There has been a noticible amount of political discussion lately. So, the question is, should there be a seperate political off topic area?

Benefits I personally see would be that people who don't enjoy such discussions could easially skip by all of them. Also, for those that do participate, you could have seperate read markers, allowing you to read and respond without resetting the normal off topic read markers.

i say no. the large amount of political topics should drop after in the weeks following Nov 2. if we do have a Political section, we might should create an Off Topic section with Off Topic and Political sub-sections in it.

I say yes, wether or not the discussions drop off or not will depend on who wins.

If you do, why not elminate the FAQ section.

It seems the only information there that is not in the FAQ link at the top is what Rio employees post here. Not sure where that could go. We could start a sticky locked thread at the beginning of the General, Technical/Troubleshooting, and Installation Notes sections that basically says: "New Users: Please Read the FAQ" with a link inside to the FAQ.

Greetings!

I voted no mainly because a) you will see a drop in posts after the election, b) most political discussions do not start out that way - they kind of evolve into debates and c) off topic works very well and describes political debates (along with religious, guns, smoking, distribution, text editor and other varied "spirited discussions") very well.

I was about to just make all three of these points, but now I'll just have to chime in with "what Paul said".

Quote:
I was about to just make all three of these points, but now I'll just have to chime in with "what Paul said".

I was just about to form 3 ideas like this in my mind, but now I gotta go "What Jeff said".

Edit: Althoughh I was thinking. Would it be worth having a separate OT forum about lip-synching?

I voted yes because if Bush wins, the complaining won't stop. I also get bummed out about Off Topic from time to time nad won't bother looking into it. So I've missed a few good threads. I also think that having it's own section would allow for more adstract discussions without really getting into debates.

Maybe we should just wait until after the dozen or so recounts and court actions to decide.

One thing I'll commend all of us on is keeping politics out of all the other sections!

So what exactly would we say to people who posted politics? "Sorry, this topic is off-topic for Off Topic"?

Peter

I vote no, as well as the three points I won't give a crap after Nov 2

should there be a seperate political off topic area?


No.

IMHO, Off Topic is the best part of this whole bbs (has anyone noticed that in the near future Off Topic will have the most posts of any of the forums?) and what makes Off Topic so good is the free-wheeling, anything-goes diversity of topics and opinions, expressed by civil-minded, intelligent people who have interesting things to say.

Restricting any aspect of that would be unfortunate.

tanstaafl.

No. I agree with Doug. Besides, with our legendary propensity to veering off-topic in a thread, whatever the original topic might be (like one of the recent political threads ending up being on sport without a warning ), you would have to keep shuffling threads around all the time.