Nicely done.
Wohhooo, MAYA users ??? I thought no politics. Just kidding…I love Maya, and Blender.
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Fake Pol
Make Blender Stuff not politics
I totally agree with the owner of this forum:
so I got more time for Blender
politics belongs on a political forum
I’m an artist, not a politician
I like the owner of this forum
politics?, what is politics?
I totally disagree with the owner of this forum:
so what
I’m leaving
I totally disagree with the owner of this forum and start arguing because:
I got no live at all
I like to talk about things without any knowledge
I got no moral and I’m proud of it
my wife won’t listen to me
it’s a good exercise for my great writing talent
I like to read my own stuff
I’m more awesome than you are
I want to get good at being an asshole, still practicing
I’m used to disagree
Some humor on the topic
And remember, the best way to win a war is to never participate
everything else is choosing sides where there is no black and white
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Now that’s funny and very accurate 
Good work.
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On a more serious note: how does this new policy affect the GenAI debate?
From my perspective, this is, first and foremost, a political topic, and a highly controversial one, as the thread shows. If we can’t discuss social, economical - hence political! - implications of GenAI anymore, this thread should be closed/frozen, as it has lost its meaningfulness.
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To be honest I disagree after reading.
political
adjective
po·lit·i·cal pə-ˈli-ti-kəl
1
a : of or relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government
…
I actually searched for the definition on my own before you posted it and found this one:
Which is pretty much the same and still…
Range of subjects that can be considered political is extremely wide. A lot of art about those subjects exists. Freedom of speech, democracy, gender/social equality, human rights and what not - only a few out of thousands of topics that can be considered to be “political”. I don’t know why you chose to completely ignore and even maybe take slight offense when I suggested to consider web search results for “political artwork”… It’s very diverse and sometimes not that controversial at all and also even very difficult to recognize in some cases. Now, clearly you are talking about different things in your rules and have different meaning of the word in mind. But that difference is not really reflected in the definition of the word you posted. I am only criticizing the communication, not the rule, which I think I understand clearly now, but it’s still not based on the definition in your screenshots. So it’s not surprising it will confuse some people like we saw earlier already if they bother to read the rules. OK, so the arguement was that the communication however flawed happened, we all understand what you mean - OK, got it. But still I think it makes no sense to blame people if they don’t understand it after reading the definition of the word that is different from how you use it…
Nowhere in my definitions does it say anything about social or economical. I see no correlation with GenAI
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Social and economical issues relate to governments therefore they are political by the definition we are talking about. I would question my understanding of things, but it’s not my understanding, it’s how those issues are widely called everywhere. It’s just a word. It’s used this way. Not something I personally invented.
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That’s your opinion. You’re welcome to it, but it’s not your opinion that will be used to determine if the rule is being followed or not
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That’s all great. That’s how I understand the rule. 
I just think that this clarification should be made in the rule. If it said that all posts and artwork that in BA staff’s opinion are too political and cause uncivil discussions will be banned, I think it would avoid misunderstandings. There would probably be less people who doubt if artwork depicting something like wooden dragon toys break the rules. That’s pretty much all I am saying.
The way I’m active in this place is pretty non-standard, I think, so I honestly did not even realize this has been a problem.
I think in light of that, and the fact that there has been like a whole year of internal discussions about it, this ruling makes a lot of sense and is understandable.
I do have one concern. — And it might very well turn out to be a complete and utter non-issue with time:
It’s very easy to moderate overt political statements. They are clear to spot.
Y’all already talked at length about grey areas and I think, yes, it’s reasonable to say that it’s gonna come down to a case-by-case basis. I mean, what else could you ultimately possibly do.
However, there are also ways to be covertly highly political. Things can easily fly under the radar, and there is a common pattern (not specifically here, just in general — I genuinely wouldn’t even know about here given my limited presence) where all too inflexible political ban rules might lead to outrage in whichever community is negatively affected, which that group will voice loudly, getting the people voicing their concerns banned while the covert aggressors get to hide behind a veneer of innocence, privately gloating about how they managed to oppress “the other”. That would be a pretty common way to weaponize a supposedly apolitical forum for political purposes right under the moderation team’s noses.
Dogwhistles like that are everchanging and highly contextual and getting that right might take quite some research. It may well be much less work than keeping a tediously vitriolic thread in check, in particular if there are loads of such threads, so still the right decision, but I just hope y’all are prepared to look into such things as well.
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“This is fine” 
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If you see someone posting dogwhistles, flag it and let us know.
