For what my two cents is worth, I don't get why this thread it being made right now. It could have been made for the last 5 years.
But it has been suggested, so lets just say this. I think I am 50/50 on posting music/politics, and I'm fine with you deleting the current events section. I don't think its intelligent, but I'm fine with it.
As a person who enjoys the political discussions here, I don't know if its fair to punish the civilized folks for wanting to further engage the community beyond the express interest of music. Having said that, most people posting in the political forum aren't. Their misinformed, uncivilized, fringe lunatics who "know" things because their feelings told them it was so. And to me, that isn't politics. But there have been enough times where we had a discussion about things that didn't require research. Things that were decidedly political that it was just nice hearing the other side about.
Lately, I've felt as if its been the majority of posts around here. Sometimes I hit "New Posts" and see a litany of Current Event threads, and they all seem like softball threads designed for ****storms:
1. Is rape bad?
2. What are your thoughts on murder?
3. Aren't taxes terrible?
The ACA thread DJ posted was actually a pretty decent discussion over all. I know that I asked for it to be locked, but it improved drastically from there and I think it got the message across. The real problem there was Arya and HHBH being obnoxious. Thats not a political problem, its a user problem.
As for deleting the forum, as I said, I think it would be fine. I'd miss it, but not enough to stop coming to MB. Just the same, I think things are overmodded here. Threads locked way too early for my taste in general...now we're talking about removing an entire forum?
With all due respect, you take the phrase "Preemptive strike" to heart. I would remind everyone here that its August - we've never had a fruitful summer season on MB in all the years I've been here, and I'm going to hit 9 years this month. People go through phases of interest. And we've also had a retention issue. Building up the community is hard. People have a million choices on-line and engaging discussion is pretty tough to come by period. New members often aren't coherent or have niche interests that we can't relate to.
What happened to that "Prince of Punk" kid? This:
http://www.musicbanter.com/punk/7081...ince-punk.html
That guy didn't leave because of political threads, I assure you.
I can empathize with there not being enough music discussion, but I've seen a few threads where someone posted a Youtube video (one of the easiest ways to hear new music - just click play) and it went ignored for pages, or the discussion reverted to some discussion from before the video.
You can only talk about the base discussion so often. When someone posts a new or novel topic, it should be fostered by members who care, because the half-hearted swoop in and take the easy topic (like who's sleeping with who in the band, or when they sold out.)
There, now I can't say I didn't speak up.