Quote:
Originally Posted by btimbit
I don't think it's fair to try to make it a left vs right issue, when it comes to something like politics if you can't stand to have your views questioned then don't share them. I became public enemy #1 in the gun control thread but aside from a few trolls the discussion remained mostly civil because I could back up my opinions.
There's definitely some truth to your overall sentiment though. My biggest complaint about CP has always been how much leeway trolls get, but if you swear too much look out!
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When you get the opportunity to speak to people face to face in privacy, and truly feel a person out for who they are, you get a much different conversation a publicly recorded and indexed conversation on a message board. The statement "I haven't seen you on the board in ages." Is almost always followed up with some sort of iteration of "Yeah, it just got way to left, commie, socialist, poisonous....." or some iteration of.
Also like many of these people, I am trying to run a business, and don't have the time to sit at my desk for 6 hours engaging in an argument about pronouns or gun control, and just opt to become a spectator when I have a few minutes to kill. I've got 65 people relying on me to do my job and do it well, and wasting time or risking that over some troll trying to get a rise out of me with petty insults just isn't worth it anymore.
It's not about having views questioned, it's the means in which they are. Do I agree with Yoho? No. Do I agree with how people pile on him, and create actual threads asking for his removal from the board? Also no. Also the mods shouldn't have allowed it.
I want people with different opinions here. I want to hear what they have to say. I want to figure out what makes them tick. What I do not want is to come to an echo chamber where everyone adheres to the same line of thinking at the penalty of being tarred, feathered, doxxed and humiliated for not doing so. That same methodology of punishing opinions outside the group narrative is exactly the reason people label this group as a bunch of lefties. Because that's exactly how socialist and communist societies work. Get in line... or else. And those personal attacks are almost exclusive to that segment of this site.
It ruined CP and drove away users. Now you get pop-up ads to pay the bills.