Renaming the forum “Politics” would certainly not exclude discussion of elections in other countries. It would, in fact, be more inclusive of other political discussion beyond the very narrow topic of elections.
The thing is, Facebook makes it quite easy to control the stuff you don’t want to see. (Reddit makes it even easier–at least, if you have RES installed.)
And wanting a respite from Trump is not the same thing as trying to change reality. Nor is it “putting your head in the sand.” You cannot subsist on the amount of outrage Trump inspires continually. Mental health requires breaks.
And it would be nice if this board could be one of those places. We have a bunch of threads all on the same topic. It makes sense to create a forum for it, so that people taking a break can post other things.
Yeah, said forum will be full of bashing. So what? The Trump threads now are full of bashing. That’s how the posters on this board feel about Trump.
But, I get it. Despite this, no one wants the optics of making something special for Trump. Then I have another suggestion–since all Trump talk will either be ranting or devolve into a contentious argument, why not restrict all Trump threads to either GD or the Pit?
Uhhh…was that necessary? The Mod saw the post in GQ and then moved the thread into CS.
Even if there isn’t a separate thread for “Politics” and it stays as “Elections”, it doesn’t change the fact that the other forums are being taken over by the Trump threads that serve no purpose other than self effacing “look at me I hate him let’s all hate him together.” The fact he’s been in power 12 days doesn’t mean anything. He’s going to be in power another 700 more and every time he does anything there’ll be some kind of thread about it. Make a new policy? Make a thread about it! Talk to a leader? Make a thread about it? Order a cheeseburger instead of a salad? OMG MAKE A THREAD ABOUT IT!
How bout a compromise? I believe there’s a thread in the pit that’s “stupid republican idea of the day” (or something like that). Can we just make a "Official (insert thread here) trump thread) and whatever opinions, banter and whatever just go in there?
OK. I’ve noticed that mods will often move threads out of GQ when they get political with no admonishment to the offenders. But… if a threat gets moved to CS, and the political fighting continues there, then I would expect a CS mod to take action if the politicking is brought to his/her attention. But not retroactively.
You should always report a post if you see a problem with it. Since that thread belonged in CS from the get-go, regardless of other commentary, I just moved it. I don’t recall if that post was reported in GQ. While I could have issued a note or warning for that remark, I chose not too. It would have merited a note in CS also. However, if it wasn’t reported in CS then the mods wouldn’t have seen it.
The bottom line: You have no call to complain that a post was not moderated unless you yourself reported it. We don’t necessarily read every post in a thread, even in threads in which we may have posted or moderated other posts.
Ok…but I didn’t complain that it wasn’t moderated. I “complained” that it was moved to CS instead of some other forum where people argue politics.
The GQ was answered in post #3… the smug twat comment came in post #4… #5 announced the move. Here it is…
They should change the Election forum into the Politics forum. Would clean up a bunch of other boards that way.
But isnt all life really politics like all science is really physics? 
Once upon a time this board was wall to wall Bush threads. Then wall to wall Obama threads. Not so surprisingly, it’s now wall to wall Trump threads. It won’t get better. GD will continue to be filled with political hot takes as new legislation, scandals, and events unfold. Right now, 44 GD threads have Trump in the subject. Many others are about something the Trump admin did or said.
This is exactly my point. It won’t get better, it won’t settle down, and I really think we need a “Politics” or “US President” forum to keep it all in.
The practical implementation of such a thing has been discussed elsewhere and I believe it’s absolutely doable.
Nothing else matters until the bastard is gone. Nothing.
All I can say is the “Let’s get Trump out!/Boo Trump!/RESIST!!11!Shift+One!” thing really seems to be confined to people venting online. What I’m reading constantly on The Internet is totally different to my personal experiences where things seem to be otherwise carrying on as normal in the US.
What’s odd about this? Message boards are set up deliberately to be the places where people discuss or vent or rant about this stuff.
It’s not exactly as if nobody were talking about it in real life: you did see all those protests with millions of participants, didn’t you? But in between protests, people do have to go about with their normal lives. So do people in Somalia and Syria for that matter.
Maybe they’re not talking to you about Trump. Maybe you live in a bubble in which everybody approves. Maybe nobody wants to get involved in a political discussion with you. Maybe they have groceries to buy and kids to pick up from non-denominational public schools. Maybe they get on message boards when you’re not around. Who knows the particulars of your life? Whatever they are, maybe they’re not representative of what others in the country think.
