Create new politcal forum in Talkbass lounge

[suicas]

90% of the posts in the Lobby seem to be political in nature, it would seem to make sense to provide an explicitly labelled forum for such things (within the Talkbass lounge still).

 

[Silversorcerer]

Let anarchy rule anarchists

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

90% of the posts in the Lobby seem to be political in nature, it would seem to make sense to provide an explicitly labelled forum for such things (within the Talkbass lounge still).

It should actually be titled "US Politics" - it is always about American politics and anything about the rest of the world that doesn't directly involve the US, is ignored.

I'm interested in Politics, generally - but US politics bores me silly, as I cannot see any real difference between the parties and it is always a case of one middle-aged,rich, white, male conservative against another middle-aged,rich, white conservative - who cares?

So if we could gather up all the US Politics threads in one area - it would be very useful to me as well, so I could ignore it!

 

[paul]

I like this suggestion...

 

[Thee]

Does the volume of non-political threads in the lobby really warrant a new sub-forum? I always thought the theory behind topic specialized forums was that those threads with that specialized topic are making the nagivgation or dissemination of unlike threads more difficult. If it was 50-50 or even 70-30, then maybe. But I don't see that problem right now.

 

[Bernie Connors]

You don't?! That's all that's in there now.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Maybe if politics were relegated to a sub-forum then new discourse would flourish in the Lobby, especially among those who otherwise are afraid to, or can't stand to, go there.

Agreed, and good point. To me, it's kinda like the whole "TaBz" question...for a long time, a lot of people got annoyed by having to look at Tab requests in the GI forum, and it got pretty stinky for a while. Then Paul put up a forum dedicated to Tab discussions, which I think was a great thing. For Tab users, it meant that they knew where to go for that topic. For the rest of us, it meant that we know where not to go. And I think TB has been a better place for it.

With politics, we are left with a difficult decision: allow it or not? And if we allow it, how do we keep it from running rampant and annoying the hell out of people who come here to get away from topics like politics? I would suggest that having a forum dedicated to politics is a good idea that would allow the best of both worlds. Since this site is getting to the point where it is paid for by the financial support of its members, it seems kind of silly to run around banning supporting members for discussing forbidden topics unless they really, REALLY go over the edge. But if there were a dedicated political forum, and the mod didn't want to work too hard, he or she could simply lock any thread which they felt was getting out of hand, then either reopen it later, or not. Over time, supporting members would either catch on that if they want the discussion to continue, they need to play fair, or they'd keep finding their discussions closed. And those who didn't want to deal with politics at all could just avoid that forum entirely.

And again, a customizable search feature, if possible within this software, would REALLY allow folks to put certain forums on "ignore" once and for all.

 

[Bernie Connors]

Good points, guys. I agree.