Should threads about guns or politics be allowed?

[retired jerry]

Should threads about guns or politics be allowed?

Or if a thread is clearly marked "guns" you can just not click on it?

Or maybe only if it directly relates to hiking, like, do you need to bring a gun hiking to protect yourself? or, if federal funding is reduced and trail maintenance reduced as a consequence is it okay to talk about this?

Personally, I don't care if there's a thread labeled guns, I can just not click on it, at least if there's only one thread.

And personally, I think it's okay to talk about how federal, state, and local governments affect hiking, but beyond that, this isn't probably the right forum.

Threads where people just call each other names endlessly is boring. Just avoiding anything that might be controversial seems excessive.

But that's just me...

[payslee]

yes, keep the topic open. Open discussion is important.

If it matters, I have no interest at all in watching people not persuade each other of anything, and haven't peeked into there since like page 2. But it must be far and away the most popular thread on PH ever.

Your mileage may vary.
Payslee

[pdxgene]

As long as it remains civil and doesn't turn into personal attacks (I've maybe read 5% of it so I can't say one way or the other if that applies here)and is kept in the appropriate forum I'm not sure I see any reason to censor it.
Though I'd be willing to bet most any amount of money that it doesn't change one person's mind one way or the other and is probably a complete waste of time. But I guess that's up to the people who are spending the time on it.

[Koda]

The gun thread is really only a handful of us here expressing their views, and is really a small topic here by comparison we've had way more political debate about NWFP, road closures, wilderness vs national parks, filming and photography in wilderness areas, limited entry permits, trail maintenance...... If we prohibit or censor political discussion then we cant learn, e.g.: I've donated to some wilderness organizations based (in part) on what I've learned from some of the political threads here.

I apologize about the gun thread technically I started it.

guns are loosely related to hiking, some people might feel they need to take them.... but a suggestion might be to censor discussion on 2nd amendment issues or if it goes more than a few replies a moderator can direct it to the one thread and let whoever get it out of their system there or get the newer topic closed.

[ski]

jerry:
I would say "yes", because inevitably the subject of "gun" is going to pop up somewhere in a hiking forum.
(see the hikers forum geographically to your north for an example.)
the subject of guns/hunting/hunters pops up in trip reports, stewardship discussions, etc.
may as well have an appropriate place for it- that way you keep it out of the other forums.
it seems to work well that way on nwhikers. I don't have a lot of time on this one- my opinion is based on my observations there.
brian

[Guy]

Pretty much impossible to prevent unless the moderators want to be very busy removing comments & partial threads leading to accusations of censorship. I think if the topic begins with a connection to hiking, wilderness etc then it's fine. If it drifts away from hiking like the gun control thread has it should be moved to idle chatter.

Also impossible for another reason as 2 of the moderators in particular would have to change their ways ...

Personally I try hard not to be the first to bring politics into the discussion any more but if someone posts something I disagree with or can add to then I will reply.

[Lumpy]

As long as a topic is in the right forum section and the participants stick to the rules of the forum, why should any topic be disallowed? No, I'm not talking about a right to free speech or "if you don't like it, TOUGH!" I think you hit the nail on the had with "if it doesn't interest you don't read it or comment therein".

If many people here know each other personally and already are good friends, is there any topic that should be taboo? If we can't find a way to talk about *anything*, why even pretend to be friendly?

[Aimless]

PH has an off-topic forum, so within that forum it clearly invites threads on any topic. Beyond that it comes down to whether the discussion in the thread remains civil and meets the community standards. That is always a wild card and cannot be predicted in advance. It is true that politics and guns are both topics that often devolve into incivility, but I think that needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

This thread should probably be in Off Topic, too.

[kaltbluter]

This thread should probably be in Off Topic, too.

That was my first thought too.

As long as it remains civil and doesn't turn into personal attacks

^^yep.

[adamschneider]

Maybe the Off-Topic section could be made invisible to non-logged-in users (I assume this is an option in phpBB) so that we don't attract weird Google searches?