Suggestion for a new sub-forum: PRS

[Sailor Kenshin]

I will add my comments to this fray, then I'm going to bow out for good.

Several years ago, I went through a very difficult, very personal journey from a life of an invested believer to one of uncertainty, and eventually, to one of a non-believer. It was a transition which was horrible, painful, and completely necessary for me to undertake. There are scars from that time in my life which may never heal fully. I lost friends, gained others, and caused a great deal of hurt to people around me as I struggled to figure out my own path in life. Since that time, I have worked very hard not to hold any bitterness or animosity in my heart. It hasn't been easy. But I've been on both sides; I can see the good intentions of each, the points-of-view from which each side is approaching a discussion.

I've done my best to stay uninvolved from the discussions around religion on this board, as I do in all of my various haunts online. A subforum might help me avoid those discussions to a certain extent, but I've found that when discussions in one small part of a forum get heated, they tend to infect the other parts of the site. (e.g., a perfectly reasonable request for a subforum ends up with a post intentionally meant to offend by using terms like "imaginary friend" to refer to others' deeply held and exceptionally personal beliefs. A move which, if I may say, I find to be an exceptionally immature and disrepectful way of disagreeing with someone, with the apparent intent of belittling and enflaming.)

I often use the "What's New" link and the Tapatalk "Unread" sections, neither of which give me the ability to hide certain subforums. (And in the case of the Tapatalk client, even shows a teaser of the text within the thread.) And, having managed forums in the past, I understand Dan's refusal to ban certain topics outright. It is a slippery slope.

But I'll be honest: I don't want to see these topics of discussion at all.

I started haunting FPGeeks for two reasons.

1) I wanted to learn more about fountain pens, ink, and paper.
2) I found this forum to be the most friendly, accepting, and welcoming of the scant few pen forums out there, without a whole host of rules that define everything you can and can not post.

Unfortunately, as my time here has gone on, I've found fewer and fewer FP-related posts, and a whole lot more of what I would consider to be "fluff." And I have found that the overall tenor of the forum has started to shift--it simply doesn't feel as friendly to me here as it once did. It seems that folks are becoming less patient with one another, and less interested in actually talking about the whole subject of the forums: fountain pens.

Frankly, I can go anywhere on the internet and find people doing their best to offend or judge one another over politics and religion. I don't need that same kind of mean-spiritedness infecting a hobby to which I am fairly new, and which I have grown to love dearly. I come here for information on fountain pens, ink, and paper. Period. I don't have any desire to spend my limited fountain pen time being proselytized to, or watching others do their level best to push buttons or belittle. If FPGeeks is going to become the home for regular and repeated religious and political discussions, it's time for me to bow out for good. That's not why I'm here.

How you "solve" this without creating a bunch of restrictive rules, I don't know. (Other than to appeal to folks to please not be inflammatory and to stay on-topic.) If I could block forums or threads the way I do on Facebook, the first one that would get blocked is "The Lounge." (Unless we create a new Politics and Religion sub-forum, in which case that would be one that I'd block first.) Yeah, I can and do skip through the threads I don't want to read, except when they're entitled "Yay!?" and I can't tell what they're about. But as soon as I log in and see that most of the unread threads are about non-pen-related stuff, I'm out.

One of the things I love about this hobby is that I have met some wonderful, welcoming, awesome people. People who believe different things than I do, or have different interests. What sets us apart isn't anywhere near as important as what we have in common, and the reason we started coming here in the first place. Let's just stop talking about all this stuff and focus on why we all started coming to this forum in the first place--the pens.

And with that, I close my epic treatise, and sign off for a while.

For what this observation is worth....it's becoming 'like that' everywhere, on every forum in which I participate. And people are noticing, and commenting. Because of the overall change, there are some forums I've left altogether.

[Tberry010]

I am not sure of the origin of the expression that says something like ' I may disagree with what you are saying but I will fight to the death to protect your right to say it', but that was prominently displayed on the back of many flak jackets once upon a time and pretty well sums up my thoughts on the subject.

The only advantage I see in a PRS sub-forum is to save time for those who for whatever reason do not want to participate in discussions on the proposed topics.

I also agree with Ethernautrix concerning our inability to discuss politics and religion, and it is time to reverse that prohibition.

Either way is fine with me.

[raging.dragon]

I deliver!

I can't get no satisfaction!

[Jon Szanto]

I deliver!

I can't get no satisfaction!

[Flounder]

[Jon Szanto]

[pajaro]

I avoid lots of topics now, as a lot of pens don't interest me in the least, and I recognize screen names of those whose ideas have little interest for me. So, it machts nichts.

[AndyT]

Am I right in thinking that I've missed some drama recently? Apparently so, reading through all the aforegoing, and it's heartening to see so many well reasoned and thoughtful posts.

Being English and of a traditional stamp, I take the view that religion and politics are subjects best avoided over the dinner table, but if interested parties wish to withdraw to another room and exchange opinions in a civilised manner that's all to the good. Seems to me that Dan has implemented a solution which preserves freedom of speech whilst catering for those, like myself, who consider such discussions rather infra dig. And for that I applaud him.