Ban all political threads for good

Oh...got it. Thank you for answering, Charred.

Harishankar, I hope that you continue to post here. I for one welcome your inquiries into others' opinions. It's just that people tend to take quite a defensive stance when it comes to their opinions, and one of those defense mechanisms is to offend the other. We should be prepared to face that.

I think that I agree with the sentiment of hari's thread- and when you look at it basically, it has been discussed before (particularly in regard to distributions)
and the point that is being made here and elswhere: flaming sucks, and don't feed the trolls.

General exists to stop non-relevant stuff from polluting the main question areas- this is a linux questions forum after all. I think that political disscussions shouldn't be banned, but there should be stricter punishments for flamers - flaming hurts.

Flamers should have a 48-hour-shut-your-gob imposed- maybe have write permissions detracted from general. (it should be public to- give em shame)

LQ should be a grown up forum- we attract many people of the younger generation (I probably count as one- but I mean 13 yolds.) and thus we should be an example to them. one of the reasons general does not count for post count is to give LQ a grown up feel.

cutting remarks and immaturity should be self regulated however- GROW UP!

So, political threads are not good if they cause personal attacks. I agree with trickykid - you should punish the person, not ban the means.

titanium_geek

They are already banned if they promote a political party.
However you are allowed to promote a view point which seems strange.
There are double standards as Moderators can promote a political action eg please contact your senator (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=alaska which I agreed with by the way)
but ordinary users can only promote something if no Moderators disagree are anti it.

However I think political threads are good providing Moderators do not give themselves the last word !