Am I crazy for asking this?

[Elite Engineer]

I'm either going to get a complete lash back or some kind of 60/40 response:

 

Have the mods/ admins ever considered removing the "Politics" and "Religion" forum topics? If not, I ask you consider it.

 

My reasons for "Removing the Politics and Religion" forum topics:

 

1) Firstly, the rule goes, never talk about religion and politics

 

2) This is a SCIENCE forum, not a SCIENCE AND OPINION forum

 

3) P & R topics tend to be long winded, with no real end in sight, especially the POLITICS forum

 

4) P & R topics also show passionate/ emotional sides of members that wouldn't normally show in regular scientific discussion

 

5) P & R potentially keeps people away from other forum topics, due to bias involvement due to probability of passionate discussion via opinion

 

6) There's already a science-news forum. Why add non-science news

 

7) Isn't the LOUNGE already fulfill this role? if you have a general topic forum (the lounge), there's more diversity and flow of ideas rather than POLITICS, POLITICS, RELIGION, POLITICS.

 

8) I want to keep the PHILOSOPHY and ETHICS topics, as they at least promote logical discussion.

 

9) Removing P & R would weed out first time members who only want to talk or troll about religion or politics via Google searches

 

 

...again...am I crazy for asking this?

 

~EE

Edited July 9, 2016 by Elite Engineer

[StringJunky]

I like the variety of conversations on here. It is a rare place to have discussions on many topics with disciplined thinkers, which is what scientists and sciency-types are. The trick is to treat the forum subjects as discrete places i.e. non-science from science. The science is the core but not the whole. Forums are like shops or restaurants; find one that suits you. Pure science forums don't suit me; tend to be too dry and exclusive in the makeup of their membership for my taste but they may be right up another person's street

Edited July 9, 2016 by StringJunky

[Daecon]

As long as people don't use the non-science forums to preach or proselytize, push racism/homophobia/etc, or peddle woowoo with a blatant contempt for critical thinking, I don't really see any problems.

[Mordred]

peddling woowoo. How much is a pound of woowoo?

 

🙄

[ajb]

peddling woowoo. How much is a pound of woowoo?

 

 

As you know, there is a special promotion on right now - it is all free!

[Mordred]

roflmao. This forum gets woowoo in units of tons

[ajb]

In relation to the OP ...

 

It would be wrong to think that there are no politics in science and that science has nothing to do with politics. Just think about the global warming issue.

 

Religion is an interesting one - some of the discussion have been very enlightening. The point is that we can discuss religion with a logical and scientific mind. As a large proportion of the people of the world are religous, it makes sense that we have a forum for this.

 

And I should add that you are not crazy for thinking about this.

Edited July 9, 2016 by ajb

[swansont]

There was a time that we didn't have a religion section. Posts there date to 2010, not 2002, as in science sections. The decision to add it was discussed amongst the staff.

 

Politics has been around the whole time, but there was a period where you had to have 30 posts before you could participate in politics (or religion). That was an effort to keep trolling to a minimum — if you weren't savvy enough to participate in scientific discussions, you weren't likely to stick around just so you could post in politics or religion, and you would probably have the good habit of citing sources to back up claims, since that is de rigueur for science discussions (the disciplined thinkers StringJunky mentions). That practice wasn't as successful as we'd hoped, so it was eventually dropped. People would post politics and religion in other areas (usually the Lounge) so there was still considerable moderation effort.

 

The simplest and most direct advice I can give regarding items 1-5 is this: if you don't like politics or religion discussions, don't visit those sections. Participation here is not mandatory.

As for posting in the lounge, that's mainly for personal discussions and for topics other than ones for which we have sections. If you post there instead of a more appropriate area, you will annoy the staff.

 

We do weed out trolls. Not having a religion section didn't keep them out back in the day. They would show up and proselytize anyway, or post the same zombie anti-evolution crap that has been around for decades. It doesn't really change much from a moderation standpoint (and moderation effort is a factor in these decisions), so having these topics is more inclusive. And as ajb noted, there is political and religious overlap with scientific topics. Those discussions are the intended purpose of politics and religion.