Random Politics & Religion #35: It's Turtle Time!

The Politics and Religion section will now operate differently than it has previously, and differently in some aspects to the rest of the forum.

• The Random Politics & Religion thread will now be locked and remade fairly frequently.

• The "edit" function will no longer work in the P&R section.

• Infighting of a personal nature will now be met with immediate topic bans for all perpetrators.

• There is now a section ban that effectively functions as a topic ban for everything in P&R.

And now, some details on these:

The RPR thread getting remade: Previously, a topicban in RPR has been a very strong punishment, which effectively limits the ways to discipline a rule breaker that doesn't involve cutting off their access to the whole site (or causing a bunch of side threads to be made). By refreshing the RPR thread routinely, topic bans act as a temporary suspension, without removing access to the rest of the site. This means they can be used more freely.

No more editing: Ideally, this will mean that people will have to stop and think about what they're going to post, before firing off something half-baked. Worst case scenario, we get lots of wrong spelling to laugh at.

Cracking down on infighting: The number one problem in P&R is that things get personal. By making the RPR topic ban a less weighty punishment, these can now be used for "cooling people off". Also, if these start getting handed out, who started it doesn't matter; if someone's attacking you, report it. "Defending yourself" is how the previous escalations started, and no more of it. We have moderators; call them in.

Section bans: We can now ban people from entire sections. I doubt this will see any use beyond P&R, but if someone starts causing problems in all the Corsair threads, now we have something for it too. Section bans are the last resort for discipline in P&R, and they are permanent. They do not expire and will not be manually removed without some major new evidence; this is for people who have proven they can not play nicely. Attempting to circumvent a section ban will result in immediate suspension of all accounts, past and future, and an IP ban (as many as needed). The hope is we never have to use this, but it gives a way to permaban from P&R that leaves the rest of the site open.

So, that said, the Random Politics and Religion rules:

Random Politics & Religion is for topics that aren't thread worthy on their own and do not have their own existing thread.

Rules and Guidelines

• Forum Rules and P&R Section Guidelines still apply.

• Satire is tolerated.

• If your topic covers a story over 6 months old (Watergate, Benghazi, 2012 Election, etc.) post it here.

• Discussions on racism, homophobia, transphobia, and the like are allowed, targeted insults based on these will not be tolerated.

• Political debates get heated and are meant to be intense, if you take offense to being called or proven wrong, you don't belong here.

• If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen; if you prove you can't handle the criticism you bring upon yourself in this thread, you may be removed from it. You are responsible for what you post.

• Along those lines, heat is fine, but sustained, clearly personal hostility is not okay. The personal attack rules still apply. Attack positions, not posters. Failure to adhere to this will result in your removal from the thread.

• This thread is NOT the Flame Core.

• These rules are subject to change and modification where and when needed.

• Random Politics & Religion may be mained or demained depending on the activity within at a Moderator's discretion.

With that out of the way, let the debates begin!