Can we please have a General Discussion: Politics and Policy?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

When I did landscape design I was a stickler for putting the sidewalks where people had trod "cow paths" because that was obviously where people wanted to walk and any barrier that tried to change people's own analysis of their most convenient path was going to be battered down over time.

General Discussion: Presidency used to be GD Politics

General Discussion: Presidency is, today, a forum for talking about Obama. Most regular posters in General Discussion: Presidency are optimistic devotees of the president who do not appreciate negative posts.

DU has evolved in such a way that GDP is low-volume and ill-suited to more general discussion of politics and policy.

And it is generally considered "dickish" to crash into GDP with negativity. At least I consider it dickish. I don't want to taunt people or create gratuitos friction. (I assume many others feel the same way because there are far fewer negative posts there, most having moved to GD)

And that is GREAT. It is fine and dandy.

People sharing a viewpoint have settled into an available space and should, in fact, be allowed the quiet enjoyment of the space. It is a nice forum for folks who enjoy it. It is a keeper.

But there is a disturbing gap in the utility of a site that is, after all, supposed to be primarily about Politics and Policy... there is no top-level forum designated for discussion of what the community was created to discuss!

General Discussion serves a good purpose as the forum for GENERAL discussion. Here's something weird in the news. Here's some outlandish thing someone did. Here is my theory about our culture. Here is an experience I had.

All perfectly valid topics for discussion.

But it is not conducive to discussion of the primary focus of the community to relegate Politics to be mixed in with a grab-bag.

Let GDP users be. That forum has evolved... the people have voted with their feet. The users of GDP have defined the space, as is inevitable and largely desirable in a community.

And continue to let people post a wide rage of stuff in GD.

Nobody needs to change. Everyone is cool. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

Just please create an additional top-level forum GENERAL DISCUSSION: POLICY AND POLITICS.

[dionysus]

1. you could take over the Lounge.

:P

[lamp_shade]

2. ...

[OnyxCollie]

3. Don't burst the bubble!

You'll upset the children.

[JNelson6563]

4. I say go back to the old rule

Where vanity posts, attention whoring, local weather reports, health reports and the like go to the lounge. I remember before there was a GDP of any kind (the "P" has represented many things starting with "primary" for the '04 elections). In those days GD was a political only forum and if you wanted to read about who got to 1000 posts today and other important things like that you went to the lounge.

GD used to be far more educational than it is now and much more like what you are currently proposing.

Julie