I think myself and @Barry Haynes are also at different political persuasions but I still like him, and if I were in east grinstead I would give him a shout and have a pint of londons finest with him. I may wear my socialist t shirt or Man Utd t shirt tho bazza
That's bloody typical. We are all having a civilised political conversation and you have to bring the tone down by mentioning Man Utd. Completely out of order. I'm trying to eat my breakfast.
From what I see we don't need any forum wide bans or rules to stop this sort of thing. It just requires the only person that starts the deliberately inflammatory threads to just stop doing it.
There is a thing psychologists call confirmation bias, where human beings will always tend to read or surround themselves with things that confirm and reinforce their views, rather than be open to challenge. Some of the bad posts are probably over-reactions; politics is interestingly split at the moment and debate is good, but I agree that it has got out of hand at times, particularly with the election campaign. We are all guilty of confirmation bias but maybe we should try harder to tolerate opposition. There we go - have I made it clear enough that I'm a typical lefty Liberal snowflake hippy..?
If the theory of confirmation bias is a proven thing, do you think that extends to people making the decision to buy an old vw rather than say a newer t5 or a transit or a motor home? I does seem to me that there are more hippy lefty types than hardcore right wingers as owners. Are these people drawn to the buses by they type of people who already own them.?
I was, but that was when the people that owned them were all hippy types, not the buying into a lifestyle with a fat city bonus types.
I've never really considered it before but I guess you are unlikely to buy a transit converted camper or a t5 to take to shows if you don't like the type of people who attend those shows. Having said that if you just wanted a vehicle to tour the country and go camping in then a t2 isn't the best idea anyway. I guess the choice of vehicle only matters if you intend on meeting up with other owners.
I don't believe in censorship so baning political discussion is not an option for me. As has been suggested, why not have a "Politics" forum for those who want to rant on and is there any way that you can "hide" particular forums if you aren't interested in them?
I keep seeing the title of this thread and all I can think of is this song. I'm warning you @Barry Haynes , if I wake up tomorrow with this as an ear worm you'll be sorry.
Agreed. With freedoms come responsibilities, and on a forum those responsibilities include making sure your contribution to the community is actually a contribution. Anything entertaining or informative or satirical is a contribution, starting a thread to see who bites back at what you posted isn't a contribution, often those kind of threads are mainstream politics but not always, so a ban on a topic is metaphorically a square peg and a round hole. Or in other words, if you want to act like an attention seeking knob, post it on VZi
@Fish This seems to me to be a sensible proposal ... is there anyway that the forum can be adapted so that you can hide a thread once you have seen it's not of interest? And they never come up in your reading pane ever again, stop lots off people getting drawn into these sort of threads. I suppose it is a bit like the opposite of watched threads? Anyway I can just about switch a computer on so dont know if this is a possibility?
Whilst we're at it. Can we have a ban on sarcastic pointless supposedly funny answers to people's serious requests for help with specific van related questions . How about a section that specifically allows the venting of such. (See what I did there. )
I really don't see the problem. It may be frustrating having to spell out and explain facts when those who respond to posts simply to repeat tabloid or "bloke in pub said" but that aside some conversation and debate goes on which is quite convivial. It may also be the case that some of us might be trolling people we are mates with or with whom we have a good rapport but this is beyond the knowledge of the reader. I've been guilty in going that bit too far myself so apologies for that but any offence or upset ive caused to any individuals has usually been addressed by a couple of hugs by PM. Nothing on here makes me angry or upset and it makes me chortle when Im told to calm down or similar. Creating a politics section would be a step too far and possibly motivate some to go that bit too far!
or a ban on people commenting on for sale threads or a ban on people posting deliberately misleading titles, or on similarly titled threads taking the rip out of the original nooooo..... why spoil the fun!
