Help Identify why Polidicks is so Shyte (protip: its u) - General

My biggest pet peeve about how people discuss politics here is some dude will post a short and concise opinion, and then two or three guys with more time than sense will respond to it in five long paragraphs each. And the arguments are always a bunch of hostile over assumptions about the other person's intentions and character. And then they expect five paragraphs back or else they act like they just btfo of the other guy. It just comes off as obnoxious and smug.

This will probably be a bit of an unpopular opinion, but I would actually say "none of the above". Polidicks (formerly SH), has always kind of been like this. Or at least, it's always been a bit of a cesspit ever since I've been here. It might seem like it's worse due to the current trends in politics, but I haven't really noticed any striking changes over the years. EDIT: The call-outs have also always been a thing, particularly around election time. I have distinct recollections of people calling out Doneeh during the 2012 election, much in the same way Tudd's been called out in current Polidicks. Things did admittedly feel a [I]little[/I] more lighthearted back then, but that's probably because the candidates back then weren't as much of a road-killed abortion as these most recent candidates were.

[QUOTE=butre;53083044]it's the users. people who bring Trump in when he's not relevant to the discussion. you know, kinda like your shitty poll options[/QUOTE] Trump is pretty much why it exists though? Remember how shitty and cluttered with his horseshit SH was before it became a subforum? [editline]a[/editline] The icon for it is literally a penis with Trump hair.

[QUOTE=gk99;53084261]Trump is pretty much why it exists though? Remember how shitty and cluttered with his horseshit SH was before it became a subforum? [editline]a[/editline] The icon for it is literally a penis with Trump hair.[/QUOTE] not all political discussion has anything to do with trump though

I think I roll my eyes at least 10 times a day reading posts from there.

It's always the same clique of people circlejerking eachother nowadays and spewing out the most childish, reality-warping, disingenuous opinions this forum has had in a long while. I almost feel certain topics are apparently owned by a small vocal group of people that always pop up at the same time and shout down everyone atop ivory towers built out of unreadable drivel and pseudo-smartness whenever someone has the gall of disagreeing. It's the users. The self-propelled trump hysteria machine simply can't stop - otherwise, what would all those guys complain about?

[QUOTE=Lazore;53082996]Fuck Tudd, hate his threads, wish i could have a script that hides them from popular threads[/QUOTE] the reaction Tudd gets alone makes me love him [editline]26th January 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=pebkac;53083173]I'm glad it does, makes SH so much cleaner.[/QUOTE] It's the reason its shit because its SH except the bad parts of SH so basically it's just SH turned up to a higher level

Making "Citation Needed" a valid ban reason would help tbh

It's because on the internet there is no such thing as debate. Only bickering and arguing. I know I certainly don't come in there for debate. I don't want debate in the first place, and if I did, I'd do it face to face rather than on the internet. I'm in there because I'm curious to see how the raging dumpster fire that is our administration is doing, and to drop a comment or two when I feel the need.

[QUOTE=gokiyono;53085970]Making "Citation Needed" a valid ban reason would help tbh[/QUOTE] I can guarantee you that doing that then devolves into an argument about the validity of said citation. "Oh, you posted a citation from XYZ? Pfft, said citation is meaningless, because <blah,blah, words about bias, small sample size, etc etc.>" Then the bickering shifts from "Cite your sources" to "Your sources are trash and so are you!" "No u" and so on.

[QUOTE=snookypookums;53083176]That's also kind of why I like (and hate) the Reddit ordering system when it comes to comments - something inane/silly/jokey/poor taste gets downvoted to oblivion and sent to the bottom of the page(well, it used to, now everyone's a fucking comedian on there and comments are carcinogenic). That system kinda self-sorts its way out to getting the better/informative discussions on top to keep the topic on track. The only other alternative is absolutely strict moderation of each and every thread, which also ends up killing conversation or shows as moderator bias (like, for example, r/AskWomen, where although never actually stated, men are strongly discouraged from even talking in there, though women are allowed to, and actively participate, in r/AskMen discussions. Posts in r/AskWomen are routinely removed for inane shit like "Derailing" or even "invalidation"). Seriously, go take a look at any of their comments on any question and see if you can find a single one without comments removed. That's what ridiculous levels of moderation are.[/QUOTE] Uhh, no, it doesn't. It may be intended to, but Reddit's voting system just encourages hivemind shitposting.

