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- Jul 1, 2001
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What is everyone's thoughts on having a private political discussion forum here? All members would be welcome to join the group that would be provided access if they so desire, but those not interested in politics can simply not join and would not even see the forum as a result.
I see a number of benefits. For example, this would cut out the political noise from the Miscellaneous Forum. Any new threads in Miscellaneous that evolve into a political discussion can be moved and instructions on how to join the group to continue the discussion would be posted. Another benefit is these heated political threads would not be indexed by the search engines so we would not see folks registering here just to flame. Finally, from a moderation standpoint, it adds a nice layer whereby problem users can be removed from the group and thus denied access to the political forum, but not banned entirely from the forum proper.
Some may question whether a political forum would be out of place here. Remember, not long ago, we decided to shelve the Mountain Bike Forum idea because it would make AZ 'too broad'. As always, I'm reluctant to add additional forums, but I feel the pros outweigh the cons here especially since this forum will be of an 'opt-in' nature. Again, it won't even be visible to guests and members that don't join the group. Thoughts?
I see a number of benefits. For example, this would cut out the political noise from the Miscellaneous Forum. Any new threads in Miscellaneous that evolve into a political discussion can be moved and instructions on how to join the group to continue the discussion would be posted. Another benefit is these heated political threads would not be indexed by the search engines so we would not see folks registering here just to flame. Finally, from a moderation standpoint, it adds a nice layer whereby problem users can be removed from the group and thus denied access to the political forum, but not banned entirely from the forum proper.
Some may question whether a political forum would be out of place here. Remember, not long ago, we decided to shelve the Mountain Bike Forum idea because it would make AZ 'too broad'. As always, I'm reluctant to add additional forums, but I feel the pros outweigh the cons here especially since this forum will be of an 'opt-in' nature. Again, it won't even be visible to guests and members that don't join the group. Thoughts?