Sky at Night Magazine

[parus ater]

I'm not interested in you, Jimmy.

As I said before this forum is held as an example elsewhere as to why their off topic sections have a no politics and religion rule and pretty much every special forum I've been on also has said rule. What does this allow? It allows basically spammy topics o be discussed in a light-hearted way without having antagonistic and inflammatory threads.
As James rightly pointed out, the non-astro chat section began long before I ever came along and likewise inflammatory threads of a [url=http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/]spEak You're bRanes[/url] nature and the resulting flames that go along with them were also here long before I. With that in mind the Admin's decision was always on the cards. The fault is not mine no matter who throws mud in my direction. As a wise man once said, when someone throws mud all you need to do to find the cause is to follow the drips backwards.

By outlawing religion and politics we could keep the non-astro chat section, the banter that breeds a good-natured and friendly atmosphere which you just can't get when it's reactionary politics spamming out the topics. You don't need to maintain a high moderation level to do it either, just pop in every other day and ban users who break the rules and the forum stays inviting and friendly.

[splog]

Time to put the handbags away [;)] If anyone's to blame it's forum Admin for allowing it to happen! ([i]no offence intended Admin[/i])

Sadly the forum is suffering from the entropy syndrome.......... Order will always turn to disorder... See what I did there....... [;)]

[nerys]

We’ve taken the decision to remove the ‘non-astro chat’ section as it was detracting from the friendly atmosphere of this astronomy forum.

It was really. As a newby I thought I'd come in on World War 3. But it was fun while it lasted.

[lancashire astroguy]

[quote]ORIGINAL: Parus Ater

without having antagonistic and inflammatory threads

[/quote]

There is no such thing as an antagonistic and inflammatory thread. Only an antagonistic and inflammatory response to a thread. If you don't like a thread, stay away. If you wish to contribute to a thread and express your opinion, do so in a friendly and polite manner and avoid personal attacks. This is all I have ever asked.

Anyway, this is all history now. The problem with this forum hasn't been the activity on "Non-Astro" but the lack of activity elsewhere. If the "General" section had half the activity that "Non-Astro" had, we would be a very successful forum. I do my best to post something every so often, but the truth is that sometimes nothing happens in "General" for days at a time. It should be at the heart of the forum.

The message is get posting about Astronomy.

James

[nerys]

So... are you two friends now? Parus and James I mean. Politics and religion are always dodgy subjects - gets one's hackles up. Don't know why but both have caused enough wars and deaths throughout history so best avoided really. Even my own religion (Baptist) has a history of being anti-Catholic... how stupid! I wouldn't mind if either preached reality but I've heard enough fairy tales to last me a lifetime.

[lancashire astroguy]

Friends, no .... able to communicate in a polite and civilised manner, yes (from my side at any rate).

Politics and religion were always discussed (and sometimes argued over) at my familys dinner table when I was growing up. If ordinary people do not talk about politics and religion, it only benefits those with political or religious authority. I wouldn't say that they were dodgy subjects. However, you always get dodgy people in forums such as this who launch personal and vitriolic attacks on people because of their political views. Maybe its just my experience, but all these people tend to come from the left-wing of politics.

Regards,
James

[les]

This tread is starting to resemble a smaller version of the Non Astro section,overshadowing other threads.Its got to the stage where either one person is man enough to let the other have the last word or admin deletes the thread! Elvis is dead,theres no Santa Claus and the Non Astro chat has gone get used to it and move on!

[lancashire astroguy]

Hi folks,

If getting rid of "Non-Astro" was supposed to re-invigorate the forum, I would have to say that it seems to have had the opposite effect. The forum is agonisingly slow at the moment. I keep signing in every couple of days in the hope that an interesting discussion has started to find that often not a single new post has been added to the General or other sections. I don't know if more people are using Twitter these days (yawwwwn!) but certainly the forum doesn't offer the near real-time experience that it once did.

Say what you like about the "Non-Astro" sections and the political arguments, but it seemed to breathe life into the forum as a whole. People who were contributing in "Non-Astro" were also contributing elsewhere - myself included. Any chance we could have it back?

Regards,
James

[parus ater]

There's the same amount of astro posts as there generally ever has been, which was my point before. As to have almost all users moved to other astronomy forums? An unhesitant yes but that was a longstanding trend prior to losing non astro. The damage was done long before and people aren't suddenly going to pop back overnight. That said, you'd expect sommething to pick up.

The forum has had two status', no off topic and full politics off topic. Neither stimulates mass users and posts while other non brandname forums gather momentum onthe back of BBC programming.
Off topic sections are central to building a community, as other astro forums confirm but what made here different? Politics and religion.
Bring back non astro minus those topics, then things will pick up.

[lancashire astroguy]

Parus,

To be fair its been a few months now since Non-Astro went offline. In the last 6 days there have been just 2 posts to the General section, one of which was mine. Neither post has been replied to. I know its mid-summer and therefore "off season" to some extent for our hobby, but that is still very quiet by the standards of this forum.

You know I don't agree with you that controversial topics should have been banned from Non-Astro. I personally don't believe anyone was put off this site because of them. However, I do agree with you that a re-instatement of Non-Astro minus these topics would be better than nothing. It remains a mute point however that it would be difficult in some cases to decide what topic is "political" or "religious" and what topic has a legitimate interest to astronomy enthusiasts.

Consider for instance a debate on man-made global warming, or on the teaching of creationism alongside the Big Bang in schools. The former could be seen as "political" and the latter as "religious" and yet both debates frequently occurred in the "General Astronomy" section before the "Non-Astro" section was created. Nothing wrong with either debate I would say as long as people don't throw mud around and start personally attacking others for their views. Interesting discussions are not always about being in agreement with someone, you know!

Regards,
James