Rant: Caring more about politics than baseball

[jim]

Baseball threads are where many GRB people have gotten pissed and left.

Maybe, but the ones I know about and the freshest ones are out of social.

I think social where you can play grab ass and have some fun and even get some information is great, it fosters kind of a community where people get to virtually know each other a little and thus more respect is shown. Nobody is getting pissed and leaving on the awesome fun gif threads, or the I hope that was a grape type threads.

Politics and stuff like the 10 pages now over a guy whose corpse still hasn't cooled, those things don't help in that regard. And what has happened is - I think - that some people that might have an alternate view have just been shouted down. I'm not sure the motive of talking serious politics on a baseball web site where aren't going to change anyones mind. And I can tell there is some thought you all put into those posts - but why here? Why not go to a political board where that's the entire focus of the discussions? I'm sure there are message boards that focus on politics, where you might actually get really smart people that study this and have this as a hobby like you - as opposed to maybe a half a dozen here.

I wish Michael and the mods would be aggressive with locking political based threads. There is just no room for them here on this site. In my opinion it was a mistake to allow them, and it's a mistake to allow them to continue.

Also I'm going to say I have been guilty. I was more vocal in 2008 with serious opinions, and I hated myself for it.

Hopefully baseball season will fix it, and we will get some good discussions relevant to the purported theme of this board.

[Fat Strat]

Baseball will help fix it.

I think the problem is that the playoffs and offseason has featured a whole lot of nothing followed by a whole lot of bad and then a whole lot of nothing. There's been nothing to talk about for months other than our continued insistence on doing nothing.

You can only stretch conversations on why we should sign Dexter Fowler so far. Fear not. There'll be a major spring injury or someone will slump horribly for 2 weeks of spring and then we'll be right back on track.

[ghostrunner]

GRB might be the most civil place I've encountered online for political talk. That's even conceding there a couple people who I agree with yet IMO make things worse. Personally I'd hate to lose it, and I've learned a lot because of it, and had my opinions changed. I think that speaks well of how we handle those topics generally.

I am and always have been reluctant to delete or threaten bans simply because someone is annoying people. Maybe we should discuss some limits on offensive language beyond the usual racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. That's tricky and I guess that goes to Jim's point about not allowing politics at all. I can't support that though. And to be honest, yeah, I care more about politics than baseball. Movies and Tv too. I still like baseball a lot, though it's harder for me to keep up with than it used to be. I've been talking politics with my family my whole life and I don't think anyone's opinion here bothers me so much that it carries over into other forums. Maybe one or two.

And, a number of people that were banned were banned largely due to how they acted in baseball talk, with others getting pretty close.

[jim]

I'm not all that concerned with people that were banned, I'm more concerned about people that just decided they had had enough.

I'll try to avoid social, see how that experiment goes. Problem is I like somethings, and then you see <X> as the last poster in political and you just have to see what this numbskull wrote, you open it up and then you see more stuff and then you just hate it. I'll have to try to avoid that temptation.

But also it's not just that, I think peoples focus and energy go to politics and social. Baseball? Meh. Take it or leave it.

[stlouie_lipp]

I still think a separate politics forum is the best middle ground. Celebrating the death of a Supreme Court justice is a bad look. Reasonable minds can disagree on legal issues, that's fine, but to openly celebrate the death of someone is just classless and I think those posts should be removed. Who wants to go into a social forum and see that [expletive]?

[jim]

It's an idea - but it has to be more than just pure politics, because politics is woven into a lot of things. The cops thread for example. That's just an awful thread, would that go in a politics forum? Call it politics/social issues or something?

Just looking at what we have now, first two pages of social and rants, here are a few that I think are really social issues vs social:

Scalia is dead
Election thread
Standoff in oregon
Gun control
Ted Cruz national hero?
Mizzou president resigns?
Cops

Talking about your kids, your new toy, how to do some project, food and drink, color of your poop ... these things are Social social. They are different than that list above.

[planet planet]

Baseball will help fix it.

I think the problem is that the playoffs and offseason has featured a whole lot of nothing followed by a whole lot of bad and then a whole lot of nothing. There's been nothing to talk about for months other than our continued insistence on doing nothing.

You can only stretch conversations on why we should sign Dexter Fowler so far. Fear not. There'll be a major spring injury or someone will slump horribly for 2 weeks of spring and then we'll be right back on track.

I agree with Fat Strat; things will even out when baseball starts. It's a perfect storm of the first meaningful election in 8 yrs and the Cardinals doing nada in the offseason.

[MrCrowesGarden]

Baseball will help fix it.

I think the problem is that the playoffs and offseason has featured a whole lot of nothing followed by a whole lot of bad and then a whole lot of nothing. There's been nothing to talk about for months other than our continued insistence on doing nothing.

You can only stretch conversations on why we should sign Dexter Fowler so far. Fear not. There'll be a major spring injury or someone will slump horribly for 2 weeks of spring and then we'll be right back on track.

I agree with Fat Strat; things will even out when baseball starts. It's a perfect storm of the first meaningful election in 8 yrs and the Cardinals doing nada in the offseason.

I know I've been Mr. Negative this offseason, but it's been a pretty craptastic past year for St. Louis area sports in general:

-Cardinals boring offseason
-Rams move
-Perpetual Blues disappointment
-Mizzou football turmoil and Pinkel resignation
-General ineptitude with Illinois and Mizzou basketball

[go birds]

its pretty clear that GRB is pretty left-leaning and that grates me from time to time but I just avoid the political threads or at least try.

not gonna say it should be banned bc hell people gotta talk about something, but yea it does wear thin on people.

luckily this has been a very turbulent offseason for the cards so at least we have baseball things to discuss until ST starts (even though some of you are probably tired of hearing my opinions)!

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

One thing is certain, people get into stupid pissing contests a whole lot more in the offseason than during the regular season. The biggest problem in the regular season is people getting too negative, but that's just how some people are wired.

During the offseason, people just look to argue about anything since there's little to no baseball talk going on. I mean, [expletive], this offseason has been the worst. the. worst. and I can't wait for the season to get going.