How many members have we lost today to the political questions overswaming the question board?

Thank they for their reply.

You are welcome Mr. B.

PS fwiw I come here TO talk politics, I shouldn't feel like i need to apologise for that but in truth i have everything else i want in life so i just want a bit of  stimulation of the mental kind in the form of debate and learning. And you have to admit that it IS a very topical subject at the moment. No doubt when things calm down or Trump gets impeached we might all find other things to discuss. 

You should not apologize for your interest. I think this should be a place that can hold all of us. And you will see in my reply below that I do like a political question myself once in awhile.

Again, I have absolutely no issues with political questions. I do engage in them myself. You will have noticed this before, (or maybe not after having read your full reply) as you have liked several of my posts.

I suggest merely that we as group discuss how we make the main question board more interesting for all of us. Not only those who love looking at a board with more than a third of the questions being political. Variety is an attraction. Monotone a distraction.

And no, I have never accused UK of lack in any freedom of speech, neither do I advocate any here. You must mix me up with someone else, but that wont only be you. Another in this thread did so too yesterday, although in less respectful manner than you did right here. Suggesting to take the questions inside a room designed for debates will not be censoring anything, and questions would still only have to apply to the TOS of the site.

I am not saying political questions can't be asked. Seems to go over the head of most people. I am not sure why. I have never said to anyone they cannot post a political question. Never. I have told them wrong, but never that they should not post.

Ahem Sapphic.. my comments were not to you lol I didn't hit reply to your comment just a reply to the main post, so they were to the original poster - I know it's easy to mistake who's replying to who on here.. So truly yes, I have liked many of your posts and when and if i do, i click to say I like them 

So truly I didn't have any problem with anything you said :)

I am confused here, I am the OP?

Oh my word yes, so you are!!! OK then.. this is entirely MY mistake, lol one as superior as myself rarely makes mistakes you understand  but when i do they tend to be spectacularly daft of me.. this was one ... and your original suggestion that i mistook you for someone else, was spot on! I can only apologise and ask you please to accept my apologies. I should NOT post and reply to stuff when i am so tired.. hmm but then again I am always tired.. I will try to be more on the ball.. my feeble excuse is.. it's been a very, very long and difficult term at work and it ends tomorrow - yayyyyyyyyy and i think my brain is on holiday already :P so sorry 

No need to apologize. Mistakes happens, and that's why we have mouths to open and ask for clarification like i did. I wish more members taking part in this thread would do the same. I have no where stated, ever that political questions should not be allowed posted, or that numbers should be controlled or any other ways of limiting the freedom of speech as long as it is inside TOS. However, I would like a more living main question board and I have tried over time, and so have some of my friends. We were very pleased when we saw the group fro Blurtit coming inside here, it was fresh blood and they seemed nice and also active members. Even more sad is it when they leave shortly after as they felt they had reached a "political" forum. I see no reason that we cannot have such forum, in fact we already have it, but as you replied to me the other day, it isn't being used. Why not get that group rolling at the same time get the main board rolling before even more members have left? That's basically my shout out. Maybe I'm doing it the wrong way. I might. Others are welcome to do it in another way. But I care about this place like the political questioners do too. I am interested in having a community where there is room to all of us. Hmm.

Hello D:

You better be careful..  If you push the wrong button with her, she'll ACCUSE you of CHEATING..  We went on about 3 pages over ME pushing the wrong button, and she's STILL accusing me, as you can see above.. 

I'm DONE with her.

excon

How shallow this looks. Let people go back and look. Have we reached the point where you will attack me by talking about me in third person to people responding inside my questions? That's the kind of world you want to present to us when you saved all of us by making your posts inside this community? I am impressed. All my best for the future.

Hello again, SH:

Have we reached a point where we're supposed to believe that your rant is about the site and NOT Rosie????  Puleze!!

excon

Why don't you ask Rosie how she feels about me. Look up her hate question and see her reply for me. Oh yes, it means you have to crawl down your Tower of Babel and face reality instead of your narcissistic world view. Go somewhere and have a w*** about how clever you are. Now hush!

Hello again, SH:

I suggest merely that we as group discuss how we make the main question board more interesting for all of us.
------------

Do you remember the other day when I mentioned that EVERYBODY has an OPINION about how BADLY I run my business??  And, that EVERYBODY had OPINIONS about how I could run it BETTER???  NONE of them has any SKIN in the game.  NONE of them has any experience running a business..  But, that didn't stop ANY of them from flapping their gums.

