dsheinem wrote: We have had and we still do have trans members here.
*raises hand*
dsheinem wrote:I think part of the reason for that is that the community has made it a point to call out transphobic remarks wherever they have occurred in the forums. I don't know of any trans members that have left the site because of the discussions in the old "World is Falling Apart" thread, though there may be other reasons that some have left that have nothing to do with that thread's discussion of politics. That thread was also not the only place that trans issues have been brought up, so nullifying that kind of political thread in the future would likely not nullify that discussion either.
I quite liked the old World Falling Apart thread. I don't have that many real life friends that I can talk so personally with. Racketboy is one of the most diverse friend-groups I have politically, and even though I often didn't agree with what was said, I liked seeing what other people on the political spectrum have to say in a space where I'm free to just back away if it's stressing me out too much. I didn't read the thread ALL the time, and certainly posted even less in it, but that's because so many of your arguments were so well composed I just felt I didn't have anything meaningful to contribute that wouldn't just make me look like a fool.
I'm not so quick to agree that the "just don't look at it" strategy is the fix-all solution to a youth's cyberbullying problem, but as far as a politics thread goes, I think that works just fine. It's exactly what I did. If I wanted a right-perspective or an international perspective on a thing that was happenin', y'all'd pretty reliably be talkin' about it here. Now if everyone just isn't gonna participate, that's their own choice, but I think outright banning political discussion is a fairly extreme overreaction. Video games are a medium of art. Art is inherently political. You cannot have apolitical art.
