I finally did it.
The content is still there, but only admins (both of us) can get at it. I removed everyone from access to the Politics and Values and BoF sections. Maybe in the future I will restore public access to these places, but for now, this feels like the right thing to do.
Here is my reasoning. You may not agree personally, but I finally decided that things had run their course and the past had repeated itself enough times, to make a sound decision.
- Virtually every thread for the last couple of months has resulted in trolling.
- There is no real discussion beyond sniping in these sections.
- There was a lot of "right to left" trolling but also a small amount of left to right trolling.
- The most vocal board personalities have learned each other's positions to a degree that the tone of all responses are anticipated and automatically discounted.
- There's always, continually, this element of "being corrected".
The point is: there's just no discussion happening on the politics sections when threads run their course. It's all back and forth sniping.
This is quite different from Janet's closing of the off topic sections on Realrates. She did this because the activity was reaching a fever pitch. Whereas even with very low posting activity, the mood here on the political sections has become toxic and the political garbage has become a rallying point for individuals to score points and to engage in passive aggressive bullshit and to argue with each other.
(rant deleted - thought better of it)
The commentary and explanations by vital, engaged professionals who are actively working in today's industry are always welcome here. I always enjoy the participation of (among others): Slinky, David Randolph, Dennis Nedry, Pxsant, ID Shukov, Peter Coderight, JBucks, and several others, the majority of whom are here to discuss meat and potatos career, professional and technical topics.
I'm not "anointing" certain people - but it's become evident to me who is out in the world with skin in the game in the IT field - and who is simply idle, and kibitzing and throwing hot air and bullshit, and lurking with constant smartass comments. The "problem" is, the political sections throw that distinction into sharp relief.
One final thing. I DESPISED the tone of the political section lately. Absolutely hated it. I could not be proud of this board in any way with that kind of crap going on.
So will closing these sections kill off the board? I couldn't care less if it does. I will not run a place where people come just to argue and to bitch at each other.
And, JTGalt, just to counter your inevitable snark - I don't believe that this will "transfer energy" to other sections. The people who are actually worth reading pretty much stayed out of the politics when it became ugly. All I intend to do is dry up a crappy set of discussions that go nowhere.
I have no idea what will actually happen. Maybe a sigh of collective relief. Maybe a collective "FU" directed at me personally. Don't care.
