Sad State of Affairs

I used to love debate in this forum. It was damn near inspiring to actually debate some topics in depth. Sure, the occasional troll or JeffR would fuck things up for a little while, but eventually, they tired themselves out or forgot to take their meds and lost the ability to type their password so everything returned to normal.

That was how things used to be. BB would post something completely one sided but avoid actually giving his own personal opinion. He would then follow it with 5,000 links and page after page of blogs and then pretend these were facts without bias.

Vroom would ask “why”, Rainjack would call him a few down home southern names often used to describe skunks and rats. Thunderbolt would pretend as if he had “authority” and call out a few people. I would simply be as nice as possible, debate would take off for pages and then we would do it again.

But now, now we have Steveo, Headhunter and the wake of destruction left by each. I avoid this entire forum like the plague now and I am sure I am not alone. This web site even removed the Political forum from the list of recently discussed topics. It has now been dumped into the internet guest room closet along with things we don’t want the newcomers to actually know we discuss.

All in all, this forum now sucks major donkey ass.

Will there be two or three more pseudo-religious threads tomorrow telling people they will burn and that acting like an ass and ramming your personal beliefs down everyone’s throats is the only way to save yourself? What will you do about your dumbassery?

Oh well, one and a half years until the next election. Maybe things will return to normal by then. Until then, I think I even wasted my time typing this in this forum.

You are not alone. I used to enjoy discussions here on the political forum a lot - often ridiculed by outsiders who were incredulous that a bodybuilding website would have such a thing.

But I liked the rough but often enlightening debates, learning about and to respect my opposites’ (normally the conservative) viewpoints.

Hell, I’d normally only post on the political forum as my view always was that on the training side my job was simply to shut up and learn until I reach 200lbs.

That’s pretty much gone now - indeed I think that some of the religious types and a few of the new kids here have polluted the style of debate.

The kids might learn - the religious types on a mission to convert tend in my experience not to.

What to do about it? Two things spring to my mind:

I have always tried to keep my own debating style clean: no personal attacks, no insults, apologising when wrong and links/references with every quote), and I shall continue to do that.

The other thing that I am trying to adapt is not feed the trolls: when I see a thread that promises to suck, I don’t even view it. When I think a thread is starting to suck, I stop posting or viewing - even when I think the most horrible views are being displayed (see Brokeback thread).

But - this is not my website. It is a great website, and I have learnt a lot from many of you here. For that I am thankful. I hope the sane people here prevail.

Makkun

PS: Just mulling - would it be a technical possibility to vote out threads by rating them?

I feel the same pain. I’ll manage to avoid posting in the politics forum for days or weeks at a time now.

That is absolutely unheard of. My daily post quotient has downright been dropping dramatically!

The explosion of effusive erudite posts has effectively been eclipsed by the ebullient effluvium ejaculated every evening by the effrontery of Steveo the erroneous. Egad, I suggest ejectment and eradication of the elepine elements buy the editors. Everyone else?

[quote]vroom wrote:
I feel the same pain. I’ll manage to avoid posting in the politics forum for days or weeks at a time now.

That is absolutely unheard of. My daily post quotient has downright been dropping dramatically!

The explosion of effusive erudite posts has effectively been eclipsed by the ebullient effluvium ejaculated every evening by the effrontery of Steveo the erroneous. Egad, I suggest ejectment and eradication of the elepine elements buy the editors. Everyone else?[/quote]

LOL

As far as voting threads out, that probably won’t be allowed simply because trolls can vote too.

Oh, boo hoo…“weep” “weep…”

You sound like little washer women. Get over yourselves already.

I ain’t goin’ nowhere…

[quote]steveo5801 wrote:
Oh, boo hoo…“weep” “weep…”

You sound like little washer women. Get over yourselves already.

I ain’t goin’ nowhere…[/quote]

Your reading comprehension (already under suspicion from your reading of the bible) is shit.

