What is PF doing having a Politics section

  • Thread starter Nereid
  • Start date
In summary: Sure, not everyone has a concern about astronomy, and some members may even think it 'a good thing' for political appointees to try to impose their ID and creationist views on public pronouncements by NASA scientists, but why so little discussion on this here? I have to agree, it's time for a shift in the P&WA forum here. This is, after all, a forum dedicated to science, so discussion based on politics that affect science and academic pursuits in general should be the primary, if not the sole focus.So why have a "Technology" Forum either? You hardly see any posts in there regarding the way "Technology shapes Physics" Typically its, "can you help me fix
  • #36
Evo said:
Again, we decided AGAINST a Political Science forum for a number of reasons. We're not going to go that route.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "forum." A forum to me means this site in general, with Poli Sci as another sub section along with other social sciences. I find it insulting that it is considered frivolous in comparison and is not being treated in a similar manner. It makes me suspect motives are not that of academic standards.
 
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  • #37
Moonbear said:
I agree with you on that, and it's why I don't think it would be that impossible to focus on the side of each issue that impacts science rather than just ranting about who loves or hates Bush. Many political issues DO impact science in many ways, yet on a SCIENCE forum, we almost never discuss those things. Everything from restricting the dissemination of scientific findings paid for by tax dollars, as sparked Nereid to start this thread, to hindrance to international collaborations due to the increased difficulty in getting visas for visiting scientists, to these insane regulations that now require I fill out umpteen forms in quadruplicate and wait over 6 months to a year to get approval to import a drug for experimental use only because the delivery method of the drug isn't approved by the FDA yet even though the actual drug being delivered has been for ages, and I've already used these devices in the US in two different labs so know all the regulations and requirements and handling precautions to ensure none of it ever gets anywhere near any food supply, and the only reason it isn't approved is because there isn't much of a market for it in the US, so nobody is doing the trials to get it approved here (a larger device for a different species that is otherwise identical in every way is already approved!) That's my current rant. Right, and government affects agricultural practices, how science is funded, what is funded, who gets the funding, what research is prioritized for funding, how the results of that research are disseminated, etc. If everything we talk about here could affect science, why aren't scientists talking about that aspect of it?!
Okay, then remove it along with other social sciences in this forum that are not related to the core purpose/focus of this forum. Without consistency in this argument I'm not buying the argument.
 
  • #38
SOS2008 said:
I'm not sure what you mean by a "forum." A forum to me means this site in general, with Poli Sci as another sub section along with other social sciences. I find it insulting that it is considered frivolous in comparison and is not being treated in a similar manner. It makes me suspect motives are not that of academic standards.
Why should a physics forum have a political science forum or "subforum"? Who said it was frivolous? We're not going to have multiple political forums and it was decided that we would prefer to discuss political dealings with science, which impact a lot of the members on this forum as opposed to having a "political science" forum. We have limited space here and we have to decide which "sub forums" we can handle. If you've been active in the academic portion of the forum, you are aware that we have renamed, combined & closed a number of "sub forums" recently.

Again, as it has been previously stated, the final decision on P&WA has not yet been made.
 
  • #39
Is the concern on P&WA related to limited resources or bandwidth?

As for Nereid's concerns, I would point out that there are several threads on policy issues, e.g. "Should nuclear energy be phased out?", or "Does Every Nation on Earth Have a Right to Build Nuclear Power Plants", "What happens when we don't need oil?", and a few others.

P&WA is also a place where PF members can express views on Politics and World Affairs beyond just technical and scientific matters. It offers more serious topics than say "General Discussion".

Part of being a well-rounded citizen in the world is the ability to explore other matters besides science and technology. That is why universities often insist that science and engineering students take some humanities electives.

Certainly, the administration is entitled to restrict discussion to P&WA matters related to science, technology, and policies affecting S&T.
 
  • #40
SOS2008 said:
Okay, then remove it along with other social sciences in this forum that are not related to the core purpose/focus of this forum. Without consistency in this argument I'm not buying the argument.
Right now, we are talking about the possibility of giving a more defined direction to P&WA.

The discussions in other sciences are currently appropriate for their category. They are fine as they are. We have recently added M&B for an even more defined discussion. We are constantly evaluating the different "sub" forums to see if they are in line with our objectives.
 
