Politics on this site

[patrickgpe]

One of the mainstays of this site is that its a spot to discuss sports and not politics. Brian was always very adamant of this and enforced it to the point he created a separate website to let those have at it. I see the banner this AM. While I am aware its a hot button issue and many want to do what they can to help,  it does go against everything that website has believed in from its inception. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

27 minutes ago, patrickgpe said:

One of the mainstays of this site is that its a spot to discuss sports and not politics. Brian was always very adamant of this and enforced it to the point he created a separate website to let those have at it. I see the banner this AM. While I am aware its a hot button issue and many want to do what they can to help,  it does go against everything that website has believed in from its inception. 

I understand and appreciate your concern. We do this at Twins Daily but very rarely and only for causes we feel particularly strongly about. Don't expect this to become the norm in any way, shape, or form.

We wanted to be as delicate as possible about this and I asked the moderators for permission beforehand and was entirely ready to walk away from running the banner if people said no for any reason. No one did.

[Ulice Payne]

29 minutes ago, patrickgpe said:

One of the mainstays of this site is that its a spot to discuss sports and not politics. Brian was always very adamant of this and enforced it to the point he created a separate website to let those have at it. I see the banner this AM. While I am aware its a hot button issue and many want to do what they can to help,  it does go against everything that website has believed in from its inception. 

We used to allow political / religious discussions, and it always ended bad.  

It's your site and you can do what you want with it, but the decision to move away from incendiary non-sports topics was a good one.  

6 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

only for causes we feel particularly strongly about

This was really the main cause of the problem.  Everyone felt strongly about different causes an in different directions.  There was fun banter to an extent, however, it always devolved into tiresome, circular, parallel rants that went nowhere.   The argumentative tone then spilled over into the rest of the discussions.

Allowing political discussion on this baseball site is a bad idea.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, Ulice Payne said:

We used to allow political / religious discussions, and it always ended bad.  

It's your site and you can do what you want with it, but the decision to move away from incendiary non-sports topics was a good one.  

This was really the main cause of the problem.  Everyone felt strongly about different causes an in different directions.  There was fun banter to an extent, however, it always devolved into tiresome, circular, parallel rants that went nowhere.   The argumentative tone then spilled over into the rest of the discussions.

Allowing political discussion on this baseball site is a bad idea.

The policies regarding political discussion in the forums remains in place, just as we have the same policies on Twins Daily. But occasionally, a writer or owner may make a statement that spills into "politics", though I struggle with the overly-broad usage of that word. If we start defining basic rights as "politics", there's nothing that isn't political.

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

The policies regarding political discussion in the forums remains in place, just as we have the same policies on Twins Daily. But occasionally, a writer or owner may make a statement that spills into "politics", though I struggle with the overly-broad usage of that word. If we start defining basic rights as "politics", there's nothing that isn't political.

Which speaks to the original post, does it not? Everything is political these days, so why not just let a baseball site be about baseball?

It's not even this issue in particular. Everyone gets their social media feeds completely overrun with political takes these days. People come here to discuss baseball. Let us have a damn break.

[Ulice Payne]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

The policies regarding political discussion in the forums remains in place, just as we have the same policies on Twins Daily. 

It's your site; you own it; do what you want.  

But yesterday this site was about baseball.  Today, it's about baseball and Brock's political views. 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, Marc Newfield of Dreams said:

Which speaks to the original post, does it not? Everything is political these days, so why not just let a baseball site be about baseball?

It's not even this issue in particular. Everyone gets their social media feeds completely overrun with political takes these days. People come here to discuss baseball. Let us have a damn break.

I completely understand being tired of political causes being hammered away at us from every direction. I feel it, too.

You can close the banner at the top of the page and it will not reappear in that browser. The banner is only going to run for today.

We're trying to strike a reasonable balance between promoting an institution we believe in - the ACLU - with not overwhelming users with political content. We felt this was a rather unobtrusive way to accommodate two conflicting goals.

[Jopal78]

Just now, Ulice Payne said:

It's your site; you own it; do what you want.  

But yesterday this site was about baseball.  Today, it's about baseball and Brock's political views. 

