Political Avatar Poll, please vote!

If political avatars are allowed, then people should be allowed to write political statements as a "signature" at the end of every post. There's really no difference between the two, other than one appears to the left of the post and one appears at the bottom.

jayK said: If political avatars are allowed, then people should be allowed to write political statements as a "signature" at the end of every post. There's really no difference between the two, other than one appears to the left of the post and one appears at the bottom.

It's no surprise we're on opposite sides of this debate . There should be no restrictions on avatars because there is a great option to hide custom avatars - if you want a wholesome FW with no political avatars, use it. Avatars don't hurt anyone and drawing more lines in the sand just makes it harder for the mods. Are you going to expect people from California who like the Terminator movies to take down their terminator avatars because of the governator?

If you don't like or are offended by the avatars you see, turn them off. Want an easy solution, have the mods do it for anyone who complains.

jayK said: If there was an option to ignore avatars on a per-user basis, I would agree with you, but I shouldn't have to hide everyone's custom avatar just because a few people use them as a soapbox for political statements that would otherwise not be allowed on FW.
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Don't like my signature? You are free to ignore all my posts!

I'd prefer ignoring avatars per-user to a policy banning political ones, but personally, I don't think it's worth the development effort. That said, I know very little about this problem because I have custom avatars turned off most of the time.

You "signature" on the other hand is terrible because I have no way to ignore it. You're right that I could ignore all your posts, but only if I switched over to modern view because that feature is not available to those of us who use classic; the two, though both political, are not at all the same.

Current tally: Yes - 45%, No - 54%, Undecided = 1%?

If you are going to ban political discussions, you might as well make it universal with avatar and whatever else (pictures, links, etc.) people can post. I wonder if my avatar (from standard FW icon library) is considered a political statement.

HTN said: Current tally: Yes - 45%, No - 54%, Undecided = 1%?

If you are going to ban political discussions, you might as well make it universal with avatar and whatever else (pictures, links, etc.) people can post. I wonder if my avatar (from standard FW icon library) is considered a political statement.I agree. I also agree with an earlier poster who said this is best not to be left to polls but to the good judgments of the FW (Mods).

First a disclaimer: I think politics should be allowed. What could FW do that most political forums do not, is not to allow any degree of personal attacks -- a zero tolerance kinda thing. I say the delineation between a personal attack (and more generally an ad-hominem attack) and an argument which is critical, perhaps even viciously, of someone else's position is for most part very clear. But that is me.

But now that political posts are not allowed, it would be wrong to allow a loophole that would make a mockery of the no-politics rule. Further it is one thing to have a picture (as an avatar) that is political; it is quite another thing to have textual statements (as an avatar) that are political. And then this is exasperated by those few (very few?) who change their textual avatars on a daily basis if not sometimes even more often.

I did an experiment just recently. I took the statement in a political avatar and used it as the title of a new thread. My theory was that that post would be locked. Well, it was actually deleted.

Again, this is a matter of fairness. It is not fair that the vast majority of the posters abide by the no-politics rule while a few continue to express their political opinions on a continuous basis (admittedly something which is allowed by the current policies but also I hope most would agree is a violation of the spirit of no politics rule).

I am the type of person who would like to beat my opponents fair and square. When I used to play table-tennis competitively, I would bring errors of the referee that had gone to my advantage to the ref and agree that it be reversed. As a result, while I can easily create textual political avatars, I would refrain from the same.

Here is my position:

At the very least, I would like to see textual political avatars to be banned.

Beyond that, I would also ban frequent changes in one's avatar. Perhaps I am wrong but I think avatars were invented as a way to quickly identify others. Allowing frequent changes in avatars defeats that very propose.

And ultimately, I think any political avatar, whether picture or text, should be banned.

But again my real wish, say if I were in charge, would be to allow politics which BTW would make restrictions on political avatars either unnecessary or meaningless.

What is considered political?

golamago said: What is considered political?
You have to apply the pron "I know it when I see it" method. Otherwise your avatar is subversive to the Empire, and the mod BMWLUVR is a proponent of national socialism.

