> That a political message would appear on a website in the days before a national election shouldn't turn most of the site visitors away, especially when the facts mentioned in a personal online message can be verified or refuted by a bi-partisan site like factcheck.org.

It's never a question of sites just mentioning verifiable facts, because there are many facts to be mentioned, and people tend to mention the ones that suit their purposes. Ask somebody to list a few facts about Dubya and/or Lurch, and you'll quickly figure out who they're voting for by whether you hear about Kerry's voting record, Edwards' career as a trial lawyer, or Dubya's decision to invade Iraq.

Also, even the most balanced of political statements (for example, making fun of alternate parties on alternating days, or presenting facts that someone thinks cast their guy in a bad light) risk attracting a lot of angry comments from one side, or perhaps from both.

Whenever I see a political message show up on an erstwhile politically neutral site like RinkWorks right before an election, I feel the same way as when I hear famous actors giving political views. My first impression is always that they're taking advantage of their fame or visibility to influence people to vote their way. I was a little bothered to see such content on RinkWorks, but mostly I was speechless. I thought RinkWorks was perhaps the last politics-free refuge out there, just because it struck me as a "fun for everyone" place where not many people express strong political views of any kind.

I guess I'm just bugged that US elections polarize people to the extent that they do, and that people feel the need to express their opinions in apolitical forums.

Obviously, the front page of RinkWorks is Sam's forum, and he can do with it as he pleases, and naturally he's going to have an opinion, just like everyone else, but I guess I visited RinkWorks today just as I do every other day, as an escape from the rest of the world, so I was less than pleased to see a glimmer of the world creep in at this time of year.

^v^:)^v^
FB