It says no politics and that a new forum has been created for politics, but I don't see it. I feel like we are all adults and I just don't understand why grown people cannot discuss even (gasp) controversial topics. After all, you don't have to click on a thread if it's something that will freak out about.

Oh, ho, you must have missed our brief, frenetic foray into a politics forum; Prana wisely ended it. It got awfully contentious, and I think the moderators(and most of us)wanted these boards to be a generally peaceful place of communion, rather than a place to vent. It is hard to maintain proper decorum[I was an offender myself] when discussing politics, which people take so personally, and this stymied the "peaceful place of communion" goal.

No thank you, I'm happy with a politics and religion free forum here.

Yah... it "should" be possible to discuss freely what ever we wish rationally without contention. But it seems that politics is a sore point for many people, and this pain would inevitably express itself when ever it was opened for discussion.

It was bad enough that I had to leave these boards in the period where it was prominent. I'm happy without it.

LOL- it's funny because I consider myself a progressive but I am not knee-jerk anything and share a few ideas aligned with conservatives. However, I am actually more interested in hearing from those different from me and it wouldn't bother me if someone had ideas which differed from mine. Oh well...

Im a libertarian ^_^

Curator: Shhh...do you think...if we keep things hush hush...that we could talk about you-know-what?

Take it to the PMs, guys. My worst moments here were arguing with a libertarian and it got rather belligerant. I think I'm the only one of the two of us that still posts on other forums here, which may have been part of the problem--it was difficult to separate the true members from people who just came on to vent about politics.

Here you go, I'm anti freaking politics. If there is an atheism for politics, that's what I am. There.

Hmmm, no wonder politics doesnt do well on this forum, Ive never actually had problems with it on any other forum ive been a member of...guess there was just allot of people on here in the past that really really enjoyed arguing and had a hard time understanding others point of view, thats unfortunate.

oh and banana who, id be ok with it, but your inbox is full,lol...

Curator,

It wasn't a matter of not understanding others' points of view--it was of understanding them well, finding them insupportable, and not being able to keep the discussion theoretical. This is in direct opposition to the tone of the main forum, or juicing forum, or recipe forum, or OT forum, where we talk about non theoretical things, like what we ate today or the music we're listening to. With the exception of occasional OT topics, there's not much room for controversy when practical things and personal lifestyle experiences are being discussed. The worst it gets is, "IMO, we should be eating more fruit than greens." "Well, IMO, we should be eating more greens."

Well, isn't everything a theory in essence? I mean, if you believe eating more greens are better than eating more fruits, then it's a theory of how it benefits the body. I have found, strangely enough, that most of the people who freak out about politics varying from their own are on the liberal side. I take this view as someone who has posted on political sites and found it very hard to not be a knee-jerk type person without being accused of all sorts of things. Sorry, I am an individual and I don't perfectly mesh with one ideology. I think more people would be like me if they actually thought through each issue rather than react habitually. I feel the same way about religion, LOL. I have never found the "perfect" path so I take the greatest hits of all of them. Oh, and time to empty out my mailbox. I think someone commented that it's rather low in storage room--4 messages?!

banana and curator, here's how it went down, from my perspective: the politics forum was becoming overwhelmed with stuff that appeared to be deliberately phrased to inflame and/or even attract hate speech - for example, a topic IN CAPS claiming that Martin Luther King was a pedophile (on MLK's birthday), posted by a newcomer who apparently had never posted on a raw food issue. Several inflammatory accusations were coming in on a daily basis - on the topic lines, so that anyone who went to the forum would have to see them.

In fact, this website was starting to come up in google searches for subjects more often found on white supremacy websites.

It would have been tremendously difficult and time-consuming for any monitor to determine which posts crossed the line between simple theoretical discussion and deliberate inflamatory hate speech.

And there simply was not enough time in the day for other posters to reply to all the inflammatory posts. Ignoring those posts just seemed to leave the entire forum in the hands of those who shared such views.

On some days, nearly the entire page of topics was taken up by brand new inflammatory posts.

In my personal view, it left an awkward and inaccurate impression of people who chose a raw food lifestyle.

Some of us, including me, emailed our concerns to the owner of this website. The last straw for me was the MLK thread, especially after seeing a film on apartheid South Africa the night before. Under the circumstances, I think it was a good decision to shut the forum down.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2010 07:54PM by suncloud.

coco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here you go, I'm anti freaking politics. If there
> is an atheism for politics, that's what I am.
> There.

wow coco...I agree completely with you...seems like this is the case w/ so many of your posts...scary, lol..


At this point, I am so anti-politics/anti-gov't./anti-establishment...I just want them ALL to GO AWAY...and never return...

I believe we could all do just fine without all the "big brother/big sis" intervention...we surely couldn't muck things up half as bad as what they are now...

Bananawho, I forgot to mention banana that religion topics are still welcome here, so if you feel inclined, go right ahead.

Wow, suncloud, I'm glad I wasn't around here when all of that was going on. It could have put me off of trying raw food!

Even a comment like "most of the people who freak out about politics varying from their own are on the liberal side" prickles me a bit, despite knowing that it is not intended toward me personally. I only wrote that to show how easy it can be to feel offended.

