Minecraft Name: knears2000 Suggestion: To allow for minor, civil, political speech in global. Reason: Not only is this useful in informing the public on pressing political topics in today's day and age, but also will be used to improve the experience of those who wish to talk about politics. So long as it remains civil, I don't see any issue with it. Obviously, extremely touchy subjects will be off limits. Any Other Information: Don't pull the, "But why is politics necessary on a minecraft server?" card. First off, no one is stating that it is necessary, the same argument could be made for those who don't want to see chat. "But everyone has access to /ch leave g, tr, etc.!" Yes, and everyone also has the option to /ignore players. If you believe there is a reason that this suggestion should not be considered, please leave it below. It will be appreciated. Link To This Plugin/Is this a custom addition?: Wiki.
+1 There is absolutely no problem with civilised discussion of politics in global. It's a bit ridiculous how staff managed to turn a civilised discussion on the US election into masses of drama by asking a number of players to stop, they're reason being "discussion of politics is against the rules". Frankly I believe some common sense is required when moderating chat, but was simply kicked for voicing that belief..
+1 . Its election year in the United States. There is going to be discussion of politics in chat by players, and there is nothing wrong with this. Some of the political discussions I have seen on the server have actually been the most intellectual discussions compared to some of the other things that go on in chat.
I'm a person who takes a deep interest in politics and is open to discussing it in private. Regardless, I don't think this is a good idea. Firstly, this will lead to flame wars. Any political discussion in global will lead to flame wars with people saying "Candidate XX sucks!", "Candidate YY is dumb!" and such. This isn't productive discussion, and it'll just end as an exchange of blows between sides - Something we can do without. Secondly, do you really expect people to have productive discussion of these types of issues in a large scale? Sure, from experience, with a small group of people, political debates work fine - But from what I've seen in global political debates just end up with everyone saying different things and no productive discussion at all, with again people saying things like "XXX is dumb!" and "XXXX is evil!". And I'd rather not fill up chat with pointless messages. It's very rare to have an actual debate about politics in global- And this is all coming from experience. Might I also add, social issues will cause lots of problems alone and might as well offend tons of users. I'd rather not have a discussion of anything related to those issues in global chats. Finally, many people are just uncomfortable with politics. Some people even come here to avoid discussion like this, and just relax. And many people I know both IRL and ingame just hate politics as it's seemingly a repeated circular exchange of blows between sides of the political spectrum. Why should we be alienating a large portion of our own community members? All I can see is this making a large amount of players quit. And that isn't good, at all. I'm completely fine with discussing politics in private chat channels. But I don't believe you should be allowed to have touchy discussion in global. -1
I'm very hesitant to agree with this. While I would favor being able to discuss it if it was just that, but really it never is. Political discussions may not start with flames everywhere, but they certainly do a good job of spreading gasoline everywhere. It really only takes one flamey comment to start a brawl in global. Honestly that's a very America-centric way of putting things. Very few issues are actually pressing to the servers entire audience as there's multiple nationalities with multiple political situations playing on the server. Global isn't meant to be a soapbox/source of news for politics, we have the mainstream media for that. It will detriment the experience of those who don't want to talk about politics, which kind of cancels out your point there. Realistically I don't think allowing this kind of discussion is a good idea, especially during peak hours. Perhaps restrictions could be lax off-peak but overall onpeak it really isn't a good idea.
As one who also takes a deep interest in politics, I'd like to rebuke this. To begin, you claim that every single discussion will automatically lead to a flame war. That's simply a guess, hoping that it will be correct. In my experiences with you, I don't think we've ever had a flame war, even with multiple people of differing view points, we have never come across a flame war. Not to mention today in chat, there was no flaming, yet staff immediately quenched the conversation from continuing. If chat does get to that point, which rarely it has thus far, simply implement a common sense rule, which is already in place, to then end the discussion. What's the problem with that? As for the second paragraph, I seriously believe productive discussion can occur. In fact, only three or four people were actually participating in the discussion in global before it was shot down, and generally that's the number. I don't expect 20 people to be chatting about how Bernie Sanders is going to beat Hillary Clinton in the primary, rather, I expect three to four people to be discussing it, but have it open to everyone. As for those who are uncomfortable with politics, there is a reason the '/ignore' command was implemented. You'd be hard pressed to find a substantial amount of people who are seriously offended by politics, and if they are, they have every right to utilize /ignore. Private channels defeat the purpose of open discussion, which is why I suggested this. You're correct in saying that it can cause a flame war, but for that matter, talking about the elderly can. Anything can start a flame war, and simply saying that since it can cause one, and it should continued to be banned is an outrage. Many legal topics can start a flame war that are as simple as discussing a favorite food or staff member. We should ban chat all together since it can start a flame war. By simply picking a choosing what we want to ban because it may offend someone is ludicrous, since anything can be deemed offensive for that matter. As for the "American way", I think the 2016 is a seriously important issue, and it affects everyone. Not to mention a vast majority of people actually being interested in it. To my knowledge, the a decent, if not vast population of the server is of American nationality, so that should rebuke that point. Finally, as I stated before, utilize /ignore. In situations such as this, no one is ever told to use /ignore, rather, the command is simply told to be used in the event of harassment or altercations with another user. But why is that ignored in this situation? If we were to push forward the use of /ignore, I think it would effectively solve this issue for the small minority of the server population who don't want to see political chat in game.