  • #41
SOS2008 said:
I'm not sure what you mean by a "forum." A forum to me means this site in general, with Poli Sci as another sub section along with other social sciences. I find it insulting that it is considered frivolous in comparison and is not being treated in a similar manner. It makes me suspect motives are not that of academic standards.
Why? We can't possibly include every subject in a university course catalog. We limit ourselves to the things we know we can do well. As far as I know, we have no bona fide political scientists here. The discussions in this forum would NEVER pass as political science, thus no need. What we do well is physical sciences. We've indulged other interests of our members with some forums that are either complementary to the science focus (such as philosophy, with such sections as ethics and philosophy of math and science), or peripheral but provide a place for the scientists here to share some common other interests. When those "indulgences" begin to require a disproportionate amount of the moderators' time when we really want to be focusing on the science topics, it becomes a detraction from the science focus rather than a supplement or fun indulgence.

We do have a "Social Sciences" forum here within "Other Sciences" that gets very little traffic. There's no need to start splitting the social sciences down even further if the umbrella forum cannot even sustain much interest (and why would it, really...I'm sure there are plenty of places on the internet inhabited by social scientists where a much more fruitful discussion on any of those topics could be had than on a physics forum). But, keep in mind that chit-chat about politics, as exists in this forum, is extremely different from political science, which would be discussed under social sciences.

As has been said before by many others, we can't be everything to everyone. We focus on things we can do well, and when we realize we're not doing something well, we change it.
 
  • #42
Evo said:
Why should a physics forum have a political science forum or "subforum"? Who said it was frivolous? We're not going to have multiple political forums and it was decided that we would prefer to discuss political dealings with science, which impact a lot of the members on this forum as opposed to having a "political science" forum. We have limited space here and we have to decide which "sub forums" we can handle. If you've been active in the academic portion of the forum, you are aware that we have renamed, combined & closed a number of "sub forums" recently.

Again, as it has been previously stated, the final decision on P&WA has not yet been made.
I see that Economics has been removed. But my question remains -- how does

History & Humanities
Human history, mythology, literature, arts and media, foreign languages, cultural studies, law...

qualify as appropriate to PF any more than politics?

If the argument is that politics AND all other social sciences and humanities are being removed/altered because these are not related to the core sciences of this forum it would make more sense to me. That's all I'm saying.
 
  • #43
SOS2008 said:
I see that Economics has been removed. But my question remains -- how does

History & Humanities
Human history, mythology, literature, arts and media, foreign languages, cultural studies, law...

qualify as appropriate to PF any more than politics?

If the argument is that politics AND all other social sciences and humanities are being removed/altered because these are not related to the core sciences of this forum it would make more sense to me. That's all I'm saying.
I understand. History and humanities were added in response to a request by a number of members that also enjoy these topics. It has also been discussed that history be limited to discussions of history of science. :frown: I love history, so I would not be happy if that happened, but hey, I don't make the rules around here.

The point is that we can only have ONE sub forum for politics and popular demand has been that it address issues of science. I think that is a great idea, my personal concern was that it may not have a lot to discuss, but it was pointed out, as Edward also pointed out, that it is actually quite a broad subject.

We have not made a final decision on P&WA. It may stay open to all topics, but with stricter guidelines for discussion.
 
  • #44
SOS2008 said:
qualify as appropriate to PF any more than politics?

If the argument is that politics AND all other social sciences and humanities are being removed/altered because these are not related to the core sciences of this forum it would make more sense to me. That's all I'm saying.

1. We have no experts no mentors for this forum. It falls in Evo by default because it is under GD. But other than a number of mentors monitoring it ad hoc, it has no strict monitoring, unlike the other forums. So THAT is one difference between this and the Social Science forum.

2. This one forum has taken a disproportionate amount of complaints, grief, effort, time, and patience, more than even the main forums on PF! Something that is supposed to be a minor forum is causing way more problems than it should.

Zz.
 
  • #45
SOS2008 said:
I see that Economics has been removed. But my question remains -- how does

History & Humanities
Human history, mythology, literature, arts and media, foreign languages, cultural studies, law...

qualify as appropriate to PF any more than politics?

If the argument is that politics AND all other social sciences and humanities are being removed/altered because these are not related to the core sciences of this forum it would make more sense to me. That's all I'm saying.
Those are actual subjects of study, and people holding discussions in that forum are typically 1) discussing coursework, and 2) capable of holding discussions that don't require a great deal of moderation. Too many of the recent P&WA threads are not maintaining any sort of academic level of discussion, they are about the same quality as I could find at the corner bar, or worse. We ditched the Theory Development forum when it began to require a disproportionate amount of moderation as well.

