*** Updated*** Announcement concerning Ragusa, Darkwolf and politics

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Earlier today, after much deliberation among the entire board staff, I have sent out two PMs, one to Ragusa, and one to Darkwolf. They were identical in content, and while I won't go into all the details, the main point of the messages was my request that they stop posting in the AoDA and AoLS forums. Animosity between the US and non-US posters has been breeding for a long time now, and I felt that this was especially due to the relentless posts and discussions that these two of our most prolific members (when it comes to political discussions) were regularly engaging in for a couple of years now.

So the community has arrived at the point where something drastic had to be done, as all our previous attempts to rectify the situation regarding political discussions here have been more or less unsuccessful. Making political discussions semi-private for SPS account holders only was discussed, but discarded, as we felt that this would only repeat the whole situation on a smaller scale, but not really do anything to rectify it. Another option that has been discussed (and that we are still keeping as a backup scenario), was closing down the AoLS forum and banning all political discussions altogether. However, we have decided against this for now.

The reasoning behind this decision is that if we put out a ban on all political discussions, both Ragusa and Darkwolf would be deprived of those two forums anyway (since this would also mean removing the semi-political discussions from AoDA), so the end result would have been the same as far as they are concerned. However, requesting that only they step down from the political discussions here gives everyone else another shot at trying to make approachable political discussions that most people won't be afraid of getting into, or consider to be offensive.

The decision to ask Ragusa and Darkwolf to step down was not made lightly, and is not even remotely ideal. However, I feel that it is in the best interest of our community, which has been literally begging us to do something about the political discussions on SP for a long time. We have lost a large number of regulars on both sides during the failed attempts to limit the impact of such political discussions, but not even separating the political threads from AoDA and putting them in their own forum has ultimately made any difference. I sincerely hope that this will.

To make it clear, neither Ragusa nor Darkwolf is banned. Both of them are more than welcome to post in any other forums on our boards, but I have respectfully asked them that they refrain from posting anything in AoDA and AoLS. I realize full well that this extreme failsafe may need to be evoked again at some point if a similar situation repeats, so I have added it as a possible moderating measure under the rule #7 in both the AoDA and AoLS forums (see the stickies there).

I sincerely hope that Ragusa's and Darkwolf's absence from those forums will help restore the community harmony. But, of course, it might turn out that not even this is enough, and we will still have to ban all political discussions. Only time will tell. However, I truly hope that that will not be necessary. So, if you do post in political discussions here, please keep in mind that we are keeping a close eye on how the discussions are being conducted, and will not hesitate to ask anyone to refrain from posting in political discussions if we feel that their posts are having a negative impact on a large part of the community.

Thanks go out to both Ragusa and Darkwolf for deciding to respect my decision regarding this, and I hope to see both of them around on our other forums.

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Before anyone starts looking for the reply button, let me point out that this is an announcement only, and not a discussion. This thread will be closed as soon as I make it. I also ask everyone to respect this and not try to circumvent it by starting new threads about it, or carrying the discussion into any other open threads. I would appreciate it, however, if you would PM a link to this thread to anyone that you think might not otherwise see it, but would be interested in reading it. Thank you.

[ August 25, 2005, 23:01: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

***Update***

We've decided that as long as Darkwolf and Ragusa only post in non-political threads in AoDA, it shouldn't be a problem if they want to do it, so don't be surprised if you see their posts in AoDA.