[quote author="trrenter"]I think the issue you are going to have if you limit what can be talked about is the decline in participation on this board.
Is there really enough to talk about if you limit the discussion to just Irvine?
I am not offended by Troopers thread and I sympathize with her position and she is a member of the TI community. Should we say we accept you Troop but please do not post a Gay Thread? I would think there are gay people in Irvine so this is a topic that would be pertinent to some people in Irvine.
Nobody is forcing anyone to read the gay thread and if someone does read the gay thread and is offended they are not too bright for reading it.
On the other hand though Troop knows that some segment of the population is vehemently opposed to her message and she should be prepared to hear about it. (I again am not saying that the people that oppose the message are right, they do have a right to oppose the message just as much as Troop has the right to post the message.)
Right now in Irvine and almost everywhere in the country Politics is a subject that is being heavily debated, the war, healthcare, the economy etc. To say that discussing Politics' has no place in a board dedicated to Irvine would indicate Politics are not important to Irvineites. That is not the case.
If you strip away subjects that could divide the board then you strip away any reason to come here unless the idea is to promote Group Think.
The idea that you need an ignore button to ignore someone is ridiculous. I have people in my everyday life I ignore because they piss me off or annoy me. I don't have a button for that. I just know that if they want to discuss an issue that will lead to me throwing my hands up and wanting to call them an idiot I just don't engage with them.
The same can be done here on this board. I think we are all adults, I have looked at some of the "offending" threads and really none of the offenses seem particularly egregious. If you don't agree with them or the approach that was taken that is understandable but can anyone here actually say that in the society we live in today that what was said in those threads was the worse thing they have heard this week? I have seen and heard worse at the customer service counter at Toy's R Us this week.
Discussions do get heated, some times things are said that may hurt someone's feelings but are we all really that sensitive that we need to quit?
If you don't want a politics section then maybe a section for "touchy subjects" with a warning things might get heated, enter at your own risk, moderators cannot be held accountable for the things said and the viewpoints shared.
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That was very well put TR. Thank you for sharing such uncommon sense with the community.