Some people live and breathe politics. Personally, I hate it. The main reason is, social media. Way to many lies and disinformation and misinformation. It's all in an attempt to sway a person to vote they way they want you too.
There shouldn't be a right or left, but an AMERICAN way of thinking. I'm leaving it right there.
With a trucking community, it creates a unique issue.
Most of the current events in trucking are related to politics.
If I could make it work, my perfect scenario would be to simply delete the politics forum all together, and allow the natural discussion of current trucking news to include the political aspect of the topic.
The issue with this, and in retrospect it may be an issue I created for myself, is that it is difficult to allow the political aspect into the discussion without diving off into the attack at political beliefs and totally losing the discussion and anyone who previously wanted to be involved in the discussion.
In other words, historically, the conversation is taken over by the most extreme of either side of the political isle and everyone else is alienated and no longer interested in interacting. THIS is the primary problem that has wiped this forum out over the years. Most of the active people that we have lost over the years has been due to this right here. To take it a step further, I allowed it to happen because I have always been focused on running a community that avoided banning members who couldn't play by simple rules.
What I have learned, as a result, is that a traditional forum cannot thrive without rules and proper moderation of the rules. You don't need a ton of rules, but you can't the rules that you create go ignored.
Nothing destroys a conversation faster than focusing on politics and attacking the side you oppose politically rather than actually talking about the topic and why it is good or bad for trucking.
Then, you have those who don't have anything to add to the discussion, but they hate a political party, so they simply contribute a meme that adds nothing to the discussion. Yet another discussion killer.
And finally, you have those who look for any opportunity to use these discussions to allow their hatred of others to slip out. Meme's or disrespectful comments about their ethnicity or religious beliefs always find their way in. And when they are allowed to find their way in, you have instantly alienated many potential members.
So, with all that said, I am not at crossroads of figuring out how to move forward with the community and seeing if it can survive with actual moderation of the things mentioned, including removing those who simply show up and refuse to show respect to the rest of the community.
.