[QUOTE=TestECull;53086242]Uhh, no, it doesn't. It may be intended to, but Reddit's voting system just encourages hivemind shitposting.[/QUOTE] Hence the "it used to" in the post. :v: Now all of the usual memeshit, low effort posting stereotypical garbage floats to the top of the page on most of the main/default subreddits. The more heavily moderated non-default subreddits still function properly and as I described, but the default subs are pure cancer at this point. The content of any sub that becomes default devolves into pure shit as soon as it gets turned. For examples of some well modded subs, go look at subs like r/science, for example. On the other hand, r/worldnews? Any article about India, for example, say ISRO launches a spacecraft, I can accurately predict that the following comments are going to be present and upvoted to some degree: [QUOTE]Lol why is India spending so much money sending rockets when they don't have enough toilets[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]POO IN LOO[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]DESIGNATED SHITTING STREETS[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]PAJEET CAN INTO SPACE LOLOLOL[/QUOTE] Anyway, the point is - the reddit ordering system definitely does work in well-moderated subreddits. The default subs are completely overwhelmed by the tidal wave of shitposters and simply can't do much beyond a point.

[QUOTE=snookypookums;53086250]Hence the "it used to" in the post. :v: Now all of the usual memeshit, low effort posting stereotypical garbage floats to the top of the page on most of the main/default subreddits. The more heavily moderated non-default subreddits still function properly and as I described, but the default subs are pure cancer at this point. The content of any sub that becomes default devolves into pure shit as soon as it gets turned. For examples of some well modded subs, go look at subs like r/science, for example. On the other hand, r/worldnews? Any article about India, for example, say ISRO launches a spacecraft, I can accurately predict that the following comments are going to be present and upvoted to some degree: Anyway, the point is - the reddit ordering system definitely does work in well-moderated subreddits. The default subs are completely overwhelmed by the tidal wave of shitposters and simply can't do much beyond a point.[/QUOTE] The only posts I've ever been gilded for have been absolute shitposts. One like dreck that would be borderline bannable here, over there, it has earned me nearly a year's worth of Gold over the 4-5 years I've been on Reddit. Honestly, though, if I was to reform Reddit I would make its default behavior be 'New' instead of 'Hot', and I'd give people an option in their control panel to sort subs, and to sort comments, by however they wish if the default doesn't suit their tastes.

[QUOTE=Kecske;53083674]One problem that comes to my mind, is that Polidicks contains a disproportionate amount (compared to the userbase) of threads about US politics and/or Trump which have absolutely no significance for the rest of the world, and are honestly quite boring in the first place. Usually these are made by a handful of posters, in batches. And even alongside this, its not uncommon for threads about other countries to get completely derailed because somebody brings up something US/Trump related. Suddenly 45% of the forum has a familiar topic to talk about and it completely buries the original discussion ([URL="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1591138"]example[/URL], at least moderation was on point here!). Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against American users or topics, it's just that if you post multiple threads you should consider if those are about something that would be interesting to read for a person on the other side of the world. And it's a subforum that is very prone to derails so we all should be more careful about that.[/QUOTE] It doesn't help that non-American/non-Trump threads more or less get ignored and drop to the bottom of the forums with only 2 or 3 posts while Trump threads stay alive a week and go to 10 pages at times. I try my best to post non-American news in there just for some variety, but rarely does it get any kind of attention. [editline]27th January 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=snookypookums;53086240]I can guarantee you that doing that then devolves into an argument about the validity of said citation. "Oh, you posted a citation from XYZ? Pfft, said citation is meaningless, because <blah,blah, words about bias, small sample size, etc etc.>" Then the bickering shifts from "Cite your sources" to "Your sources are trash and so are you!" "No u" and so on.[/QUOTE] Having the media bias check is a good start to that. If citations are majority from news agencies, using that political spectrum check, it would be a [I]mostly[/I] good start to having a serious citation rule going on.

[QUOTE=gokiyono;53085970]Making "Citation Needed" a valid ban reason would help tbh[/QUOTE] No we're not the fucking source police, use your own brain to discern what claims suck ass and probably need a challenge or outright ignored. This is a gaming forum not a scholarly debate. + It's the users job to ask people making claims for sources. someone failing to provide one gives them a chance to do so, or apologize, or play out dumb enough to justify a ban. You do realize this has a purpose right???

[QUOTE=TestECull;53086353]The only posts I've ever been gilded for have been absolute shitposts. One like dreck that would be borderline bannable here, over there, it has earned me nearly a year's worth of Gold over the 4-5 years I've been on Reddit. Honestly, though, if I was to reform Reddit I would make its default behavior be 'New' instead of 'Hot', and I'd give people an option in their control panel to sort subs, and to sort comments, by however they wish if the default doesn't suit their tastes.[/QUOTE] Same here - used to consistently get gilded for some of my posts that usually mocked Redditor behaviour in the snarkiest, meta way possible because it made people very uncomfortable with coming face to face with the things they are vs. the way the try to present themselves :v:. As far as fixing, I actually think that FP is somewhat marginally better in that regard by way of the moderation, albeit on a much smaller scale. For Reddit, the site I've been on for almost 10 years before I finally decided it was time to leave, I saw the downward slide of it the moment they added the karma system. In the beginning, with a limited number of users, Reddit was like a really discount version of slashdot, mostly tech stuff until they really exploded. That and the whole "downvote = disagree" instead of "downvote = doesn't add to discussion" was an education lesson that didn't come until it was too late and the behavior was set in stone as a way of quelling different opinions in favor of popular, inoffensive yet also low-effort shitposting. Remove the validation of meaningless karma points, nip the desire to pander to nobodies on the internet with regurgitated jokes. If the scores themselves were invisible and were presented for a set period in, say, raffle mode (different one on top each time you refreshed the page) with the final ordering solidifying after a set period for archive use of what the public considered good answers vs. bad, that might help kill the behavior.

