Ban political posts?

Deciding which posts are political is a political act.

Ban = censorship
If we ban everything someday there will be someone that wants to ban "air" or "water".

Can we ban political post or any other controversial topics

I'm not that active anymore so I don't really care, but you want to ban basically everything is worth talking about.

GTA is an USA parody someone could be offended of course.
Fallout, Bioshock, Metro, Skyrim, basically every game with a barely decent plot is political or has political aspect

What the heck, I'm Italian, ban Cook, Serve, Delicious too, because their version of pizza deeply offends me

People are free to talk about any topic, so long as it doesn't degrade into discrimination and hate. I think discussion is to be encouraged, but, not many are open to it, as soon as they see an opinion they disagree with, their first instinct is to correct the mistaken view, instead of trying to understand it.

Political topics bring forth discussion, but, is the people in those topics that often end up in discrimination and hate, if anything, I'd encourage the topics to be made, so people spreading hate are punished for it. Instead of giving power to them by outright banning any topic that could cause conflict.

as a Muslim/Arab and supporter to the palastine cause i kinda agree with banning politic/religion posts
from experience talking about politics and religion a99% of the time it ends up in a fight and it feul more hatred and racism
plus , its a site about games so lets live it to that

I never understood the urge to come to a site, thread, app, etc.... and starting a discussion, which is non-related to the theme of the platform.
There are plethora of options for me, be it a dedicated platform for a specific topic (where I would meet the best people for the discussion), or there are general platforms, where I can throw anything, grab a bucket of popcorn and enjoy the comments.
Why on earth would go to a site dedicated to a car parts exchange and start a discussion about my favorite game moment in Half Life 3 ?!
Same example being this site (site literary created for the purpose of gifting games which are non-required for their owner), nobody will open this site to participate in a weather forecast discussion.

Unless someone posts a "vote for X" or "impeach X3", posts are not really "political".
If you mean banning anything that's not game-related, what would really be the point?
Just do what I do when people post about things I don't care about: ignore them.
Everything online can turn into a fist fight anyway, even game related threads so it's not like the mods will have way less work hunting for and banning threads that are not game-related.

Actually, scratch my first reply. That other thread is beyond good and evil, but I value this community way too much, and «controversial topics» IS what keeps it unique. When Russian-Ukrainian war began, several people of this site were the ones who've persuaded me not to kill myself. When my dad died, I created a thread, and the support was immense (you'd have banned that thread as well because it was about corona, another highly controversial topic). Virtually any subject that actually matters would be controversial. If we ban them, what would remain? Giveaways and threads about cats (disclaimer: I love cats)?

And stop throwing me "your post is also political". This post is about the site itself, so it's pretty much on topic.

It's actually both. It's a poll and a discussion how this forum should be structured or moderated and users of this community are voting, commenting and discussing.

Based on experience cg won't add anything that enables you to hide discussions. There are just a few mods, which contrary to other communites not only have to take care of discussions, but even more of giveaways and their rules. So I don't see banning as an option and also wouldn't like it.

A way easier action would be to just remove off topic from top discussions overview. I still wouldn't like that, but if a majority wants that, why not. Should also be easy enough for cg to change it.

Keep 'em. If you feel uncomfortable or annoyed simply because you see the words "Ukraine" or "Palestine," and you want to act on that by making these threads go away somehow, then you are acting like part of the problem, not part of the solution. You can do better.

Too broad. It would just invite abuse to ban selectively by personal leanings. Plus, we have Uncategorzied and Off Topic sections already.

Having a blanket ban on politics would be counterproductive to the type of moderation you want since politics are an unavoidable part of life and it's nigh impossible to filter them from art, and games are art regardless of what some say, not to mention that whenever a big games corporation does something despicable to their employees (and this shit happens every other month) that also counts as politics since they're caused by a failure on the part of regulators, aka politicians.

On the other hand I do agree that we need to do something about the threads relating to war since they very quickly turn into a persistent shitstorm. Kinda hard to extract any factual information from them when they're filled to the brim with thinly disguised stuff like racism, genocidal apollogia, bullshit religious justifications, all sorts of hateful speech, calls to murder, and other such verbal diarrhea. But what we need is probably not an outright ban but rather something like a dedicated category where we can dump those threads so they don't take over the forum, also some users need to be put into a time off when they stop behaving in an acceptable manner, there's a difference between having an emotional outburst due to stress and going on a rampage.

