Add a Politics Channel to VHL Discord

[N0HBDY 1,128]

Greenland sux

[jRuutu 2,474]

Tear down the censor wall and build a real one instead. Donnie-T is coming back! 2024!

 

 

[mediocrepony 1,216]

and this is why not

although i think sometimes, around major things that happen, it could be good, i think in general it would divide us

Edited May 14, 2021 by GrittyIsKing09

[mediocrepony 1,216]

15 hours ago, BOOM said:

Only if we can make fun of America.

i'm leaving bc of anti american sentiment sorry

[Beketov 9,095]

43 minutes ago, GrittyIsKing09 said:

and this is why not

although i think sometimes, around major things that happen, it could be good, i think in general it would divide us

Points at my above comment.

 

There is literally nothing stopping people from talking politics on the forum if they want to.

[Spartan 4,530]

23 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Points at my above comment.

 

There is literally nothing stopping people from talking politics on the forum if they want to.

I think it's widely accepted at this point that Discord offers more convenience and ease of conversation than a forum thread. We have moderators who can lock the channel if it gets out of hand or archive it/move it to a private category so it's hidden, both of which provides a solution to your ease of moderation comment from earlier. More and more people check discord frequently than forums, but overall this shouldn't turn into a major issue, especially with the suggested limits in place to prevent political discussions from getting out of hand

[bigAL 2,176]

2 minutes ago, Spartan said:

27 minutes ago, Beketov said:

 

I think it's widely accepted at this point that Discord offers more convenience and ease of conversation than a forum thread

The rapid fire pace of Discord means that thoughtful respectful conversation is much, much harder. You have to think before you hit post on a forum, everyone is included in the conversation no matter when they enter it, and you're held much more accountable for your words because they are more public. Discord is a great tool for synchronous conversations, when two people are in the same place at the same time. Forums allow for more targetted discussion with the ability to quote specific points and speak to that directly. Discord doesn't allow for long, thought out messages because the pace of conversation is so much faster. People are chiming in on different points at different times and it's a total mess. Things get misinterpreted in the moment and people become very reactionary without the ability to stop and think about what was said and what they should say.

 

There's a time and a place for Discord, but deep and civil discussion is not a strength of the platform.

[mediocrepony 1,216]

lets put this here to remind people of some more questionable parts of discord

https://vhlforum.com/topic/66068-gustavs-collection-of-questionable-discord-screenshots/

Edited May 14, 2021 by GrittyIsKing09

[Spartan 4,530]

1 minute ago, bigAL said:

The rapid fire pace of Discord means that thoughtful respectful conversation is much, much harder. You have to think before you hit post on a forum, everyone is included in the conversation no matter when they enter it, and you're held much more accountable for your words because they are more public. Discord is a great tool for synchronous conversations, when two people are in the same place at the same time. Forums allow for more targetted discussion with the ability to quote specific points and speak to that directly. Discord doesn't allow for long, thought out messages because the pace of conversation is so much faster. People are chiming in on different points at different times and it's a total mess. Things get misinterpreted in the moment and people become very reactionary without the ability to stop and think about what was said and what they should say.

 

There's a time and a place for Discord, but deep and civil discussion is not a strength of the platform.

I think that Discord just emulates genuine conversations. Any in-person debate or live conversation doesn't necessarily provide the opportunity to take a step back and think for a while before offering a response. That's just not how discussions work. That's also why the channel should be limited to people who have displayed the ability to handle fast-paced/real-time conversations without becoming reactionary, and are still able to provide insight based on primarily logic. This isn't purely to have deep, philosophical conversations - casual political fans are welcome as well. I'm not a very hardcore politics fan, more of the casual person. But commenting on current events and the potential effects of such events doesn't require deep, thoughtful responses. A lot of it will be knee-jerk and speculation - all that is required is civility and we have moderators for that purpose.

[Guest]

So, I am deeply interested in politics, follow it very closely, and, at my age of 14, have my ideology down pretty well, bla bla bla. I’ve enjoyed talking about politics in SBA Discord at times, once, I got into a discussion about legalizing marijuana and it was rather enlightening for me, to be honest. Those discussions have been civil, respectful, and on Discord. That gives me hope that something like that can work on VHL.

 

But, I’ve been in arguments on Discord, and while it’ll take minutes our hours for something to flame up on the forums, it’s taken about a minute for things to explode on Discord, sometimes less. And if people are blowing up over Hank’s draft stock on Discord, it could very well be living hell on a politics channel.

