Politics

Discussion in 'SF Open Government' started by cyberia, Jul 5, 2004.

  1. cyberia Lounge Act Registered Senior Member

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    I would like to see the politics section split into two for conveinience and more discussion.

    Politics in america (for shear volume)

    and
    Politics in the rest of the world

    Because there is more than enough going on in the world to warrant discussion, but to often threads pertaining to politics elsewhere gets drowned by the sheer volume of american related threads.
     
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  3. Logically Unsound wwaassuupp and so on Registered Senior Member

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    people can read thread titles cant they?
     
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  5. cyberia Lounge Act Registered Senior Member

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    I'm not saying they can't. I'm just saying with a seperate area it would breed more discussion of topics relevent around the world, other the the US, iraq or the US elections.
     
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  7. outlandish smoki'n....... Registered Senior Member

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    if you're in america there is no "rest of the world"
     
  8. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    First world events & politics was split in two, now another splitting?
     
  9. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    I think the initial split created confusion, because a) people post new threads without thinking long about which bin to toss into (I'm guilty too) and b) mods don't always do any sorting between the two. Because among World Events are geopolitical events, it's an imperfect dichotomy. Maybe this could be rectified before compartmentalizing further. I would suggest W.E. and P become a little more like an airport terminal:

    ..................................World Events & Politics.............................................
    .....................International........................Domestic.......................

    This would provide some encouragement for issues of a relatively internal nature to have a bit more prominence, or easier reference, because they would not share space with the most popular international subjects. As to American preponderance, outlandish put it well 2 posts back, and the USA really does dominate world events after all, and if this status changes, threads will reflect it without the need for any change to these categories. I have no idea what the implications are for moderation and archiving, but that's my 2 cents (Canadian) worth.
     
  10. cyberia Lounge Act Registered Senior Member

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    I think your (hype's) system would work really well. As even in the world events it does have a tendancy to be dominated by american chat.
     
  11. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I don’t get it, events and politics seems very easy to separate. For example “Kerry calls Bush a fuck hole” would go in politics, “Israel nukes Jordan” would go in events.
     
  12. jadedflower observer Valued Senior Member

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    "domestic" for who, eh? Self-Centered.
     
  13. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    I think the initial split was totally unnecessary, and another split would be ridiculous.
    There is no distinguishable difference to the threads started in politics and the threads started in world events.
    I know they are different subjects, but this community seems incapable of making that distinction so we should go back to just the one sub-forum.
    Or make it clearer, like one thread called politics and one thread called "world news" or something.
     
  14. cyberia Lounge Act Registered Senior Member

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    169
    That's what I'm saying the current split is unclear and poorly handled.
    Where as if we did an "America" "everywhere else" kinda split its simple.

    "Bush calls Kerry a meanie" would go in america
    "Man in madagascar loses eye to rabid frog" would of course go in the everywhere else.
     
  15. Logically Unsound wwaassuupp and so on Registered Senior Member

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    were those taken from any recent publications *laughs*
    i think they are fine as they are. america doesnt deserve it *snobs*
    i do think, though that world events could possibly be renamed to make it more different, and sort out the two sub-forums.
     
  16. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Actually can someone give me a real example right now of a thread in WE&P that is in the wrong forum?
     
  17. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    I don't think I was clear: "International" is for issues having a primary international influence. "Domestic" is for issues having a primarily domestic influence, no matter where the issue happens to be a domestic one. I think this would encourage a less, not more, US-centric section of WE&P.

    On a similar note, I think it would be extremely helpful if there were multilingual sciforums buttons, using outside translation engines to allow reading/posting in any major language (English would remain the default language unless another button were toggled). This does result in stilted and sometimes garbled prose with the current state of the art, but would encourage those with weak English skills, or who are insecure about their English, to participate. As a less optimal improvement along these lines, some helpful information in major languages, explaining how to translate off-forum using online resources, would be beneficial in bringing in more than Anglophones.
     
  18. Closet Philosopher Off to Laurentian University Registered Senior Member

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    I think it wouldn't work because a lot of American politics are related to the rest of the world.
     
  19. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, I still wasn't clear: The Domestic section would be less Americentric, because we (Americans) are the ones who think ourselves most pre-eminent. In the Domestic section, threadstarters who want to emphasize a non-American perspective could do so with slightly less Americlutter, even if there were overlap into international relations. Yet, it would not specify Ameriques over here/ the rest over there (which would be ridiculous). For so long as this is an exclusively English board, and the USA enjoys good fortune, Americans will dominate, especially in discussing how we want to run the planet- but it should be feasible to subtly and inclusively encourage a wider "intelligent community", by emphasizing regional and domestic expressions generically, and welcoming those who are not fluent in English.
     
  20. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    "Actually can someone give me a real example right now of a thread in WE&P that is in the wrong forum?"

    Of coures this is subjective, but here you go:

    In WE:
    To the Ones Who Call Bush a Bushevik
    Right Wing Christians in America
    Can Anyone Say "Watergate"?

    In P:
    Iraq by the Numbers
    More Sarin in Iraq

    For the most part, I think that mods have it pretty well sorted out. To me, it seems already a fairly well-=regulated International/Domestic Issues dichotomy, but it is mislabeled. It's not all that important, but I think that when WE&P was divided, it created a bit of confusion, in the worthwhile attempt to organize things better.
     
  21. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I don't see how that confusing, you manage to find those threads in error, why can't others including the thread starters?
     
  22. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    12,061
    It's somewhat confusing, because things seem to have evolved into a logical and operative separation between mostly-domestic and mostly-international issues, and not between world events and politics. Put another way, it's effectively all WE&P, with the emphasis in the two subcategories on regional/national and international/global attributes. Splitting the title of the previous WE&P did not need to please anyone but the title-splitter, but it seems to me it was a rather arbitrary way to slice it, that ended up highlighting the curious current phenomenon that "world" and "USA" are a bit like oil and water. I thought it might be useful to have a section of WE&P where you know that the issue is going to be approached from the perspective of one country, not necessarily the USA, and not directly examining global issues if applicable- Or the converse on the "International" side. Again, this is basically what has evolved anyway, but the titles of the threadgroups don't fit exactly. It's just a little curious and slightly unwieldy, but not of any great importance.

    On further thinking out loud, Dr. Lou may be closer to a better tweak than I, just rejoining WE&P as intertwined categories. I don't think we can fix the diversity issue with labels.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2004
  23. cyberia Lounge Act Registered Senior Member

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    169
    I think the America/everywhere else break up works better than international domestic.

    Because America just naturally (due to the geographical break down of members) has more posts related to America.

    As i've said before I think the break down would allow for more discussion of politics and events in countries that are NOT americanocentric.
     

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