A politics discussion is already a shitshow most of the time. Polidicks is that compounded by the fact that it's on an internet forum.

[QUOTE=Craptasket;53086746]No we're not the fucking source police, use your own brain to discern what claims suck ass and probably need a challenge or outright ignored. This is a gaming forum not a scholarly debate. + It's the users job to ask people making claims for sources. someone failing to provide one gives them a chance to do so, or apologize, or play out dumb enough to justify a ban. You do realize this has a purpose right???[/QUOTE] In that case, what's the purpose of the media bias check site before posting threads then?

I stopped going there since everything is about the US

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;53087654]In that case, what's the purpose of the media bias check site before posting threads then?[/QUOTE] I wasn't talking about sources used FOR threads, just sourcing claims made in replies which is way harder/stupid to moderate if we had to ban everyone for not posting a source to their claim by their first reply. Wasn't even factoring quality of source there either. But for that topic on media bias check for thread OPs: it's good to streamline a better habit of using balanced sources, and since people ripped their own heads off seeing a Fox News article and trolls taking advantage of that - it was an easy rule to make.

[QUOTE=butre;53084610]not all political discussion has anything to do with trump though[/QUOTE] No, but if you take 5 seconds to look at the subforum and ctrl+f "trump," you'll see that [I]most[/I] of it does. I was going to take pictures and link them but it's not really worth linking 3-4 huge pictures when I really doubt it'll change much between now and 2020.

I think Polidicks is a shitshow, but I love the shitshow

Is newpunch getting rid of Polidicks?

Actually the biggest thing I notice about Polidicks is that there's a lot of content free threads now because most of the stories are about Trump and he's so easy to hate. There isn't a whole lot of discussion unless someone posts a differing opinion. There's only so many ways you can go into a thread and say "well, that's terrible." It's only fun when something big with the Russia investigation comes out and everybody gets less depressed and more excited. When Obama was president the news wasn't always a train wreck sucking up all the attention, so more topics were being discussed, including a lot more ones that FPers don't all agree on. The variety kept it from feeling like SH was being flooded with the same kind of threads.

[QUOTE=DinoJesus;53083758]My biggest pet peeve about how people discuss politics here is some dude will post a short and concise opinion, and then two or three guys with more time than sense will respond to it in five long paragraphs each. And the arguments are always a bunch of hostile over assumptions about the other person's intentions and character. And then they expect five paragraphs back or else they act like they just btfo of the other guy. It just comes off as obnoxious and smug.[/QUOTE] I think I'm guilty of that (rambling long posts and assumptions about other person's intent), cept expecting a long answer back, I don't do that. People can reply however they want to imo if at all [editline]29th January 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=Mio Akiyama;53090353]Is newpunch getting rid of Polidicks?[/QUOTE] IMO we need a containment board for stuff. SH/new section will be filled up with political discussion otherwise and lotsa people don't appreciate that.

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;53091004] IMO we need a containment board for stuff. SH/new section will be filled up with political discussion otherwise and lotsa people don't appreciate that.[/QUOTE] It'll be fine when the US government is no longer generating scandals on a bi-daily basis.

We should take all of the bad parts of Polidicks and make another section from that, separate from SH and polidicks [editline]30th January 2018[/editline] we'll call it the "refugee camp"

Polidicks is infuriating because there's very rarely "That's your opinion? Well here's mine", but instead people care more about proving any alternative opinion wrong; disagreeing is one thing, ganging up to beat away the opposition is another. Also far too many people there wield a holier-than-thou attitude everywhere they post, and are eager to be patronising to those pesky naysayers. And this applies to both Trump and non-Trump threads.

I say it's because Polidicks is an echo chamber where if your opinion is not a same as their opinion (I.e.: warmongering against Iran; Russia, and Syria), you will look down upon. Which is why I don't post there, since I think it's a waste of time debating with them anyway.

[QUOTE=varg666;53094305]I say it's because Polidicks is an echo chamber where if your opinion is not a same as their opinion, you will look down upon. Which is why I don't post there, since I think it's a waste of time debating with them anyway.[/QUOTE] Just because you dwell on the radical fringe doesn't mean doesn't mean everyone else is in an echo chamber. If a group of people all disagree with you it doesn't make them an echo chamber, especially if, on loads of other topics, they disagree with one another, as is what happens most of the time on facepunch.