Alpe d'Huez wrote:Well, what we don't need is a slew of politics threads in the forum. This has been discussed before, and the majority of people, and mods, did not want such a thing. Though the title would make one think it would be something to last for a year, I don't know that users can remain that focused on this topic, and we'll end up with two politics threads overlapping each other.
Thus I'm inclined to do with this thread what I did with the Fox thread. Let it run for a few days, and if/when it bleeds into other topics, close it, and re-direct people to the General thread.
For now, it stays.
I understand perfectly that no one, least of all the mods, is served by a surfeit of overlapping topics. I also entirley understand and agree with your closing of the Fox topic, which had indeed run its natural course (though clips from FN could always be included in a comedy topic).
My reasoning for floating this topic was twofold. The General topic now includes everything under the sun, but is dominated by discussion of US politics and society. It is extremely difficult for any two posters, for example, to maintain a conversation about anything non-US related. By and large, US posters here show little interest in global issues. Fair enough, no one has to.
At the same time, we are going to see a steady increase in election related subjects and posts over the coming year, culminating in an election that may be of immense influence on the future of this country. It seemed like a good idea to put all the electioneering/polling/etc stuff in one place. By so doing, the General topic can evolve to become a little less US fixated and more 'general'. It seems to me that this would benefit all concerned.
I think that trying to split political discussion into 'world' and US will not work. As Cobblestones mentioned above, there are simply too many overlaps. I do, however, think that we could have a decent stab at divorcing specific US election related material. If it works, you can always change the title next year.