Politics forum temporarily closed

[abby]

After much debate we have decided to temporarily close the politics forum. We have gotten more complaints than praise for the politics forum, and find that it is not serving its mission of providing 20something voters with thoughtful discussion but rather causing arguments that are out of line with the supportive nature of this website.

In addition, we have learned that some members are using the politics forum as a basis for their own journalistic research. We would like to remind everyone that these boards are copyrighted and CANNOT be used to poll our members our conduct research, UNLESS you have our prior permission to do so. These boards are intended simply for 20somethings to find help and help others through the transition to adulthood, and we are glad to see that so many of you have bonded in the process and hope that you will continue to do so.

[Rainster]

Awww... I'm disappointed. No one is forced to read the political posts. So any reaction to them is solely the responsibility of the viewer. Plus, political issues are bound to crop up in another forum. ...

Surprising to hear that someone was using the boards for journalistic research. That's just bad methodology!

[kitalyn414]

gosh this is such a tough one... i know i am turned off by the nature of discussions in the politics forum. mostly because i am not a law student/lawyer and/or philosopher. i am pretty sure that i suggested before that members should not be allowed to post the entire text of an article in a message. it becomes so cumbersome to wade through these long posts and see if there is an actual point to be made.

there seems to be a point at which certain members become so engrossed in a topic that the rest of us can't keep up. i don't know if the solution is to shut off the forum completely, as i think it has the potential to be useful and important. maybe, as crimsonking suggested, the forum should be broadened to include current events from all areas of the news.

i just don't know how to prevent the highly intelligent semi-flame wars that end up taking place. also... i don't know how often the mods are checking the boards, but maybe they could appoint someone to oversee these kind of issues. someone, oh let's say, has A LOT of posts under their belt and knows the ropes around here. this person could provide warnings in the threads that seem to be straying too far away from relevant and civil discussion.

that's just a thought.

[kimmer23]

the politics forum on here was NICER than the jimmy buffett news group i belonged too! i also checked out a herp board (its about turtles, frogs and snakes--i have frogs and my fiance has turtles) and i mentioned that my fiance might let his turtles go in the wild and they tore me up! i think even if we disagree on here, we dont rip each other to shreads like other newsgroups. personally i think everyone on here is young, with similar mentalities and overall everyone is really decent. we all seem to respect each other's views pretty well.