A Simple Plea

[Eric R.]

Don, has provided a wonderful forum, a forum for us to express ourselves, and I mean no disrespect to him and the effort that is TrekRPG, but he provided a free forum, in doing so he created a communitty for free speech. but for almost two months it has not been. Out of respect we have honored that but recently it has troubled me that we have not been able to express ourselves, to talk opennly and freely even if it is good old fashion mud slinging. The people actually involved in it are never the ones who really complien its the lurkers who just "can't help themsleves" from clicking on the thread.

This, my, country was built so that people could do that. curtailing of any speech is wrong for whatever reason. Don, I say agian this is your site, but we have been its soul and in closing political threads you damaged that soul, the forum of free and open discussion the free exchange of ideas and frankly stances has been stopped.

I have not been considered too radical here, pretty middle of the road, people don't too often counter my arguments (becuase they are usally tight and well put I like to think) or express respectful disagrement. So perhaps my opening of this topic is coming from the right person.

Open the Political Threads again.

Everyone else consider this thread a petitiion, if you want the ability to openly discuss World Affairs and politics again say so and say it load.

[AslanC]

Don has said before that there is no promise of Free Speech here.

These are his forums and his rules apply.

Eric I respect your desire, but I know many users who once contirbuted a lot who have left and aren't coming back because of the political threads.

There are plenty of places on the web to go argue poltics, why bring that ugliness here?

While I may not always agree with the boss I stand by his right to make the rules.

edited to fix a spelling error and nothing else.

[redwood973]

I don't spend much time here in the General Chat boards as my primary reason for being here is the RPG side of things. But I have to agree with Don on this one. It seems to me that when I first joined up here the rules we all agreed to said something about the administrator having final say on what was appropriate.

It is not Don who we should be blaming for taking the political threads away from us. . .but we should be blaming ourselves. As we were not adult enough to figure out what was appropriate for ourselves.

Just my two cents.

[Owen E Oulton]

Note: The following comment is not meant to support or contradict any political viewpoints, but rather as a Forum member's observations on current site policy. The quote from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution is included for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute endorsement on the part of the author of this contentious and radical document.

I agree with Don. He has done nothing to curtail freedom of speech. He has ruled certain topics off-topic in the discussion boards, yes, but that is his right. This is, for all intents and purposes, his living room.

The TrekRPG Forums are a topic-specific venue devoted to the discussion of Star Trek role-playing in general and the CODA games in particular. The fact that he provides a general discussion area is a tribute to his generosity, and in no way restricts your Constitutional freedoms. Your right to free speech is provided for as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

I was not aware that the Webmaster of the TrekRPG Forums was a Congressional office. Then again, I'm just a simple Canajan and know little of your arcane 'Murrican ways.

Here's a link to a place where you can find appropriate outlet for your desire to discuss politics beyond those of the United Federation of Planets circa 2161-2378:

http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22pol...-1&hl=en&meta=

[AslanC]

Well said Owen.

[Ineti]

I disagree with you, Eric. This is Don's sandbox and he makes the rules for those of us who want to play in it.

If you want to talk politics with other posters here, you have any number of options. Start a Yahoo group and invite them all to join. Find a politically inclined discussion forum and have them join it with you. Use the PM feature.

Just please leave it out of the General Forum. I hardly ever joined the political discussions, but I can see what they've done to our community of Trek fans. Several members that were here are no longer here, and they took their often-excellent Trek and RPG comments with them.

And I think that's really unfortunate.

[vegasthroat]

Dont let the off-topic ruin this place the way it has basically soured ALL of rpg.net.

I'm grateful Don has teh good sense to keep the topics to mostly just strek and scifi

[FDor]

There are trekkers throughout the world here with very different opinions on politics. Some of them are hot headed and discussing politics becomes more or less insulting each other.
In Star Trek Earth is united and that is not a small goal.


I agree that politics are not the primary function of this board. And yes, administrator must have the right to decide what subjects are relevant to his board. If users don't like he's decisions they might go away and find a new board.

