QUOTE (dcjewbear @ June 3, 2008 - 11:11 AM)
The problem is that someone will bring up something off topic, on the regular board, and it gets to the point where it's almost impossible to move to off topic, because of the momentum it's already picked up. I actually recommended that we move something to the off topic board, with the result that the other person got snippy with me.
So, when do you say "let's go off topic?". Are two posts too soon, and forty posts too late? I never really know, and all people react differently.
To me, and I think I'm in the minority, after five days of discussing steaks, which horrifically bad "never should have been there in the first place" chef went home, the great scallop debate, and the blog conspiracy, the board went off into politics naturally as simply another avenue of discussion. There is only so much one can debate particularly in a boring season with a blend of talented but boring contestants, and talentless ones. There is a reason some have started talking tea, and others went into politics. It's natural and organic and to be honest, screaming "OT" just annoys the ---- out of me. Of course that's just my opinion, and it's worth noting that I whined and moaned about what I considered tedious as well (sausage talk 2 months after the fact, Lets Talk Rice!, and whatever other subject annoyed me a week+ ago).
Still, all the same, I thought it was a perfectly fine digression 48 hours before the next eps. It's not like this happened wednesday or thursday night, the meat of it was sunday/monday. I don't really get why that's a big deal, but I grant that there was a reason someone here, as well as my old college floormate once mentioned, "No politics and no religion at the dinner table" before we sat down for a group floor dinner (to which I inevitably responded to Irish Brendan, "So what do we all think of those drunken, IRA loving catholic louts in Ireland anyway?" being the occasional D-Bag (and 1/2 Irishmen) that I am). It does tend to have a fracturing effect. Just today, a mild talk during my trip to the barber, ended w/some old guy bitching about "liberals stealing all our freedoms" after overhearing the debate we'd had about Obama, hilary, and McCain (luckily the lady with the sharp scissors and I were sympatico) and angrily debating me about strict constructionism and why it's the bee's knees (I tend to buy into a Living Constitution, as both Jefferson, Hamilton, and John Marshall to name a few, would).
That being said, we needed some entertainments after a long week and it's always interesting. It does bum you out, and it can effect friendships, but it's an important social tool in life to be able to separate the person from their political beliefs. Hell as a teacher I have to do, I may have political beliefs, but it sure as hell better not effect my evaluations of student work that may go in a far different direction to my own political views, particularly when I work in and near Nevada, where there are far, far more conservatives, than where I grew up in the bay area. In the end, friendship is friendship, debates can be uncomfortable but they're also healthy and a useful tool and at the end of a week I just don't see the big deal. Is tea any less or more off topic than politics? Maybe a little less off topic, but not substantially to me, and I think we would be much better off if we could disagree amicably anyway. Probably the biggest or one of the biggest problems of politics today is indeed, that whereas 20 and 40 years ago, men and women who disagreed could compromise, could reach across the aisle, could dine together, have now become incapable of doing any of that. One of the places to build an ability to do just that, to reach out, and agree to disagree, but enjoy eachothers company all the same is in community forums like this. The OT thread idea probably is the best place to put this sorta thing, but on a monday 48 hours before the next eps I don't see the problem.
you are never unkind to anyone!!!
