Moderator Note
I am a bit busy with real life at the moment. This is temporarily closed until I get some time to sort through all of this. It should re-open tomorrow.
Moderator Note
We have had numerous threads discussing this. Do not bring issues from other threads into this discussion just because you weren’t satisfied with the outcome of those threads.
Moderator Warning
First of all, a discussion about some new scientific research is much more likely to be a topic for FQ, not MPSIMS.
Second, you singling out posts by Beckdawrek clearly indicates that you have a problem with this particular poster. You are free to say what you want about her in the Pit. You have also been told to put her on ignore if she bothers you that much. Singling out her in this manner amounts to a personal attack on another, which is not permitted in ATMB. This is an official warning for a personal attack on another user outside of the Pit.
I strongly advise you to either restrict your comments about her to the Pit or to put her on ignore. If you continue this behavior, you will face further moderation against you.
Moderator Note
If you believe someone is cyber-bullying someone else, flag the post (outside of the Pit, of course, you can say all kinds of mean things to folks in the Pit, that’s what it’s there for).
Do not bring unrelated issues into ATMB threads.
And again, if you have a problem with a particular poster, take it to the Pit or put them on ignore.
Moderator Note
Thread re-opened.
Let’s have no more discussion of splitting MPSIMS. We have already done that topic to death. Let’s focus on the actual OP, which is whether or not we should have a dedicated Science forum, and whether or not the new Science tag will suffice for that purpose.
With it re-opened, I would loves some links to Science threads in MPSIMS, they’re not easy to find. I did 11 science-math tags so far in FQ & IMHO.
Can you give a quick tutorial for the uninformed of how to sort by tags?
I like reading science threads and don’t frequently read MPSIMS so it was just luck that I saw a cool post about wormholes and quantum computers.
I get that the tag can help me find them, creating a virtual forum I guess, but how?
On one hand it seems to be that often when I see a science question posted in FQ my reaction is that this is too esoteric a question for Straight Dope considering how specialized science is and the relatively small number of posters here–yet usually there is an informed response.
On the other hand Breaking News threads about new scientific breakthroughs are very scarce.
So the conclusion that it is reasonable to draw is the posters here expert in science just don’t consider Straight Dope the place to discuss new scientific discoveries. Thus renaming the Covid forum to Science would encourage them to do so.
@DSeid you can just bookmark:
I don’t really think the tag will suffice, and would prefer a dedicated forum.
Having said that, I am well aware we’re not actually going to get a dedicated forum even if a majority were for it, given the incredible amount of inertia here, so the tag will do.
Science threads can be fascinating. Instead of just talking the raw nuts and bolts of a science I also find it interesting to speculate on the possibilities of various sciences and the impact they may have in the future.
If you don’t have a shortcut to the tag you’re interested in there are several other ways to get there:
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On the Hamburger Menu a shortcut says Current Tags. That will pull up all tags. Find and click science-math
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In any post you make, type the # sign and a few letters of the tag and you’ll get suggestions, for instance, #sci will prompt science-math. This is now clickable.
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Go into a forum like Factual Questions and in the All Tags box following it, it will show every tag used in FQ. Click science-math and you’ll see all the thread in FQ thus far labels science-math. You can then also click on any of the science-math sublabels and pull up all science-math threads, regardless of forum.
Please don’t be offended if I untag any questions or posts that look more like woo to me. This will probably happen. Computer hardware OPs will get the computer-hardware tag instead and if there is a need for it, I might add an Engineering tag. Maybe software development also.
I doubt we’ll add a forum but I was very pleasantly surprised recently when we finally changed the name of MPSIMS. That only took 15 years I think. We got the The Game Room much quicker. I believe @RickJay led the action to get sports out of mostly the Cafe but also scattered elsewhere. So maybe a Science forum is possible.
Regarding this and the OP, and keeping in mind that the board has only recently started tagging “science” threads, I think the question in the OP has been answered. And it’s not about “inertia”.
A few statistics on the number of threads currently tagged in various categories:
covid 1695
movies 1130
tv-shows-scripted 921
science-math 15
And these “science” threads have been sourced from everywhere on the board, and some of them are quite old. So what does that tell us about how active a dedicated “Science” forum would actually be?
I realize that this is a board skewed more than most to discussions of science and technology, but I think one of the issues is that a lot of what we casually consider “science” is really “science-adjacent”, and is about technology, engineering, science-related politics, and the like. The most currently active thread on pure science is probably the James Webb Space Telescope ongoing discussion. There aren’t many threads like that. I suspect a pure-science forum would be pretty empty, perhaps populated mostly by a few enthusiasts with pet topics, who are already well served by the existing forums.
I love science discussions, too, but based on the above statistics, I see no justification for creating a separate forum for it. The “Science” tag seems like it will work just fine.
Science forum: bad idea. The forum categories are designed on the what the OP wants the response to be. Debate? Just stick with the facts? Somewhere in between? (There are also offshoots (politics, QZ), but those are exactly that). And generally speaking we want most responses to be scientific at least in part.
Science tag: Great idea. Alternatives:
Science
Science-Math
Engineering
Philosophy
Science-Engineering
Math-Philosophy
I find the last group most logical - but that isn’t the main criteria. The main criteria is how well this would work in practice. How would each game out? I’m leaning towards Science-Math combined with “Wing it from there.”
Also, where do economic questions go? Political Science? Psychology? Social sciences in general? Finance? Frankly I don’t think it matters, as long as the mods are consistent.
Also, is there a list of existing tags?
Tags: Straight Dope Message Board
Mentioned here a few posts back:
Thanks.
There’s not a practical way to see the list on my phone. 
I actually find tags very frustrating, because if i can’t remember exactly what the tag is called, i have trouble using it.
(The current tags thing works, but i need to navigate away from whatever i was doing, and then they are in order of frequency, so it’s hard to find any but the most popular.)
You can make the tag list a short cut on your phone.
They can sort by name also. When tags open, click on Name
So, i ran into an interesting science (medical) fact today, and decided to try @What_Exit 's tag.
Is that the sort of thread you were thinking of, @Maserschmidt ?
Absolutely nothing, because the tag is so new. And also the ones actually added seem quite skewed to physics and maths - there’s not a single geology or archaeology or climatology thread listed yet, and we have had loads of those.
I’ll have to compile a list for W?E later this week.