 

I think what we need here is some sort of trial period for a few weeks, where people request invites into the channel, and talk. After that time is up, people decide whether it should stay or go, based on how civil it’s been on the channel. That’s my take.

[Beketov 9,095]

22 minutes ago, Spartan said:

I think it's widely accepted at this point that Discord offers more convenience and ease of conversation than a forum thread. We have moderators who can lock the channel if it gets out of hand or archive it/move it to a private category so it's hidden, both of which provides a solution to your ease of moderation comment from earlier. More and more people check discord frequently than forums, but overall this shouldn't turn into a major issue, especially with the suggested limits in place to prevent political discussions from getting out of hand

At the end of the day we are offering you a solution. You want to talk politics, do it here. I get that it’s not your preferred place of discussion but it is one. I don’t see a reason to risk things getting messy and out of hand and heated very quickly which much more limited options to do anything about it when a perfectly valid option already exists. Like those comments above me pointed out, things can get heated far too easily and far too quickly on discord and it can blow up into a major problem much faster. In addition mods would need to be around to constantly monitor it vs. Being able to easily receive reports from the forums.

 

The benefit does not outweigh the risk here for me. You want to talk politics, you are welcome to do so on the forum.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

9 minutes ago, NSG88 said:

at my age of 14, have my ideology down pretty well

 

Be very careful with this. It's important to keep an open mind that your current thoughts, feelings, and ideas are not always 100% correct. I have a different beliefs than I did at 14, than I did at 21, etc...

[Guest]

Just now, Fire Vigneault said:

 

Be very careful with this. It's important to keep an open mind that your current thoughts, feelings, and ideas are not always 100% correct. I have a different beliefs than I did at 14, than I did at 21, etc...

Ok, true, true. But nevertheless, nobody’s thoughts, feelings, and ideas will be “100% correct”, because there is no real thing such as correct or incorrect in politics. Because I am Democrat does not mean I am “wrong” about politics, same thing goes if I were Republican, Independent, a Libertarian, etc. 

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

Just now, NSG88 said:

Ok, true, true. But nevertheless, nobody’s thoughts, feelings, and ideas will be “100% correct”, because there is no real thing such as correct or incorrect in politics. Because I am Democrat does not mean I am “wrong” about politics, same thing goes if I were Republican, Independent, a Libertarian, etc. 

 

"100% correct" probably wasn't the best phrasing - was just going for the overall notion that what you believe should be open to changing your worldview.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Beketov said:

The benefit does not outweigh the risk here for me. You want to talk politics, you are welcome to do so on the forum.

I don’t entirely agree with that. While what you said above was true, there is something that you get in Discord that you don’t get on the forums. For example, if we were to move the Draft Central channel to the forums, would people get hyped for the draft as much? I think no, because saying DRAFT HYPE on the forums and waiting 10 minutes for someone else to say DRAFT HYPE doesn’t seem very pleasing IMO. The same thing goes with politics, if someone says, “This party is fucked up because of x, y, and z”, and you have to wait 10 minutes for someone to say, “I disagree because of a, b, and c”, it doesn’t by any means emulate the type of conversation that members appear to want. It seems that the people who support this want to have something along the lines of a civil debate in real time, not a “debate” or “discussion” that’s on a 15-minute time delay.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Fire Vigneault said:

 

"100% correct" probably wasn't the best phrasing - was just going for the overall notion that what you believe should be open to changing your worldview.

Oh, absolutely. And that’s another thing that this channel would bring to the table is for a person like me to come in with one opinion, get more perspective on the situation, and perhaps change their views.

 

What I originally said wasn’t the best phrasing either

[Beketov 9,095]

1 minute ago, NSG88 said:

I don’t entirely agree with that. While what you said above was true, there is something that you get in Discord that you don’t get on the forums. For example, if we were to move the Draft Central channel to the forums, would people get hyped for the draft as much? I think no, because saying DRAFT HYPE on the forums and waiting 10 minutes for someone else to say DRAFT HYPE doesn’t seem very pleasing IMO. The same thing goes with politics, if someone says, “This party is fucked up because of x, y, and z”, and you have to wait 10 minutes for someone to say, “I disagree because of a, b, and c”, it doesn’t by any means emulate the type of conversation that members appear to want. It seems that the people who support this want to have something along the lines of a civil debate in real time, not a “debate” or “discussion” that’s on a 15-minute time delay.

