Big announcement on the future of Orioles Hangout

[dorfmac]

Just now, Ruzious said:

And I'm guessing in another post you'll be blaming "snowflakes" for the politicizing of sports. 

There are a million other sites that you can talk politics on.  This is the ONLY decent place I've seen to talk O's.  It serves a purpose now for us unfortunate O's fans - why intentionally mess it up?    

No way, as far as I'm concerned, if you have a platform it's incumbent upon you to use it for good. Whether that's sports, entertainers, politicians, corporate leaders, social media stars, etc. Making the world a better is ALL of our jobs and we need to leverage what power we have, large or small, in that effort. Plus, politics is directly infused into all aspects of our lives - as long as there is a government running our society, politics exist in every facet.

I hope the Hangout stays, but sometimes the venn diagram of baseball and politics overlaps and these become baseball issues. This can be a "no politics" website, but that also is going to limit the depth and legitimacy of any conversation. It is what it is, draw the line somewhere, and then enforce accordingly. People can take it or leave it. But making a thread like this serves no purpose other than to stroke ego and beg for everyone to say "please don't go."

[DrungoHazewood]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I don’t think that should happen either.

Its not helpful.

Tony has correctly left social and political issues largely off the site.  I get that it happens on occasion but for the most part, you don’t see it here...that’s a good thing.

One thing I would say is that if you could somehow have an ignore feature for an entire section, so that you literally never see it, that could be something that I would get more behind but I still think it’s better to leave it off overall.

If you have a politics subforum that will just bleed over into the baseball.  "Sure, I agree with you about cutting Mullins, but you're the idiot who advocated for total nonsense in that thread on the politics forum." 

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, Hazmat said:

  Now, we could debate the appropriate use of force all day long but where you went wrong was to claim that the poster you were responding to was happy that someone died.  

That was sarcasm, pretty sure that was evident.  

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

If you have a politics subforum that will just bleed over into the baseball.  "Sure, I agree with you about cutting Mullins, but you're the idiot who advocated for total nonsense in that thread on the politics forum." 

No doubt.  

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

That’s fine..but do you need to discuss those viewpoints here?

There are tons of political forums out there that you can do that on.  

That's cool we can agree to disagree.  For the record I'm not saying the OH NEEDS a political forum but I wouldn't mind if it did.

[Orioles1954]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

Disagree.  How else do you learn if your viewpoints on life are strong if they're not challenged? 

I do have friends who treat every portion of their life as a "winner takes all" high stakes political debate. It is exhausting and frustrating and few people like them. I do hope there is a place for just talking sports with out that other nonsense....because I don't come here to have my viewpoints challenged. I come here to rest and enjoy the limited free time I do have.

[baltfan]

9 minutes ago, Philip said:

Well if a guy grabs for your gun you don’t know his intent, but because he has already assaulted someone, his intent is probably violent. If I can retreat, I will, because I don’t want to shoot anyone.
Your comment implies that the claim is correct. He had assaulted  someone, and grabbed for the gun of a police officer who was trying to arrest him, and was shot. Based on that, Without any other information, I’d have to say it was justified.

HOWEVER, I want to talk baseball. Please please let’s not continue with this. I’m very willing to discuss privately, but I really want baseball.

baseball is supposed to help us get away from things, not throw us back into the middle of them.

By this logic if anyone ever resists a police officer in any way they must not have respect for the law and are a threat.  I think the issue that most people have is when we discuss police officer's actions in the context of a normal person.  I often hear, what would you do if you were in a position where maybe your life was at stake.  I am not a professional.  I was not trained to control my fears in those situations.  We need to expect more of the police than to excuse every time they confuse someone reaching for their wallet as possibly reaching for a gun.  Or when we excuse them shooting a 12 year old with a BB gun when he potentially points the gun as opposed to dropping it immediately  when they come flying up in a police car.  See the 12 year old should have been able to keep his cool enough to know to drop the gun, but the police are entitled to panic because they can't anticipate that the actions of the 12 year old may be just consistent with a scared to death little boy.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

That's cool we can agree to disagree.  For the record I'm not saying the OH NEEDS a political forum but I wouldn't mind if it did.

The problem is, while a group may be good with it, another group isn’t.  And it can drive people away.

Tony doesn’t want that, at least I’m assuming so (not trying to speak for you Tony).

Thats a reasonable thing for a business to not want.

 

[baltfan]

44 minutes ago, allquixotic said:

Let me tell you a story second-hand from a friend of mine, who's an EMT, about a recent encounter he had with someone in public.

