung at you than served with a smile. Followed closely by the plate. :fear: Wild animals have better table manners.

    Indeed. We should all be thankful that such nastiness is confined to a private back room, and kept out of sight.

    Ah, the good old days. In light of what's transpired since, Squid wasn't really so bad, was he? :cool:

    Don't kid yourself. Respected is correct. It's smart asses like me who are 'tolerated'. ;)
     
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  6. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    That's OK.
    Those pancakes probably aren't any better than the ones here in the public dining area.

    I got over it pretty quickly.... :cool:

    EDIT....Curiosity did compel me to giggle the doorknob again....just to make sure it was still locked....:D
     
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  7. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    You're no smart nice person. I think Tom takes that title!
     
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  8. rufaro

    rufaro WeePoo, Gen II

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    I'm confused. Wait, maybe I'm not...

    I am not now (but may have once been) a member of FHoPol (yes, Hyo, the current state of affairs does indeed make one miss Squid. Almost.) The issue on which I am unclear (ok, tonight's issue) is--if I am not a Pol group member, but I do subscribe to the digest for Pancakes, why are most of the threads apparently political? Do I need to unsubscribe from Pancakes digest? Is Pol seeping back into Pancakes (NASTY flavor, that). I've been away for nearly 2 years, and even then I wasn't posting regularly. Is this an artifact from the good old (moderated) days that I can somehow fix, or what??? :confused:
     
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  9. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    That's a good question, but I'm not sure I'm able to give you a good answer, as I'm not entirely innocent myself. Those two infamous topics we're told never to discuss at the dinner table - politics and religion - seem to have seeped in like a slow poison. I feel for the moderators, who can't reasonably censure someone the instant they say 'Obama', or 'god bless'. Yet, conversations of a religious and political nature tend to devolve pretty quickly, so maybe a 'zero tolerance' policy is what's needed.
     
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  10. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    This was pointed out to me the other day. I dinged someone for creating what I thought was an overtly political thread in FHoPan. His reply to me was a series of links to other semi-political threads.

    I try to hop on a few times per day and each time there are hundreds of new posts. There is no way I'm going to read them all, even if I had the time. I'm going to assume the other Mods are the same way. What I think I might do is create a thread in FHoPan asking members to report political threads. Early offenders will merely get moved. Repeat offenders will receive a visit from Gruber von BanHammer.
     
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  11. CPSDarren

    CPSDarren CPS Technician

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    I operate a forum not quite as busy as PriusChat. It's the same everywhere. Over the years, a few of the same topics have been essentially banned. There is always a very small group of people who cannot hold a debate just by offering opinions, providing references, showing examples or the usual things you'd expect. Instead, every single time they had to resort to really generally nasty behavior and insist on having the last nasty comment on each thread so the threads keep going and going. To the point where our community discussion forum was absorbing nearly all the attention of all the moderators, who themselves became targets. Many other members simply stopped visiting.

    Between the topic ban and a few von BanHammer bans, the community forums are a much nicer place, but also less interesting. Simply using BanHammer on members wasn't enough, as someone else would step in to take over where they left off. Censorship of any kind really sucks as a moderator, but it's just a fact of the internet, where many more people will say things in ways they would never do in person.
     
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  12. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    Priuschat has grown significantly over the years, and the burden of moderating it has presumably also increased significantly. Would it be reasonable to suggest that more moderators might be a good idea?
     
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  13. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    What we need is a new sheriff.
    [​IMG]

    (I was originally trying to find the scene where they are swearing in all the new deputies to attack Rock Ridge but had to settle on this one.)
     
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  14. Ryanpl

    Ryanpl Active Member

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    Tony, New sheriff gets to mod FHOPol?
     
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  15. amm0bob

    amm0bob Permanently Junior...

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    That is unnecessary... it is an opt-in forum... if you choose to not join, you won't hear the crap... if you do join, don't expect everyone to agree with you and you'll be fine.

    I for one appreciate Danny creating FHOPol... it makes visiting the rest of this site a pleasant time indeed.
     
  16. amm0bob

    amm0bob Permanently Junior...

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    Of course now I learn, whatever the hell I say in here don't count at all... sorta like being 3/5 of a person again... but hey... I ain't all white, so I'm used to being treated differently...

    [​IMG]
     
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  17. Comrad_Durandal

    Comrad_Durandal New Member

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    Of course, if membership is frozen to Politics - a notice would be nice.
     
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  18. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    You're asking to be admitted to the asylum? That's very unusual. :p
     
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  19. sipnfuel

    sipnfuel New Member

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    My request to join this forum has languished for quite a while. Can anyone check into it or is it not opened to new members?
     
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  20. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    I suggest you contact a moderator directly.
     
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