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Is Politics.SE a place where it is acceptable to further one's political agenda?

For example, am I allowed to:

  1. Ask a question of the format:

...Trump's policies are all designed to benefit the Military Industrial Complex. ...?

  1. Add an answer that is on the line of:

... Trump's policies are all designed to benefit the Military Industrial Complex. ...

  1. On a question/answer relating to the Military Industrial Complex, add a comment:

Trump's policies are all designed to benefit the Military Industrial Complex.

The connection between Trump and MIC is just an example to illustrate my doubt. My point is, can any question/answer/comment illustrate a political allegation as a fact?

Examples of political allegations include "Zelenskyy is corrupt". Often the source cited will be a propaganda piece.

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    Does this answer your question? What is a "push question"?
    – Nij
    Commented Feb 15, 2023 at 6:15
  • that only talks about a question. I'm also asking for answers and comments
    – whoisit
    Commented Feb 15, 2023 at 6:19
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    Why would these things be acceptable in answers or comments anywhere on Stack Exchange? They are not answering the question or they are not suggesting improvements to a post. No special policy is needed just because the opinions match the topic of the site. Nobody cares whether you like Messi on Sports SE, or whether you think Leibniz was the true inventor of calculus on Math SE, or what your favorite brand of peeler is on Cooking SE. Such answers/comments should and will be deleted on those sites.
    – Nij
    Commented Feb 15, 2023 at 6:20
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    @Nij Even though it may be obvious to everyone who's been around for a short time, it may be good to codify it on meta so that new users can be pointed here if they are unaware of this rule.
    – JJJ Mod
    Commented Feb 16, 2023 at 12:37
  • To codify what rule - that answers are for answering and comments are for suggesting improvements? The help center already does this, as Philip quotes below. A user who doesn't know how SE works isn't coming to meta first, so this is just duplication for the sake of duplication.
    – Nij
    Commented Feb 17, 2023 at 9:56

1 Answer 1

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As I keep saying again and again: No, Politics Stack Exchange is not a place to promote political views.

As the "What topics can I ask about here?" section of the help center says:

Politics Stack Exchange is for objective questions about governments, policies and political processes.

It is not a place to advance opinions or debate, but rather for exchanging objective information about the policies, processes, and personalities that comprise the political arena. If you can't back it up, it's subjective.

However, due to the nature of this website, it is often difficult to prevent political opinion from creeping into longer answers. It shouldn't happen, but it happens nevertheless. When you believe that an answer is clearly one-sided, downvote it, even if you actually agree with its political views. You can also be bold and make use of the privilege to propose or make edits to existing answers if you see way to make them more neutral without reducing their information content.

Regarding the example in this meta-question:

Trump's policies are all designed to benefit the Military Industrial Complex.

This statement is probably provably false, because it is pretty much impossible for every single one of Trump's policies to benefit the military industrial complex. So it's already unnecessary hyperbole that should at least be weakened to something like "Many of Trump's policies are designed to benefit the Military Industrial Complex".

But without further proof, this is still an unfound allegation that should at least be backed up by a couple examples.

And then there is another important aspect that is important to consider whether or not this statement is appropriate to make: context! Is it necessary to make this statement in the particular situation? If the topic of the question is about Trump's policies and how they affect the military industrial complex, then it is probably a sentence that might show up in a well-written answer - if and only if it is properly backed up by factual examples. If the question is about another subject and someone injects this statement because they want people to be aware, then it is probably not helpful and unnecessary injection of a political agenda.

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  • I don't support making aggressive edits if the original author is not on board with it - let's not forget that our user id is associated with our answers and comments, and I definitely don't want my id to be associated with something I didn't write or words whose meaning / intention / context was changed. It will also have a chilling effect in discouraging people to post here and will increasingly lead to a biased view. As an easterner / indian, I already feel this SE already has tilt towards western politics.
    – sfxedit
    Commented Feb 16, 2023 at 17:48
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    @sfxedit You should be on board with that, though, because editing content is an integral part of the stack exchange concept. And if anything, removing other peoples personal opinions will result in less biased content on the site and make people with underrepresented world views feel more welcome to contribute.
    – Philipp Mod
    Commented Feb 16, 2023 at 18:01
  • I am ok with the guidelines listed there. But your suggestion of forceful editing to make something "neutral" goes beyond it because it often results in indeed "changing the meaning" of the original answer. I feel that itself can introduce a political bias if most of the reviewers / mods subscribe to a particular political philosophy. For example, what if you consider a western media source as a better citation than my, say, indian or Japanese media source that says something different on the same subject, even if the western source is actually wrong?
    – sfxedit
    Commented Feb 16, 2023 at 18:38
  • My point is that aggressive editing shouldn't be encouraged without at least a basic do's and don't list.
    – sfxedit
    Commented Feb 16, 2023 at 18:39
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    @sfxedit If you would like to debate further how far edits to questions and answers should go, please start a new meta-question.
    – Philipp Mod
    Commented Feb 17, 2023 at 10:11

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