If you are thinking of leaving the forum ...

because of the arguments, why not hibernate?

I have done this before.

You can change your name to 'hibernating'.

It's good psychologically because it stops me from posting and indicates to others that you are having a break.

Also, you can choose to still PM (which I do) which isolates you less.

 has chosen to do this yesterday.

I've been told by one person that someone they knew was thinking of joining but didn't because of the disagreements, others post far less, others join and then stay a short while.

I was sad to read s post today.

To the new people here: it's not always like this and only certain subjects are incendiary so if you can manage to avoid reading them, that would help.

I am guilty of having joined into arguments because I also feel passionately about certain subjects and I expect I will occasionally still make my point.

However, I think restraint here is the key and personal insults should never be acceptable.

I dearly hope that this thread doesn't go the same way as my 'arguments' thread and become one almightly row ...

Parents
  • You know when I was a student in my local universe there was a Jewish society and an Islamic society. And every now and again the Islamic society would try to use the student union’s referendum system to pass a resolution condemning the ‘occupation’ of Israel. And the Jewish society would in response try to use the referendum system to pass a resolution condemning Islamic terrorism in Israel. At one point there were protests and counter protests facing each other outside of the student union building. This was over 10 years ago now. 

    ANd of course the student union response was to bury their head in the sand and try to make it all go away. they tweaked the referendum system so that they could veto these referendums before they got started. They clampdown on any kind of controversial public speaking by these particular societies. Now look outside your window and what do we have. Extremists marching down the streets praising terrorist groups in the name of freeing Palestine. And to be evenhanded a disturbing lack of criticism of Israeli military policy. Suppressing debate normalises  extremist views within cliques until some dramatic event brings it to the for and suddenly you realise but there are quite a lot of extremists because they’ve never had their views challenged in public debate. Because our approach to controversy has been to try and sideline it rather than addressing it.

Reply
  • You know when I was a student in my local universe there was a Jewish society and an Islamic society. And every now and again the Islamic society would try to use the student union’s referendum system to pass a resolution condemning the ‘occupation’ of Israel. And the Jewish society would in response try to use the referendum system to pass a resolution condemning Islamic terrorism in Israel. At one point there were protests and counter protests facing each other outside of the student union building. This was over 10 years ago now. 

    ANd of course the student union response was to bury their head in the sand and try to make it all go away. they tweaked the referendum system so that they could veto these referendums before they got started. They clampdown on any kind of controversial public speaking by these particular societies. Now look outside your window and what do we have. Extremists marching down the streets praising terrorist groups in the name of freeing Palestine. And to be evenhanded a disturbing lack of criticism of Israeli military policy. Suppressing debate normalises  extremist views within cliques until some dramatic event brings it to the for and suddenly you realise but there are quite a lot of extremists because they’ve never had their views challenged in public debate. Because our approach to controversy has been to try and sideline it rather than addressing it.

Children
  • I agree with you on the principle of free speech. However, this isn't a politics forum.  

    I guess you could say in response " Well ,just don't click on anything you don't want to read".  And i guess without active moderation we are forced to take that attitude.

    I'm on other forums where subject of politics is banned entirely.  It's a subject that causes discord. 


  • Great post Peter, although I'm no quite sure what it is doing on this particular thread. It deserves to have it's own thread were we can discuss, debate, share, disagree, etc.

    I'm no expert on what is going on in the Middle East right now. I have my perceived ideas, of which there may be a lot of ignorance (not prejudice) and am more than happy to be educated on.