Is it just for Chicago politics or can it be for national as well?
Thank you, I was wondering that myself. I have always chimed in as being in favor of having a politics forum.
It’s Straight Dope Chicago, so local politics, please, which is the point.
Chicago politics is a culture all by itself; for example, quite a few Chicago area residents have told me that they don’t understand what all the Blago kerfuffle was about and that their (now former) governor was an innocent man who had done nothing newsworthy. When I pointed out that soliciting a bribe is against the law in most every jurisdiction they replied that was how business is done there and so it’s nothing out of the ordinary.
I know it’s your sandbox and you can put in a forum for every corner of Chicago if you want. However, this pretty much destroys the management answers to every we should have a politics only forum thread. Which usually run along the lines of, “We don’t need it”, “We don’t want any more forums” , “Things will die down after the election”. FTR its after the election and I would still like to see a separate politics forum.
SD Chicago is a new section of the site, and there’s no Great Debates forum over there. The rest of the board isn’t starting from scratch.
The rest of the board is not set in stone either.
This suggests that they might benefit from some outside perspectives. :p;)
The new forums are about advertising and attracting local advertisers. If they get outside traffic the advertisers get charged more yet don’t see an increase in business. They don’t want that and unless you’re from Chicago they really don’t want you.
I seem to recall Ed saying that outsiders were welcome to the forum if they wanted to discuss Chicago topics.
I can only comment on reality, not on what Ed is saying these days. 
Right. Other communities may have their share of problems, bad attitudes, and a checkered history. Most of them, though, were not under mob rule a handful of decades ago.
Wait a minute, did I say were?
I keed, I keed. Carry on.
- “Jack”
A bit of history to set some perspective:
When the SDMB was conceived, there was considerable discussion about how to set up the forums. Cecil thought there was only need for two, “Comments on Cecil’s Columns” and “Other.” There was strong argument for traditional subject matter: economics, politics, sciences, etc. We rejected those categories, because so many SD questions (even those in what we now call GQ, looking for factual answers) don’t fall withint the traditional academic categories.
Instead, we set up the forums based on the type of discussion expected – debate (GD), factual answer (GQ), opinion but not debate (IMHO) and misc (MPSIMS.) The exceptions were the two “Comments” forums (Cecil’s Columns and Staff Reports.) We later found that there were so many arts/literature/TV/Movie questions that we split off a separate forum “Cafe Society.” And, recently, we split off a separate forum for Games. But the logic remains that we prefer to sort things based on the type of discussion rather than on the topic, with the only exceptions so far being arts and games.
When SDChicago was started, the emphasis was entirely different. The focus is not on type of discussion, but on subject matter. There’s not the same huge range of topics as for the SDMB, it’s more like a guide book. The “traditional” divisions for a travel book or guide book work just fine: night life, sports, neighborhoods/shopping, politics, food, and misc (“Sweet Home”).
In short, SDChicago and SDMB are two different animals. True, SDMB doesn’t have a separate forum for politics, but neither does it have separate forums for food, night-life, or sports. And SDChicago doesn’t have any place to call another poster a jerk, to discuss the three words that end in -gry, or to debate economic theories. The list of forums for the two Message Boards are pretty much completely different lists, aimed at completely different categorization, for completely different purposes.
That is a very clear answer. Thank you. I disagree in one respect. I think having a politics only forum would still follow the split on types of discussion. Poltical arguments are much different then discussing the great questions of our time as someone put it. Most are look at what the Dems/Pubs did Bush is a poopyhead. I stay away from GD for that reason. I hardly even check the topics. I know that is not enough reason to change it but I will continue to give my opinion when the topic comes up.
Straight Dope Chicago no longer has a Politics forum. It’s down to three fora:
Sweet Home Chicago
For miscellaneous chatter about life in Da Greatest City in Da World
The Diner
For all food-related discussion, including restaurants, cooking, shops, etc.
Questions, Comments for SD Chicago Columns
Got a question you’d like Cecil to tackle in his Straight Dope Chicago column, or a comment on a past column? Here’s the place for it.
No Politics. For that matter two posts in the last two days. I can barely find a pulse.
The forum is still there, it just has no new posts to show you.
Make one. Start something.
It is not visible though. These are the only three visible.
**Sweet Home Chicago **
For miscellaneous chatter about life in Da Greatest City in Da World Chicago’s…
** The Diner **
For all food-related discussion, including restaurants, cooking, shops, etc. Italian Beef
** Questions, Comments for SD Chicago Columns **
Got a question you’d like Cecil to tackle in his Straight Dope Chicago column, or a comment on a past column? Here’s the place for it.
If we can’t see them, we can not start a post in the forum. I suspect that the forum settings might have been changed by mistake if you are saying it is still there.
Ed tells me that Chicago Politics was folded into “Sweet Home Chicago,” not enough traffic to really justify a separate forum. So now it’s not an issue. I hadn’t looked at it since the change so I wasn’t aware. My apologies.
I could care less what goes on in Straight Dope Chicago, but I’d like to register my opinion that I DO NOT WANT a separate forum for politics in the main SD forums. I like things the way they are.
The entire experiment has bombed. As quoted above " not enough traffic to really justify a separate forum."
Word
You know, I have absolutely no dog in this fight, and couldn’t care less about the Chicago forums, but they’ve been active for what? A month or two?
I started a theatre company several years ago. For our first show, we got maybe 15-20 people per night. 25 felt like a big crowd. Our only reviewers were online independents. Now a couple years later we average more than double that, regularly get reviewed in major papers, and just got nominated for a bunch of awards. Sometimes things need a little time to flourish and gain attention.
Why the heck does it bother people so much? I never even notice the Chicago stuff is even there, since I’m not looking for it.