After much debate your moderators have agreed to create this thread so that people can discuss political issues, One of the reasons we took so long to agree this was because in the early days of this site there was a lot of overheated argument about politics which resulted in people leaving the site.So, there are certain rules which have to be stuck to by everybody, or the thread will be closed.
1. Because this thread has been created to discuss politics, there are to be NO political issues raised on any other thread, including Les’s Lounge of Loquaciousness. One of the reasons for keeping this topic in one place is to give those who want to keep out of it an easy way of avoiding it.
2. As on all other threads on the Southampton board, debate is to be conducted as between friends. While widely diverse views will obviously be aired, there are to be NO personal insults or disrespect of other people's views.
3. People should try to agree to disagree about issues where differences exist. Please don't let's have pages and pages of back-and-forth point-scoring, which is overwhelmingly tedious to those not involved in the discussion.
4. If you are upset or offended by something someone posts, please don't start arguing with them. Use the Report button which will bring the offending post to the Mods' attention and you can leave it to us to deal with it. Use the PM function (the little envelope at the top right of the screen) if you want to ask the mods about anything, short of reporting a post. To remind you, the Southampton moderators are: Beddytare, Channonfodder, st_brendy, and myself, ChilcoSaint.
Any posts violating these rules will be deleted and action taken against the offender(s). This action can range between a simple warning, then a ban from the thread, right up to a temporary or permanent site ban. Obviously, this is the last thing we mods want to do, so please don't give us any reason to.
Enjoy the debate!