However, as Greg mentioned, for the time being, we're trying to find a solution to not completely ditch P&WA, but to make it work so the scientists here can enjoy some political discussion without us having to have 3 or 4 moderators babysitting the threads here instead of in the forums where we have real expertise. And yes, it has gotten to be a babysitting chore lately, which is why we need to change something. This forum did not used to be this way. It used to have an amazing number of high quality, civil, respectful, thoughtful, referenced discussions, and thus was allowed to grow. I used to find it so refreshing to come in here and read threads where people were airing differences of opinion without bickering; it was so different from all the other places I see politics discussed, because it was being done in the same manner as all our other science debates where evidence was presented, and various interpretations and conclusions discussed, and it wasn't necessary to "win" or browbeat everyone to your side as long as you had fun in the process of debating and learned something by having to support and explain all your arguments. Unfortunately, that quality has been declining, and rapidly, so we're trying to find ways to re-focus the forum to either re-attain that quality or know we gave it our best effort before pulling the plug.
 
  • #46
SOS2008 said:
I see that Economics has been removed. But my question remains -- how does

History & Humanities
Human history, mythology, literature, arts and media, foreign languages, cultural studies, law...

qualify as appropriate to PF any more than politics?
SOS, I think you're missing the point here.

The drawbacks of the P&WA forum (as it stands now) appear to be :

1. Unlike the other non-science forums which are populated by science interested members who also frequent these sections, P&WA has a lot of traffic from members who rarely post elsewhere (and while PF has a vested interest in indulging the "other" interests of its science community, I can't see why it should cater to anyone but.)

AND

2. You don't have flame wars, unsubstantiated rants and personal attacks erupt in Social Sciences like they do here. This causes an inordinately large drain on the moderating resources of PF.

If the argument is that politics AND all other social sciences and humanities are being removed/altered because these are not related to the core sciences of this forum it would make more sense to me. That's all I'm saying.
P&WA is not a political science section, and hence can not be compared to the social sciences section. If you want to have a discussion on Political Science (like one that might happen in a Political Science course at a University), you could probably have that discussion under Social Sciences.
 
  • #47
Sadly, I have to agree that this forum is for physics as much as I love the P&WA forum. I really think that another forum made by Greg for the other topics would be best. This way we can talk about anything we want, and not have to stictly adheare to science in the news. I would vote for Greg to make an appropriate forum (www.politicsforums.com or something like that), and retitle the sub forum from P &WA to something more along the lines of "Politics and World Affairs in modern science."
 
  • #48
cyrusabdollahi said:
Sadly, I have to agree that this forum is for physics as much as I love the P&WA forum. I really think that another forum made by Greg for the other topics would be best. This way we can talk about anything we want, and not have to stictly adheare to science in the news. I would vote for Greg to make an appropriate forum, and retitle the sub forum from P &WA to something more along the lines of "Politics and World Affairs in modern science."
That still wouldn't remove the need for constant moderation, which is the problem.

I think P&WA can remain as is, if we tighten the posting rules. That way people that are serious and can post in a non-combative, non-redundant, non-sarcastic/insulting manner can enjoy participating.

The others can find more appropriate places to post.
 
  • #49
cyrusabdollahi said:
Sadly, I have to agree that this forum is for physics as much as I love the P&WA forum. I really think that another forum made by Greg for the other topics would be best. This way we can talk about anything we want, and not have to stictly adheare to science in the news. I would vote for Greg to make an appropriate forum (www.politicsforums.com or something like that), and retitle the sub forum from P &WA to something more along the lines of "Politics and World Affairs in modern science."
Cyrus, why do you expect that a new website might not get invaded by the all the yahoos that permeate the other political forums on the web ?
 
  • #50
Politics and World Affairs in Modern Science sounds good.
 
  • #51
now the trick will be to tie anything and everything to science some how :wink:
 
  • #52
Evo said:
I think P&WA can remain as is, if we tighten the posting rules. That way people that are serious and can post in a non-combative, non-redundant, non-sarcastic/insulting manner can enjoy participating.

Welp, that certainly rules me out!

:) :)

Zz.
 
  • #53
cyrusabdollahi said:
now the trick will be to tie anything and everything to science some how :wink:
Like I said, we might keep it as is, but with stricter posting guidelines.

Does no one read my posts?
 
