But, why? What is your 'collective vision for the future' that apparently excludes the user base?

And nothing of value was lost.

Presumably one in which controversial topics are not discussed. So unfortunate.

Or one built around a specific enforced political angle.

crimson5pheonix:
And nothing of value was lost.

I know this will surprise you, but I liked arguing politics on here cause it wasn't an echo chamber. Yeah, I got into heated arguments with people, but believe it or not, as much as what people said might piss me off, I valued that there was actual argument and debate and not just an echo chamber that silences and downvotes any opposing view.

Reddit sucks for arguing politics.

Saelune:
I know this will surprise you, but I liked arguing politics on here cause it wasn't an echo chamber. Yeah, I got into heated arguments with people, but believe it or not, as much as what people said might piss me off, I valued that there was actual argument and debate and not just an echo chamber that silences and downvotes any opposing view.

Reddit sucks for arguing politics.

Another one of those occasional things I agree with you about.

And that was my favorite forum to discuss politics... :(

RIP R&P;

Schadrach:

Saelune:
I know this will surprise you, but I liked arguing politics on here cause it wasn't an echo chamber. Yeah, I got into heated arguments with people, but believe it or not, as much as what people said might piss me off, I valued that there was actual argument and debate and not just an echo chamber that silences and downvotes any opposing view.

Reddit sucks for arguing politics.

Another one of those occasional things I agree with you about.

There is a reason I am willing to spend pages and pages responding to people who vehemently disagree with me. If I truly hated it, I wouldn't do it.

Woah. Didn't expect that. Well Off-topic gonna be a lost messier now.

Oh, RIP. I guess a lot of the people around the office weren't here before R&P;?

A terrible decision through and through. Nice job.

This is a tremendously poor decision. It was made with no meaningful discussion with the community, and it alienates a significant chunk of those few people who stayed with The Escapist during the 'interregnum' (the period between the old owners and the new ones).

Kyle Gaddo:
The Off-Topic subforum is available for you to carry on discourse of this nature, but you should strictly adhere to our updated code of conduct.

It's not really, though, is it? If we made threads on the same topics with anywhere near the same frequency in Off Topic, it would completely change the character of that board, and piss off the regulars there. Everybody would be less happy than they were.

Kyle Gaddo:
Hey Escapists,

We?ve made the difficult decision to shutter our Religion & Politics subforum. We realize that this may surprise many of you, considering it?s one of the most active sections of the V1 forums, but its conclusion aligns with our collective vision for the future of Escapist Magazine Volume Two.

We?re not quite ready to reveal all of our future plans just yet, but know that we are hard at work on all of V2?s features, forums included. We have a lot of valuable feedback from the survey we conducted several weeks back and are looking to implement many of the suggestions we received alongside our own.

Thank you for your patience, your understanding, and your dedication as part of Escapist Magazine?s incredible community. We very much look forward to growing alongside you and being better together.

Kyle Gaddo
Community Manager
Escapist Magazine Volume Two

NICE!

Took you long enough to close down that toxic mess but you finally went and did it. Good job!

Now, when are you gonna bring back the Wild West forums?

Silvanus:
This is a tremendously poor decision. It was made with no meaningful discussion with the community, and it alienates a significant chunk of those few people who stayed with The Escapist during the 'interregnum' (the period between the old owners and the new ones).

Well, I didn't stay with the escapist during that period, so i don't make that list. Chances are my second stay here just got substantially shortened.

Saelune:

I know this will surprise you, but I liked arguing politics on here cause it wasn't an echo chamber. Yeah, I got into heated arguments with people, but believe it or not, as much as what people said might piss me off, I valued that there was actual argument and debate and not just an echo chamber that silences and downvotes any opposing view.

Reddit sucks for arguing politics.

It's really hard to find any non-echo chamber, but reddit might be the worst. Visibility sorted by popularity causes a natural cycle of positive reinforcement for even the slimmest majority, and that's before comments get removed without explanation. You can have a genuine 55%-45% split on an issue that, and it's rare the post won't degrade into an echo chamber of that 55% opinion.

I'll stay floating around here for a bit and see what comes of this, but in addition to being a Catholic Republican conservative, I'm also a Nintendo person, so if I'm gonna side opposite most of the forum anyway, I'd rather it be about something meaningful.

Is there anything new to note in the revised CoC?

RIP R&P;

Since the future plans can't be revealed yet, I'm gonna go ahead and start with the baseless speculation: R&P; is being shut down so that V2 can have its own Politics subforum and a separate one for things like those history topics Samtemdo often made

vallorn:

Kyle Gaddo:
Hey Escapists,

We?ve made the difficult decision to shutter our Religion & Politics subforum. We realize that this may surprise many of you, considering it?s one of the most active sections of the V1 forums, but its conclusion aligns with our collective vision for the future of Escapist Magazine Volume Two.