Vesku

[Phantom]

I do think Don was a little heavy handed in how he ended the situation. But, then again as I stated sometime ago I don't come here for 'real world politics' I come here to get the latest Trek info. If I wanted to be depressed by all the wacky things going on in the world I'd watch the NEWs stations. As far as I am concerned more power to the moritorium...the political threads were just taking up space.

[REG]

AFAIC, this messageboard is Don's private property or "virtual crib," even though he invite anyone wanting to share his or her ideas. So, I'm basically a guest on his property.

So as long as I'm visiting his property, I will respect his rules.

If you want to open up and hold a political forum, set it up on your internet property (i.e., web site).

[J.T Edwards]

This is not the United States (regardless of where the server is located). Do not apply it's laws as you see fit. Don controls this forum and it is his to do with as he sees fit. If that means no political discussion then so be it. The are many other forums (indeed to some which I am a member) in which you can freely discuss political matters and issues to your hearts content. I would suggest forums run by the major universities and government institutions as a good starting point.

[Aldaron]

What Owen said...

Eric...I like a political discussion as much as the next man, but I think the anonymity of the Internet tends to encourage people to say things they normally wouldn't say in polite debates.

Now, that said, I also think that went nowhere near as far as it could have during the recent political debates - for that, I'd like to think that despite our disagreements, we're all relatively intelligent, well-meaning adults here.

BUT....(and that's meant to be a big "but"), it is Don's playground - or his living room, as someone aptly put it - and I for one completely respect his right to shut down the political threads.

People have left because of the vitriol being poured out on the political threads over the last couple of months - I seriously considered it myself, but I'm glad I chose not to. However, I regret that many good Trekkers with good ideas have gone -- possibly for good.

As far as the way the political threads were going...well, I'm normally a fairly reasonable debater, but I found myself getting hot under the collar and spitting out stuff I should never have said, and regret saying.

Those who I offended over the last month or two...well, take this as an apology for my own vitriol - I stand by my position, but I regret the way I chose to defend it, at times.

I personally have found the boards greatly improved over the last month or so since the "political moratorium", and have enjoyed coming here to read about TrekRPG, ask questions, offer help where I can and not be distracted by the emotion-laden feuds going on in the political threads.

There are plenty of political discussion boards out there, and whilst they may not include the people from here (and thus, the opinions of the people here, which is probably what most "bring the political threads back" people are interested in here), they are the proper place for debating politics.

This is a board for the TrekRPG -- not modern-day politics.

(That said, I've been thinking about mirroring current events with some relatively small power developing WMDs in my Trek universe: imagine if the So'na get ahold of the Genesis plans! )

'Nuff said...

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

I have to agree with Aslan and others on this one. I have seen people leave. SOme of the better members have threatened to leave but have stayed because I tried to keep a lid on things. Although I blew up once. And I do apologize to Don for that.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

As much as I liked the political threads, whatever Don says goes since its his website and HE paid for it.

I'd like to see them comebcak someday, but I know that could be a long time. But as far as hot-headed debates go, political threads weren't the only one's which started it. Let me start a "Kirk would have like Marines thread" and we'll see how many well thought out posts we'll get.

And as far as people leaving because of political threads; in my eyes that was silly. Not to insult any of them, but leaving because of political threads in the general discussion forum is ridiculous. If you do not want to see them, don't click on them.

But that's just my opinion...

[toadkiller]

I really don't see the issue here.

There are message boards specifically chartered to discuss political issues. This board is chartered to discuss Trek and now LOTR gaming stuff.

Granted we have a community here where we can talk about other stuff, etc. but the primary purpose is gaming and two specific genres at that.

Trek.rpg is free in a very profound way - we don't have to pay for it, there aren't even ads unlike many discussion sites. Whatever motivation Don has for running this place it is his bandwidth we're using (as well as our employers ) so if he doesn't want to "spend" bandwidth on something it isn't undemocratic for him not to....

So, get a bookmark to some political forum somewhere and invite a bunch of your trek.rpg friends to argue there. Put trek.rpg in your .sig - maybe some folks from there will come here too to talk about trek.

The Internet is vast - some degree of compartmentalizationa good thing!