General Politics Guidelines

Politics is a difficult subject to discuss on an online message board. People who post political threads here have a variety of opinions and beliefs that span the political spectrum and keeping the discussion civil can be tricky.

Generally, you won't have any troubles if you:

• Be respectful toward fellow website members.
• Avoid serious insults or mocking the character of other website members, or the character of other groups of people.
• Avoid mocking or ridiculing other peoples' posts on the forums.
• Avoid name calling directed at other members.

In some situations the guidelines above can be vague, and there are exceptions, so the next pages will go through more of the specifics of how political moderating guidelines are enforced, with examples to help clarify.

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No Name Calling

This rule has been in place since the very early days of the website. Avoid name calling directed at other members or people in other political groups, even if you really think it's true/accurate.

• "You're a moron!"
• "You're such a liar."
• "You're a troll."

• "They're such libtards."
• "Stupid Rethuglicans."

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Be Respectful. No Character Attacks

Be respectful toward other members. Don't throw severe insults or mock the character of your fellow website members or other groups of people who are in a different political party than your own (even if you believe these things to be true). Character attacks tend to kill productive political discussion. Avoid ad hominem attacks. Instead, stick to the facts and argue the issues. Don't make things personal. Important: If you're going to post something that seems like a character attack, it must be worded in a way that it's clear you're not referring to or alluding to another website member, or it will be removed by default.

• "You're a hypocrite!"
• "You're hopelessly biased."
• "I don't trust a word you say."
• "Your hatred and bias is blinding you."
• "The left can't help themselves from lying."
• "Conservatives are hypocrites to the extreme."

• "Republicans are terrible human beings."
• "Democrats can't think straight."
• "Conservatives are pathetic."
• "Look how idiotic liberals are."

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No Demeaning, Mocking, Ridiculing, Sarcastic Comments

To keep conversation civil, avoid comments directed at other members or their posts with differing political views that are demeaning, ridiculing, or sarcastic in a negative way.

• "Grow up, kid"
• "You're so naive"
• "Only people who live in fantasy worlds believe that"
• "Oh genius, enlighten me!"
• "You sound drunk!"
• "LMAO, you don't know what you're talking about."
• "Are you off your meds??"
• "I didn't even understand what you're trying to say it's so dumb"

• "You're cute/adorable"
• "Nice spin!"
• "That's priceless coming from you!"

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Rejecting Opinions Outright

Avoid claiming another person's opinions are illegitimate, fake, or not genuine. You should assume the information and opinions posted by other members on the forums are ones they genuinely hold and are posted in good faith.

• "You're doing nothing but spin!"
• "Wow, you're just regurgitating XYZ News' talking points!"
• "You don't even know why you think that!"
• "You're just repeating talking points."

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EXCEPTIONS

The one major exception to these rules, is that it's generally OK to insult, mock or attack political figures and members of "the media". This is OK as long as you avoid generalizing the attack to include everyone in a political party. This can sometimes be a fine line, so make sure you understand this guideline before proceeding to use this exception in your posts.

• "Trump is a scumbag."
• "Obama is a psychopath!"
• "Hillary is a liar and can't be trusted."

Avoid generalizing the statements to include more than just the political figure:

• "Trump is a scumbag, just like every other Republican."
• "Obama and his followers are psychopaths!"
• "Hillary is a typical liberal who lies and can't be trusted."

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Vague Interpretation

Sometimes something said on the forums can be interpretted in more than one way. Text communication is notorious for being difficult to interpret.

Generally, if a post can reasonably be interpreted as breaking these rules, you should expect a moderator to take action against the post.

However, a moderator will make their best guess and try to take appropriate action in cases where the meaning is vague. We'll often use past behavior, posting history, conversation context, and past moderator actions to inform these decisions.

Unfortunately, we often get people who are intentionally vague in order to attempt to skirt the rules. If a moderator suspects this might be the situation, your post will be removed automatically.

If you're concerned about moderators ruling incorrectly on this type of thing, you should reword your posts to make sure the meaning and intent of the post is very clear to avoid confusion.

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Only Human

Moderators are only human. We try to be fair and unbiased, but sometimes we fail. There is no computer algorithm to perfectly moderate the forums at all times, and our moderating is imperfect.

We also have to make, sometimes, hundreds of small moderator judgement calls on the forums on a daily basis. Each judgment call needs to be done quickly to keep up with the volume. Sometimes we'll get it wrong.

BUT, our promise to you is that we take the job very seriously and strive to be fair at all times.

If you need any clarifications, don't hesitate to send your moderators a Private Message using the link below:






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