I felt like I should return to explain my position rather than just skipping out because the community has meant too much to me to just be a rage quitter.
I have a simple thesis; one I've argued with others about in the past. Politics and beliefs are about lives. They are not internal feelings that people keep quiet until they get to the voting booth or to church. They inform who we are. If you have the luxury to say your politics have nothing to do with your life, then you are very fortunate. If you are poor, government programs being cut are the difference between you eating next week or not. If you're gay, whether you can marry impacts your ability to be at your lover's side when they die. If you're an immigrant, the country's posture toward your homeland may impact whether you get to ever see your family again. If you're military or police, debates over what should be done and how can mean the difference between your life and death. The term "politics" is flattening. It takes issues that impact real human lives on a daily basis and reduces them to a nebulous ball of decisions made by government officials and political parties. Politics thus becomes everything and nothing at the same time, aloof and in the hands of others.
To avoid or sequester those discussions is in effect taking a moral position. That position is that your personal queasiness over the tension those conversations bring is more important than the lives of those personally impacted. It's an abdication to letting someone else figure it out. To opt out of the discussions altogether is a choice, and one everyone should be able to make for their own sanity, but to keep those matters separated from everyday discussion is in effect a political decision. It is saying that political correctness is saying nothing at all, except in particular spaces, which isn't much different from the more common definition of having to say something a certain way.
@Splint you say people have been PMing you for months about it. How many people? Why didn't they have the conversation in the open? Not doing so is called lobbying, and that too is a political practice. Drain the swamp.
Beyond the moral issue, there is the very real fact that we are a forum founded on the basis of enjoying watching people fight. Many of us train to fight. That there would be passion and zeal behind what we say is to be expected. I understand not everyone is of that ilk, but if so, they can easily not click on a thread or bail on it.
In terms of simple usability, I agree with some who have said there isn't enough traffic for further fragmentation. Folding some of the other subforums was a good idea and whittling them down to two might be a better one until there is more regular traffic. In this very thread (which really shouldn't have an IDGAF option because it skews the vote) less than 40 people have voted and I'm reasonably confident more people than that frequent the board daily. It makes sense when a massive forum like Sherdog, the UG or Reddit split into subforums for traffic management, but on this one it seems premature or like an attempt to hide the dirty laundry for casual browsers. I've been against the MMA Community chit chat thread forever for the same reason. Random, silly anecdotes should be cause to make a thread because more threads gives the impression of more volume. It is more volume of discussion that will attract and keep users more than the content of the discussions themselves. And when I say these things I'm not speaking solely on the basis of my opinions or experiences on forums. There is research on what makes a successful online community, some of which I've actually studied, as the topic is a major research interest to me. You can read summaries of one highly influential theorist's work here:
Building successful online communities: Evidence-based social design - AcaWiki
I accede to the will of the majority if they vote to split the forum. Honestly, all I woulf have preferred is that such decisions be made by the users as that is in keeping with the way this community was formed and settled.
@Wild
@Splint I trust your intentions to be pure as that's how I've come to know you. You have a good crop of moderators and I think they're up to the job of keeping the place together no matter how contentious things get, but it's not their duty alone. It's all of ours.
