the mods are starting to lose patience. Seems as if they're fed up with the current status of this forum. And to be honest, I'm on their side. I remember how the first threads were full of interesting discussions on a very high level and the atmosphere was one of mutual respect. Philosophical and sociopolitical topics dominated (such as drugs, anarchy, freedom, pacifism and globalization) and every post was an intellectual challenge.

What happened?
This forum simply turned into a USA/Israel/Iraq/Palestine post-orgy, full of insults and attacks. Totally destructive, never-ending threads about the same aubjects.

Since I really like this forum (my favourite one after the germany one; I even prefer-ED it to the chill out room) I don't want it to be closed. Especially after the huge effort that was made in order to have it created.
So: What happened to the likes of Trancaholic, Cortexbomb etc.? Why can't we get back to more abstract, but surely more interesting and peaceful discussions like the Nihilism debate going on in the chill out room? Big historians and philosophs of this forum, you know who you are, let's get the "political" forum back on track!

___________________
"Those are my principles, if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

You're right. I'm going to boycott all threads on USA vs Iraq or Israel vs Palestine. This isn't going anywhere, and its only making this forum a less intelligent place.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter You're right. I'm going to boycott all threads on USA vs Iraq or Israel vs Palestine. This isn't going anywhere, and its only making this forum a less intelligent place.

yeh it's true. those thread aren't going anywhere. it's like black & white arguments in there ( i contribute )

not any more though....

hopefully, unless i feel like pissing someone off.

eh, people take these forums too seriously

>JM<

quote:

Originally posted by TranceGiant So: What happened to the likes of Trancaholic, Cortexbomb etc.?

Thanks for mentioning my nick TranceGiant. It's nice to know somebody has enjoyed my contribution to these forums.
I do have a bad conscience for not participating any more in this section, as I was one of the verbal proponent for its creation. The reasons are two-fold. First, my education is nearing its completion and takes extreme amounts of time, presently. Second, somehow my family affairs seem to have gone mad over the last six months. When asked to deal with hospitalizations, burglaries, suicide and such, I have found that I do not have the energy reserves for investigating global political issues and philosophical arguments on the level of detail they require, and hence have abstained from partaking in the debate around here.
Anyway, I mention these reasons only to assure you that my absense has nothing to do with lower quality of the discussions around here. Things are looking more bright for me now, though, so I hope that I can start participating again soon.

quote:

Originally posted by TranceGiant What happened? This forum simply turned into a USA/Israel/Iraq/Palestine post-orgy, full of insults and attacks. Totally destructive, never-ending threads about the same aubjects.

I believe that you can ascribe this phenomenon to the current massive news coverage of those conflicts - and only those, it seems. Furthermore, they are conflicts most people seem to have an opinion about - and conflicting ones at that (which is a prerequisite for discussion IMO).
The problem, as I see it, is when obvious propagandists succeed in provoking people from "the other side". Kind of reminds me of the "DJ James M vs. Paul Wilson"-fights in the old days. The conflicts wouldn't exist if the provoked side "simply" abstained from retorting.

Some interesting discussions have been taken, I think. The discussion on Chirac's rebuke of the "new Europe" I would love to be a part of, for instance, as it is something I am very much agitated by.
There have been others as well, and for the sake of these discussions alone I feel it would be a shame to close down this section. That would be to punish the community for the crimes of the individuals (how's that for a topic of discussion, by the way?).

In all honesty, if you were to compare the discussions in this forum to those of any other on the entire board, you would find that there is less flaming and more civility on this forum than on each the others. Even when a passionate disagreement arises, it usually gets sorted out on its own, without the need for a moderator to step in and close the topic. I agree, if the arguments start to get personal, then it's time to get heavy-handed, but - in all seriousness - I don't think I'm seeing that any more. There were a few (taking care not to mention any names ) who didn't seem interested in holding down a civil conversation when this forum was first created, but I've noticed an improvement from all of them. While there is still going to be passionate bipartisanism in the forum (it's politics, you've got to expect some feistiness) so long as there's an argument in there, and no personal insults, I fail to see the problem.

