Politics and Current Events Forum
From Roosterpedia
The Politics & Current Events Forum (known within the forum simply as "PCE") is one of the forums on the Roosterteeth website. Originally begun as a single thread, it was given its own forum. As is the case in any situation when strongly held beliefs are discussed and questioned, this forum can be a powderkeg of hatred and anger. However, due in no small part to a dedicated effort by mods and regulars alike to maintain high levels of decorum and standards over the years, the Politics & Current Events Forum became a strong bastion of civilisation and intelligence for the community.
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Standards
Over the course of time, high standards have become the expected form of behavior. Within the rules of the PCE forum, posters are expected to have knowledge of how to spell and to have the ability to use correct grammar. The only exceptions to this rule are those that do not have English as their native language. 1337speak and internet shorthand are heavily discouraged.
Because many of the regulars have a background in higher education, the need for sources has become commonplace. Most news sources are accepted. Sites with an obvious bias are rejected. Blogs that provide sources and evidence for their claims can at times be used depending upon the subject matter.
Iconic Topics & Discussions
Though almost all political, social and historical issues and discussions have, at least once, been part of everyday discourse here, some are more common and prolific than others, whether for good or annoyance.
The blog and commentary threads focus on headlines of the day, especially those of more minor import.
Major Elections are always a hot topic, as well as issues such as Abortion, Separation of Church and State, Gay Rights, Immigration, Global Warming, Drugs and other Scientific Issues.
Religion and Philosophy Forum
- Main article: Philosophy and Theology Forum
One notable discussion and series of threads have been the Discussion of Christianity threads. Before the PCE Wipe, there were several successive incarnations of this discussion, which tended to be informative and helpful, but had several moments of douchebaggery, depending on who was involved in the discussion. The popularity of this thread and those of other religions started a movement by many of the regular members to create a dedicated religion forum, so that the politics forum might focus more on political discussions.
After some disucssion, there was the argument that some trains of thoughts could be argued to be philosophical or religious and there was no real way to draw a line between the two. Because of this, the idea of a Religions Forum was merged with Philosophy.
The movement was popular, and for a long time had been unsuccessful. However, on July 8th, 2008, the Philosophy and Theology Forum was created.
Private Security Force
Though never officially recognized by anyone, it's well known that within the regulars there are some who make no attempt to educate and correct morons and instead resort to trolling at every opportunity. These internet tough guys turn a thread with good potential into, "How could you be so stupid?" and, "I can't believe you would say that."
There is currently a movement by various regulars to instead be more welcoming towards newcomers. It is hoped that in educating the morons and showing them how to better prepare their arguments that people will not be driven away from the forum.
Notable Events
DarkFae
- Main article: DarkFae
In October 2005, a poster known as DarkFae was purported to have died. After seven aborted attempts to create a thread, a permanent DarkFae thread was allowed to proceed in which various posters came together to find out the truth about what happened.
War journals
Begun by Templar895, a series of war journals were written in PCE's Open Discussion Thread. These journals depicted events that had happened within PCE, but dramatized as told from a soldier's perspective.
Movie roles
From time to time, different posters will arrange to go through a famous movie scene. They change their avatars to the appropriate character from the film. The most notable of these scenes were the A Few Good Men court room scene and the ending scenes from Dr. Strangelove.
PCE Wipe
In July 2006, the entirety of PCE was wiped clean with the exception of a single thread. The mods felt that the PCE needed to be taught a lesson by reminding the members of what it was like when there was only a single thread for political discussions. The aftermath of the wipe led to the current incarnation of PCE with threads dedicated to forum issues, new announcements, news commentary, and an open thread.
The Reps
Not long before the PCE Wipe, another experiment done by the mods turned sour. There has almost always been a need for more moderation in the PCE, since the nature of the debates can bring out the worst in people. Many of the moderators were often not around the PCE regularly and had to be called in from elsewhere, often long after the fact. Self-moderation by the regulars sometimes worked, but many times it simply lead to massive flame wars.
The mods proposed that a few of the PCE regulars be made into what they called "Reps" for the forum. The idea was to make something analogous to the CTA for the PCE, a medium between the regulars and the mods. The idea met with harsh resistance from the rest of the forum, with complaints of political bias among the Reps, inefficient design for the idea itself, lack of real authority/enforcement power for the Reps to be effective, and so on. Even a few of the Reps themselves disagreed with the idea and stepped down from the responsibility. There were several heated debates regarding the issue, and many users left the site over it or were banned in the chaos. Moderation in the PCE continued to be problematic, until BigBen, a very popular and respected regular, became a mod.
Posts are years
As the Open Discussion Thread approached a post number nearly matching the current year, posts became memories for events that happened for the relevant year. It began with the shooting of students at Kent State and ended with a terrorist attack led by mooninites.
Epic threads
Epic Lulz
From time to time, certain threads will be created that will become a source of epic lulz. Usually, the thread is created by a 15 year old. The thread should not have been created in the first place as the content is instead appropriate for a journal. Eventually, the creator of the thread will return and begin to complain about his treatment from the other posters. It is usually around this time that the Waaaaaambulance is called in to remind the user that they are simply wasting their time. Among the most famous of such threads is the Bullying thread which led to the current Blows for blows PCE meme.
Epic Discussion
Because the tendency of the regular users to pursue more philosophical discussions, there are times when threads are created for purely philosophical discussions. The "What is Beauty?" and "What is Justice?" threads that existed before the Wipe are such examples.
In the time since the wipe, there have been attempts to bring up more discussions involving research and knowledge. In the Summer of 2007, a P&CE Editorial Panel was created in the efforts to spawn more intelligent discussion threads.
Expertise
Over time, certain people have become recognized within the forum as general experts in certain fields. Said posters have time and again used their knowledge of the subjects to either correct other posters or to provide a definitive answer to a question.
At times, this has become a matter of contention as some people confuse this expertise as an attempt to appeal to their own authority instead of a poster simply adding their knowledge. Once accused of being an elitist movement, the fact that some people are more knowledgeable than others on certain topics is presently easily accepted.
PCE users
Areas of expertise are in parentheses.
Most common Mods
BigBen (US law)
dark54555 (US law)
geonex88 (Computers)
hobbie (Bringin' the Banhammer)
Regular members
Alsace (Medical Biology)
Chewey Delt (History & Gay Rights Advocate)
drshafopolis (Computer Science)
Duste (History & Fighting the Power)
GrySovCob (Nuclear Physics)
JohnLethal (Epik Lulz & Getting His Ass Banned)
Mexcello (Mexico, Latin American Politics and Relations)
Orcus (Mathematics)
pal_sch (Physics, Evolutionary Sciences)
Pavan (Political Science, Economics, Eastern Religions, Hinduism, Philosophy, History, International Development, South Asia, and Barack Obama)
runningschu (Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophy of Action)
Satarus (Subsidized Housing)
Scapino1974 (Christian Theology)
Swooper74 (Ethical Philosophy/Theology)
uclari (Economics, econometrics, political science, Asian IR, Japan, modern Japanese and Chinese history, electoral systems, and university admissions)
Noted Former Regulars
It should be noted that while some have left permanently, others listed here do continue to drop by from time to time.
Infamously Banned(by hobbie)
BigGator5 (Elitism)
Deathmage (Bush-Hating Liberals)
ZenHammer (Hating Bush)
