What happens when a prominent user experiences something negative? Like for example they die, or face harassment from people either inside or outside the community. Do you ban them for breaking the cardinal rule, or allow your forum to become political?
It's not at all easy to create a forum that bans all off topic discussion. I've ran smaller forums before. If you honestly think you can do better then by all means, give it a try. You'll quickly realize that your users are human, and you'll be forced to make decisions that are intrinsically political.
Thee is no such thing as a forum that can avoid political discussion. Just one that aligns with your beliefs.
> they die, or face harassment from people either inside or outside the community.
I fail to see why some online admins can stop any of these.
Every single forum is going to grow a culture around it consisting of memes, ways of talking, interacting with others etc which are all very political in nature. The fact that you've seen conflicts and have had to resolve them is proof of this. It's just human nature and fits the very definition of politics.
Yeah, we select users who can stay on topic and who can contain anger and resolve conflicts like adults (or rather, like decent human beings; we did have teenage users). Not a tough ask, and neither outrageous nor outlandish for a topical forum.
And the definition of politics is the art or science of governing. Forums operate much like miniature societies with their own laws and best conduct. Forums might be entities targetted towards very specific subjects but that doesn't free them from being political. It just means that the forum is aligned to your specific beliefs.
> It just means that the forum is aligned to your specific beliefs.
Those two statements are using different definitions of the word politics. Carefully enforcing a reasonably bland and objective set of rules is not political by any definition of the term in use by the people you're arguing with here. It only becomes political if the rules themselves take a stance on current social issues.
Of course, using the other definition, the rules themselves are political because somebody could debate them and that would be a form of political action. So you could claim it's not politics free under that definition. But that's not what was actually being discussed here, so it isn't useful in this context.
But what you're doing is conflating 'political' with 'current social issues'. Those are two entirely separate things and while current social issues are political, not everything political relates to current social issues. Forums fit the use of the word political to a tee no matter the definition you use.
Which is really the greater issue I see here on HN and across the various tech communities. As I've mentioned it is impossible for your group to be apolitical because at best that just means you agree with the status quo which is a political stance in itself.
You can disagree with having cats as pets and still post pictures of cats standing up
Many food related discussions on reddit ignore both health and animal rights considerations. Would it be appropriate to bring these topics up each time someone posts their burger? Likely not
Control will always exist, so I think it just needs to be integrated into a small order that can be managed, rather than jump into one of the always/never/any categories to stonewall it.
Unless you believe in the bullshit that is the absence of X == automatically siding what whatever X considers its opponent (usually “the establishment” or “the status quo”) at that moment in time.