You posted this what, a minute ago, and I am responding? Would that not be considered relatively real time? Especially for the length of posts that are possible on here vs. Throwing 2 words together and hitting send so that it isn’t immediately buried in other discussion? Longer conversations are not necessarily a bad thing. They not only allow for more time to formulate a thought but they allow for people to actually come into a conversation and be able to acquire context rather than simply jumping it with no knowledge of what’s been said because it’s been buried a hundred times over. I believe both of those things are much more suited to a political discussion than quick, off the cuff responses.

 

In addition I completely disagree with your draft comparison. For one, I don’t find people telling “draft hype” to really be engaging in any way but even if we ignore that, throwing around 2 words to get people excited is a completely different situation to having a thoughtful political debate. One is more suited to discord, as you have pointed out, but that does not mean the other would be.

 

Just as an aside as well, in the time it has taken me to type this response how many discord messages would have been posted? Therefore how much extra fragmentation would this discussion have? How hard would it be to follow the thread? This is only a discussion about a discussion, with no real hard hitting points being thrown. How messy would it become on discord? Historically: very. It is not worth the risk.

 

Also even the “well it’s preferred” argument doesn’t hold weight against my moderation point. The mods are busy people, they can’t spot all their time having to police one section because it’s known for getting out of hand. We aren’t censoring discussion here, we’re simply moving it, that’s not a bad thing.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Beketov said:

You posted this what, a minute ago, and I am responding? Would that not be considered relatively real time?

No, that was 8 minutes after I responded. So I’m relatively close to the mark.

 

3 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Longer conversations are not necessarily a bad thing. They not only allow for more time to formulate a thought but they allow for people to actually come into a conversation and be able to acquire context rather than simply jumping it with no knowledge of what’s been said because it’s been buried a hundred times over. I believe both of those things are much more suited to a political discussion than quick, off the cuff responses.

Longer convos aren’t necessarily a bad thing, true. 
 

5 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Just as an aside as well, in the time it has taken me to type this response how many discord messages would have been posted?

About 200, I think would be a reasonable guess.
 

5 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Also even the “well it’s preferred” argument doesn’t hold weight against my moderation point. The mods are busy people, they can’t spot all their time having to police one section because it’s known for getting out of hand.

^

 

Before I wrap this post up, a possible solution (not that it matters, but just throwing this out there) is to hire one person to moderate this 1 channel, and that would be it. It would be an absolute waste of time for that poor mod, though.

 

8 minutes ago, Beketov said:

We aren’t censoring discussion here, we’re simply moving it, that’s not a bad thing.

Never said it was, at least, that’s not what I intended to say.

 

Ultimately, I don’t entirely agree with the conclusion you’re coming to, but y’all do have your work cut out for y’all’s selves and I can understand why you wouldn’t want to add a channel requiring more moderation.

[Beketov 9,095]

2 minutes ago, NSG88 said:

No, that was 8 minutes after I responded. So I’m relatively close to the mark.

It was when I started typing to be fair, I just typed a lot more than I intended.

 

2 minutes ago, NSG88 said:

About 200, I think would be a reasonable guess.

Exactly, making it impossible to actually have any kind of reasoned debate.

 

3 minutes ago, NSG88 said:

Before I wrap this post up, a possible solution (not that it matters, but just throwing this out there) is to hire one person to moderate this 1 channel, and that would be it. It would be an absolute waste of time for that poor mod, though.

Again though, for what benefit? Someone has to babysit an entire channel, which will then go to shut whenever they are asleep, just so people can avoid discussing politics on the forum where it’s better suited to it and easier to moderate? Just doesn’t make a lot of sense. The easier solution would be “use the forums”.

 

4 minutes ago, NSG88 said:

Never said it was, at least, that’s not what I intended to say.

Didn’t mean to imply that it was, just getting ahead of the expected argument.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Beketov said:

It was when I started typing to be fair, I just typed a lot more than I intended.

It also took me about a minute to start typing my first response.

 

7 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Exactly, making it impossible to actually have any kind of reasoned debate.

There have been good, reasoned debates that I’ve been a part of, but I don’t think the VHL has the user base needed to have those type of discussions.

 

9 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Again though, for what benefit? Someone has to babysit an entire channel, which will then go to shut whenever they are asleep, just so people can avoid discussing politics on the forum where it’s better suited to it and easier to moderate? Just doesn’t make a lot of sense. The easier solution would be “use the forums”.

I tried to make it very clear in my post that it was a complete waste of time for the person, that was me throwing out an idea for the sake of throwing out an idea.

 

11 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Didn’t mean to imply that it was, just getting ahead of the expected argument.

