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Politics, Religion, and Social Issues Forum Changes (Jan 2021)

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arn

arn

macrumors god
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Apr 9, 2001
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Hi,

We are making some changes to how political (PRSI) forums work on this site.

- The main PRSI forum is no longer open to new users. That means new and existing users who haven't reached 100 posts will no longer be granted access to the PRSI forum. Existing users are grandfathered in and can continue to participate in PRSI if they want.

- If you presently have PRSI access but don't like PRSI, you are highly encouraged to opt-out by going to your account preferences and checking off "Block Politics". (May take 30 minutes to take effect). You may also just ignore the forum, though the 1st method is more complete.

- Regrading front page news posts that cross into political topics - not all will get discussion threads (we are still working this out), but Political News sub-forum will remain for the ones that do. Participation in Political News still requires 100 post minimum.

arn
 
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arn said:
- The main PRSI forum is no longer open to new users.
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Will they be able to view it though?

PRSI lived a shockingly long life, but it wont be missed by a lot of people (with some exceptions of course).
arn said:
Political News sub-forum will remain for the ones that do.
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I personally think that none of them should get discussion threads, but that is just my own personal opinion. Kudos! :)

Also, are we back in 2020? What a way to make things worse! ;)
 
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redcaptrickster said:
If we are, I'm going postal.
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45542836.jpg
 
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arn said:
Hi,

We are making some changes to how political (PRSI) forums work on this site.

- The main PRSI forum is no longer open to new users. That means new and existing users who haven't reached 100 posts will no longer be granted access to the PRSI forum. Existing users are grandfathered in and can continue to participate in PRSI if they want.

- If you presently have PRSI access but don't like PRSI, you are highly encouraged to opt-out by going to your account preferences and checking off "Block Politics".

- Regrading front page news posts that cross into political topics - not all will get discussion threads (we are still working this out), but Political News sub-forum will remain for the ones that do. Participation in Political News still requires 100 post minimum.

arn
Click to expand...
Just wanted to say this is a very sensible move on your part IMO. This seems obvious but just to clarify, it's a one way ticket for those who opt out or get banned from PRSI and that's that, right?
 
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AutomaticApple said:
No, but even after today, can they still read it if they reach 100 posts?
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Nope. Even if they reach 100 posts (after today), PRSI will not exist for them.

ericgtr12 said:
Just wanted to say this is a very sensible move on your part IMO. This seems obvious but just to clarify, it's a one way ticket for those who opt out or get banned from PRSI and that's that, right?
Click to expand...

- If you opt out in your Account Preferences, you can turn it back on at any time.
- If you get banned from PRSI -- I guess it depends on the terms of the ban - but generally I think if you get banned from it, you stay banned from it, and that hasn't changed.
 
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I never really saw the issue with the forum existing. On the one hand I can see that the discussions there may be far from the core of what MacRumors is about, unless people discuss directly Apple related political topics. On the other hand it keeps those posts centralised in one place with post count entry rules and perhaps more easily managed than if they just flood into every other forum.

I also don't really get the encouragement for people to disable it. I mean, disable it if you don't want to see it, but why is it directly "encouraged" to do so?

It's not MacRumors' responsibility to host political debates, but other people's viewpoints exist and in a much broader context than MacRumors, I fear a world where everyone's isolated in their echo chambers and only come out to fight "the enemy" rather than be able to speak to one another and have civil, orderly and respectful conversation, challenge one's own beliefs, perhaps to stand stronger and more inform, perhaps to change one's mind.

But that's neither here n'or there. As said, of course that's not MacRumors' responsibility, and I support Arn and team in the decision to phase out PRSI if that's their choice for whatever reasons there may be
 
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casperes1996 said:
I never really saw the issue with the forum existing. On the one hand I can see that the discussions there may be far from the core of what MacRumors is about, unless people discuss directly Apple related political topics. On the other hand it keeps those posts centralised in one place with post count entry rules and perhaps more easily managed than if they just flood into every other forum.

I also don't really get the encouragement for people to disable it. I mean, disable it if you don't want to see it, but why is it directly "encouraged" to do so?

It's not MacRumors' responsibility to host political debates, but other people's viewpoints exist and in a much broader context than MacRumors, I fear a world where everyone's isolated in their echo chambers and only come out to fight "the enemy" rather than be able to speak to one another and have civil, orderly and respectful conversation, challenge one's own beliefs, perhaps to stand stronger and more inform, perhaps to change one's mind.

But that's neither here n'or there. As said, of course that's not MacRumors' responsibility, and I support Arn and team in the decision to phase out PRSI if that's their choice for whatever reasons there may be
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It takes PRSI out of recent posts and New Posts. I'd always get sucked into a PRSI conversation this way trying to avoid the actual sub-forum - then be apologizing to the mods for wasting their time... yet again. When the ignore feature came out (preventing this) it was a huge plus for me.

Ignoring it saves the mods time, keeps me out of trouble, ... win win. lol.
 
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arn said:
Hi,

We are making some changes to how political (PRSI) forums work on this site.

- The main PRSI forum is no longer open to new users. That means new and existing users who haven't reached 100 posts will no longer be granted access to the PRSI forum. Existing users are grandfathered in and can continue to participate in PRSI if they want.

- If you presently have PRSI access but don't like PRSI, you are highly encouraged to opt-out by going to your account preferences and checking off "Block Politics".

- Regrading front page news posts that cross into political topics - not all will get discussion threads (we are still working this out), but Political News sub-forum will remain for the ones that do. Participation in Political News still requires 100 post minimum.

arn
Click to expand...

In the circumstances, I have to say that this seems a pretty restrained, yet sensible, move.

If I read this correctly, from today, the number of MR members able to access PRSI will inevitably decline over time, as no new members - irrespective of criteria, such as post count, or length of membership of the forum - will be admitted to that section of the forum from now on? That means that PRSI will be at its "maximum potential membership" as of today, and will never increase from that.

What of those who had received bans from PRSI for a year (after incurring three "strikes")? Are they now to lose access to PRSI permanently?

Might I take the liberty of suggesting that if the topic of removing PRSI permanently comes up again (which is something that I believe is inevitable, that is, the discussion if not the response by way of the permanent removal of the sub-forum; for, of course, @yaxomoxay was quite right in his earlier observations on how the nature, content and tone of online political discourse have been transformed over the past number of years - and this is something I would like to discuss further with him), that the sort of areas where tech (not least Apple) and socio-economic & political matters intersect (such as taxation, oversight, privacy, labour rights, whether platforms have a responsibility for policing their content, to name but a few with obvious relevance) be ringfenced separately so that such topics can be discussed, or explored, or debated, or touched upon in the forum.
 
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