  • #54
Im sorry what did you say evo? I was pulling your leg. :smile:
 
  • #55
Okay, it makes more sense to me what the real objections are. It isn't so much the subject matter and how it relates to the sciences, but how much resources a subject requires. So the way to reduce the resources needed, P&WA will be restricted to members who primarily participate in the science core, but who like to dabble in politics on occasion. The general public, even if more politically astute, are really not welcome. This section will return to a less diverse, conservative viewpoint that I saw when I first became a member. I think this is what is desired, and that's cool if that's what is wanted. I just prefer honesty about it.
 
  • #56
SOS2008 said:
Okay, it makes more sense to me what the real objections are. It isn't so much the subject matter and how it relates to the sciences, but how much resources a subject requires. So the way to reduce the resources needed, P&WA will be restricted to members who primarily participate in the science core, but who like to dabble in politics on occasion. The general public, even if more politically astute, are really not welcome. This section will return to a less diverse, conservative viewpoint that I saw when I first became a member. I think this is what is desired, and that's cool if that's what is wanted. I just prefer honesty about it.
No, read my lips. (and we like you SOS), no flaming, no baiting, no sensationalism, no sarcasm, no insults, no redundant posts, no mindless lemming mentality. The mentors here are actually fairly divided between right and left. If we're doing our job, you can't tell who's right and who's left because we don't take sides but call anyone to task that is posting questionable information or is just plain out of line.

I've always found it amusing that the conservatives think I'm liberal and the liberals think I am conservative.
 
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  • #57
cyrusabdollahi said:
Sadly, I have to agree that this forum is for physics as much as I love the P&WA forum. I really think that another forum made by Greg for the other topics would be best. This way we can talk about anything we want, and not have to stictly adheare to science in the news. I would vote for Greg to make an appropriate forum (www.politicsforums.com or something like that), and retitle the sub forum from P &WA to something more along the lines of "Politics and World Affairs in modern science."
Why does Greg have to do it? There are plenty of free places to set up discussion groups...MSN has them, Google has them, Yahoo has them, etc. If you prefer the unmoderated, or lightly moderated, anything goes, can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen, format and want to discuss politics without having to back up your claims, without having to be respectful of the others in the discussion, etc., then nothing and nobody is stopping anyone from setting up your own group in one of those places (or, if you have the time and money, get your own dedicated server for such a forum). I would even argue for a one-time lifting of the restriction on advertising other sites if someone wanted to create such a site and would like to post a link here while we are under transition so folks who do not wish to participate in a forum with more restrictions can regroup elsewhere. Something is going to change, and when things change, inevitably some people will love the change, and some will hate it. For those who do not like it, I personally have no objection to a brief post offering a new location for like-minded individuals to join them (though I can't speak on behalf of all the admins and mentors on this point).
 
  • #58
Evo said:
No, read my lips. (and we like you SOS), no flaming, no baiting, no sensationalism, no sarcasm, no insults, no redundant posts, no mindless lemming mentality. The mentors here are actually fairly divided between right and left. If we're doing our job, you can't tell who's right and who's left because we don't take sides but call anyone to task that is posting questionable information or is just plain out of line.

I've always found it amusing that the conservatives think I'm liberal and the liberals think I am conservative.

Agreed! If anything, we've gone a bit too easy with some of the moderation out of hesitation to not let our personal viewpoints influence our decisions in moderation, and I think this has further led to the decline in the quality of discussion here. I've had the same experience of being accused of being both liberal and conservative, depending on the viewpoint of the person whose posts I've had to moderate.
 
  • #59
I was just putting an alternative out there moonbear. I think we should all be respectful to each other in the P &WA section, just as we would be in any other area of PF. I was suggesting it to greg because the PF is probably the best physics forum out there, and he would have the best political forum as well. I would pay greg for membership if he had a political forum too, that's all I am getting at.
 
  • #60
Evo said:
That still wouldn't remove the need for constant moderation, which is the problem.

I think P&WA can remain as is, if we tighten the posting rules. (snip)

That's going to be a neat trick, getting people to follow rules without constant moderation.

How much trouble would it be to ban people from only P&WA for misconduct? Hang a new set of rules up front, a la philosophy, to the effect that there are no warnings, first infraction is a two week time-out, second gets a month, and strike three is out, or something along those lines.

Re. Nereid's OP, it's a bit maddening that the voice of experience can post twice to the thread, explaining that "editorial review" procedures for government labs have been in place for many years, and are not "censorship."
 
  • #61
Evo said:
No, read my lips. (and we like you SOS), no flaming, no baiting, no sensationalism, no sarcasm, no insults, no redundant posts, no mindless lemming mentality. The mentors here are actually fairly divided between right and left. If we're doing our job, you can't tell who's right and who's left because we don't take sides but call anyone to task that is posting questionable information or is just plain out of line.

