Gosh....the threads you find when you'e looking for something else.....

Couple of points....yes, I know it's a necrothread but it's also pinned to be pertinent.

Political & religious threads in particular are open invitations to the flamer and argumentative and [almost] always end badly.  [There are exceptions to any rule].

Stardock and its choice of Admins are definitely apolitical....for example I certainly disagree with [some of] Frogboy's and Kryo's opinions of society and/or political standpoints, as they conversely must with mine.  I am sure that were Stardock pre-occupied with one specific Political stance they'd have avoided my appointment to the ranks of 'he-who-can-remove-people/content'....

More often than not, a thread is closed due to deterioration and one person or another [who thought they were winning the 'flame' war] will claim it's prejudice at work...when it's more correctly the timely saving of one or more people from imminent exclusion due to breaches of the TOU regarding personal attack.

At the end of the day, Stardock's communities/forums are intended to be friendly places to visit...and stay.....where everyone can enjoy themselves....but not at others' expense...

I wouldn't want it any other way.

More power to you.   If it were me, I'd be saying this is a game site and OT inflammatory topics are beyond the scope of this forum.  It deteriorates from the professionalism of the company.   That's what I'd say.   But if another forum owner believes allowing these topics adds to the sense of community, and community adds to customer loyalty, I can see their point.

Does that mean the "G-d and Science" and similar threads can be moved to JU (and avoid cross posting)?

Perhaps a list of cross-posting Forums (and where they cross post to) might help people avoid burdening others with undesired topics and fixing the tools needed to "rearrange things" when they (inevitably) occur might help? I'm not sure that expecting people to know where to go without "road signs" is workable.

I think this would be a good idea, that and the note to the atheist thread are actually fairly decent by internet Standards but I think you should have your game forums completely detached from any threads like that to avoid and negative association.

Understandable.

The raison d'etre for JoeUser.

I generally agree - but that said, we had some interesting discussions in the star wars the old republic thread about homosexual relations, etc, as a result of them being added to the game - and that topic was approached on the basis of religious convictions.  I think it was a reasonable discussion as well. 

I'm totally on board with discussions of faith/morality as part of video games.  I'd wager that I'm of the same opinion as many of you in that I'm not opening a thread about a game with the direct intent to discuss moral/religious issues, though.  But I'm totally ok with discussing them as they come up and as long as its on topic or suitable for the topic.  There's quite a bit of difference between someone chiming in every time a topic like homosexuality comes up and someone genuinely looking for a discussion.  I'm on board for the latter. 

Problem is everyone has a different idea of what is reasonable. And sadly even reasoned discussion is like adding wood to the fire once someone intent on making trouble sees it and puts a bucket of napalm on it. Imagine if someone who was actually gay got in on the thread.

Also there's the fact Stardock employees seem to take unusual liberty when discussing their views on their public accounts. Once moderators get into the slug fest things never go well. The Sins modding community basically lost one of its most helpful members after a "discussion" turned sour with a certain Stardock employee. I'm not trying to cast blame because I don't know the full details, but in my opinion that discussion should not have happened because politics should try to be avoided on a game forum, and if employees do want to talk politics they should do so off the record on alternate accounts. That is more professional and prevents Stardock itself being associated with such incidents.

Point is, the presence of political threads, whether from Joe User or else where, can hurt the gaming communities here. It would help if topics from Joe User are not shown on game forums, and topics elsewhere that are somewhat political but are worthy of discussion should be moved to Joe User. Not that Stardock should be constantly monitoring the forums for such things, but if someone reports the thread it should probably be relocated.

On average I move about one a week....mostly FROM the Gaming Forums TO JoeUser.....

That said, even Stardock 'Employees' are allowed opinions.  They shouldn't NEED/be made to to post under some alias or other just  to voice a view.

It's probably 'wise' to not refer to instances when 'full details' are not known.  Hear-say and rumour make poor argument....

I have no doubt of that... gaming forums certainly get their share of trash.

The last thing any company should be doing is having representatives take positions on issues that could make its consumers angry, assuming said issues don't directly impact its business. I remember a while back Frogboy (I think) said Stardock would stop using either Fedex or UPS because they pulled advertisements from Glen Beck's political shows, supposedly in support of free speech or something like that. All fine and good for Brad to think that, but to bring his whole company into an issue like that just doesn't make any sense to me. Rarely do people reward companies for making political moves they agree with, its far more common for them to boycott those that take views they don't like (the whole issue in the first place).

The exact same thing can happen on the forum level. If you as an employee of Stardock get into a heated argument with a customer about something not related to your business, its going to negatively affect their perception of Stardock. That can certainly lead to lost sales in the future. If you were posting the same comments on a different account, their would be no perception that Stardock was supporting that view. It may also lead to more open discussions if the moderators aren't taking sides. I don't know who you are in real life Jafo, but I know you have the right to ban me due to your shiny Stardock badge there. If you have a good point to say why not say it from the same podium as the rest of us?

Of course who am I to lecture you guys on how to run your business? If this is the kind of thing you guys want more power to you, but it seems to me it just gets you into wars you had no need in fighting.

Relevent point is the 'his' in your comment.

It's Brad's ball park....the whole shebang....

Who I am in 'real life' is abloke from Melbourne, Australia....who has know 'the gang' at Stardock long enough to be 'trusted' not to go postal on someone's arse....whether warranted or not...

Re using different accounts to post 'anonymously'....it's actually against site[s] policy to do so.  No-one has [at Stardock] more than one...other than Brad [Frogboy/Draginol] and myself [Jafo/Jafo1/Jafo2/Jafo3 - setup a decade ago by T-Man to help with site issues - and never used since - can't remember the passes, anyway].....

Never heard of the screaming palm branch of necromancy...

Necro a sticky? I'm not well versed on PC, semantics, or etiquette, but is that even possible?

Usually I get yelled at for creating a new thread- and then sometimes for a necro when something is still relevant, so I can't win it seems.

Indeed, never been in that particular sub forum...