What he said was that WE were going to leave.

Because you (and people like you) have ruined something that used to be fun with your fundy jackassery.

[quote]vroom wrote:
I feel the same pain. I’ll manage to avoid posting in the politics forum for days or weeks at a time now.

That is absolutely unheard of. My daily post quotient has downright been dropping dramatically!

The explosion of effusive erudite posts has effectively been eclipsed by the ebullient effluvium ejaculated every evening by the effrontery of Steveo the erroneous. Egad, I suggest ejectment and eradication of the elepine elements buy the editors. Everyone else?[/quote]

Exactly! Eloquent erudition, eh.

[Ack! Apologies for my alacrity. This would be better defined as an amazing, if approaching acrimonious, alliteration. Anyway… excellent espousal of elutriation.]

[quote]steveo5801 wrote:
Oh, boo hoo…“weep” “weep…”

You sound like little washer women. Get over yourselves already.

I ain’t goin’ nowhere…[/quote]

He is sounding like a washer women because he notices you are trying to kill a good thing?

Sucking a little bit of joy out of life for all of us, until we are all looking forward to die, like you obviously do?

Did you even notice that his problem is not you having a different opinion but you being an adolescent nuisance?

We get it Steveo, all of us knew it all at 16.

You are neither amusing nor thought-provocing (if you ignore personality disorders and jasonigor my money is on NPD), you are a broken record.

Go away.

Although I have’nt known about this site for very long,I have enjoyed reading the Prof. Vrooms And Harris coments and answer’s.along with a few others that i can’t think of at the moment.You all seem to be open minded to other’s ideas unless they are off the wall or just plain one sided foolishness.

Some of the others ,you know exactely what they are going to say and there is no need to waste time reading it.Even though RJ’s comments reminded me of one of those playground bullies that you have to whip his ass to get him to shut his big mouth,i have even agreed with some of his comments.

But Steveo ,Don’t believe in false profits,The world is full of them.

It really is to bad what happened here. This was by far the best forum–before–simply because the rest is pretty standard and tame.

I gave a little and got a little more, but I really did take some stuff home with me. As much as it pains me to say, vroom, X, ZEB, elk, rj, even joe weider gave me something to think about.

I miss the battles, but even more I miss the information. Yes, I know an election is coming, but it has turned so politically motivated that little is discussed as much as it is said. This is a tough format to discuss intensely personal matters, but if a mutual respect and ability to listen is thrown in it is possible.

I look forward to the future and a possible evolution, but it is with great skepticism that I do so.

[quote]steveo5801 wrote:
Oh, boo hoo…“weep” “weep…”

You sound like little washer women. Get over yourselves already.

I ain’t goin’ nowhere…[/quote]

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Makkun

I don’t think that censorship and exclusion are the right answers. There are various things that annoy different people differently. There are a lot of threads that don’t interest me at all; I simply don’t participate in those.

Steve0’s thread don’t require anyone to participate, yet he seems to have a gift of pushing people’s button and getting a reaction. Don’t read or reply to him if you don’t want to; start your own thread on a topic you’d rather discuss instead.

Say what you will about Steve0 and Headhunter; they do start a lot of thread and they do provoke discussions that are often quite interesting (often excluding the initial authors). A lot also degenerate into useless flamewars; but the blame for those is with all the participants, not just with the author of the threads.

For example, the “For born-agains only” thread has, of yet, received replies that only aim to inflame and ridicule; not one born-again, except for Steve0, has yet posted. Who’s keeping that thread at the top of the heap?

If a thread is not outright offensive (hate speech and such) I think it should be kept.

We might be able to convince Steve0 to put his threads in the “Off-Topic” forum instead of the political one. Would that compromise satify anyone? The Off-Topic forum is basically an “anything goes” forum anyway.

We could certainly consider constructing a concise petition from and for the political pundits, posters and posers for limitation of the lame in letting the loser light a lone flame for his frequently forgettable fundamentalist fodder… instead of the intense installment of incredibly innumerable instances of the same innane idiocy.

