[rp001]

Originally Posted by Pturner

Many have stated that members who don't like the Poli Forum should not go there. I think the argument that hey, it is opt-in so what's the problem, belies one of the problems with the Poli forum.

Maybe the reason members who don't like what they find there venture in is because they too would be interested in participating in a TOTV Poli forum. Maybe they try participating, get insulted and ganged up upon by yes, a clique, and then give up. Maybe others who would love to offer their perspective venture in, see the lay of the land, and then don't dare ever post, or just don't want to converse with people who belittle those with whom they disagree.

This argument that if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen gives the Poli Forum almost exclusively over to the few dominators and schoolyard bullies who can gleefully continue to run off or turn off new participants. Maybe a forum in which only about a dozen of the 25,000 TOTV members post regularly is not worth the time and effort it takes to moderate.

Maybe the new owner is the sort of gentleman who just doesn't want to sponsor barroom brawls.

Some say have rules but don't moderate. That has been tried.

The wild west, no modding approach would reward bullying and in effect, provide a political forum in which a few who are hostile to opposing viewpoints thrives and everyone else either leaves in disgust, or fails to speak up because they don't want to participate in a spit fest. Maybe such a forum disenfranchises more members than it enfranchises. Maybe that's why only about a dozen TOTV members out of 25,000 regularly posts in the Poli Forum.

Maybe it looks like with 370-plus posts on this thread, there is too much interest to close political. Look again. More than half of all of the posts in this thread were posted by just 10 people.

Thanks for the wonderful post...I think this spells it out much better than I could..Thoughtful and very accurate.