Can We Have a Thread Just For American Politics?

[Shawn Hopkins]

I feel like with the international flavor of CBR, American (United States) politics gets lost in the current "All-Purpose" thread and it makes it hard to have an ongoing discussion. I used to really enjoy the threads we had for the Republican party and the Democrats and for U.S. Elections. I'm not asking for all of those back, but I would like a single thread for just American politics. And I'm not asking this as an "America, rah, rah" impulse either. The American politics threads were very popular with Europeans and people from other countries, some were actually started by them.

I know this raises the question, what if people want threads just for other countries? My answer is that if those would be popular enough, why not? But I don't think they would be, I think they would mostly fall off the board even if they were started and not cause too much clutter. Also, the precedent for allowing lots of similar threads even though they clog board real-estate has been set with appreciation threads, so I don't think specific country politics threads should be treated differently.

[Brian Cronin]

We think it's just a seasonal issue, to be honest. Once the election season kicks into high gear, the thread will naturally become more U.S.-centered, especially since out non-American posters are all quite interested in U.S. politics. So we don't think there's enough of a need for a U.S. specific thread.

[Carabas]

Can't we simply have multiple political threads?

Those great discussions from the prevousncarnation are flatout impossible when all political topics get lumped into the same big thread.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Maybe we can separate news into its own thread, at least? There are people that want to come into the news and politics thread and post the outrage of the day. Yeah, kids getting left in a hot car is a terrible thing, but it doesn't really fit with attempts at political discussion. The next Casey Anthony or George Zimmerman is going to make that thread unreadable.

[worstblogever]

I agree with Shawn, there are points where the news & politics thread seems to cause too much overlap, and a post about what seems like heavy news that you'd expect to have a good discussion about gets lost in the shuffle, as people defend the political party of their choice from one of its members saying or doing something people get fired up about.

Maybe just going "daily news thread" and "politics thread" would help. I mean, every news organization and newspaper seems to split off the political discussion on their sites these days.

[Arundel Armor Hunter]

I assume you can still create political threads about a certain issue that is not highlighted at the moment in the news cycle.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I assume you can still create political threads about a certain issue that is not highlighted at the moment in the news cycle.

No. It all goes in that thread. I tried to make a standalone one (it was about the MRA community) and it was closed.