Like this, for example. It’s absolutely true in a sense, but life still has to go on regardless.
And this I’m beginning to absolutely agree with you about. Trump and the political comments he generates will overwhelm every forum here for the next four years. Let’s do it. And then people can avoid it if they want a break or wallow in it as much as they want.
Wrong. All science is really about math. 
I don’t really see why we can’t keep Trump threads contained, either. I am very much against getting rid of them, or chastising people for making them. But there are a lot of threads about this.
It seems to fit the purpose for the Elections forum. It was designed because people were talking too much about elections during election season and pushing other things off the page. Now, we’re all talking about the results of that Election, at the same level we did while the election was going on. Seems like it would fit.
If not, then I still contend there is no reason for a Trump thread to anywhere but in the Pit or GD. If it’s mocking him or being angry at him, the Pit is the place. If it’s an argument about what he’s doing, then it’s GD, since it’s going to be contentious and angry. Even if you are talking about some talk show that brought up Trump, it’s gonna turn into a GD argument.
As long as there are forums that are mostly not Trump related, I don’t really see a problem. When we need a psychological break, we can take it here, and not have to go elsewhere.
As it is, I stay away from this board unless I’m ready to talk about Trump in at least some capacity.
I’m not disagreeing with you at all - I don’t live in the US, but I thought a recent visitor’s perspective might be interesting as a counterpoint. If we believe what we read online, the US is on the brink of collapsing into anarchy and Civil War II: Electric Boogaloo, but that’s not reality nor even close to what I observed.
The thing is, in the news I’m hearing about all these mass protests and so on - but guess how many protestors I saw at LAX? None. Not a single one. The customs people were professional and were processing people through passport control efficiently.
People online and IRL were telling me as a foreigner I’d get dragged off to a small windowless room for an enhanced “discussion” about why I was visiting, but instead I was welcomed to the US and wished a pleasant stay.
Your points are valid and probably correct - I wasn’t moving in especially political circles - but at the same time, I think people are taking the venting they’re making/seeing online and extrapolating it to assume everyone is as worked up about Trump as they are, when that’s obviously not true. Lots of people obviously are unhappy about the situation and the fantastic thing about democracy is they are allowed to be - but at the same time, life is still going on as well in the US.
Precisely. I’m really surprised it hasn’t happened yet - it seems like an easy to implement change that will make a huge difference.
If something is a question that likely has a factual answer regarding Trump in belongs in GQ. The mods need to police that the responses stay focused on the factual answer. And a question like whether or not he is functionally illiterate is not likely to have a factual answer at this point in time, is not GD material, is not a Pit rant, and belongs in IMHO. But yeah threads should stay appropriate for their fora. Most Trump threads should be landing in GD, Elections, or the Pit, with few appropriate for IMHO and GQ, less in CS, and none in MPSIMS.
This is where I come in to disagree. “Is he illiterate” doesn’t belong anywhere near IMHO. That thread is making fun of him for the sole purpose of getting people to agree with the OP and/or incite an argument with the other side.
That belongs solely in GD or the the Pit because it’s not actively seeking opinions or wanting to accomplish anything like that. It’s just another “lol look at me I hate Trump and I’m so funny” thread. Which is why I started this thread right here in the first place.
You read it that way. I am honestly curious. Asking “Was Thomas Edison reading disabled?” or Einstein would not be making fun of Thomas Edison or Einstein. It might belong in GQ because there likely is a GQ level answer possible or at least a GQ level discussion (consensus seems to be yes for Edison and less sure for Einstein); for Trump there is not. We can only offer our HOs about the question.
There are many moderately successful adults who are functionally illiterate and who struggled through school because their reading disability was never identified let alone remediated. If they had other resources (in some cases great intelligence, in some cases other things) they achieved anyway. I have sometimes come into contact with these people as the parents of children who are having problems in school and after their child’s reading disability is identified. It’s a lightbulb moment sometimes for them to realize that they were not dumb as a child but had an unidentified and unremediated disability. They want to save their kids from what they had to struggle with.
I am not sure that Trump has a reading disability but he behaves in ways that is consistent with such. It is a reasonable question to ask.