Ah. I see.

 

I still would prefer the Discord, I won’t change my opinion on that, but I think this is settled, so Imma go make a forum topic for political talk.

[bigAL 2,176]

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

I think that Discord just emulates genuine conversations. Any in-person debate or live conversation doesn't necessarily provide the opportunity to take a step back and think for a while before offering a response. That's just not how discussions work. That's also why the channel should be limited to people who have displayed the ability to handle fast-paced/real-time conversations without becoming reactionary, and are still able to provide insight based on primarily logic. This isn't purely to have deep, philosophical conversations - casual political fans are welcome as well. I'm not a very hardcore politics fan, more of the casual person. But commenting on current events and the potential effects of such events doesn't require deep, thoughtful responses. A lot of it will be knee-jerk and speculation - all that is required is civility and we have moderators for that purpose.

Yes but genuine conversations include non verbal messaging, a past relationship with the person, a shared atmosphere. Having a conversation over pints at the pub with one friend /=/ typing with ten people in a discord channel each in their own worlds, having who knows what kind of day, behind a screen.

 

Even worse, on discord, the fastest fingers have the loudest voice. I know I can get my point across exponentially better when I'm at a computer vs on my mobile on discord. Yeah, we're all responding pretty close to real time here because we're invested and care. But I'm also at work and posting on my breaks. Do I lose my right to participate in this conversation because I have a life? Are my points invalid because I'm not present right this second to defend them or to rebut a point?

 

Meaningful, deep, civil, nuanced, democratic conversations about politics are best suited for the forums. 

[bigAL 2,176]

1 hour ago, NSG88 said:

So, I am deeply interested in politics, follow it very closely, and, at my age of 14, have my ideology down pretty well, bla bla bla.

As the old saying goes: "you're stupid if you're not a liberal in your 20s, and you're stupid if you're not a conservative in your 40s." At the real root of government is a fundamental idea of how to spend tax dollars. It's so easy to be for big government when you don't pay taxes.

 

(I'm saying this as someone that fucking loves taxes and is very pro socialist state like we have in Canada, but you really do see the transformation in people as they hit 30s, 40s, 50s, and get grumpier and grumpier about The Man sticking his fingers in their wallet. I have over $1100 deducted from every paycheque and that fucking sucks, but hey, when I take a shit the poop actually disappears into a municipal sewer.)

[Spartan 4,530]

1 minute ago, bigAL said:

Do I lose my right to participate in this conversation because I have a life? Are my points invalid because I'm not present right this second to defend them or to rebut a point?

Absolutely not, I'm not advertising this proposal as some form of deep debate that has a super high standard to reach in terms of points presented. The standards are simply to limit the potential for chaos or conversations getting out of hand. Even in the Discord, people comment on NHL news, or VHL news, or any kind of news hours after it's initially spoken about. There's no harm in replying to someone after the fact, and there's no requirement for everyone to respond to every single point or comment made.

 

3 minutes ago, bigAL said:

Meaningful, deep, civil, nuanced, democratic conversations about politics are best suited for the forums. 

Once again, the point isn't to limit discussion to only deep and nuanced points. It's just a casual and civil conversation to be had, not a lengthy debate. If something happens in the world, it'd be nice to have a place on Discord where folks can chat about it in any type of lens they prefer, and then move on. 

 

 

[bigAL 2,176]

2 minutes ago, Spartan said:

Absolutely not, I'm not advertising this proposal as some form of deep debate that has a super high standard to reach in terms of points presented. The standards are simply to limit the potential for chaos or conversations getting out of hand. Even in the Discord, people comment on NHL news, or VHL news, or any kind of news hours after it's initially spoken about. There's no harm in replying to someone after the fact, and there's no requirement for everyone to respond to every single point or comment made.

 

Once again, the point isn't to limit discussion to only deep and nuanced points. It's just a casual and civil conversation to be had, not a lengthy debate. If something happens in the world, it'd be nice to have a place on Discord where folks can chat about it in any type of lens they prefer, and then move on. 

 

 

True, discord is a great place to drop a link to an article and "discuss:"

[Spartan 4,530]

Just now, bigAL said:

True, discord is a great place to drop a link to an article and "discuss:"

I don't know if this is sarcastic or not . But we've both seen that type of activity actually occur in the server, just takes the right people to start it, and a topic people want to discuss. Obviously we can keep discussing the merits of this overall proposal here, but it's already been shut down by the higher powers so i'm not going to press on with trying to make it happen much.