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Governments make laws that regulate what clothes you may wear, what features an automobile must include, how food must be labelled, how large highway billboard may be, where trash must be disposed of, and when you are allowed to purchase an alcoholic beverage.
How far do you want to take your definition of “political”?
For the 17th time - the policy may not be clear to you, but you aren’t tasked with making decisions on the artwork posted on the forum. It’s clear to those in charge of doing this, and they are satisfied with the statement that has been made.
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OK, sorry if it’s 17th time. I am just writing stuff online. It’s not that serious or important. It doesn’t cost anything, I hope I am not impacting the servers of the forum in a negative way with the amount of text and I hope it’s not causing anyone discomfort. I have very strong opinion about certain part of this change, the definition of a word is not it.
This is actually precisely what I am talking about. It’s just that I don’t want to take the definition of any word anywhere, that’s done by all people who use language. And it seems in this case the definition is often taken quite far by people all around.
Just to be clear, and I don’t think any sort of response from BA moderators is actually necessary here because it’s simply something that remains to be seen, I’m not so worried about having no avenue of reporting such issues, but rather about actually being heard in case it happens. It’s very easy to disregard a dogwhistle, even when it’s being reported, by design.
This is at the moment a completely theoretical concern, and I’m not actually that worried about it to be clear: BA’s modding approach thus far seemed fine to me and I see no reason that that would change going forward. Really I mostly wanted to mention that that is a possible issue you might be running into. Something to look out for. That’s all
Then why keep beating on that drum 
It does cost time and nerves, especially of the unpaid mod team forced to read through all of it just in case there is a rule breach.
“politics” as a word is indeed an incredibly broad term if taken in full generality. However, there is such a thing as a bad faith reading. Even if it’s difficult (impossible) to pin down in precise terms, I’d say it’s pretty clear (on an I-know-it-when-I-see-it-style standard) what is actually meant by this. And having read through this entire thread, I think enough has been said on the topic thus far. I think ultimately the BA staff has the best of the community in mind. It’s not ideal but, heck, in an ideal world moderation would not be necessary at all because everybody always gets along and there is no abuse or treachery. It is what it is, try giving it a best faith reading and see where you land then.
If you still have problems with this even with a best faith reading, if you can pin down what exactly troubles you then, maybe it’s worth bringing up.
If it depends on the assumption that the mod team is somehow either blind, incompetent, or corrupt, for none of which I think there is any evidence what so ever, it’s probably not worth bringing up over and over again.
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I frankly am not too concerned about “political art." Because: a great deal of “art” has – or can be interpreted to have – a “political” slant. (Indeed, here is a problem: "who is doing the ‘interpreting?’” To the right person, a picture of a rose might refer to Adolf Hitler. Who knows? And, why get into an argument with them?)
Nonetheless – a total ban on “political discourse” in what ought to be a technical and an artist’s forum is entirely all-right with me. I am totally sick of the divisiveness which characterizes such “discourse” today, and I very simply do not wish to see it here at all. I want it to be gone. Let this be a “safe haven” where I will not encounter it. If the discussion is not “about Blender,” pick a different soap-box (which I will never see).
I encourage the site owners in this strategy regarding text, but caution about trying to apply it to published artwork. “Text” can be objectively filtered – “artwork” cannot. “Use caution.” Those who seek controversy might strive to lure you into it by any means – including “sideways.”
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I think the general problem of any art piece is: someone…
- likes it…
- or not.
But somehow everyone has to “discuss” anything about an artwork…
…there was more than once an answer from some artist when asked about the meaning of an artwork like:
“The viewer has to made up the meaning.”
And the most bad ass discussions comes from political (and religious) artworks (or topics alone)… ( well… some people think the real piece of art is this discusssion… 
)
But this just is too much work for this private driven site ! Because it ends into insutls and flagging wars 
And… : There is enough other topics to make art about… or simply some pieces of everday use… or some phantastic imagined something… let your fantasy go wild… there is more than
politics in this world to make art about 
I never comment on political topics, but I note with regret that the decision was only made now, because no one cared about a certain propaganda before, everyone always thinks they are on the right side, but then another war came along which highlighted the contradictions, otherwise nothing would have changed in the rules.
So now it is better to keep these discussions outside, even if politics is part of everyone’s life, but this is certainly not the right place to discuss certain topics, especially in an international community.
There will always be sensitive topics, we are all biased.
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Back in the days when you could literally “get your head chopped off” for something that you said, artists sometimes cunningly concealed political statements of protest in their artwork. This actually happened a lot.
But – there are plenty of other places on this “World Wide” Web to put overt political commentary and “rants.” One of them does not have to be “here.” Give us a break … a quiet place.
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