[poker]

While I understand that we all want to view ourselves as mature adults that can hold a intellectual debate without it getting out of hand, history has proven it never works when it comes to politics (at least on the boards I have moderated over the years). The nature of how political threads go downhill is not limited to just cigar boards either.

I found this little tidbit at another non-cigar related board:

Ok, some have asked why the Mods/Admins basically don't allow any political topics on xxxxxxxxxxxx.com. I'll do my best to explain.

Back in the day, we had a sub-forum called the xxxxx room. This forum was a place where politically, religiously or other special interest or other such motivated topics could be discussed freely, within reason, and governed by the forums Terms of Use and Code of Conduct. Sadly, this was never achieved.

At the start, the room was great. Members were able to state their personal opinion about political, religious, or other various, related topics that couldn't be posted in other sub-forums. It really was a great way to blow off steam and actually learn more about other members and what motivated their thoughts and beliefs. However, this didn't last, and when it went south, it went south FAST.

What we ended up with was a cess pool of personal insults, back biting, cheap shots and other various forms of nefarious childishness that none of the Mods/Admins were comfortable with. It became a NIGHTMARE to Moderate as most of the Mods wouldn't even go into the room if given a choice. At this point I was only a mod, and I HATED going into that forum for that reason alone.

The end result was this: 12 members in good standing were either banned for COC/TOU violations OR left the forum by their own choice. To me, that was devestating as I NEVER want to lose a member over childish machisimo posturing, "my candidate is bigger and badder than your candidate, can beat him/her up, and is the best choice, for these reasons and I don't care what you think!!!!" This is all this entire sub-forum consisted of, I kid you not.

Is this what we want for Cigar Asylum? I think not.