To me the political avatars serve the purpose of telling me who is too much of an idealogue to be worth listening too, something ironically counter to the idea of the people picking them.

The value of an idea is independent of the person who states it.

Or so I thought.

Please provide examples of what people are complaining about. I can't imagine 32 pixels x 32 pixels being all that offensive politically. As long as it isn't NSFW, I don't think it's a big deal.

Delete the political avatars first and then create a discussion thread on what to do about them!

jcbrooks said: Please provide examples of what people are complaining about. I can't imagine 32 pixels x 32 pixels being all that offensive politically. As long as it isn't NSFW, I don't think it's a big deal.
I'd imagine this is one of them. Another potential one. As jayk said, xnarg frequently uses political avatars, though he currently has an ant.

Xnarg said: Political user names should be treated the same as user avatars.Flamebait user names should be treated the same as flamebait avatars. Positive political statements (which are usually OK to post) are fine in text, avatar, or username form.

MVP9596 said: Please take the time to vote for your choice.
Anyone that gets offended by a political avatar has got to be completely pathetic and have mental issues.

I believe that the reason political talk was banned is because of how out of control things get, and how people often ended up insulting each other. An avatar is a statement, not a conversation. The minute an avatar becomes insulting, it should be removed.

jcbrooks said: Please provide examples of what people are complaining about. I can't imagine 32 pixels x 32 pixels being all that offensive politically. As long as it isn't NSFW, I don't think it's a big deal.I tried to give you an example but my post got a "pending approval" message and has not appeared yet. The post might appear later but still ....

QED!!!!!!!

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.seussi latnem evah dna citehtap yletelpmoc eb ot tog sah ratava lacitilop a yb dedneffo steg taht enoynA˙ǝǝɹƃɐ ı

Is this another poll where you ask for our opinion and then disregard it?

shopliftinginva said: Is this another poll where you ask for our opinion and then disregard it?

Actually, your feedback is shelved. For example, during the last FW staff meeting, someone suggested adding top and bottom buttons to each post. It was unheard of. Yet, it was brilliant! Needless to say, the devs got on it and finished the coding in between rounds of Mario Kart. Not sure what glowing gem this thread will produce for my upcoming performance evaluation with ChiefMuckyMuck but I read somewhere about making Favorites sticky in a customized view for each user. That's the kind of futuristic idea that we'll bring to our Stone Age forums someday but in the meantime, I'll just put that diamond in my back pocket. So you see, we do need your opinions because other than getting richer, we have no idea what we're doing.

I usually participate soley in FW's forums about Savings and CD rates, a particular bank, etc. What does seeing a visual political-flame statement add to this? People get "redded" for brief off-topic posts in many of those forums. Well, how much more off-topic can you get than a political avatar that's intended to provoke?

For topics of a purposely political nature -- either here or elsewhere -- political avatars would be fine. If the implication (or simply the typical disrespect) of one of them bothered me, I could either just stay away or respond pointedly.

But backing up to even more fundametal points, Xnarg really hit the nail on the head at the outset: A moderated forum obviously isn't (nor should it be) a democracy. The owners and/or moderators should set the rules and not make any pretense of polling posters for a solution -- especially when they oddly seek a "large majority" to provide guidance in an decidedly unscientific type of "poll" like this one

And BTW, maybe I'm behind the times here, but isn't an avatar supposed to be a visual or symbolic representation of ONESELF? Maybe some of the people with the political flame avatars don't care for themselves very much???

dejanu said: A moderated forum obviously isn't (nor should it be) a democracy. The owners and/or moderators should set the rules and not make any pretense of polling posters for a solution -- especially when they oddly seek a "large majority" to provide guidance in an decidedly unscientific type of "poll" like this one

While I agree to a degree, I think it is important for any forum to at least listen to what the users would like. The users make the forum what it is, fatwallet forums would be nothing without us and I would have no problem going elsewhere if some decision was made that I felt was disastrous to my experience here (political avatars are not in this category). I at least appreciate fatwallet asking us for opinions, and I appreciate the fact that our opinions will be taken into account along with their own company goals and what they want the forums to look like.