📣 New policy: ALL political discussions are now off-topic

[bartv (Bart Veldhuizen)]

This is something I’ve been thinking over for a long time, and to be honest I should have written this a lot sooner.

Here’s the thing: We’re struggling with political discussions and they’re not making Blender Artists a better place. It’s time for a change.

First, a little history. We don’t have a detailed terms of conduct on Blender Artists (other than some legal stuff), and that’s by design: when I took over the forum from CG Cookie back in 2018, the site had a hyper-specific list of rules. And it had the reverse effect: trolls would invariably find the edges of the rules and have fiery debates with the moderators about their applications of them. Instead, we now have one rule: “Don’t be a jerk”. And while that can be subjective sometimes, I feel it has been instrumental in turning BA around and making it a positive, constructive place for conversations about Blender again.

That is… until politics enter the conversation. By their very nature, discussing politics will cause heighted emotions and especially in this time of polarization and misinformation, things can go off the rails very easily - and they almost always do.

This puts an unreasonable load on our (small!) moderation team; digging into long conversations, understanding the topic at hand, filtering our misinformation and then formulating an opinion - usually on topics we’re not here for to discuss.

It’s time to stop this. From now on, any kind of discussion on political subjects will be considered off-topic and will be removed. This includes artwork with a political message or meaning. First-time offenders will receive one warning, repeat offenders will be banned for one month and then permanently.

Related, I do realise that I made the decision to support Ukraine when Russia invaded the country - and I sent a very strong political message by doing to. At this time, there are multiple active conflicts around the world and people have rightfully asked me why I didn’t do the same thing for other for them too. There’s no right reply on this, and given our new ‘no politics’ rule, this needs to apply to ourselves too. So I’m reverting the BA logo to its original state and I’m deactivating the Ukraine flair that people could add to their accounts.

Let’s ensure our focus is on what we’re here for: sharing and discussing Blender art, and helping other users with their Blender questions. There are other places to discuss politics, but they’re not here on Blender Artists.

Feel free to comment on this post with your thoughts on this policy, but remember: politics are now entirely off-topic.

[bartv (Bart Veldhuizen)]

A special note to the current members of the @Ukraine-Support group: I have removed the flair and will delete this group later this weekend.

[echtjetze (Sebastian)]

I can completely understand your point of view and understand your decision well. Focusing on art as a unifying medium is perhaps a good sign in today’s world. People who want to engage in political debate certainly have more opportunities to do so on other platforms.
Thank you for your openness on the topic and your transparency!

[megatrousers]

I rarely post about anything, so feel strange commenting here but anyway.
It’s understandable why you’ve had to do this, but I would suggest the ban on “artwork with a political message or meaning” is very unfortunate. It essentially ensures the gallery will forever be little more than a collection of technical showpieces and whimsical, but ultimately pointless “art”. I enjoy that stuff, but the restriction sits badly on a site with ‘artists’ in it’s name. Anyway, this is more a lament than a critique - you’re clearly between a rock and a hard place. Hopefully it’s for the best.

[thorn (BA Staff)]

Nearly none of the art posted on this forum is of a political nature, and the ones that were (that I recall in the past year) were a) overtly political and b) within 1-2 comments, already were inflaming political debate.

So - this policy relates to a segment that was barely present in the first place.

[megatrousers]

I know. It’s still a shame that one of the strongest potential avenues for impactful art is now off limits by rule. Not trying to change anyone’s mind or policy. Just think it’s worth acknowledging that thanks to misbehavior, something has been lost - even if that something is nothing more that a possibility.

[joseph]

@megatrousers

It essentially ensures the gallery will forever be little more than a collection of technical showpieces and whimsical, but ultimately pointless “art”.

It’s a false dichotomy to suggest that overtly political artwork or whimsical pointless pieces are the only possible options. It’s entirely possible for artwork to be meaningful without being overtly political.

Nor is it impossible for artwork to convey a political message without overt political imagery or messaging. Some of the most profound political artwork I’ve ever seen doesn’t have a single element of political imagery.

Also, “whimsical” doesn’t mean “pointless”. This whole thing is just a bunch of highly subjective opinions about what “art should be”, which is something unique to every person, and there’s no objective standard for “pointless” in art

[DeckardX08]

And about political stuff being “impactful”, not sure about that. Most work here represented mainstream Western view on the world events anyway. We have enough propaganda on the internet, one site refusing to publish it is nothing of value lost

[Debuk]

@joseph

Some of the most profound political artwork I’ve ever seen doesn’t have a single element of political imagery.

Yeah but that also has no place here anymore aswell. If its political it has a political meaning.

I totally understand Bart being disappointed and frustrated about what was going on here in political debates and it definitely needed a change.

Still I think that removing political artworks completely might turn out to be a big mistake, not for art as a whole, just for blenderartists as part of it.

[joseph]

@Debuk

Yeah but that also has no place here anymore aswell. If its political it has a political meaning.

That’s neither what I said, nor what the announcement says. There’s no need for slippery slopes of doom and gloom

[Debuk]

@bartv

This includes artwork with a political message or meaning.

So what is the meaning of this then?

[joseph]

Exactly what it says. Artwork with a political message or meaning is not allowed. Artwork that could be seen as political is not the same thing as artwork with a political message. This isn’t complicated, and there’s no need to split hairs here. We’re all adults here and we can all tell the difference between overt political messaging and… not that

[bartv (Bart Veldhuizen)]

I realise it’s unfortunate that we can’t host a type of art that does what art is good at: invoke (strong) emotions. It’s the price we have to pay for being able to keep this a healthy and functioning community.

[joseph]

me put it this way. Could a piece of art be an illustration in a textbook about historical propaganda or politics 50 years from now? If so, it can’t be here.

Or, better said: If it’s political, it’s political. If it isn’t, it isn’t.

[bartv (Bart Veldhuizen)]

Let’s be careful with adding specifications to the rule - that’ll for sure be abused in the future

[joseph]

Indeed, I’ll strike that out. But the slippery slopery happening here has to stop. We can’t define every single edge case, it’s exactly the same as the existing NSFW rule. If it’s political, it’s political. If it isn’t, it isn’t.

[megatrousers]

@ [joseph] I had a detailed reply, but ultimately it serves no purpose. I will however say that whimsical is certainly not necessarily the same as pointless, and my wording there was poor.

Thanks @[Bart] for the acknowledgement, that’s all I was really getting at - wasn’t trying to stir up trouble.

[bartv (Bart Veldhuizen)]

It’s ok! I know this is an important change and it’s ok to have feelings or an opinion about it

[rawalanche]

There’s off-topic category in the general forums. If political discussion is off-topic, does that mean it’s still allowed in that specific category? If the answer is no, then why have off-topic category at all, if you don’t want things that are not connected to Blender in any way discussed on this forum?