Not to mention the The Barn House, Comments on Staff Reports, Comments on Cecil’s Columns and About This Message Board itself.
Splitters!
Yeah, fair point(s). And in context one that I was obviously eliding. Hell, I didn’t really like the creation of IMHO. :eek:
But even they (mostly) fit: CCC and CSR are - regardless of topic - responses to officially-posted stuff on the front page. ATMB is about drawing things to the attention of the administration. Cafe Society is a hybrid of GQ and GD for aesthetic matters. The Barn House is… not on the main board. The Games Room is a bit of a dog in the manger, but mainly MPSIMS for people who want to play and to allow things not to fall off the first page of MPSIMS too quickly. What falls off the front page of GD too quickly?
Okay, so a politics forum can be a hybrid of GD and the Pit for political matters. Or GQ, GD, and the Pit. Or GQ, GD, IMHO, and the Pit. Or a blend of every freaking forum and the Pit.
We accept that certain topics belong in certain places. We accept that some OPs are a bit hard to classify. And those of us who participate in political discussions are probably getting pretty tired of being whined at for, you know, liking to participate in political discussions.
Things on the second page of GD that probably got pushed off by the US Election related threads:
When can we call the economic stimulus package a failure?
Bailing Out the Financial Sector Vs. Building Really Cool Shit
If the housing crisis doesn’t destroy us all, the entitlements crash will.
Jacob Zuma – Should South Africans be afraid?
Olmert to resign; Livni likely new prime minister.
HIV Prevention in friggin 2008
Any way to limit profits from economically unsound practices?
Unfortunately Tuba has dug in her heals, and without giving a real answer to the question(s) at hand, she and TPTB have completely dismissed a very basic request.
On the bright side the idea of a Sports or Games forum was given the same treatment for years and then the positioned thawed and then about a year later we got the Game Room. So the current dismissal does not mean that she and the others are not open to convincing argument and pleading.
The requests for a political forum while old have not been as common as the Sports forum or Gaming forum were. Maybe we’ll see an opening in January or February.
You’re right; perhaps I’ve become too jaded.
Still, it would be nice to hear a reasonable response to a reasonable question.
Come January people won’t be talking about it anymore because the white noise and irrational Dopers will have moved on to something else.
Well if you’re correct than we won’t see a political forum will we? Of course you might be wrong. I get the impression that there might be a continued request this time.
Just to clarify, are you called the overzealous posters in GD irrational or the posters in these ATMB and pit threads irrational for asking for a separate forum?
I know this board has historically been against subdivision of forums. However, I would like to point out that the delay in creating the Game Room forum irritated the hell out of me personally. Those threads were primarily of interest of those in the particular game and zero interest to the vast majority of users who were not in that particular game and they hogged the entire first page. It was annoying as hell and was part of the reason I did not reup. I felt like the game threads were taking over more generalized discussion.
Right now, the political threads are dominating most forums. Obviously, they are an interest to many people, however if you are looking for any other topic, you have to wade through those posts.
To me, the way to tell if a new forum is needed is this: If an average user opens up the first page of a forum and more than 50% of the posts can be lumped into one particular subject topic, over a period of months, then a subforum or new forum should be considered. That forum should try to be broad enough to encourage discussion under that header. See Game Room.
I like the political discussions and threads, however, even to me, they are overwhelming the content of most of the forums needlessly. When I want to turn off, there isn’t really a forum that isn’t inundated.
What I love most about the Game Room forum is that I don’t have to deal with the game threads AT ALL.
I certainly will–or I’ll get bored and leave. 
I’d honestly love to know what the big deal is about creating a new forum.
Hell, if this really will be over in 7 months, then create a temporary “This Election Only” forum, and when the inauguration and the 100 days and the honeymoon is over, close it down and keep it as a locked forum preserving a snapshot of something that lots of people wanted to discuss and how they felt about it at the time.
When the search engines are repaired, look at the 9/11 threads for a fascinating snapshot.
Anyway, in all seriousness–what’s the harm in trying it? If it doesn’t work, shut it down and merge the threads back into GD. No harm done.
I was referring to the Obama and McCain Truthers that steer every thread into some off-topic pissing match and start pointless threads that consist of nothing more than a link to a redundant or unsubstantiated blog post somewhere in the bowels of the web.
Does no one have a opinion on my alternative suggestion of creating a pair of sticky threads to act as a catch-all for all Campaign updates and Partisan sniping in GD and The Pit respectively.
But see, the beauty of having a Politics forum is that it effectively acts like the Pit does - if you want to go off-topic (or more specifically, on-topic to a Political thread) you can tell people to ‘Take it to the Senate’ (or whatever the forum’s called).
Same mechanism that stops threads being de-railed in our current system. The person who wants to make a political case out of the topic can instead just throw in a link to their new thread and then bugger off and leave everyone who isn’t interested in following that line of discussion to continue their conversation. And the ones who are interested in the politics of it can bounce on over to the new thread.
Perfect, painless solution!
Not for nothing, but the name of the forum being Senate, sounds good to me.
God knows, the discussions will be partisan, and not eager to get along, and we all know about filibustering. 
Yeah and “Take it to the Senate” has a nice ring to it.
Maybe as a show of solidarity for a political forum, we could have all political threads start with the word Senate. Such as:
Senate: NPR Finds Live Boy and Dead Girl in Congresscritters Bed!
Senate: Have you seen the latest poll numbers from CNN?
Senate: Army/Dinner Jacket invites Obama for tea!
I want to add that I suggested this a while ago and was ignored. I think a politics forum is needed badly. I used to browse all the boards every day for a half hour or so. Now I don’t enter GD or the PIT because of the 10Xover-redundant politics threads where everyone tries their hardest to sound smarter than the other guy by repeating the same tired shit they said 5 minutes before in another thread.
If we can’t get a politics thread then how about a subforum to GD called “Everything BUT politics”. That’s a compromise right?
The admin of this board makes no sense to me as they don’t listen to their customers. And don’t forget alot of us are still paying customers. They can throw up a dumbass forum for a book but not one for a very broad and busy topic.
I didn’t see that post, but I was thinking the same thing. Pro-McCain, anti-McCain, pro-Obama, anti-Obama, stickied somewhere. I see no reason 4 or 5 threads should spawn every time one of these guys or their VP or party makes a statement.
It’s not like I can go into CS and start 57 threads about Dune, one for every frickin’ section of the book.
Do we really need 5 new threads every time one of these people sneezes?
Only if Palin does it with reporters present and within hearing/speaking distance…rimshot!
I wish a Mod or Admin would comment on it. There’s more to moderating a Message Board than banning trolls and moving threads. A little proactive organizing would be helpful and painless.
People really under-estimate just how pervasive Politics are and how creating a forum would be a virtual black hole. Even if you don’t agree with that assessment, you’d think a more moderate solution than creating a new forum would be worth a try.
Okay, if we can’t have a forum, can we at least get some statements from mods that going into political threads to whine about political threads is unacceptable?
Well if we’re asking for wish lists, how about a ruling that “Is McCain/Obama/Palin/Biden/Fred Flinstone forked yet?” threads do not qualify as “long-running discussions of the great questions of our time.”
Stranger