Political/Controversial topics

[Ollkiller]

Leave as is. There's a healthy level of discussion on here I find. And as to politics on a music forum.. It's called the off topic section.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I'm deducing that since he hasn't posted in a month and a half, since the very day of his last run in with Kurt Cocaine, that we've probably lost Burgermeister/Juggz. Off-topic was also the cause of hellfire, Kev, and probably several others leaving too. The problem is a general one of difficulty of engaging in good faith discussion. This comes to a head regarding metal every so often, where people take opinion for fact and get thick-headed about it, or can't take as strong as they give, but it's about 100 times more likely regarding anything political.

It's great having an off-topic for non-metal music and other "purely" cultural interests (movies, books, sport, telly) but at this stage I'd cast my ballot for having the forum a politics free zone, and even lock the existing politics threads, as it's not worth losing more members over... especially since, as I know well from my own experience, political views and taste in metal don't necessarily overlap at all at all.

[Barnacle Billy]

We can bé assured with 100% accuracy that Kurt C. wasn't the reason that Kev has absconded...

[Hambeast]

I personally would totally ban politics but the poll is showing a vast majority wanting to keep things as they are. There's 0 votes for a total ban so it's clearly not a popular idea.

Another problem is deciding where to draw the line. Any topic about current events can easily turn political. The covid thread started off as a thread about a disease and now look at the state of it. Movies and music can easily go the same way depending on who is involved in them. There's also the personal responsibility of everyone to know when to disengage from a thread.

I'm aware KC is a controversial poster and a troll at times but it's hard to judge what is "too much". People also need to stop taking the bait and feeding the troll. And then I end up looking like another "middle grounder" who enables the entire mess...

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

We can bé assured with 100% accuracy that Kurt C. wasn't the reason that Kev has absconded...

Kev absconded because he wanted to have his cake (dismissing sources I used, such as Channel 4, out of hand as "extreme" when they disagreed with his opinion) and eat it (argue that his sources were reliable even when the source was a youtuber who openly worshipped the SS and quoted literal original theorists of fascism). Similarly, hellfire absconded because he became convinced, by an Israeli he worked with, that Israel were doing nothing wrong and therefore he couldn't bear the avalanche of available evidence clearly showing that what he wanted to be true (that Israel were conducting a humane war against "human animals") was not.

My point in mentioning Kev and hellfire, knowing full well that me arguing against their political opinions was operative in them leaving, is that - outside of politics - they were both people I could easily have great discussions with about metal. Which is what this place, and MI before it, were originally for.

I hadn't voted at all yet, so that'll make one for limiting off-topic to, broadly, art and sport.

[Trev]

I thought Kev said he moved to Russia, figured that's why he stopped posting, joining in the good fight and all that

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Ah, you're right, the last exchange was over Russia. And, ominously, this was his last post:

I called my ex-wife a spastic in 2022. Up in court in June for gender violence. Watch out in the Spanish papers. I wish I was joking.