# Should the "Elections" forum just be changed to "Politics"? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 5, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193 "2013-01-05T21:03:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/1 "2013-01-05T21:03:49Z")
We still use it plenty to discuss politics even with no elections to be had. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/2 "2013-01-05T21:45:07Z")
Second the motion ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/3 "2013-01-06T02:30:11Z")
It seems to already have morphed like that. I’ll third that idea! ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/4 "2013-01-06T02:38:54Z")
Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/5 "2013-01-06T03:43:36Z")
With the nonstop campaigning we have, I think much or all political discussion involves election talk. Consider how often, “They can’t/won’t do that, they’d be primaried.” comes up in political discussions. Makes sense to just call it the Politics forum. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/6 "2013-01-06T07:42:31Z")
Considering the forum description has “political news” amongst the relevant topics, I don’t see why we can’t move that to the beginning to cover elections (and everything else). ---
**Author:** ![snowmaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@snowmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowmaster)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/7 "2013-01-06T08:31:37Z")
Agreed ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/8 "2013-01-06T20:32:12Z")
Didn’t we just do this in ATMB a month or so ago? The broader consensus (read: the consensus I agree with so I’ll use the stronger description) was that GD was still the appropriate place for general political discussions, whereas Elections was geared towards ballot and electoral issues. Gun control in general versus a particular amendment and its impact on an election, for example. Though there is a tremendous grey area, the distinction is solid enough to warrant two forums. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/9 "2013-01-06T22:34:02Z")
> [@SDMB Elections Forum](#): > > 1. This forum is for discussion of elections and electoral politics. Discussions of electoral strategy and tactics, political parties, individual races, poll results, **political news** , and U.S. politicians and public figures are all appropriate for this forum. > > 2. We recognize the difficulty of disentangling electoral politics from larger issues of public policy, and leave it to the discretion of users whether to start political threads in Elections or Great Debates. I discussed this with **Marley23** a few months ago. I too felt that because the description of the forum includes “political news” (bolded above) and politicians & public figures in general, it should just be the Politics forum, as the inclusion of this topic means that all public policy and attempts to change it are pretty much fair game for discussion in the forum. We’ve also seen threads about other country’s elections and politics, despite only U.S. politicians being actually denoted as a topic, and since those have not been moved out of Elections and into GD, I think we can all conclude that those are fair subjects for the forum as well. In light of how inclusive the topic description is, I can’t see any reason at all not to rename the forum Politics. Sorry, **Rhythmdvl** , but I don’t see the same distinction that you do. A discussion of gun control is about political news and about public policy, and thus is a fair topic for a discussion in the (currently named) Elections forum, according to the forum description. I don’t see a need for electron-microscope-level hair splitting about which topics belong where: if it’s about politics, it belongs in the (hopefully-soon-to-be-renamed-as) Politics forum. So far that’s 8 of 9 posters in this thread in favor of the name change, btw. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/10 "2013-01-06T22:59:55Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > So far that’s 8 of 9 posters in this thread in favor of the name change, btw. Leaving 1 against…and several thousand not giving a shit. 😃 I think there may be a problem with defining “Politics” in a way that allows moderators to have a good idea as to what would belong in such a forum. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/11 "2013-01-06T23:03:06Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Leaving 1 against…and several thousand not giving a shit. 😃 > I think there may be a problem with defining “Politics” in a way that allows moderators to have a good idea as to what would belong in such a forum. What is it about the current forum description that you think is inadequate? ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/12 "2013-01-07T01:43:16Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Didn’t we just do this in ATMB a month or so ago? We did [just do this recently,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=671797) and this was the official opinion: > [@I propose we change "Elections" to "Politics"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-propose-we-change-elections-to-politics/640536/29): > > My own tuppence: I think that Great Debates (which includes “politics”) is about debatable issues (presumably those that are not resolvable by factual answers.) There certainly are partisan discussions, but they are debates/discussions. > > The Election forum does include similar discussions, but also covers IMHO-type comments related to elections (conversations rather than discussions.) > > Is there some degree of overlap? Sure. But