 

See the first line in your own post. There's a new sheriff in town, if you don't like the way he runs his town, give your revenue generating clicks and views to another website. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

See the first line in your own post. There's a new sheriff in town, if you don't like the way he runs his town, give your revenue generating clicks and views to another website. 

We knew this would be controversial, just like it feels everything is controversial nowadays.

Everyone has to make the choices that allow them to live with themselves. There is going to be disagreement about almost everything in life and occasionally, we're going to throw support in a certain direction. It's not something that will happen often but it will happen and I hope everyone can respect that we all have our opinions and all our lives are bigger than a baseball site.

[Opening Day]

*post did not fit sites political views

[GAME05]

Darn. This was pretty well the last place in the world which didn't let politics infect it and now it's here. It's hard to describe how disappointed I am to have seen that banner.

I've been on this site about daily for more than a decade and lots of other folks here are the same. I don't know peoples' politics and that's awesome. I just want to talk about baseball or debate what belongs on Hawing's relish tray.

 

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

We knew this would be controversial, just like it feels everything is controversial nowadays.

Everyone has to make the choices that allow them to live with themselves. There is going to be disagreement about almost everything in life and occasionally, we're going to throw support in a certain direction. It's not something that will happen often but it will happen and I hope everyone can respect that we all have our opinions and all our lives are bigger than a baseball site.

For transparency's sake, the donations this sight is now soliciting is for the ACLU of Wisconsin. Their organizational agenda extends far beyond women's reproductive rights and includes: prisoner's rights, police reform, immigrants rights, LGBTQIA rights el al. In truth, your site is soliciting donations for an advocacy and lobbying organization with a very broad left of center agenda. 

I'm just a visitor to a website, if the content or website sucks, I'll just stop surfing in here a couple times a day; moreover I don't make these type of donations, so raising awareness isn't going to make a difference to me.

But, I'm all for transparency in what you're actually suggesting people send their money to. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

5 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

For transparency's sake, the donations this sight is now soliciting is for the ACLU of Wisconsin. Their organizational agenda extends far beyond women's reproductive rights and includes: prisoner's rights, police reform, immigrants rights, LGBTQIA rights el al. In truth, your site is soliciting donations for an advocacy and lobbying organization with a very broad left of center agenda. 

I'm just a visitor to a website, if the content or website sucks, I'll just stop surfing in here a couple times a day; moreover I don't make these type of donations, so raising awareness isn't going to make a difference to me.

But, I'm all for transparency in what you're actually suggesting people send their money to. 

Fair enough. I actually spoke to someone heavily involved in civil rights and organization and they recommended we go with the ACLU for many of the reasons you listed; they're more of an all-encompassing organization that fights for individual rights than some of the more specific orgs we were considering.

[Brock Beauchamp]

51 minutes ago, GAME05 said:

Darn. This was pretty well the last place in the world which didn't let politics infect it and now it's here. It's hard to describe how disappointed I am to have seen that banner.

I've been on this site about daily for more than a decade and lots of other folks here are the same. I don't know peoples' politics and that's awesome. I just want to talk about baseball or debate what belongs on Hawing's relish tray.

I understand your disappointment and sympathize with it, I really do. We will not do this kind of thing often, only when we feel the current situation transcends pure baseball discussion. On Twins Daily, including today, we have taken this pronounced a stance maybe 2-3 times in the 10+ years of its existence.

Again, I encourage all of you who do not like the banner to close it, it will not reappear in that browser again once you do that.

[timpep]

I won't be renewing. Get enough politics bs elsewhere. 

[Outlander]

Do whatever you want since it is your site but more surprised that none of the moderators said anything. I have been here a long time and they pretty much put the kibosh on anything borderline political no matter the topic.

[djoctagone]

4 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Fair enough. I actually spoke to someone heavily involved in civil rights and organization and they recommended we go with the ACLU for many of the reasons you listed; they're more of an all-encompassing organization that fights for individual rights than some of the more specific orgs we were considering.

thank you for highlighting a social issue.

i see the banner advertisement for this social issue as no different than any other ad that pops up on this site.

[Ulice Payne]

7 hours ago, Opening Day said:

*post did not fit sites political views

Deleting opposing views is not a good look.

It'd be interesting to see what the site's political views are.  Didn't realize a baseball site would have any.

 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

20 minutes ago, Ulice Payne said:

Deleting opposing views is not a good look.

