Good Political Internet Forums

November 11, 2006 6:28 PM

What are some good online forums to talk about/debate politics on?
posted by Maia to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

I used to use Essembly. It's a pretty good site for discussing current events, politics, and legalisms in general. The reason I stopped using it was that I started college -- just not enough time in the day to study 230 crystallographic space groups and blog/chat at the same time. Dammit, now I wanna make another blog! *Sigh*
posted by Aanidaani at 6:38 PM on November 11, 2006

Well, there's always this one :)
posted by quin at 6:54 PM on November 11, 2006

MetaFilter is just about the only place I have ever seen civil discussions about politics. People here tend to have a lot of respect for each other even when they strongly disagree with each other. Perhaps they just have respect for the site. Things can get a little heated at times, but people still tend to for the most part focus on the issue.
posted by caddis at 7:55 PM on November 11, 2006

With people you agree with, or disagree with?
posted by gimonca at 8:03 PM on November 11, 2006

Most political sites tend to become left-or-right aligned. The rightward ones generally won't allow comments (and if they do, will quickly ban you for incorectness (I've been banned from TCV.)) The leftward ones generally allow comments, but ban trolls.

One good source for local political discussions is smalish local newspapers. For example the (Colorado Springs) Gazette has hosted long discussions over the Pastor Ted Haggard homosexual/prostitute/meth mess. But they just got a new publisher in and now seem to be less aggressive in covering this story. (which means that if they don't write a story with comments enabled there is no place to comment).
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 8:57 PM on November 11, 2006

This earlier AskMe may have some useful suggestions.
posted by stet at 8:58 PM on November 11, 2006

Another neat idea is to use Google to find some *local* political blogs. I've learned a lot about the politics of my municipality and county from the popular local conservative blog I visit. While there are a few somewhat uncivil republican there, for the most part its been an interesting way to engage with "the other side" that's hard to come by on the national websites.

So you might check and see if you're lucky enough to have some good local political blogs in your area.
posted by washburn at 11:57 PM on November 11, 2006