I've always found it amusing that the conservatives think I'm liberal and the liberals think I am conservative.
Not to belabor this further, I was referring to the members in general, not so much the mentors. (I personally feel you, Moonbear, etc. are moderate, and of course fantastic at making green apple martinis.) The workload has certainly increased because participation has increased. There are the occasional flames, usually associated with a new member, and I can understand the distraction. Restrictions may have a trade off of less participation and a slower, less interesting board. This would probably be a good thing for me—I might actually increase productivity in other areas of my life. :rolleyes:
 
  • #62
But think about this. If you want to discuss political issues, you look for ... er ... a PHYSICS FORUM? What's wrong with this picture?

That makes as much sense as me going to a Psychology forum wanting to discuss the controversy between the phonon picture and the spin-fluctuation picture as the mechanism for High-Tc superconductor. Unless, of course, I'm full of it and I am hoping that people who actually know about such area of study would not tend to be in such a forum. That way, I can bluff my way through all of it, and there wouldn't be that many people who can dispute me.

The "experts" in many of the issues being discussed are not here, the same way that there is very little chance that experts in physics would be found in a psychology forum. If one thinks one has a valid point, then go test it out at the obvious place where there are people more familiar with the issues hang out. Or is this not obvious?

Zz.

Dont take this personally, but it is obvious you don't know how SEO works, or how google page ranks work, traffic is the life and soul of a forum, and to be honest PF right now is not doing as well as it was, so perhaps Greg is right to change some stuff. But again, if you remove this forum, it will effect the whole site, and really you don't want to happen here what happen to "talk root"

On the other points you made, I aggree. The mentors who post in this particular forum are typically biased, and arent experts. I think this is also a problem here, because it fustrates many people like me and escalates problems casuing people to go to extreems with these views...

My 2 Eurocents

The mentors here are actually fairly divided between right and left. If we're doing our job, you can't tell who's right and who's left because we don't take sides but call anyone to task that is posting questionable information or is just plain out of line.

So what are you saying then? The mentors arent doing there job, its obvious where all your opinions are. To be honest Moonbear is the only one I don't really know where her stance is. I aggree with some of your (The Mentors) views and some I dont, but to say you are all neutral is streaching it.
 
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  • #63
Anttech said:
Dont take this personally, but it is obvious you don't know how SEO works, or how google page ranks work, traffic is the life and soul of a forum, and to be honest PF right now is not doing as well as it was, so perhaps Greg is right to change some stuff. But again, if you remove this forum, it will effect the whole site, and really you don't want to happen here what happen to "talk root"

I am certainly hoping that it WILL effect the whole site - many of the mentors can now really do their job in paying more attention and time to the forum they are already monitoring, rather than babysitting this forum.

What you did was speculation. I suppose that is a common practice in this sub-forum without anyone raising an eyebrow, but speculation nontheless. And yes, I am aware that there are people who found the Politics sub-forum via a net search. But that still doesn't detract from the fact that this isn't a forum dedicated to that discussion. I've found "physics" forum in an antigravity forum. I certainly wasn't going to STAY there just because they opened a platform to discuss "physics", unless I wish to talk about quackeries.

My point still stands. There is a greater probability that a forum dedicated to Politics would have people who (i) are very inclined to carry such discussion (ii) have a greater expertise and background of various political issues, history, knowledge, statistics, etc. To me, using PF solely for political discussion means that one wants to be a big fish in a small pond.

Zz.
 
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  • #64
I want to chime in with Antarctica's official position on this argument.

I agree with Anttech that this sub-forum probably attracts an enormous amount of traffic but one must really wonder how much of the traffic does this website really need? How many people really came to this forum looking for political discussion and actually stayed to make meaningful scientific discussion contributions (and remember, this is opposed to people who came in for scientific purposes and stayed/simply contribute to the PWA forum)? If someone wants to make serious political discussion... I'm fairly certain they wouldn't stick around this forum as there are, as others have noted, many other places where there are actual experts in the field. There are just a lot of people who just want to go around arguing with everything that moves.

If you really do look at the "regulars" of PWA, past and present, they have 95-100% of their posts in the PWA forum. You may also want to note that it's probably a 1:20 ratio of science-related:non-science related threads that are created here. If you restricted the discussions to science-related threads only, its effectively shutting down this sub-forum. Also, it should be obvious to anyone who does spend any time on this forum that, as others have noted, there is basically no content that could be considered political science. The methedology of pulling up some NY Times article to start threads is equivalent to someone bringing up a Mythbusters episode to start a serious scientific discussion in the physics section.