Without tone of voice and nonverbal communication to aid communication, it is easy enough to have subtle miscommunications occur through any typed messages. That makes me all the more grateful for this being a religion-free and politics-free place. Of course some of that comes out at times, but at least I never feel assaulted by it here.


My favorite raw vegan

Hmmm... I was typing when suncloud was and didn't see that religion topics were welcome here. I find that people don't promote specific religions on this forum and I'm glad for that. If there were a lot of religious posts and arguments here, I'd be gone.


My favorite raw vegan

suncloud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bananawho, I forgot to mention banana that
> religion topics are still welcome here, so if you
> feel inclined, go right ahead.

Wow...about the MLK thing, that is just hardcore. No, I was just talking about garden-variety differences. Didn't know someone actually went there, LOL. As for spirituality, I am a little timid because I had posted a thread in GD about greying hair and it somehow got into a religious argument and I still cannot recall how that one came about, LOL...In any case, I was born into a liberal Christian faith. In other words, not taught that I was this evil sinner and about hell and threats like that, but about the helping others aspect. I really thank the Lord that I was brought up like that because I feel that one of the worst abuses comes from organized religion scaring people and shaming them. But the Bible never has resonated with me so I prefer Eastern thought and New Agey stuff like energy work and such. I just got an email from a Reiki master saying that she's gonna do some distance work on me for free I'll take all the help I can get, LOL.

Trive, thanks for your post.

Actually, I don't think religion is discussed here very often, that's a topic that has blown up in our faces too. '

JK, soul brother! I keep telling you man, we're like peas in a pod!

banana who,

Ha, yeah that grey hair thread. I'm still wondering how that got sooooooo far afield from hair : ) In the future, newbies scrolling through older posts will read that and go, "heh?"

suncloud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> banana and curator, here's how it went down, from
> my perspective: the politics forum was becoming
> overwhelmed with stuff that appeared to be
> deliberately phrased to inflame and/or even
> attract hate speech - for example, a topic IN CAPS
> claiming that Martin Luther King was a pedophile
> (on MLK's birthday), posted by a newcomer who
> apparently had never posted on a raw food issue.
> Several inflammatory accusations were coming in on
> a daily basis - on the topic lines, so that anyone
> who went to the forum would have to see them.
>
> In fact, this website was starting to come up in
> google searches for subjects more often found on
> white supremacy websites.
>
> It would have been tremendously difficult and
> time-consuming for any monitor to determine which
> posts crossed the line between simple theoretical
> discussion and deliberate inflamatory hate speech.
>
>
> And there simply was not enough time in the day
> for other posters to reply to all the inflammatory
> posts. Ignoring those posts just seemed to leave
> the entire forum in the hands of those who shared
> such views.
>
> On some days, nearly the entire page of topics was
> taken up by brand new inflammatory posts.
>
> In my personal view, it left an awkward and
> inaccurate impression of people who chose a raw
> food lifestyle.
>
> Some of us, including me, emailed our concerns to
> the owner of this website. The last straw for me
> was the MLK thread, especially after seeing a film
> on apartheid South Africa the night before. Under
> the circumstances, I think it was a good decision
> to shut the forum down.


I think this sums it up perfectly.

coco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Actually, I don't think religion is discussed here
> very often, that's a topic that has blown up in
> our faces too. '
>
> JK, soul brother! I keep telling you man, we're
> like peas in a pod!


Yeah, we must have been separated at birth, lol

I miss Lois' politics forum. We had some interesting discussions and I don't recall it being any more contentious than the main forum or this other topics. Lois was/is a free spirit passionate about politics, interested in investment and always treated me right.

Definitely, nothing here personal against Lois.

But Loeve, don't you mean you miss Lois' participation? The forum was visited by a lot of people. Actually though, it belonged to the owner of the website, John Kohler.

I remember that after the forum was shut down, Lois started her own blog. Does anyone know if it's still up? Or what the name of it is? I think it had something to do with Nostradamus. Was it Nostralois or something similar? I went there a couple of times, and then lost track.

Hope no one puts anything on this thread against any individual.

I sometimes enjoyed some of Lois's posts myself, she was a firecracker that one. Crafty too, she posted pics of some of her work, photography as well. Interesting lady.

I have never seen a board where politic/religion discussions ended well. I am not in to either so I rarely read either and post in them even less.

sounds like you guys used to get allot of what is referred to on the internet as "trolls" in your politics forum... that MLK post sounds downright insane if the person actually believed that and wasn't just trying to piss people off, and yeah it is allot of work for one moderator, thats why most forums get multiple volunteer moderators to help out...just like chatrooms usually do... I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't people who love SAD and maybe even some of the paleo people, as many on there seem to have a pretty big issue with raw veganism... those who have a big problem with what a forum is about who end up flaming/trolling in it...not usually the active members... it dies down eventually, but only after a considerable amount of banning,lol...

I don't remember internet trolls as a problem on the political forum.

"But Loeve, don't you mean you miss Lois' participation? The forum was visited by a lot of people. Actually though, it belonged to the owner of the website, John Kohler."

Sorry, a wink-wink was in order. Lois was among the first to post on the newly created political forum and one of her first remarks was to joke that it was nice to finally have her own forum.

For anyone recently joined, Lois is a long time member here, 10 years plus, though hasn't posted much recently.