Politics: Ravelry bans support for Trump

Wow! I imagine that's not going to go down smoothly!

Good for them!

I know during the Obama administration, there were posts that led to Secret Service visits. So there’s quite a bit of history of ugly posts by some conservatives there.

Note I said some conservatives. And yes I’m sure you can find ugly posts by liberals too. But it’s Casey’s website and he can do what he wants and people can choose to participate or not.

I dabble in knitting. I have a scarf that is 4 months in the making and is still not even half done. I support ravelry in this decision. I even bought a pattern I had favorited a while back from a designer who happens to be queer.

I use Ravelry only to find patterns and have never used any of their discussion boards. So I don't know how political things have gotten. I think if they are going to ban Trump, they should ban all political discussions and anything that promotes any particular candidate. It makes a less interesting board not to discuss politics but you can't pick and choose even if you have a good reason with one particular person.

To me, Trump represents much more than politics... he’s a vile person who offends what it is to be human.

Good for them.

I was going to say "people fight about politics on a knitting site?" But then I remembered how I got here...






Good for them. It must have been pretty gross over there.

It’s a private site. Just like chik-fil-a has the right to not support gay people, hobby lobby has the right to play Jesus music while secretly stealing artifacts from the Middle East and ted “I shit my pants to stay out of Vietnam” nugent has the right to keep doing whatever it is he does, they have the right to ban anything they like.

Although I’m sure there will be plenty who cry “muh first amendment” as if a knitting site were in any way associate with the government.

I'm very happy to see this. I too rarely use the forums there - I find them a bit challenging to navigate, frankly - so I have been pretty well protected from any ugliness there, but I fully support the site owners in their stance.

I find the majority of patterns I make on Ravelry - no doubt I will now miss out on a few as some designers will withdraw from the site as a result of this policy, but that's a small price to pay. I can find *plenty* of designs to keep me busy (realistically, more than I can ever hope to complete in my lifetime) and now I will know that those I use are from designers who are happy with the policy.

I met Casey at a MD Sheep & Wool Festival years ago, when Ravelry was relatively new. We were both wearing the same exact t-shirt (pirate shirt that said y- arrrrr - n! I liked him then and like him now.

It is his site, his rules. If he doesn’t want White Supremacy support, in any form - including supporting Trump and his White Supremacist administration- I’m a-okay with his prohibiting it.

eta:  I just found the picture. I can’t believe it is already 10 years old!  Taken in May 2009.  Here are Casey and I in matching shirts:

This decision gives me a small measure of hope for the future. Great news!

I completely support Ravelry. Those against white supremacy need to speak up loudly.

I have been a member for years. At one time I belonged to several different groups, there was even a group for Two Peas. As the time passed I lost interest in the groups and just use the site for knitting inspiration.

That's what I was thinking, where is it getting political? But I've only bookmarked patterns and I did join a few groups that have chat threads. I guess there could be a NSBR/not yarn related area I've never explored it that much. 

Sure you can.  And it appears he did.  His board, his rules.