Very simple question for the poll: Without any change in rules or description, do you think the “Elections” forum should be renamed “Politics”?
I voted “no” with the caveat that I do think the description needs to change to be completely focused on elections. As it stands, there is a LOT of grey area considering the last few items in the description:
For discussion of elections and electoral politics, including strategy and tactics, political parties, individual races, political news, and politicians and public figures
Emphasis added. Get rid of those as they are generally not tied to an election. With that description, it’s no wonder so many people put every Trump thread in “Elections”. He’s a politician and public figure.
I went no but depending on the description I could be talked into it. Just the name change alone and one could argue that it would be the forum, or at least a potential forum, for anything controversial such as gender issues, women’s rights, and a whole myriad of topics that are political but possibly not applicable to a particular election or event.
A name change isn’t the answer. Decide what we want the changes to be and rethink the forum structure appropriately.
I think politics takes up a lion’s share of the Great Debates forum. So I’m not sure this is a good idea.
In before the lock, but doesn’t the proposed new name have a broader scope than the current one?
As broad as the definition of “politics” is, it would make more sense to rename “Great Debates”.
No, there’s already too much politics in the Elections forum that has nothing to do with elections. Just because something is the result of an election, doesn’t mean it has to do with an election itself. Keep things the way they are.
Yes, good point. I’ve put a couple of Trump threads in there because of that description but I’ve always had the sense that they weren’t really at home there. Elections should be for elections and although Trump was certainly elected it’s far enough in the rear-view mirror now to not fit in that forum.
Completely agree with this.
Agree with John Mace & Pleonast.
I’ve been wanting to put up a thread on current events in Congress. But where?
My thread’s utterly not about an impending election or candidates. But it is about politicians and their actions. And it’s not a debate in the sense of asking a loaded question & expecting both flames and thoughtful albeit partisan responses.
Finally, although it’ll have a bunch of opinions I really would prefer not to stink up IMHO with political conversation. Many people, myself included, are actively seeking a refuge from partisan political reading & writing.
During the lead-up to the US elections we had lots of threads that were essentially current events threads. Those logically went into Elections. Now we still have lots of current events in the explicitly political/governmental world. But no obvious home for threads about them. Nor obvious areas where the topic’s properly off limits.
My vote would be to rename the Elections forum something like Government or Governance. And push GD threads on overtly partisan political topics over there. Leaving GD for topics that aren’t simply USA Ds vs Rs.
I think this topic is appropriate in the Elections forum. I’m new(ish). I interpret the descriptor of the Elections forum as it is written. The instructions are there, and in the rules of the forum.
The description would indicate that nearly every Trump thread goes there. It defines electoral politics as including “strategy and tactics, political parties, individual races, political news, and politicians and public figures.”
Pretty much all of the Trump-related threads are about one of those things–“political parties,” “political news,” and “politicians and public figures” being the big ones, though “strategy and tactics” often comes up as well.
(“Politicians and public figures” is one item, so I assume it has to involve both. And Trump often does things that involve public figures.)
I don’t see why we have an “Elections” forum in the first place. It’s an oddly narrow focus for a forum on a board where the rest of the forums (except maybe Thread Games) have broader sweeps:
General Questions
Great Debates
Cafe Society
The Game Room
In My Humble Opinion
Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share
The BBQ Pit
I think a “Politics” forum would better fit the broad nature of the other forums. Having an Elections forum is kind of like having a Movies forum but no Cafe Society. What if you wanted to discuss music or food or books? Threads on those topics would get spread around between the other forums. Instead, it makes more sense to have the bigger umbrella of CS to cover threads on all sorts of food and entertainment. Likewise, a Politics forum could cover elections and a great deal more.
Alternatively, I would say just make Great Debates the default forum for all political threads–including discussion of elections.
If polling could be permitted in Great Debates and Elections/Politics, then IMHO and MPSIMS could be nearly-totally politics free.
You’re correct but OTOH Trump threads have been moved from there by mods in the past to other forums. Some mod advice would be helpful here.
Agree. Rename Elections to Politics, perhaps tweak the description a bit in honor of the change, and leave it at that.
As to why we have an Elections forum …
Rancorous debate over the impending 2008 (or was it 2012?) election was taking over GD & IMHO. So the idea was to corral all those threads in their own space to leave room on the front pagees of GD & IMHO for non-election content. It worked.
Much as Thread Games was spawned off of CS because that one sub-interest was overwhelming the content on the more general entertainment topics.
On a related note I see the stickies at the top of GD and Elections have been recently updated and may be part of this movement.
Polls are allowed in the latter.
Yeah, but how was he supposed to know that? 
If we had a single forum for Politics, then what would be left of Great Debates? Most of GD is politics.