View source for Ban on Politics

{{Useful Notes}}
{{quote|''"Henry, I suggest you stick to two subjects: [[Talk About the Weather|the weather]] and your health."''
|'''Mrs. Higgins'''|''[[My Fair Lady]]''}}

{{quote|''"There are three things I've learned never to discuss: religion, politics, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|the Great Pumpkin.]]"''<ref>[[Fridge Logic|Wouldn't that last one fall under the category of religion?]]</ref>
|'''Linus'''|''[[Peanuts]]''}}

{{quote|''"Friends who want to stay friends don't discuss religion or politics. In my case you can add [[World War II|war]] to that."''
|'''Cole Phelps'''|''[[L.A. Noire]]''}}

''If a forum is not specifically about political current events, then you are usually not allowed to talk about political current events there.''

Many forums not dedicated to politics have an official or unofficial ban on [[Berserk Button|discussing current politics]]. (Historical politics, as long as it [[Godwin's Law|doesn't involve Nazis]],<ref>some forums even censor the word N*zi, if only to confound full text searches</ref> is usually okay if relevant to the matter at hand; 20 years seems to ''usually'' be the threshold for "current", with a few notable exceptions.)

The reasoning is quite simple: Any discussion of current politics is [[Flame Bait|likely to lead to a]] [[Flame War]]. Unnecessary Flame Wars are bad. Thus, any discussion of politics is likely to be [[troll]]ing, although you will get the occasional [[Naive Newcomer]] who genuinely doesn't know any better. Thus, the '''Ban on Politics'''. 

Politics is not the only subject that gets this treatment, but it is the most prominent; both sex and religion also get this treatment, but both are usually more prone to self censorship anyway. There is a long-standing belief that one should never discuss sex, politics or religion at dinner parties. Of course, in [[Real Life]], dinner parties that ''do'' discuss these topics are always the fun ones. Regardless of that, the point is that some subjects can create fights, and thus many forums ban these subjects.

Around here, we call our version of this the [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement]]. Some articles call for [[No Real Life Examples, Please]] for this reason.

The only exception is, obviously, articles about politicians, which we try to treat with all the delicacy and care typically reserved for land mines. Keyword being "try", since we usually have chronic edit wars anyway, but hey, we need the articles for completeness' sake.

A worldwide ban on politics has been adopted by a large number of Freemason lodges.<ref>(it frequently extends to a ban on religious talk as well, to discourage arguments between members of different sects or religions)</ref> Their dinner parties are said to be the most pleasant and friendly ones on the planet.

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[[Category:This Index Means Trouble]]
[[Category:Fora]]
[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]
[[Category:Politics Tropes]]
[[Category:Ban on Politics]]
[[Category:This Index is Banned]]