And to be clear on my stance on the matter, I hate wars, seeing civilians dying by the thousands because of the power struggle of a few heartless bastards in power is actually painful, brushing this stuff under the rug and pretending it doesn't happen doesn't achieve a thing. But this is a gaming related forum, if we gonna touch this subjects we need to do so in a civilized manner for the sake of keeping this community from shattering, even if asking that from those in the middle of the conflict can be seen as tone deaf.

I won't claim that my opinion is fact, I'm aware that I'm fallible, I'm just trying to be reasonable because the sheer physical distance between me and these conflicts requires me to be so. I'm looking from a far, a corner of the world, into its imperial core (or pretty damn close from my relative position) and trying to interpret a commotion that I need to strain my sight just to make sense of it.
Disclaimer: I'm open to being proven wrong, but if someone wants to just drag me into a pit with an argument I won't accompany you all the way down.

I think that many people who voted yes won't take part in the discussion, since the topic itself is prone to become controversial and toxic.
It's silent majority vs loud minority.

Politics is a fundamental part of our life in society.
If you don't like participating, simply ignore it like you do with other topics you don't like.

Literally everything can be a controversial topic if it attracts enough attention. Advocating for settings to allow users to Opt-out of certain conversations is perfectly fine. Blanket bans on "political" discussions is so loosely defined as to be useless at best and deeply problematic at worst.

It's one thing to stick your head in the sand to disassociate from world events. It's another to suggest everyone else should be forced to do the same.

Discussion of political leanings.
It always ends in quarrels, animosity, hatred.
Free speech is often abused.

Humans repeat the same mistakes all the time. “人は同じ過ちを繰り返す...”

Only thing that needs banning are those who spam, are toxic, spread lies or are overall unpleasant and aggressive at others. Different topics should be allowed so people can actually see what's going on around the world, speak with people from different nationalities, religion backgrounds, political leanings. Frankly I would love to follow the discussion of Israel - hamas war if whoever did the talking wasn't openly rooting for terrorism and calling everyone who disagrees names. So the problem lies with the person not with the topic.

I'm already quite aware of all the major shit that is happening in the world and I don't come to SG to learn of the new horrible things people do to each other every day, thank you very much. While I am of the opinion that politics relates to every little bits of our lives, there are times when you want to just relax and forget, even if just for a little while. Similar to hiding giveaways for the games that you don't want to see, I'd prefer if there was an option to hide the topics as well. I'd gladly hide pro-HAMAS propaganda with a crazy person in charge especially.

As others have pointed out here - many topics can be construed as political. Who is going to decide which threads belong in "political topic jail"? The mods? The OPs? How is this even going to work without creating as many problems as it solves? Sounds like a mess to me.

Having said that, I'd point out the elephant in the room that is hiding behind the word "awareness". The threads in question - the ones that are driving this discussion - are not just about politics. They are threads about WAR. Particularly on an international site where opinion can vary sharply depending on where you live, such topics are bound to be upsetting, toxic, antagonistic and prone to lies, propaganda and even threats. I read these threads because I do care about what goes on in the world and what SGers think about it. But, there are days when I need a break, and on those days, I would like to be able to visit SG an not have to see these threads hovering at the top of the discussion list. I don't think I'm alone in this.

So yes, I'm in favor of a new category for just war threads. Pretty easy to figure which ones to put in it. Call it what you want - "War", "Extreme", "Read at Your Own Risk". Doesn't matter.

Edit: And if the OP is sincere about the "separate category" option, why do we not see this in his poll?

I don't mind political threads if they stay "civilized" and neutral.

Can we ban political posts (non-gaming related) or any other controversial topics that just invite a shitstorm?

This is a gaming site. There is no need for them to be here.

Yeah without political topics everything will finally be calm because gamers are know for their cool heads /s

If there is a shitstorm then it's because people wanted want. Solution: Let the mods handle it.

How do you know what's political? Is talking about unions in the videogame industry "controversial"?

I didn't say I am against all off-topic posts.

Just the ones you consider controversial or political?

don't ban them all. just ban the ones i don't like.

View attached image.

Twenty years ago, when I started roaming online forums, the general consensus pretty much everywhere was "no politics or religion" on generalist forums. Shame this was lost in the years.

I agree with you.