There was this woman who believed that the temperature sensors (basically infrared detectors) they used on people to scan them for elevated temperature were "mind control devices." This is what she said to him.

He spent several minutes calmly showing her and explaining to her how the device works, testing it on himself, etc. He even went into some of the science of it and showed her all the settings on it.

When he finished explaining, although she listened politely, she replied, "I don't believe a word you just said."

You're shouting at a wall. Let it go. This is why we don't discuss politics here. You can never change someone's mind.

Sometimes minds do change though.  We have seen it with the death of Floyd.  Some people just need to be exposed more than once. But I do agree that often it is banging your head against a wall.

[SteveA]

The last 3 hours on this thread prove a perfect example of why there is a no politics rule on this board.  No one has changed anyone's mind, everyone is trying to get the last word in, people on both sides are insulting people on the other, mischaracterizing viewpoints of people who believe differently, and resorting to name-calling, vitriol, and sarcasm.

And that is inevitable when politics is an allowed topic of discussion.

[SilverRocket]

I've just been an occasional poster here, but I've been lurking since the late 90s. The moderation here over the years has been incredible, fostering good discussion between people who would never get along with each other irl. I can't think of more than a handful of times when things devolved here over a couple decades, which is a hell of a feat. It would be sad to see the site go.

[baltfan]

8 minutes ago, Orioles1954 said:

I do have friends who treat every portion of their life as a "winner takes all" high stakes political debate. It is exhausting and frustrating and few people like them. I do hope there is a place for just talking sports with out that other nonsense....because I don't come here to have my viewpoints challenged. I come here to rest and enjoy the limited free time I do have.

I am very political and this is probably the first time I have spoken of politics on this forum.  It isn't really a political forum.  Tony's issue seems to be more with not agreeing with MLB's politics and wanting to potentially cancel it because of his disagreements.

[SteveA]

8 minutes ago, baltfan said:

I am very political and this is probably the first time I have spoken of politics on this forum.  It isn't really a political forum.  Tony's issue seems to be more with not agreeing with MLB's politics and wanting to potentially cancel it because of his disagreements.

Yes, Tony's issue is that he disagrees with MLBs politics.  But I wouldn't say he wants to cancel MLB (i.e. organize public opinion, exert pressure, boycott, etc).

His issue is that he personally runs this site and devotes immense amounts of time and energy to it, and he is not sure he personally wants to do that anymore, because that the organization (MLB) this site is devoted to discussing and analyzing and enjoying has taken a political stance he strongly opposes.

And I can certainly understand that feeling even though my political feelings, which I have tried to keep off the board as much as possible, are probably much closer to yours than his.

Only he can make that decision, and the only input we can have is to tell him how much we enjoy being a part of the community he created here over 20 years ago, how much we have learned and how important it is to be a part of this community.

But in the end, it's his decision.  And making a life choice not to spend a significant portion of time running a site devoted to an MLB tem when MLB is taking political stances he strongly opposes is just that - a life choice for Tony.  It wouldn't be an attemptnto cancel MLB.

[Hank Scorpio]

1 hour ago, baltfan said:

It's not a political party.  It's a movement.  Name any movement that doesn't have parts of it or people in it that you don't take issue with.

I'm overdue for a movement.

[HowAboutThat]

30 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Disagree.  How else do you learn if your viewpoints on life are strong if they're not challenged? 

Moose, there’s a time and place for everything. I’m not gonna teach my kid about guns in church, though I certainly teach about both guns and church. When I’m having a lesson, we frequently go off on tangents, but the tangents are musical related. I do not suddenly pivot from Beethoven to Biden, because it’s not appropriate.
your comment implies a different purpose for this forum. This forum is for baseball.
It’s not for therapy or politics. You’re also implying that this is the only place where such discussions can effectively occur, which is ridiculous. I offered to discuss anything with you privately, if you wish to, although frankly I’d prefer not to, but discussing it publicly just detracts from baseball.

we are all here because for some reason, we like the Orioles, and we like baseball. And we have strong feelings about the Orioles and baseball. I don’t come here to discuss Black Lives Matter or the Alaska pipeline or banning handguns. This is not the place for that.

If Tony shut this place down, I will probably stop being an oriole fan, because I won’t have anybody to discuss the team with. And because of my disgust with what is happening right now not just the political involvement but the game itself, I probably will just go back to playing candy crush…

Edited July 24, 2020 by Philip