All agreed and aggrieved say aye!

This is probably my first post in this area of the forums in at least 6 months for all of the reasons described above by Prof X, makkun, vroom and sasquatch.

Hell, I only knew about this thread because a friend of mine mentioned it to me. The amazing thing is that since I stopped coming into the Politics forum, my enjoyment level of this site has gone up exponentially.

If there was a way to set up sort of “forums within forums” where members could post and debate amongst only those who were invited, it would be great. The people who actually want to have a… ahem… “spirited” but intelligent discussion could do so while the trolls could remain in their sandbox.

Heck, this would be a nice touch for people who are actually more advanced trainees to discuss real topics without constant interruptions by the shoe-to-bodyfat ratio crowd.

Just a few humble thoughts.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
I would simply be as nice as possible, debate would take off for pages and then we would do it again.
[/quote]

I couldn’t let this one sneak by without throwing a huge red bullshit flag.

I agree - this forum has changed. I think it was because I took a few months off, and lett a bunch of weeds grow up.

I am growing weary of the religious threads as well - this coming from a born and raised Southern Baptist.

I long for the days when vroom would sit under his thinking tree, and I could throw rocks at him. Now we try to be civil - it sucks.

Harry Ass and I are actually friendly now despite his raging hatred for anything southern/Texan.

What has happened to us? If it is not a religious thread - it is a thread from some tin-foil hat wearing kid telling us that the Illuminati has taken over Sams Club.

I long for another long, drawn out, pointless pissing match with ProfX about illegal immigrants. I believe he was the one who accused me of sitting on my porch and shooting them with my shotgun.

Ah…the good old days…

Pookie,

It may only be me, but I’d be willing to throw Steveo overboard if it meant the betterment of our community… :wink:

Yes, yes, I know all about the censorship arguments, the slippery slope arguments and all of that stuff. Really though, how many people come along and single handedly deconstruct one of the best political discussion sites on the Internet?

I don’t suggest elimination due to beliefs, but due to trollish results. There is a big difference. Besides, it would add to his persecution complex and probably make him bask in a self-righteous glow. Well, he already does that, but we wouldn’t have to see it.

Amen.

[quote]vroom wrote:
We could certainly consider constructing a concise petition from and for the political pundits, posters and posers for limitation of the lame in letting the loser light a lone flame for his frequently forgettable fundamentalist fodder… instead of the intense installment of incredibly innumerable instances of the same innane idiocy.

All agreed and aggrieved say aye![/quote]

Seen “V for Vendetta” lately?

[quote]pookie wrote:
vroom wrote:
We could certainly consider constructing a concise petition from and for the political pundits, posters and posers for limitation of the lame in letting the loser light a lone flame for his frequently forgettable fundamentalist fodder… instead of the intense installment of incredibly innumerable instances of the same innane idiocy.

All agreed and aggrieved say aye!

Seen “V for Vendetta” lately?

[/quote]

LOL. I tried talking like that once but couldn’t come up with words fast enough.

Hush up Rainjack, you have no idea what you are talking about, as usual.

On a more serious note. Trolls are “handled” in every other forum of on the site. Is there some reason why trolls have to be tolerated in this forum?

The fact he may or may not actually believe what he posts doesn’t change anything does it? He’s the “0.9 banana” guy combined with the “what is my bodyfat shoe guy” of religion for Chrissake.

I agree completely with X’s post. Hell, even Rainjack’s.

Of course, only we can make the change. My blinding hatred of SteveO has made me reply on many of his threads, but that is going to change.

We can get back to talking about politics. And it’s about time.
As the most political forum members, we make a nonagression pact betweent the Left and the Right in order to get the shit back to the way it used to be. Then, like Stalin and Hitler,we can turn on each other and do what we do.

Anyway, let’s get back to politics.