As for the issue of having the same topics appear over and over again, as Mental Exodus and trancaholic said, it's only because they're relevant and presently topical. While I agree that the Isreali/Palestinian threads have degenerated into mindless conflict on a few occasions (much like in real life unfortunately ) the Iraqi debates have generally been of a high quality, with lots of facts and figures being passed back and forth. The point is, the good discussions (which outnumber the "bad" discussions by a pretty good ratio imho) just wouldn't be possible in the Chill-Out Room. Could you imagine trying to discuss the Iraqi conflict in there? It'd be impossible. That's why we created this forum, and that's why it needs to stay, even if the mods are worried about how "out of control" it's getting. Perhaps we need mods who are willing and able to visit this forum more often in charge? Nothing against the four who moderate it now, but given the amount of time they must spend moderating the C/O Room, Music Discussion Room and the Regional Forums, it couldn't be easy for them to moderate this one as well (Blik's the only one I ever see posting in here, and that's usually quite rarely). I say, give moderator powers here to Izzy, TranceGiant and anyone else who's already a mod and visits regularly, and hope that everything stays in check. I don't think that there's much of a problem here - and perhaps this "problem" can't be solved be extra moderation - but if we could work out some rules about what does and does not constitute acceptable posting, and to get these regulars to ensure that these rules are enforced, I reckon we will see a marked improvement.

Sorry about the lack of paragraphing, but I'm just spooling all this off the top of my head.

quote:

I do have a bad conscience for not participating any more in this section, as I was one of the verbal proponent for its creation. The reasons are two-fold. First, my education is nearing its completion and takes extreme amounts of time, presently. Second, somehow my family affairs seem to have gone mad over the last six months. When asked to deal with hospitalizations, burglaries, suicide and such, I have found that I do not have the energy reserves for investigating global political issues and philosophical arguments on the level of detail they require, and hence have abstained from partaking in the debate around here. Anyway, I mention these reasons only to assure you that my absense has nothing to do with lower quality of the discussions around here. Things are looking more bright for me now, though, so I hope that I can start participating again soon.

Hey, I was wondering where you had gotten to! Sounds like you have a lot to deal with at the moment, and I know all to well just how difficult it is to concern yourself political issues when you face more immediate problems in your own life, but I hope you come through it all okay though. Hope to see you posting regularly again soon - and that ought to raise the intellectual level of this board a peg or two.

___________________
http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/

I agree with you guys, when u say that despite the decrease of quality, this forum is still a better place to discuss politics than, say, the chill out room. But, without wanting to sound arrogant, why should that be our standard? This is no excuse for what's gradually(not totally - yet) taking place here. We cannot deny that back in the "old days" the level was a higher one.

I also understand why lately this place was filled with Iraq threads, it's just logical and I see it on myself, as I constantly think about and analyze the conflict. I also agree that a great part of these discussions are pretty educationg and interesting but unfortunately there's currently a development towards "quantitiy instead of quality". I'm not saying we should entirely cancel those discussions, but a slight regulation (not even moderation) will work wonders. Also, different topics now and then just keep you motivated and perhaps even have people, who in the iraq issue totally disagree, find themselves united towards a certain other topic.

___________________
"Those are my principles, if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

I just wanted to add my 2 cents into this as well. I may not be a big contributer around here but I do enjoy reading the various threads and posts very much. I try to add something to the discussion when ever I feel I have something of worth to contribute with.

However, someone of the mods mentioned he always thought having a political discussion area on a trance forum would be a bad idea. I must say that at this particular forum it's a strength! I have been hanging out on various politcal forums before and in almost all cases there is one view that totally dominates with a lot of people just preaching for the quire. Once in a while there pops up a person with a different view who gets so thuroughly flamed he never shows up again and status que is preserved. This makes the forum in it self very one sided and no discussions worth the name is really happening. People just states fact that support their views and nobody put them to the test.

Since this is a trance forum a lot of people from all walks of life come together and a lot of different views is discussed. When someone post something it's almost guaranteed somebody else has a completly different view of the situation. In ost cases that person would try to argue with facts from his point of view. I understand this can result in endless flame wars and personal hate campaigns etc, but here at TranceAddict it's actually kept at a very mature level. Go have a look around other trance forums like Trance.nu. It looks like kindergarten with everybody sitting in the same sandbox arguing over toys. bleh! Even so, having a lot of different views present can still be very meaningful since it makes you aware not everybody see stuff the same way. And very often there are valid reasons as to why.

So, to round this up quickly, I would really miss the politcal discussion area on TA since it's of such high quality. I learn a lot here. More than I ever thought I would.