We?re not quite ready to reveal all of our future plans just yet, but know that we are hard at work on all of V2?s features, forums included. We have a lot of valuable feedback from the survey we conducted several weeks back and are looking to implement many of the suggestions we received alongside our own.

Thank you for your patience, your understanding, and your dedication as part of Escapist Magazine?s incredible community. We very much look forward to growing alongside you and being better together.

Kyle Gaddo
Community Manager
Escapist Magazine Volume Two

NICE!

Took you long enough to close down that toxic mess but you finally went and did it. Good job!

R&P; is going to flood off topic like the old days. Though it seems like it will be temporary until they merge the forums with the new version of the escapist.

Marik2:

R&P; is going to flood off topic like the old days. Though it seems like it will be temporary until they merge the forums with the new version of the escapist.

I was glad when R&P; was made, because Off-Topic seemed to have plenty more people who'd pour abuse on you if they disagreed. But that was a l-o-n-g time ago.

Still, out with the old and in with the new. Including, potentially, some of the site users going out if they're not getting their fix after their favourite section was shuttered. But heigh-ho.

I find myself uncaring at this news.

vallorn:

Kyle Gaddo:
Hey Escapists,

We?ve made the difficult decision to shutter our Religion & Politics subforum. We realize that this may surprise many of you, considering it?s one of the most active sections of the V1 forums, but its conclusion aligns with our collective vision for the future of Escapist Magazine Volume Two.

We?re not quite ready to reveal all of our future plans just yet, but know that we are hard at work on all of V2?s features, forums included. We have a lot of valuable feedback from the survey we conducted several weeks back and are looking to implement many of the suggestions we received alongside our own.

Thank you for your patience, your understanding, and your dedication as part of Escapist Magazine?s incredible community. We very much look forward to growing alongside you and being better together.

Kyle Gaddo
Community Manager
Escapist Magazine Volume Two

NICE!

Took you long enough to close down that toxic mess but you finally went and did it. Good job!

Katherine Kerensky:
Wouldn't call it a difficult decision. Place was a shithole and a pain in the ass to moderate due to people tiptoeing on the line of punishable posts.
Edit: During my time moderating, anyway. Not sure how it was after I left.

You do realize this isn't the victory you think it is. R&P; topics aren't going away, just a place specifically for them is. This is a lose for anyone who doesn't want to see political discussions, not a win for anyone.

JoJo:

McElroy:
Is there anything new to note in the revised CoC?

RIP R&P;

Our position on hate speech is more explicitly defined, and has been moved to the zero tolerance bracket along with sexist and perverted remarks, but otherwise the CoC should be largely familiar.

I will believe it when I see it. A lot of bigotry has gone overlooked. We need to not pretend that the only way someone is bigoted is if they say racial slurs.

Kyle Gaddo:
The Off-Topic subforum is available for you to carry on discourse of this nature, but you should strictly adhere to our updated code of conduct.

Are you joking? You're five days early...

There's a reason R&P; was created in the first place and that its threads don't show up in the latest post box. It's to keep that crap contained so it doesn't consume the whole forum.

This is a terrible decision.

R&P; posters will be pissed at how their subforum and all active threads were shut down with no warning. OT posters will be pissed at all the new politics discussion flowing in. No-one will be happy.

And I disagree with the statement that R&P; was a cesspool. It had gotten a lot better over the past few years, due in no small part to the efforts of long-term posters to maintain a culture of civil debate over shitposting. Compared to Reddit, R&P; was the Elysium goddamn Fields.

FFFF
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I'm going to miss R&P; and all the friends I've made along the way. Ah well.

I can still keep my current avatar, right?

The few times I've bothered to check R&P; in recent history has shown a few history threads of moderate interest followed by gads of "Trump did X" threads. I don't mind the history topics coming over, but I'm hardly excited about the prospect of seeing five ongoing [POLITICS] TRUMP SMELLS AND THIS IS WHY threads filling up the front page of offtopic.

When the Wild West got the axe, I had my eye on R&P; and the discussion of politics in general on the site as the next thing on the chopping block, given I felt that the majority of shit behavior, shit tactics, and general shittyness was born and honed to a fine edge there. But, we had a post from a mod whom I can't remember the name of appealing to the group to take it easy. Most of the bad actors had been dealt with, modding was tightening up to keep unpleasantness down, and hey the site is slow these days anyway so even if another topic explodes on the internet its probably not gonna be that bad. So, I sat back, had a think, and decided that they were probably right. Even in spite of my various opinions on the quality of discourse in R&P;, as long as it doesn't boil over its not that big of a deal. I don't have to go there if I don't want to, people who do want to go there can live it up talking about whatever they want, everybody is approximately happy.

So that's why I don't understand this decision at all. Not only are we now mixing up the pots and making people deal with whatever the outcome is, but we're gonna start to see off topic threads and politics threads start fighting for front page space. If R&P; ends up dominating, its just gonna be the same thing as before, except for some reason the politics tab is labeled offtopic.