It'd be interesting to see what the site's political views are.  Didn't realize a baseball site would have any.

Okay, let’s get the real story here: their posts were deleted because they started calling me names and being wildly inappropriate. Their opinion had nothing to do with why their posts were hidden.

Its more than a little eye-roll worthy that a person who spent the morning calling me a coward, a liar, and dishonest edited their own post to play victim. 

[Ulice Payne]

9 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Okay, let’s get the real story here: their posts were deleted because they started calling me names and being wildly inappropriate. Their opinion had nothing to do with why their posts were hidden.

Its more than a little eye-roll worthy that a person who spent the morning calling me a coward, a liar, and dishonest edited their own post to play victim. 

And this is exactly why we barred politics from the site in the first place.

[patrickgpe]

Only one person who stated concerns showed any political leanings. A lot of people have put in a lot of work to make this a friendly place to talk baseball, other Wisconsin sports, and (almost) anything else we feel like talking about. Since Brock has taken over this site, he has added ads which generate revenue based on clicks. This makes users like myself a customer, not just a community member. Also some of us (including myself) have decided to spend 60 dollars a year to support this site, because it has been void of issues like today. As everyone said, your site, your rules. I don’t plan to go on here less over a 1 day campaign to raise awareness to an issue that is near and dear to the owners heart. Because of it though, there was name calling and the owner did spend a decent amount of time out of day responding to concerns by his customers. 

[magnoliacrew]

19 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I understand your disappointment and sympathize with it, I really do. We will not do this kind of thing often, only when we feel the current situation transcends pure baseball discussion. On Twins Daily, including today, we have taken this pronounced a stance maybe 2-3 times in the 10+ years of its existence.

Again, I encourage all of you who do not like the banner to close it, it will not reappear in that browser again once you do that.

"I understand your disappointment and sympathize with it, I really do"

But not so sympathetic that you're not going to go ahead and post political content anyway.

Im 50/50 staying on this sight. It was fun.

 

[magnoliacrew]

23 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I understand and appreciate your concern. We do this at Twins Daily but very rarely and only for causes we feel particularly strongly about. Don't expect this to become the norm in any way, shape, or form.

We wanted to be as delicate as possible about this and I asked the moderators for permission beforehand and was entirely ready to walk away from running the banner if people said no for any reason. No one did.

"We wanted to be as delicate as possible" ..

 about pushing my political views while disallowing others views because of our no politics policy, right?

[magnoliacrew]

16 hours ago, djoctagone said:

thank you for highlighting a social issue.

i see the banner advertisement for this social issue as no different than any other ad that pops up on this site.

I disagree. The banner clearly said "Brewers Fanatic supports (political issue)". If a political organization purchased advertising, that's fine. I'm all for people paying to advertise their views. This wasn't that. This was stating a political preference that is otherwise disallowed. And for good reason.

[hawing]

On 6/27/2022 at 10:58 AM, GAME05 said:

Darn. This was pretty well the last place in the world which didn't let politics infect it and now it's here. It's hard to describe how disappointed I am to have seen that banner.

I've been on this site about daily for more than a decade and lots of other folks here are the same. I don't know peoples' politics and that's awesome. I just want to talk about baseball or debate what belongs on Hawing's relish tray.

 

My apologies for derailing this slightly, but I remain amazed at the notion that my legacy here (on bf.net/bf.com) could well be the long-ago relish tray thread.  ?

Speaking as myself and not on behalf of the site, I'll admit to being torn on the banner issue (which I completely missed due to non-internet busyness the last week-plus).  Like many of you, I have long appreciated the largely politics-free haven that bf.net/com has provided - arguably more in recent years than ever.   The banner on Monday broke or at least cracked that seal, and that's disappointing, in varying degrees, to me and to some/many of you. 

I am personally more disappointed in the court decision that prompted Brock's action.  I fear it represents the start of a slippery slope that could take us all to some ugly places - beyond reproduction issues.  Perhaps some circumstances are large enough to warrant at least a temporary departure from "business as usual." 

I can't tell anyone what to do, regarding the site, going forward.  I hope that this single action does not drive you from the site for good.  For society's sake, I also hope it's rare that we face national or global issues that are this large and jarring.