When I've debated with you, that was via a small group of people. This won't work on a large scale, and obviously doesn't - Have you seen global when a political discussion occurs? No, it cannot - Did you even pay attention to what people were saying? Everyone was saying their own thing, and there was literally no discussion - Well, productive, at least. By that logic, all chat rules should be abolished, as there is an ignore command - Right? No - Chat rules exist for a reason - We like to keep our channels clean without everyone ignoring each other. Not to mention, what if there's a new player who doesn't know about the ignore command - Now what? You'll have them just quit? But why do you need to discuss it in global when you can do so more efficiently and productively in a private chat with a few consenting users? Touchy topics is particular are more likely to cause a flame war. For example, you have players saying bad things about candidates, and the players who support the said candidate shoots back - It's almost bound to become a flame war in a congested chat channel like global. Politics are banned in global channels for a good reason - And we shouldn't be lifting that ban.
I would really love for this to happen. I love talking about current events and politics. I think that the civil discussion of it is deeply enriching personally and socially. Its one of my very most pressing interests. There have been many moments where I wished to make some kind of topical statement in global and had to stop myself and felt disappointed. However, this is a huge -1 for me. The reason why is simple, there is absolutely NO WAY that this could possibly be implemented and not be extremely disruptive to the whole server. And yeah, we can't talk minecraft 24/7 in global and we shouldn't have to. But topics GUARANTEED to derail the whole server eventually are best avoided for the sanity of moderation and the sake of people actually having a good time on the server. Yeah, it would be really cool if we could have nice things like civil mature conversations about this. There is no reason that two human beings shouldn't be able to calmly discuss these things. But that's not reality. They are very emotionally fraught topics for people and I see spats break out in global about much less serious and less emotional topics everyday. When someone does bring up politics, invariably it is not intelligent mature insights the mods end up breaking up, it is always a bunch of users making what they think are funny statements and the other half saying statements they think will get a rise out of the first. That is trolling, that is disruptive. Discussing politics is against the rules for a reason, not because moderators arbitrarily are trying to supress political knowledge to try to brainwash the youths or something. It's not something people can talk about civilly. Please go see any comments section on any news article ever. That would become our lives on ECC. Do not want.
Personally, I don't understand why anyone would want to talk about it on a minecraft server anyway. In my opinion, the whole point is to join ECC and have a bit of fun, not to be argueing/ debating about left wing and right wing issues. The last thing I would need is to join a minecraft server and see comments on Trump or Hillary Clinton or even British politics for that matter. I see enough of it on the news. Anyway, thats my opinion on it.
In my opinion we should have a chat for debating, ie. /ch de. This would stop congestion in global chat and would provide an option for those who wouldn't like to see debates (they would be able to leave the chat channel). +1 if it is my suggestion
What's the need to create an entirely new channel when you have party chat and PM? A /ch debate would be hell for moderators to moderate, not to mention quite contradictory to the current rules.
Honestly having custom channels in exchange for political discussion is a good idea. If we re-introduce town chats I would love to see rules on those be a little more lax. As for a global channel - very contradictory to the rules, so not happening imo.
Town chats are like party chats - The rules are decided by the owner. He's suggesting to create a global debate channel though, which is totally unfeasible.
Wouldnt really be that hard to moderate, just moderate for rules such as spam, cussing, and namecalling. It would actually be easier as you wouldnt have to moderate it for politics cause its allowed. Well the point is that you change the rules to *Please keep all political talk in /ch de. Talking politics in global is not allowed and breaks server rules"
Not really - Most political discussion in a large scale are BOUND to become flame wars. All I'd just see is staff repeatedly having to deal with the same issues in the chat channel. Why can't you move it on to party or PM? What's the need of an entirely new chat channel?
with name calling disallowed flame wars are basically heated arguments and as its in its own channel this isn't really a problem. Also, a chat channel offers many things party and don't have mostly the ability to have a discussion with people without having to switch groups or it be 1 on 1