we’ve always had overlap, by the nature of our forums. We don’t think of that as necessarily a bad thing. When we started these boards, the first inclination was to have boards by academic topic: physics/chemistry, social sciences, biology, literature and language, etc. We dropped that really quickly because most of Cecil’s columns don’t neatly fit into such categories. Instead, we organized based on the type of discussion: > > - Questions with factual answers: General Questions > - Questions that can be debated forever: Great Debates > - Comments and socialization (before Facebook): MPSIMS > - Responses to Cecil’s Columns: Comments on Cecil’s Columns > > Over time, we split off IMHO from MPSIMS, to allow a forum just for spouting opinions, but that was still based on the type of conversation/discussion rather than the topic/subject. > > We deviated from this pattern when we added Cafe Society because there were so many question on arts and entertainment. We recognized that there would be overlap, and some confusion about what goes where; we dealt with it. By now, people have become used to the distinction and we don’t have confusion much anymore. > > Our second deviation from the pattern was to add the Games forum, because Cafe Society was being swamped with games (and there was general feeling that sports wasn’t “arts & entertainment”.) Again, there was some initial confusion, but it’s settled out over the years. And that confusion was minor compared to the convenience for most readers, most of the time. E.g., people who want to find a discussion about the Chicago Cubs don’t need to scroll through pages of movies and music. > > The third deviation (i.e., forum based on topic rather than type of discussion) was the Elections forum. We originally thought it would just be opened when US elections were looming, but we’ve left it open all the time (I guess elections are always looming.) Yes, there is some overlap and confusion about which post goes where, but that seems a minor annoyance compared to the general convenience for most readers (viz., people who want to find a discussion about theology don’t need to scroll through pages and pages of election-related froth.) > > So, my vote would be to leave things as they are. If anyone is interested in my opinion (which I doubt), it can be found in that thread, so I won’t bother repeating anything here. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/13 "2013-01-07T23:56:11Z")
I would suggest both politics and elections. Perhaps “Politics, Elections and other Government Tomfoolery”. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2013, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/14 "2013-01-08T05:57:11Z")
Yes ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/15 "2013-01-10T14:42:42Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Didn’t we just do this in ATMB a month or so ago? The broader consensus (read: the consensus I agree with so I’ll use the stronger description) was that GD was still the appropriate place for general political discussions, whereas Elections was geared towards ballot and electoral issues. Gun control in general versus a particular amendment and its impact on an election, for example. Though there is a tremendous grey area, the distinction is solid enough to warrant two forums. I’m good with this, but I think the mods need to be more proactive in moving threads out of ‘Elections’ that have little to do with elections and are general political issues, e.g. [was Reagan a mean, divisive partisan?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=677510), [1 Trillion Dollar Coin??](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=677867), and [Fiscal Cliff - Doesn’t it fix the deficit problem?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=677372) which are all near the top of the main Elections forum page right now. The only thread currently on the main Elections forum page with ‘Moved’ in front of it is this one. If threads don’t belong in a forum aren’t moved out, then saying “this forum only is for X” doesn’t really mean anything. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/16 "2013-01-10T18:35:54Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > We still use it plenty to discuss politics even with no elections to be had. This just seems like common sense to me. \*Politics \*covers elections and a broad category of other things. (I like this guy, I like that lady. etc.) _Elections_ kind of narrow the forum down. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/17 "2013-01-11T00:19:39Z")
Yes. Next time we could try this thread with a poll. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/18 "2013-01-11T00:22:43Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/19 "2013-01-11T20:15:10Z")
Seems like this is one more step toward reorganizing the board by topic rather than conversation type. Game Room, Cafe Society, Elections - all topic based rather than conversation type based. General Questions, MPSIMS, IMHO, Great Debates, the BBQ Pit - all based on conversation type rather than topic. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-elections-forum-just-be-changed-to-politics/646193/20 "2013-01-11T21:55:46Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Game Room, Cafe Society, Elections - all topic based rather than conversation type based. And for all of those, it developed over time that there were enough threads on the topic in question to not only support their own forum, but to begin to clutter up the ‘conversation type’ forum they were spun off of. Makes perfect sense to spin off ‘topic based’ forums under those circumstances.