Although my post was couched in facetious terms, I think it’s actually a good idea.
WAG, busier than it is now, but no where near as busy as it’ll be a year from now, and not even a pimple on the ass off how busy it’ll be a few months after that.
Just for perspective: during the US election period (especially leading into the Nov 2008 election), there were LOTS of election-related threads. There was a similar surge before the Nov 2010 election, when we instituted the Elections Forum as an experiment. The intention was to discontinue the forum after the election, but we decided to let it roll. Our guess is that it will be pretty quiet until, say, March 2012… when it will start to overflow with a kind of human milkiness.
I don’t think we need another forum. One of the things i like about this board is that you don’t have to scroll down three or four screen-heights of different fora, each dealing with some small sub-topic. I prefer the small number of fairly general categories that we have here. If we did add another area, i certainly don’t think a “Parenting and Kid Stuff” section would be my first choice.
That said, i think the “not child-centric or kid friendly” argument about the Board was pretty bizarre. This message board has literally hundreds of threads about parenting and children and schooling and all the other stuff related to raising a family. The OP was clearly not asking that the board’s overall mission or the nature of its content change in any way, and was not suggesting that the proposed new forum be designed to attract minors to the board.
If “No” wasn’t one of the answers you were prepared to accept, I’m not sure why you included this part in your OP ;):
I want:
[ul]
[li]A Sandbox forum. Make ATMB about discussions of the board and mod actions, decluttered by the handful of “Test Post-Ignore” threads. Given its nature it could be minimally modded (or easily modded, whatever) in the rare event that discussion breaks out;[/li][li]Split the Game Room into Sports, Doper Games, and Game Discussions; [/li][li]A “TV shows **MsWhatsit **does not watch” forum, with a sub-forum of “TV shows MsWhatsit does not watch but **Rhythmdvl **does;” and[/li][li]A pony.[/li][/ul]
Opening a thread in ATMB is as good as anything else. However, we very rarely make new forums, so you should be prepared to accept “no” as an answer.
I wholeheartedly support this idea. As well as a separate message board for it.
Actually, it would be cool if there was a tag system. When you create a thread you can assign it tags and browsers can, through their User CPs, blacklist certain tags. Sort of like the ignore feature but for threads.
Parenting & Kids is too narrow. I could get on board with Home & Family Life or something.
To set the scene - I’m allergic to most kids. Most of the time, I don’t want to hear about your kids. I don’t want to see pictures. And I don’t find them cute.
I don’t mean any of that to be mean. I appreciate that other people have and like kids. I just appreciate it from waaaay over here.
I have no problem scrolling through the threads that show up now and ignoring them. I’ll often hover over them to see the pop-up to see exactly what they’re about. If the first few lines are interesting to me, I’ll actually read the thread. Sometimes they deal with something that I have specific experience with.
If these threads were in a different forum, I would never see them.
For my personal usage pattern, I like them being the in the main forum.
-D/a
If we’re going to do this, why not a separate forum for cats and dogs posts?
We’re not prejudiced – if dogs and cats can navigate the registration process they’re welcome to post anywhere on the board people do.
I think there are already a lot of dogs and cats here posting as sock puppets.
Cats and dogs, posting together? Mass hysteria.
You’re not the only country that has elections, you know - right now we have a lively thread going on about the Canadian election that we’re going to have in six weeks. 
I don’t think a forum like that is necessary, either, for the same reasons as Tuba Diva.
We do insist that they meet our age requirements, though. And that they post pics of themselves.
My Siamese cat expressed an interest in becoming a member, but I told her that a) she’s not old enough and b) people won’t be able to give her skritchies online. She decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
That’s pretty much what I wanted to say. I don’t think there’s any reason to split up the forums more than necessary, but on the other hand, that phrase “not child-centric or kid friendly” sounded very weird to me. The SDMB is neither child friendly nor child unfriendly. People post about whatever interests them, and there are hundreds of threads about issues relating to children.
For the first nine years or so of my membership I was not a parent, so I paid little attention to those threads. Now I am a parent, so I read those threads with interest. That’s what this board is for.
I’m not against the idea of a “Parenting” forum, but I will say that I think it’s a totally different kettle of fish to an “Elections” forum, because parenting topics doesn’t have the same unfortunate habit of getting involved in unrelated threads and causing massive derailings or flamewars for the most part.
“Not child friendly” means that this message board frequently has topics and discussions that are not suitable for children. We don’t moderate the board with an eye to making the place safe for kids to surf, and we have a minimum age of 13.
Yes, there are frequently posts and threads ABOUT children. But those posts are made by teens and adults. That doesn’t mean that the boards are child friendly, it only means that the topic of children is not forbidden.