Would it be possible/feasible/practical to create a new forum devoted solely to the upcoming Presidential Election and all the bullshit surrounding it, including the Bush bashing?
I ask this because several fora have become completely diluted by all the hoopla from both sides, with (in general) various colorful ways to discredit the opposition and “convince” everyone that their guy is the greatest man since Jesus. It’s so incredibly tiresome and inane (for everyone, though probably moreso for you lucky guys and gals who get to moderate it) that I thought perhaps (if it’s not too much trouble) a new forum could be temporarily created to lump all the shit together into one nice, neat place where folks could beat the same arguments to death all over themselves.
Plus, it’s really distracting us from the important issues, like whether God lives in crayons or the latest news flash from evilcorporatemediaconglomerate…
This is an amazing idea, except you’d have to have a separate Election Pit and Election GQ, because I’d hate to see a question about how to register to vote or something sammiched between all the redundant bickering.
Please define “Bush Bashing.”
It’s a cute little phrase, but seems to get used for everything from calling Shrub the wanker in chief, to saying that the war in Iraq was a mistake, to voicing reservations about limiting funds for robotic probes in order to pay for a manned mission to Mars.
I think if we could open such a forum, and not have to watch over it, and let it run until the day before the election, and then drive it over a cliff, while we stood at the brink of the abyss, toasting it with incredibly expensive champagne and eating caviar(the kind they used to have), you just MIGHT find a few of us who could have our arms twisted. Hell, you could twist almost any part of me right off, if we could just do that.
voguevixen - actually I was thinking that they all ought to be lumped together, but you’re probably right that it’s not really reasonable (or tolerable).
Squink - I would say “Bush bashing” encapsulates all of the things you mentioned, and is equally annoying an almost all levels. I dislike the man as much as the next liberal, but he is not responsible for my milk going bad this morning.
samclem - ironically, I was just thinking as I wrote this last night, “Being as samclem is the newbie Mod, perhaps he’d like the job”. And no, I have no bitter, deep-seeded hatred for you at all.
Seriously though, it just seems to me that the boards as a whole have gotten hijacked by all sorts of folks with an agenda relating to this election. So I thought, “Why the hell not just give them a place to play all their own?” Sure it’d be ugly and messy and somewhere close to Hell, but it’d be away from all the decent ugly, messy stuff.
Well if voicing reservations about the direction of NASA constitutes Bush Bashing, then having reservations about any government policy constitutes Bush Bashing. If we’re going to move everything that could possibly be construed as reflecting poorly on our leader into it’s own forum, let’s play fair, and also grant the same treatment to all threads in which people have a divergence of opinions, and are thus “bashing” someone.
I’ve even thought of a name for this forum. Let’s call it Great Debates!
Squink, with all due respect, I think you’re missing my point. Regardless of whether a thread about NASA funding (or any other gov’t policy) is considered Bush bashing or not, anything that has to do with current American politics almost inevitably gets turned into something polarized and partisan – due in large part to the upcoming election. It’s tiresome and distracting, and needs IMHO a playground of its own.
This might not be the greatest idea, but I’ll be brief so if it’s really dumb, I’ve not wasted much of anyone’s time
But how about a non-GQ “All Election-related stuff here” thread ala the “All Diablo 2 Talk here” thread in CS?
Granted, it might get kinda cluttered…but it also could reduce the number of sniping threads where people are just trying “to discredit the opposition and “convince” everyone that their guy is the greatest man since Jesus.”, as leander said.
Y’all wanna self-police yourselves into block threads on certain subjects, that’s certainly fine by us in most cases.
And it would answer the plaintive cries of people that complain that we should have a separate forum for _____________ because they can’t stand to see threads on that subject, whatever that subject might be.
But no, we’re not going to set up a separate forum just for politics.
It’s my understanding that most of those threads are in Great Debates or the BBQ Pit, and those two fora are specifcally intended to have threads like that. Folks in GD are expected to discuss things like which presidential candidate is better, and if you don’t like threads like that, what are you doing in GD? And when folks start to politicize in other fora, the mods come in and lay down the law (if you think they missed one, report it).
I guess I wasn’t clear enough. Just thought it might be nice to lump all of the election/Bush/Kerry stuff into one place so as not to overwhelm the other fora, particularly GD and The Pit.
leander, it might help if you keep in mind the overall organization of this board. This is a General Knowledge/General Discussion type of place. The fora themselves are not divided by subject matter per se (except maybe Cafe Society) but by the type of question asked. There will never be a new forum dedicated to a narrow subject such as an election or computers or Harry Potter as long as this pattern continues.
This should be the standard response for every ‘suggestion’ to add a forum.
This is also the reason for TubaDiva’s post that we are welcome to ‘self-police ourselves’ into block threads. If you want to try to start a general discussion thread on the election, you’re free to do so, but expect it to be bogged down quite quickly