And does anyone ever really try to compare arguments in the physics section vs. arguments here? The science arguments tend to have a feeling of exactness to them while these political arguments are just all over the place and you can just toss all scientific principles out the window. I honestly wouldn't see any loss towards the forum if the PWA section was taken out or heavily modified.
 
  • #65
What you did was speculation. I suppose that is a common practice in this sub-forum without anyone raising an eyebrow, but speculation nontheless. And yes, I am aware that there are people who found the Politics sub-forum via a net search. But that still doesn't detract from the fact that this isn't a forum dedicated to that discussion. I've found "physics" forum in an antigravity forum. I certainly wasn't going to STAY there just because they opened a platform to discuss "physics", unless I wish to talk about quackeries.

My point still stands. There is a greater probability that a forum dedicated to Politics would have people who (i) are very inclined to carry such discussion (ii) have a greater expertise and background of various political issues, history, knowledge, statistics, etc. To me, using PF solely for political discussion means that one wants to be a big fish in a small pond.

Well since we are in the "sub forum" then I suppose you can also speculate on the intent of people who post here.

I am not arguing with your point. I was making another point, that you will find a negative effect on Google statisics, page rankings, traffic through this site, backlinks, pay per clicks, if you close this forum.

That aside, if you close this forum I would also suggest you close the GD forum, so everyone can consentrate on Science, and go elsewhere to disuss General Politics and day to day stuff
 
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  • #66
What is the GM forum?
 
  • #67
I would think that on a good forum you would want to provide the members with sections to discuss what ever they want rather than send them somewhere else to discuss certain topics. Especially when there is an obvious popular interest in the discussions among the members in general.
I'm happy to see that the P&WA forum isn't going to be closed and that it doesn't look like it will only be geared toward science in politics either.
I'm sorry that I am not a physicist or scientist and I rarely do more than read what is posted in the other forums. I do love this site though. I did not contribute because I received help with anything but because I really appreciate how much this site helps others. I wanted to contribute monitarily because I have no expertise to contribute. I post mainly in GD and P&WA because I just like having a place to talk to nice and intelligent people. If the scientist 1337 don't like that then I'm sorry.
 
  • #68
Pengwuino said:
What is the GM forum?

:cool: opps
 
  • #69
Anttech said:
Well since we are in the "sub forum" then I suppose you can also speculate on the intent of people who post here.

I am not arguing with your point. I was making another point, that you will find a negative effect on Google statisics, page rankings, traffic through this site, backlinks, pay per clicks, if you close this forum.

If we get page rankings because of the catfight and mudslinging in the Politics forum, I personally can do without that. While people in the entertainment industry go by the philosophy that any publicity is good publicity, for a SCIENCE forum, bad publicity means no credibility. And in the practice of science, once you lose credibility, it takes another lifetime to regain it. Ask Fleshman and Pons, and Hendrik Schon.

That aside, if you close this forum I would also suggest you close the GD forum, so everyone can consentrate on Science, and go elsewhere to disuss General Politics and day to day stuff

And you seem to be missing another of my point that OTHER forums that aren't directly related to science are highly moderated with mentors who have a good grasp of the subject matter. Have you seen the kind of nastiness existing in the GD forum, for example?

I personally don't care if those go away. I came here because of what this forum was called and have no delusions that it can be everything to everyone. However, there are many members here who do find other forums beneficial and even entertaining. And if PF has the resources (as in HUMAN resources) to moderate and monitor those forums, so be it. Evo doesn't get paid to monitor GD and this sub-forum and can't be here all the time. The rest of us have other forums to monitor but also lend a hand in looking after GD. But even *I* gave up on the Politics forum. The effort required to maintain even a level of civility for this forum has EXCEEDED its role as a minor player in the whole scheme of things. It has taken a disproportionate amount of attention, and a distraction away from what PF is.

Again, this is an issue of "big fish in small pond" scenario. I would never stick around a non-physics forum (even if they make a sub-forum for it) and hope to be able to discuss physics issues. I know I'm very weird that way.

Zz.
 
  • #70
If we get page rankings because of the catfight and mudslinging in the Politics forum, I personally can do without that.
No Google isn't that clever! You get page ranks and hits, due to the content and Traffic

I fail to see how your or anyone elses credibity will wain due to a Political sub forum :confused:
 

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