It's a private message board. Of course there's no guarantee of free speech. But we've seen plenty of bannings on the left and right for policy violations. Not the content of the politics themselves... so I can't agree with you there.
I'm a moderate with a right lean. Still around and still in effectively zero risk of being banned for the politics while checking the far right plenty. It's not because of my politics. It's about knowing where the lines are and sticking to coloring inside them.
Hijacking, name-calling, insulting folks and other policy violations are outside the lines and are what get you points or a temp vacation
Originally Posted by HDGristle
correct. the politics doesn't matter, the content of the post does.
Oh, you can keep the Sandbox. Just ban politics locally or kick it over to the national political forum.
Would make AG sad if it happened, but I'd be pleased as punch
Originally Posted by HDGristle
the political forum was created specifically to move politics and it's sometimes acrimonious discussion out of the national sandbox. says so in a sticky note to this day. the national forum isn't restricted in that way.
https://eccie.net/showpost.php?p=1052975105&postcount=1
this goes all the way back to 2013.
i wouldn't favor banning political discussion in the various regional sandboxes because politics is often local and better discussed by local people that it affects.
Yes to pretty much all of that. Several far right folks and especially the most prolific poster get away with tons of stuff that they wouldn't if they were even slightly left leaning. If you're left leaning they may even go as far as making up a rule to sanction you with.
Originally Posted by 1pittsburgh
it should interest you that this very topic crops up in the political forum from time to time. various posters who would lean liberal/democrat also claim over the years that various other conservative/republican posters are "protected" by the staff.
my political pronouns are "conservative/republican (with some libertarian leanings)" and having been banned 4.5 times i'm pretty sure no political "protection" exists in the political forum or the site in general. the staff is indifferent to it.
i can't speak to the overall political makeup of frequent posters here because i don't read the forum enough to get a feel but i certainly do in the political forum and it's a simple matter of numbers. over time the bulk of frequent posters there trend conservative so when a liberal leaning poster gets banned they feel they are "being targeted" by the staff.
not so. plenty of conservative posters like myself, bambino and lustylad have been banned.
in my opinion,
and my experience, political leanings one way or the other don't factor in the staff's enforcement of the posting guidelines.