But, I appreciated them coming to ME with their complaints instead of hanging POSTERS around my establishment saying how WRONG I am..  That's what YOU'RE doing, in your backhanded way.  Have you ever engaged JA directly about your concerns in PRIVATE???  If you had, I'll bet you'd have said so..  Instead, you wanna EMBARRASS her in public for running her business so BADLY...

Finally, I'd ask, WHO appointed YOU to make this site "more interesting for all of us"???

excon  This post was edited by excon at December 14, 2016 9:03 AM MST

ex  THANK YOU

Pfft.

Look, we make the lesbian questions either inside one of the LGBT groups, or Awesome Lesbians and also adultMug. As for the main board I think you will have a long search before you find one, and the total numbers might be a marginal share less than 1% you are going to find. Not 36% that the political question make it on the main board. Again, and I can only keep repeating myself, I am not suggesting that political questions cannot be asked. I am asking the community to make thoughts about it, if there would be a better suited place like the Debate Room where they could go enabling that the question board look more varied and colorful, and not having people give up posting their non-political questions as they know they will drawn in the high amount of political questions. It's all there is to it.

@SH -- I understand your views and why you hold them. I have two pertinent observations.

1) I have been on Answermug (and Answerbag before it) since 2007. Things always evolve, and someone always has a complaint about the present state of the site.

2) I am somewhat unsympathetic to the complaints about the "excessive" political questions because, in my admittedly non-scientific observation, the most vocal complaints seem to be eminating from people whose views are on the politcal right. Such people are the type who typically insult those on the political left as "special snowflakes in need of safe spaces." Now they are essentially making the same claim for themselves with respect to Answermug? They can go Cheney themselves.

I will cite one recent example. A question was asked comparing President Obama to President-Elect Trump. One poster complained that Obama was a "do nothing" President. I asked, very politely, specifically what he meant and what actions he would have preferred. Said poster simply ranted about what a useless POS President Obama is and, apparently, has terminated his AM membership.

Please forgive me, but I am rather indifferent to the complaints of such petulant people.

You think everyone is on the political right.  That's why.

@Glis -- So, you think the person I spoke of in my previous reply who whined...

"This site is a waste of time. Bunch of Commies. You know so much? You tell me just what he has done. ISIS? Nothing, Ukraine? Nothing. Vetting Immigrants? Nothing. Long list of nothings!"

...was centrist or left-wing in his political views?

I suppose it's possible but the evidence suggests otherwise.

You really have a hard time staying on the topic of a reply instead of making singular case examples don't you?  

@Glis -- After your unsupported "You think everyone is on the political right" ad hominem attack, you have very little credibility with which to be lecturing me about staying on topic.

I am nowhere close to be right-wing. Old Al excused me for being a communist and what not. My wish is sincerely to have a community where there is a room for everyone. Right now the political questions make about 36% of all questions in the main room. 28% of those questions are not even being answered and haven't scored higher than 6 views, including mine. The hit rate on both views and replies are way under the average of all questions as such.

I happened to see the "conversation" you are referring. And no, I do not agree in that kind of arguing, or going inside a question. However, I have an empathy that make me understand why someone can snap like the one you make your references to. What I do not know is if you had previous interactions within the political questions.

I know the massive presence of political questions (not because they are political but their share) are frustrating several members, also those who try post other types of questions. It won't just be the newcomers that have left again. My idea/thought was to have us post the political questions inside the debate room. They will still appear on the feeds, and they will still be able for all those who want to ask and engage politically to continue whatever they do now, just inside an open group. No big change. The main board however would have a chance to grow naturally with a variety of other questions as they won't drown in the massive presence of the political questions.

Again, this isn't so much a rant against political questions as such, and it might be my bad it appears as such. This is a rant against massive presence of one-sided questions. I made the same suggestion during the election campaigns back on the old platform. It's no new idea from my side, just popping up again as we have had a lot of frustrated members lately. I would love to see this place grow and have more questions. Also political, and I will take part in them myself as I have done previously. Heck, I uploaded a video clip today that is political motivated. Hmm.

As for indifferent, very few people make me indifferent as long as we talk about staying inside a community none of us owns.