Politics is important. It directs the way countries work, how they interact between them, and has a dramatic impact on us. Every citizen in a democracy should consider as a duty to keep an instructed eye on politics, if only to know who to vote for at elections.
However I am wondering if it is useful to discuss politics in a forum such as this one. Even though politics is important, it can't take all our time. It is probably safe to say that for most people who come in this forum, it is a place for leisure. People expect to have fun, and not to be confronted again with responsibilities, animated and potentially not friendly discussions. Raising a political discussion, especially on a controversial topic and on a non-political forum such as this one, tends to annoy people. There are many forums directed at politics where everyone can discuss about it, therefore I don't think there is any need to have such discussions on non-political forums too.
Because of that, I think the time has come to choose whether we want or not politics on this forum, and the best way for me seems to be through a vote. If the issue of the vote is a clear "yes", then we'll know that political topics will be welcome. However if it is clear from the vote that the majority of members in this forum do not want political topics, no one should create such topics in the future. New members not aware of this decision should be made aware of it by a simple link to this discussion along with a kind request to withdraw their post. Regular members should refrain from stepping in the discussion.
Now I know what is the big issue with that: free speech. To have a clear understanding of the problem, it is worth knowing exactly what free speech is. It is the right for everyone to express what they want. However it is not the right to force people to listen. People who start political topics might argue that no one is forced to read their posts, but posting a message dealing with controversial political ideas will inevitably push people who do care about such topics, and want to defend their views, to react. These people then can choose either not to react (but will remain frustated by what they would have read) or to anwser (but in this case, the forum won't be only a place to relax, but also a place to discuss political topics). Such intense and passionate discussions might have as a consequence to diminish, or even spoil any interest for these people, and might push them to leave the forum. That is exactly what happened a few months ago during a very intense flamewar: I recensed at least 3 members who never logged in again, and I know that at least one of them left for a reason directly linked to it.
Therefore a clear "no" in a vote would be a message sent to whoever would want to raise a political debate: most people won't listen and will most probably be annoyed. The two major goals for raising a political topic are either passing an important idea (be it "good" or "bad"), or trolling. This will effectively defeat the first goal as the poster will know he/she will more annoy people than convince them. On the other hand, trolls will most probably continue posting after the notice(s), and letting them ignore a clear message and continue posting without any other answer should be enough to ridiculize themselves.
For people who do want to discuss about politics, here is a list of specialized forums I found on the net:
http://www.debatepolitics.com
http://www.politicsforum.com
http://www.politicsforum.org
http://www.itsallpolitics.com
http://www.network54.com/Forum/79106
Thanks to the people who helped me to write this text, and thanks to you for reading it until the end
