Yeah, an election’s coming up.
And yeah, it’s a particularly interesting election (even for those outside the US).
But the top 16* threads on Great Debates, 35 of the threads on the first page election related…and most of those are simply flaming or defending the candidates.
I’ve never seen such a narrow range of debate on the board…
At the time of writing, the top 16 threads were:
And again – who IS Sarah Palin
Convince Bricker that not every Obama supporter is a tool
Obama to appear on O’Reilly tonight
Mayor Palin tried to force her local Library to ban books she didn’t like.
Sarah Palin investigated for Abuse of Gubernatorial Power. Some Questions.
Colin Powell on VP choice and will his Endorsement go ultimately to Obama?
It’s all about taxes, isn’t it?
Republican National Convention thread patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel
Let’s talk seriously about Bristol Palin.
McCain Supporters, please answer a question
Independents: What do you think of Palin?
John McCain’s Speech…
Is being the governor of Alaska significantly relevant experience for US Presidency?
PASSIONS: Why is this election so different?
Palin in 2012?
Not just that, but the Pit. It used to be for (mainly) board-related complaints. But now it’s mostly people who read news headlines and then proclaim “I’M OUTRAGED!,” with a chorus of “ME, TOO” responses.
Yep. I was a lurker four years ago and quit reading for a while because I was bored with all the election threads. And I don’t read GD. They were everywhere.
Agreed. It’s very boring, and confusing to the uninterested non-American. Ohhh, a democratic election with two candidates. 1… 2. Yes, two. What a democracy! I guess it makes the “my guy’s better than yours” game a lot easier.
Eh… we just had both conventions so it’s topical. The threads are easy enough to ignore and you can always start your own. I’d rather there be a few different threads focusing on different aspects then try to follow all those issues in one huge thread with many pages.
I agree. I was thinking of maybe asking the administrators of making a forum specifically for discussing current events. For example the threads doing the play-by-play of the conventions would be perfect there, there’s not alot of debating going on in those, as well as some political threads in the pit which don’t get too heated. However, with the server change and the new forum it’s probably too much to ask.
You haven’t been here through a previous US presidential election cycle.
Great Debates is mainly about politics and religion. At the moment, we are in the middle of the most significant US political event in four years. Of course most of the threads are going to be about it.
Nay, the most important in longer than that. And while the posts in question will subside in time, c’mon furriners. We’re trying to fix things here. Show a little compassion.
Ive lurked on SDMB since before the last election (Kerry vs Bush I think it was).
And every 4 years it seems the normaly openminded SDMB crowd divide into two groups of political… well assholes.
Yes Im looking at you bastards who think your clever by rehashing the latest news media manufactured drama “story” about one of the hopefuls in General Questions, because its not politics BY DAMN your actually morally OUTRAGED that someones cousins father-in-laws sister managed to RUN OVER HER DOG. And “Do we really want this person TO BE IN CHARGE?” has a question mark doesnt it?
There was a thread awhile back about energy sources. The general consensus was solar power was dirty because it produced nasties in the production of solar cells.
Their prefered clean alternative? Nuclear fission I guess they figured they could leave the radioactive remains under their pillow at night and the Nuclear Fairy would come take it away and leave them a shiny new quarter (to help pay for the tumor removal after sleeping on a lump of radioactive junk).
Now if the argument had been solar cells don’t produce enough energy to justify the energy invested in their construction I could have agreed with that. Atleast until longer lived higher yeilding cells are on the market.
There are FAR too many Palin threads. At one point I recall seeing no less than 10 threads on the front page of GD with Palin in the title.
I don’t know why some people seem to feel like THEIR point is too important to be buried in a singel topical thread. They must be heard and the way to do that is to force others to hear you by starting your own thread so the rest of us have to read your thread title.
I seriously think GD should be split into 3 sub boards. Politcs, Religion and other.
