The general guideline I was thinking is if something is about short-term and/or local politics, it goes in PD (because it’s not a “great debate”), otherwise, it goes in GD.
The examples I gave above show how I think it would work:
If it does happen (which I guess isn’t likely) I’d like to see the politics cleared out of the Pit as well; it’s nice to get my fix of irrational rants about junk mail without irrational rants about politics. And people like debating stuff in the Pit anyhow . . .
When we originally started we had two, count 'em, two forums: Comments on Cecil’s Columns and General Questions. And it stayed that way for a long time because Ed said you could divide up the entire world that way.
I’m getting nostalgic for those times. 
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Aren’t you confusing the creation of Cafe Society with the 1952 elections, Sam?
Sometimes the debates are better in the Pit. I think we should have two forums:
[ul]
[li]The BBQ Pit[/li][li]Threads not involving personal attacks[/li][/ul]
But maybe that’s just me.
What does is matter if the standard generates 100% compliance or not? The complaint is that there are too many political threads in GD and a Political Debates forum would go a long way towards addressing that complaint. We could even save the mods some trouble and let the thread starter decide if their thread should go in GD or PD and then just leave it there regardless and I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of political threads would still be cleared out of GD.
I thought I arready said, let’s wait a few weeks to see if this problem goes away.
When a big smash movie installment like LORD OF THE RINGS came out, we had a flurry of threads in Cafe Society about various aspects. Big-news stories usually produce several threads. These things wear down a lot with time. The politics was unusually hot this year, let’s see if it settles down after the election. If not, and if the GD moderators think this idea makes sense, it’s easy enough to go with it.
After all, Politics is the Art of the Possible.
Well, on the front page of GD (at least the way I have it set to display, which is pretty much the default I think), we have threads on epistemology, masturbation, bisexuality, methods of disposing of dead bodies (burial v. cremation), linguistics, the Cy Young award, homosexuality, lesbianism (geeze, do we need a separate “Sexual Orientation” forum?), the metric system, evolution, Christianity and free will, the Rapture, another one on evolution, Messianic prophecies and the authors of the Gospels, and at least one thread whose subject I can’t make heads or tails of even after reading the OP. There are also a whole passel of threads about politics, broadly speaking, which aren’t necessarily just about the recent elections; everything from debates about specific pieces of legislation to discussions of the voting patterns of different ethnic or religious groups or ideological blocs to abstract questions about law and government. The Middle East, a perennial favorite, seems to be making a strong comeback; so is the gay marriage issue. Of course either of those last two could drag in comments about U.S. Presidential politics; and there are still a number of threads more or less directly about the 2004 elections.
So, all in all I think things are returning to normal.
However, there are NO threads about the election of 1988… so, take heart, all things fade into the past with time.
Thank the IPU (pbuh).
Must… resist… “Start New Thread” button…