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.