And I'll add my 2 cents too (first time I heard that expression was on this forum, hehe) and say that I also like this forum very much. There are many things I learned here, and the amount of flaming is really not that high. I mean, come on people, this is a political forum, and if everybody had same oppinions about everything, there would be no politics. Besides, an occasional flame or two isn't strong enough reason to close down this forum. But most importantly, I like to argue with people but still know that we have something in common, like our music tastes.

___________________
1+1=10

Doesn't anybody find that the other forums are simply too big? You make a posting in teh morning and then you have to go to page 2 or 3 by night because there are a billion new threads since then. I find that participation is a lot easier here since the number of people here is actually manageable. Kind of like regional forums except better in my opinion! To close down a popular forum because of a few bad eggs and a few overheated arguments would be a shame. Maybe we should set up our own internal police force to keep people in line. Like PM the hell out of excessive flamers to tell them to shut up. Anyway if this forum were to close down I'd be a lot more bored at work ...

I honestly see more flaming in the chillout forum than I do here. Granted, there are several very intense, passionate debates taking place, but recently I've seen very little if any personal attacks and flaming.

I can sympathize with your agitation at the lack of variety of topics posted in this forum. However, I don't believe this issue would justify an entire forum being closed. Perhaps it would be a good idea to temporarily create another forum for the Iraq/USA/Palestinian/Anti-War threads.

Even though the numerous threads might seem annoying, they are valid. In some way or another, most of the world is affected by this issue. The outcome could possibly lead to one of the largest changes in global politics this world has ever seen.

I'm just a newb, but it seems unrealistic--if not counterproductive--to have a "politics" forum and expect people not to comment on the issue which is currently dominating our social and political discourse.

My 2C...

hey guys!

It sucks no one knows me, but i feel like I have to be nice and fake to show people i'm not some 'nazi' fanatic!

bottom line with my posts so far, I just want to see the reactions of you people! I know this is a tranceboard, and believe you me, its the best around! But political stuff?? I heard someone who told me, a website should stick to its main purpose, and not try to branch out too much, lest its additional features cause problems.

This was referring actually to ICQ, always adding features and stuff and personally I never used any of them. Returning to the subject here, I don't feel a trance website should really have any offical time wasted on the likes of a political forum. WHILE IT IS ENJOYABLE FOR SOME TO POST, OTHERS TO WATCH, and some to just say close it down, ultimately, what has been going on is what will happen.

I don't know what to tell you guys besides the fact that my views will never change based on anything I hear here, only something I READ or physically research for myself. And being a jew, I want to make sure i'm not being subjective, but objective.

Most people here just post to vent themselves. Atleast this is what it has turned into. I can't see how its possible to have objective solid conversations here, when I post something, and then its torn apart by people who are obviously anti-semitic, which thus turns me to want to flame them for their lies, which may penetrate the objective guys views!!!

So you see, for people like me, who everyday have something serious to lose, (and we are constantly losing) to see these people who unfortunetly are brainwashed to believe that jews are the worst people ever, constantly replying making sure to bash us everywhere we go, I feel the need to bash back..

but as of now.... NO MORE... not that i've been doing it for so long, but I learn fast, and I want to make sure that if this board is open, I can learn about history in general, and fine tune my argument skills by having good debates..

right now a friend of mine is sitting here that knows so much history, If we could sit here for 24 hours straight right now, there would not be even 1 more argument, because through his solid history knowledge and my typing skills, we would be able to bring proof to any statement from me or someone else.

I think as an important tool for this board, there should be like a FAQ or a seperate posting for links to commonly said stupidities, that people like myself and melech_mike can't help flaming too...

I hope we can all share in the common bond of the love for trance together, and let this forum only serve to bring us closer through objective debating, and by avoiding personal attacks.

THANK YOU FOR THIS GREAT TA BOARD!

AND REMEMBER, ITS ALL ABOUT TORONTO FOR STARTING THIS BOARD!! CAUSE EVERYONE WHO MATTERS IS FROM TORONTO BABY!!!! WOO HOOO the best party scene in north america!!!

<___ THAT IS THE KINDA POLITICAL QUESTIONS THAT SHOULD BE ASKED HERE!!!

IS TORONTO THE BEST PARTY SCENE???

DOES TIESTO USE POLITICAL METHODS TO REACH HIS GOALS? CAUSE I'VE HEARD THAT TIESTO DOESN't LIKE TO USE THE MEDIA AS MUCH AS SOME OTHER DJ'S ETC...

that is the kinda stuff that i think should be posted here...


bye and im rambling

so ill try to stop doing that too

SHLOMO ELIYAHU BARON