The Future of Off-Topic

Ok, I'll admit that the comment was probably unwarranted, as was the VM abracax so sorry about that. First login from being banned and its you insulting me, just a little ticked off by that.

Anyways Im all for a brighter future for OT where we cut down on the spam. Just one thing I want to ask, is there a way that we could allow topics on Politics, General Religion (Not specific religions), etc. Because to be honest, its hard to have a decent serious conversation that doesnt involve any of the banned things, especially after a year and a half of trying. Of course anything out of hand would be locked/deleted, infracts, etc. Unless the moderation team believes we cant handle this?

I asked for that, and even tried to allow it in a very carefully controlled setting, and was told no. Higher powers than me have decided that the people on this forum cannot handle such a thing.

Well you tried, and I do appreciate that. Back to the drawing board I guess.

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Originally Posted by abracax

lol Nesticles

How about this, this thread is for the Future of Off Topic. Too many people want to dredge up the past, everything changes just not the way everyone would always like it. So why not discuss where you the community would like to see it go. How do you see OT in 6 months from now? How would you like to see OT in 6 months from now. There is a constant influx of people in and out of the forums, some come to OT most don't. What can you do in the future to make it more inviting to all forum members? What do you think keeps people away from the OT? How do you think, you as a forum member can make it more appealing to all forum users at this moment?

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To start with people could be more polite to each other. This would make it inviting to others to come to Off Topic and the new people would act the same in return.

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Originally Posted by FoxyBunny

Higher powers than me have decided that the people on this forum cannot handle such a thing.

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its not the people on the forum its the people that run the forum that can't handle the backlash of such controversial topics they dont want anything to tarnish their golden goose

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Originally Posted by Nesterus

its not the people on the forum its the people that run the forum that can't handle the backlash of such controversial topics they dont want anything to tarnish their golden goose

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I think what Foxy means is the general community itself loves to spam. Evony doesn't want a lot of spam muddled in with real debates and ideas, and a lot of spam leads to flamming too... I have no problems dealing with sticky situations, or handing out infractions/edits/etc when the rules are broken. But some topics have only always proven to lead to hate-flame-spam-omgaaaaaaaaawd-wars that we spend hours trying to clean up after, because the people involved are upset with each other and want the other person banned, but not at the expense of their own account (even though they've broken rules too).

Not everyone is like this, but there are a lot of people who really do make it worse for everyone. The constructive posters, the ones who just honestly want a good discussion. If you remember back last year there was more topics allowed. And those topics turned hot and angry between players very quickly. I think they are trying to do whatever they can to avoid that, while still making it a fun and safe environment for everyone.

I dunno, just my perspective. I'm honestly one voice in a crowd of thousands, but that's just what I see over the last year and a bit.

My past experience with topics like politics and religion is that they tend to be very personal and sensitive subjects, and very few seem able to discuss opposing opinions without getting angry (usually because one side seems to always insist on bashing the other), and angry feelings never go anywhere good.

So I'm not sure if the lack of those discussions is necessarily a bad thing, as interesting as they might be.

either way it makes the site look bad and thats why its not allowed

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Originally Posted by Nesterus

either way it makes the site look bad and thats why its not allowed

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I couldn't agree more!

Yeah too many headstrong people, Problem is that many of the worlds great debates, conversations, arguments and wars are over politics and religion :P