[Meta] Vocal Mayoral Debate

Elliot

Confirmed Robot
Member
WRT transphobia, the community was pretty intensely shitty specifically about trans women and applying the "hurr hurr girls on the internet are really guys" thing to trans women. Lumpy is actually right that the traps meme is pretty transphobic/toxic since trans women are regularly murdered because of similar thought processes (and ""gay panic""), but this thread is not the place&time for this discussion so I'd like that to be the final word about it here, please. Come @ me on discord or something if you want to fight with me about it.

Anyone want to share how this debate changes your opinion of any of the candidates?
 

Lumpy

Well-Known Member
Member
but this thread is not the place&time for this discussion
This is more or less what I meant. I just couldn't think of a way to say that it seems both inappropriate for a fake mayor run as well as incorrect, and is pretty insulting to the forum people in general to suggest they were ever more toxic or hateful than they are now. It was just strange thing to say.
 

Anatronman

Well-Known Member
Member
Wanna quickly thank Wolfy and Rondait for putting this together, this is my first "local" political race and the work they've done to help me become an informed voter is above and beyond any reasonable expectation.

My takeaway is that all of the candidates are much stronger than I had originally anticipated, but that they struggled to differentiate their platforms and stood mostly on their lifetime accomplishments. The big surprise for me was Blooky's strength as a candidate. With few laurels to fall back on, she gave strong policy answers and stood out among the field by taking uniquely empathetic positions.
 

Requiem

Well-Known Member
Member
This is more or less what I meant. I just couldn't think of a way to say that it seems both inappropriate for a fake mayor run as well as incorrect, and is pretty insulting to the forum people in general to suggest they were ever more toxic or hateful than they are now. It was just strange thing to say.
That's fair, I mostly was just responding to stuff as it came up in the debate.

Maybe toxic isn't the right word, but I do think we've at least softened more over the last few years at least. Maybe not so intentionally edgy. At least that's my hope and my personal intention.
 

Lumpy

Well-Known Member
Member
My takeaway is that all of the candidates are much stronger than I had originally anticipated, but that they struggled to differentiate their platforms and stood mostly on their lifetime accomplishments. The big surprise for me was Blooky's strength as a candidate. With few laurels to fall back on, she gave strong policy answers and stood out among the field by taking uniquely empathetic positions.
Blooky is basically the Green Party. No one disagrees with her stances per se, but she ain't gonna be mayor.
 

Requiem

Well-Known Member
Member
"Toxic" being the word used by the candidates and the question that was asked. (We can absolutely do better on things, especially in regards to the "traps" meme. I know I don't go out of my own way to say, "Hey, let's cut it out" and I know while I don't really care for that meme now, I also have joked around with it myself in the past/recent past. I can do better myself and I think the rest of the community can also do better as a whole, so we should try.)

BUT, TO BE ON TOPIC, Blooky is a strong contender. I like the idea of a newer forumer coming up as an underdog despite the "pedigree" of the other candidates, if you will (no, that wasn't a pun, eat my ass TC). Her empathetic position she took throughout the debate is a good one. Not much mudslinging that I saw.

The debate as a whole rode the line between shitposty joke to an actual full on debate about who we are as a community and where we wanna go from here if we intend to actually do something of substance and worth. Lumpy said it well a long time ago on Geek2, we need to actually have a reason for us to grow, something to grow around, as well as things we're all actively doing, pursuing, and making. How can we expect new members to join the community if there's nothing for the community to build itself around besides us as personalities. There's gotta be more there. In the past we very much failed to make a game happen, but I think the idea of streams, videos, articles, etc. is more than viable and we can definitely work towards it.

This is all to say, while I still don't see the role of mayor as being one with power, it's important to note that with the debate naturally and healthily taking on the serious, constructive tones it did, we're treating the election less like a joke, which is good, I feel, and speaks to what we want to try and do. Whoever people vote for in this election, them being mayor will be marked by that element of seriousness/earnest idea of moving forward and creating content, more so than people. Who have been mayor in the past.

I still think Mayor shouldn't have any actual forum power (they're not a mod or admin), but having that element of forward momentum, whatever you wanna call it, will naturally give the position more credibility. It's a good idea to keep it as a "role" that anyone can get if they go for it.

I may be over thinking things, but that's what came to me when I was listening to the debate and the posts since then.

So, that all said, I dunno, it's tough to say who's gonna win or how I wanna vote. My opinions of everyone are higher now than they were before, mostly because now I'm taking this more seriously overall for what it might mean in the near future of the forum. Blooky was originally going to be my vote since her party name is strong and it made me laugh, but with this debate, I dunno, I think things changed a little bit. That may just be me though and I understand if others think I'm taking this too far/too seriously.
 

Anatronman

Well-Known Member
Member
This is all to say, while I still don't see the role of mayor as being one with power, it's important to note that with the debate naturally and healthily taking on the serious, constructive tones it did, we're treating the election less like a joke, which is good, I feel, and speaks to what we want to try and do. Whoever people vote for in this election, them being mayor will be marked by that element of seriousness/earnest idea of moving forward and creating content, more so than people. Who have been mayor in the past.
I think this election is great content. It's entertaining, engaging, and people are invested in the outcome. We got 103.3 The MACH out of it, which is the highest quality production we've seen in a long time. Every candidate is taking a different approach to building goodwill in the community, since everyone is well known enough that they don't have to pitch themselves from scratch like in a important county/state/national election.

So yeah, while the role of mayor may not need power, the election itself has power.
 

Tirin

God-Emperor of Tealkind
Moderator
The debate made me realize that all of the candidates (even TC, all shitposting aside) are strong choices. A large part of the "problem", if you could call it that, is that we have trouble in differentiating ourselves from one another (as Anatron mentioned) because, at the core of it, we have the same group of goals here: we want the community to be more active and wholesome, less toxic, produce content in greater volume and ideally greater quality (which the election and surrounding stuff in general has done an excellent job of with respect to polls, WNN, The Mach and Mach Times, etc.), and see growth.

A lot of us focused on what we've done in the past because we're trying to use it to predict and indicate what we're going to do in the future. As much as that's a valid idea and one that is worth consideration as far as who's gonna be a good mayor goes... I'm shaking that off. I'm going to do better and be better than my past here, mayor or not, and I hope that this election will bring the same out of the other candidates regardless of who wins.
 

The Hound

Just Monika
Member
I guess at the end of the day it will come down to who we think is most capable of succeeding at those shared goals.
 
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