So ND you do NOT support Pence and Trump on a key issue for once?

Pence and Trump don't even agree on a lot of issues to be fair.

Gold, I was modded right around the time that Voldy got banned. Actually, it happened on the same night. I was asked to join the team as that whole fiasco was ongoing and I knew going in that I was going to be asked to pay close attention to it. It was quite hectic, and no, I wasn't involved in that decision. I was around for the aftermath. Some people even blamed me for the whole thing, for god knows what reason.

I don't want to comment on the work of other mods. You know perfectly well that I'm not going to do that no matter what my opinion on the matter is. What I can say with complete clarity and not the blindness to the issue that you portray me as having is that civility and tameness on this forum with a few fewer posts, a few less violent arguments, and a couple less bombastic personalities is not going to hurt the site insofar as new users go. Current users? Maybe. That's unfortunate and I am more than happy to have a discussion with whomever wishes about how to make the old guard happy again and I wish that current users wouldn't make that choice to leave. But new users have no issue joining in on the "lame" forum that you're talking about and it is far, far more welcoming than it used to be with some work still to be done on it.

Of course saying that we have 80,000 registered users is not saying that we have 80,000 active users. I don't expect that that would confuse anyone. If it did, I apologize - we don't have 80,000 *active* users. According to the numbers at the bottom of the screen, there's 100 people logged on right now.

Likewise, what is so desirable about having to talk people down from their threats? Two of those three are banned because there was no way to talk them down from their threats. One actually went through with his threats. Krellin has been great to us since those days and he has been cooperative and worked with us as opposed to against us the entire time. He deserves more appreciation for showing how someone of that old crowd can adapt to a new reality without getting themselves thrown out of the damn place. Why would you lump those two in with him as if there is something romantic about that whole scene? How were those days somehow more welcoming? I know I don't miss it.

Chaqa, we're working on a new look for that page. It's on my to-do list. Right now, it looks fairly similar to the home page layout, yes.

Bo, I think it comes down to a lot of us enjoying a place where we could have our threads without any sort of restrictions. There used to be a very strong freedom of speech vibe here, and YES I know what that means in the legal sense (government wise) but here I mean it in the "you can say whatever you want" sense. It was super rare for anyone to be silenced or for a thread to be locked. If someone or some thread was offending you you would just hit that amazing "Mute" button that everyone seems to ignore nowadays.

I understand that, and I remember that, but for the casual player who comes strolling through the door or for the high school teacher looking for a place to introduce six or seven new students to the game of Diplomacy, the forum as it was then is an immediate turn off. I can't stress that enough. Personally, I don't want to lay down a bunch of restrictions on things and hardly ever do I feel like I have to. I think the rest of the moderators feel the same way. But ultimately, the site has to be presentable, and the forum is very accessible on the front page.

Reminds me of the idea we threw around way back when - isn't there a way to split the forum, or maybe have an option that some threads are marked a certain way that lets you hide threads for a majority of users? I.E. have a setting in Settings that's a checkbox called "See all threads" or "Show unrestricted threads" or something, and when you are making a thread, you can simply check a box to make it be hidden for new users or anyone with that checkbox disabled?

As far as actually implementing - it might not be the most impossible idea, now that I think about it. We already have mechanisms for filtering out threads (the mute thread button).

Thoughts?

I wouldn't be against splitting the forum at all if it were feasible, but it's my understanding that either it isn't feasible or it simply isn't a priority at this point. You would have to talk to ATC on that one. Even if we did split the forum, I don't imagine that it would be a split between "rules" and "no rules"; rather, I expect it would be a split between Diplomacy and non-Diplomacy, or maybe even a section for forum games like mafia. Still, I don't know what the chances of that happening are right now. I expect they're quite low.

bo_sox, you're still going with the "making forum more welcoming place" argument. It's completely false. You're assuming that every person who joins is a raging liberal like you. By banning conservative threads, you completely alienate new conservative players.

Bo is not liberal at all...

When you're as far left as brainbomb, no one is liberal enough.

Blatantly untrue. I appear far left because by comparison to Trump I would seem like a wacky liberal. Free tuition and socualized medicine my god!!!!! LIBERAL

Did someone say free? It set my spidey sense off.

Hey im not saying itll happen for a while but as a believer in college making peoples dreams come true I can safely say thats my platform. (Ecology-education

Neither Trump/Pence are for repealing existing law. Trump is actually very socially liberal/Pence isn't.

Compared to Democrats, sure, but certainly right of center.

*compared to other Republicans

"Neither Trump/Pence are for repealing existing law."

That's blatantly untrue, and I wouldn't support him if it were true.

>>"Neither Trump/Pence are for repealing existing law."
>That's blatantly untrue

I mean, *I* wasn't going to say it...

Wait, Trump/Pence want to repeal Roe V. Wade? I must have missed that memo. That was what I was referring too.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-democratic-convention-2016-live-pence-says-roe-v-wade-will-be-1469737388-htmlstory.html

Mike Pence wants to repeal anything that could even be remotely considered un-Christian by some wackjob standard. He's nuttier than you think.

Mike Pence made an actual speech in Congress on how evolution should not be taught in public schools over creationism because it is a "theory" and theories have not been proven true, therefore creationism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikax0Y0NJsY

Have fun.

"I am opposed to abortion except for rape, incest and life of the mother. I oppose the use of government funds to pay for abortions." -Donald Trump

“I've become pro-life, and the reason is, I've seen -- in my case, one specific situation -- but numerous situations that have made me to go that way.”

-Donald Trump

Great reasons for a policy change. Brilliantly spoken.

Eh, personally I am not in favor of repealing existing laws, but that doesn't change my support of Trump/Pence.