Ooh, Empress, a realistic compromise solution! How novel! See, I knew Buffistas were up to the challenge.

Three months would certainly take us through a lot of the run-up to conventions and such (whenever those are), so if things look to be getting really acrimonious and unresolveable, then we'd be in a perfect place to pull the plug.

I don't like the idea of a three month trial run for a thread, any thread. No point in opening a thread if we think there isn't enough steam to keep it running (that was part of my No War Thread position).

We have precendence for opening and closing threads though. We closed the F2F thread last year and the reopened it a few months later.

The goodbye to any given year thread also has a closing date.

But a trial is something different, no?

Yes, it is something different. I think it's a good idea though. Mainly I was making the point that we already have threads that have a limited life span.

I guess I thought the point of a politics would be ongoing discussion. F2F and the end-of-year threads are kinda event driven.

A trial run would be a new twist on the idea Burrell.

How about instead of a general politics thread we test this as an Election Year thread. It closes after the election. It would also narrow the focus which might be a good test.

Actually, that may be the best plan, if it passes.

My general sense is that, whatever else happens, this thread is facing an uphill battle. But it always has.

I think a narrow focus of of the election year stuff would allow us to see if the dynamics of a political discussion as the sole purpose of a thread gets too acidic, while also serving to not totally pull politics out of the other threads. There would be a finite life to the thread with the opportunity to discuss the option of a broader purpose politics thread once the election is over.

I do remember from the TT that politics was the most flame-baity acrimonious, troll-filled section of the board.

That was the case on Time Online as well. (IMO, it was worse than on TT, but that's neither here nor there.)

At this moment, I would vote no. My reasons: I do think that having a dedicated politics thread, without any diluting factors, raises the risk of arguments turning ugly. Not that I expect meltdown, but I do think there could be a fair amount of acrimony (even within accepted standards of behaviour here). And while I don't think debates themselves would necessarily spill over to other boards, I think there's a risk of bad feeling doing so.

This is largely speculation. It's based primarily on my observation that in other fora with a Politics thread/board, it's always the most heated. While I think the Phoenix board is more civil than the others I've attended, I still think a Poilitcs board would raise the relative level of heat here too. Not to the same lofty reaches, but more than we have now.

There's a lot of uncertainty in the above prediction, but it remains my best guess. Still, I'm open to a compelling argument in favour. If we do wind up voting in favour, I would like the proposal to include a probation period, as has been suggested, requiring another positive vote in 3 months or so. Not to see if it has enough steam, but to see if the fears of spillover etc come to pass.