A local forum I help moderate allows (even encourages) political debate. It can get pretty spirited. Fortunately, most of the participants are somewhat familiar with each other (at least through the forum, if not personally), so the banter is predictable, at worst. Sometimes, though, you have to suggest that the participants step away from the computer, since you can sense the smoke rising from their collars.
Still, it’s an appropriate place to discuss the subject.
A forum with as wide an audience as this one can include folks who remain relatively sane when discussing trains, but whose love/hate for a politician or party knows no bounds. You’re either with them or against them - there can be no middle ground. And if you’re against 'em… Duck!
I can live without the “my guy’s great, yours stinks” debate. Obviously there are political issues within the transportation industry, but for the most part we seem to be able to discuss them in a level headed manner.
Folks, in particular with yesterday’s announcement that the administration intends to upgrade 11 corridors to three digit speeds, I don’t see how it is going to be possible to discuss passenger rail without involving politics.
Just stick to the topic. Is what is proposed good or bad, and why? The why and other responses don’t have to include assessments and opinions on the politics of those working on the problem, nor on those leanings of the people posting here. Unfortunately, what happens all too often (and hence the rule for the forum) is that one or more people can’t compartmentalize the topic and keep it separate from the politics generating the topic. The posts in a number of instances turn to degeneracy (the term to be understood with reference to the rule) and become vituperation and invective directed at posters, what Norris calls ill will. This ruins the thread for many who can keep the issues separate and who would prefer that it not degenerate and get sidetracked/off-topic. The rule is meant to prevent the ill-will from being expressed.
Then, if you are a railfan, you have to say the Obama move toward high speed rail is a good thing. Period, end of discussion. But that is not what we are here for. So if you want to discuss the topic a person’s political bent will be introduced into the conversation. There are so many questions and discussion points to follow which will lead to some kind of political expression no matter what your pursuasion. So far on these forums at Trains and Classic Trains, I have been impressed at the calbre of discussion, i.e. lacking name calling, etc., which happens on other forums. I feel that for the most part our participants appear intellegent enough and disiplined enough to have an amicable discussion taking all aspects of the topic into coniseration. Like all political discussions, the end point is that we all agree to disagree and move on with no bitterness or retri
Unless I missed something somewhere, there is a BIG difference between a discusion OF politics and a political discussion.
The first would be to discuss how you think politics effects a certain topic. For example, do you think that Obama and LaHood being from Illinois will skew where the HSR money goes? Politics is certainly a big part of the “why or why not” in this case.
The second would be where you stake out a political position and then defend it with political ideology or partisan pragmatism. For example, “I think Amtrak is a blatant example of socialism and true Americans are only for free markets, so Amtrak should die”.
For spending the stimulus money, there is a big emphasis on “green,” and HSR is touted to be green. But, while rail is relatively green in terms of fuel efficiency, green goes down as speed goes up. In fact, there is plenty of popular sentiment to lower highway speed limits in order to be greener. So it seems to me that to be really green, we need low-to-medium speed rail.
The posts that follow my last one are examples that shine…they are excellent models of how a conversation can probe political decisions and decision-making to get at what is important, what follows from previous arguments, and so on. Let’s take the last post: I would counter that the offset of the higher speed in passenger rail service may be a significant reduction in tonnages moved by single drivers in personal automobiles who find that when they do the math the rail transit makes a lot more sense. In that respect, the HSR may turn out to be a “greener” step for all concerned.
Here we are talking about a political term, “green”, and how it should be manipulated, not only pragmtically, but in logic. What we don’t want to cascade from the discussion is a series of exchanges where we say, “Oh, so Obama and his cronies are obviously out to lunch, like all Democrats, because…yada yada…{and yet more silly generalizations].”
If we stick to the substance that relates to the use of rails, and obliguely mention their provenance, I don’t feel that it is a problem. It is what is sure to come later that the rules prohibit, and which the mods are expected to forestall when they know, or suspect, that it is coming.
It would be so much easier if it were just one offender all the time. It would make isolating that person and dealing constructively with him/her near surgical. But the problem is magnified by others who can’t bear to be left out of the chest-beating, and we then have to begin a series of post deletions, PM’s and all the other stuff that will eat up my time on the forums. No thanks.
Perhaps an indication that the moderators and administrators have been doing a good job of keeping the purely political out of it.
As I see it, the line gets crossed when a discussion crosses the line from whether the action is good or bad (should we build whatever) to the political motives and the personalities of the people/bodies involved. We can discuss ad nauseum why something should or shouldn’t get done. But when the discussion turns to “this shouldn’t get done because politician Smith is an idiot,” it’s gone in the wrong direction.
The next level of degeneration occurs when John Q. Railfan starts attacking Sam Semaphore personally because he says he supports Smith’s action. Now we aren’t discussing the merits of building anything, and it’s time to lock/delete the thread - a real loss to those who actually were holding a civilized discourse on the topic.
It’s tough to keep politics totally out of many railroad discussions. Methinks the key is to keep the personalities (our own and the politicians) out of the mix.
I wish I could say I am surprised, but I am not. Clearly, many many people can post here consitently and not be moderated. They seem to have a good handle on what is acceptable and what isn’t. There are some who cannot seem to understand that some topics, or their framing, are not acceptable, and they get angry because they find that what they post is often edited or removed. No amount of explaining to them why their posts are unacceptable seems to have the salutary effect of changed behaviour. They cannot or will not modify their behaviour, and that includes their orientation to the rules. Nevertheless, the rules are what they are and will be both interpreted and applied by those who post them.
All the foregoing to say that I have seen, and acted upon, what I take to be vituperation and invective. That much won’t change.