so that conversation doesn't steer itself back to insults and genuine anger

There is no universally valid definition of what constitutes "having fun".

When someone tells you that your behaviour is annoying/distressing to them, your job is to listen and reflect and try to do better.

By all means, it shouldn't take up the entire forums. When we bring our crap into other threads where it doesn't belong, people have every right to box us about the ears for it, and we'll apologize and clean up our mess. But it's a little irritating, I have to admit, to be chastised for indulging where it was assumed to belong.

I did say that, yes, we could probably stand to make it more clear that this isn't serious, and shouldn't be seen as particularly personal or anything other than a bit of indulgence in argumentative urges or whatnot.

Hopefully in the meantime, we all can get what we want out of the election without anyone being too badly bothered.

I suppose an apology is in place then, since I can hardly say I haven't gotten carried away.

I was originally in it to rejoin the community after a 5-month hiatus I took after a nasty fight in the IRC.
I initially just wanted to do infrastructure, forum headquarters and google documents, but in categorizing election snippets I started to notice many players were mistaken in what they thought was factual.

Now, all of you seem to avoid political debate with family members, but I absolutely love doing it so my attempts to point out flaws and misconceptions probably quickly escalated into zealous gibbering.

I'll be the first to admit I've spent the better part of the last week lurking here, my free time has increased dramatically now that school's over and I've unwisely spent it here where my frustration with the election just started kind of festering into fake-roleplaying, real-headaches. This frustration is mostly propagated by how patronizing and snide people can get on here. Seriously, what is up with that?

I'll be taking a break from this for a while, I'll still check in every now and again, but I'm not sure if I'll keep up with the election anymore. There's just no fun in fighting a losing battle.

Again, I apologize.

IS
edited by Infinity Simulacrum on 6/30/2017

I wonder if the assumption is that supporters of one campaign will never look at threads dedicated to another? Because reading about plants to "ally against the ...campaign" or "get together to mob only agitators from the ... campaign" is sure to encourage a pleasant mood overall.

I feel to some extent that debate is to be expected, though there's clearly a line to be crossed. When involving in an election, even a fictional one that still relates to real world ideals and politics, disagreement is bound to happen. Even the kindest forum I've yet to see isn't immune to getting rattled, unfortunately. And to some extent, that's okay. A sharing of ideas can be good and moderate debate is enjoyable to some people when done responsibly. It's the resulting hostility and obsession with the game's meta that gets to me. I can't say I'm as bad off as MidnightVoyager (I'm sorry about your aunt, btw, my family puts me in a similar situation too), but eventually the stress of the debate gets irritating. And I get it, it's politics. It's in a fictional world where bats sell alcohol and death is a literal pastime game, but politics is politics, and you can't expect a group effort like this not to get involved with the nitty gritty of it. But what sucks about it is that it siphons the fun out of it, you know? I love having friendly arguments, but they can get so hostile or extensive on here that it becomes draining to be involved. I don't mind getting involved with the election, it's what we're supposed to do, but it's also meant to be fun. I don't think most of the people are meaning to take it too far, but it'd be nice if players could take an hour or so to recollect themselves and then return to the forums so that conversation doesn't steer itself back to insults and genuine anger. But hey, at least I've yet to see any physical threats this year!