I've placed the Add a Message field here for general suggestions or questions about the PM boards, but not to act as a posting place for other topics or new topics. If there isn't an appropriate board for a topic you want to discuss, suggest it to me here.

In addition, I'm looking over the PM and LM boards, and noticing a lot of clutter. For example, boards whose topics would seem to place them in one area are instead in another (I don't see, for example, why the Rate the Presidents board, which was initiated by a very interesting post by MikeC, is in the Humor section). Another example is redundant boards, like a Political Jokes and Humor board listed both on the main page here, and in the Sink. Although I have to work today, I plan to look over the boards when I get the chance, and do some consoldiating and cleaning house. I'm also wondering if I should delete some old boards altogether that have not been posted on for some time, perhaps to save Phil some of that server space that I hear has been dwindling. I'm also wondering if I should restrict posting to passwords, as was done a couple of years ago, to combat trolls and rule violaters. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? Let me know how you feel.

BTW, you misspelled "complexity" is this sentence, "...so I'll admit the comlexity of the PM and LM subtopics looks a bit daunting, but hopefully, with time, it'll be smooth sailing..." The error was repeated on LM.

Oh and congratulations. You might want to invest in some Anacin bottles. You're liable to need them.

Luigi: Back when Sax and Jared were co-moderating the Movies board, they had a policy of deleing any board that hadn't been commeted on one year + one day. Do you think that would work?

Luigi, Phil reminded me of the registration thing I did a few years ago (no doubt he mentioned it to you as well) and I was gonna recommend you do the same, and so of course I still recommend it. Otherwise, had I retaken PM I'd've done that, once again being very selective on who to let register.

Now all we need is for the Moderator Directory to be updated once more! Is Kerrie still around?

Brian, that's a good idea to consider. But that goes to a central question of Nitcentral philosophy: Do you guys see the Nitcentral boards serving only current discussion, and not perusal by future surfers who find the site? I feel even more strongly about this for the Movie and TV boards, because those boards are where we collect nits, but my question is whether you guys think it's worthwhile to leaving the Musings boards up for lurkers and other visitors after a year. I'd really like to know what you think about this.

No, Mark, Phil didn't mention it, but I mentioned it to him. If trolling and rule-breaking continue, I will bring it back. For now we'll take a wait-and-see approach.

Incidentally, I think I'm done cleaning up LM. You can go there to read the list of things I've done to tidy up and organize it a bit. Let me know what you think.

Off-topic bragging: I got to speak briefly to John Turturro tonight, as we screened his writing/directing debut (produced by the Coen brothers), Romance and Cigarettes.

And Benn, you're wrong. I spelled it correctly.

Can we rest assured that any Norbert sightings will be prosecuted to the full extent of your imagination?

Brian, that's a good idea to consider. But that goes to a central question of Nitcentral philosophy: Do you guys see the Nitcentral boards serving only current discussion, and not perusal by future surfers who find the site? I feel even more strongly about this for the Movie and TV boards, because those boards are where we collect nits, but my question is whether you guys think it's worthwhile to leaving the Musings boards up for lurkers and other visitors after a year. I'd really like to know what you think about this.

Well, what if it doesn't have that many posts in it to begin with? I mean, it all depends on how one defines "not that much" (I define it as when I don't ahve to wait more than half a second for it to load on my dinky 56k modem).

Yes, Mike. And just so you know, I got voted "Best Imagination" when I was in the second grade. (Not a joke.)

CHANGES I’VE MADE

New Subtopics
I created the subtopic Political Figures, which covers everything from individual Presidents (which is why you’ll find “Presidential Administrations” there) to commentators, pundits, activists, First Ladies, the deceased, etc. Two of the three boards for the individuals that used to be in the In Memoriam board (the ones for Christopher Reeve and the Queen Mother) are here. Because the In Memoriam board itself had posts for noting the passing of miscellaneous people, I kept those posts, and put the Memoriam board itself in the Political Figures subtopic. Since I saw no reason to have two different boards for Ronald Reagan, the Ronald Reagan board that used to be in Memoriam was removed, and I took all the posts from that one and spliced them onto the Reagan board in the Presidential Administrations subtopic, placing the first Memoriam post right after the last Presidential Administrations board.

I created a subtopic called Specific Elections, in which I’ve placed the 2002 Midterm Election, and Election 2004. Boards for subsequent elections can be created there. In addition, the 2002 Midterm Election board was renamed from “2002 Midterm Debacle--We Are ALL Doomed!”, because that name does not convey a sense of objectivity, an element that I believe should be reflected in board titles on the Musings boards. The essay in the Announcement area of that board was removed and placed in its own post for the same reason. The second board of that topic, moreover, was never used, so I deleted it.

I also created a Political Parties subtopic, under which I’ve placed the Libertarians board (which was previously named “Why don’t Libertarians Vote Republican?”), and the Other Third Parties board, which was previously named “Why are Parties Other than Republican or Democrat called Third Parties”? If you want to talk about the Greens, the Reformers, etc., post on the main board. Should the discussion become long enough, I’ll give the party in question its own board there. When I then looked through the Political Articles topic, it appeared to be a board for the different political parties, not articles, so after deleting the Green Party and Socialist Party boards (because the former was empty, and the latter consisted of one post made over a year ago by an author who admitted that it had nothing to do with the Socialist Party), I moved the Republican, Democrat, Natural Law, and Libertarian boards to the Political Parties subtopic (merging the two Libertarian boards), and deleting the Articles board.

When 9/11 first occurred, the name for that date, “9/11” had obviously not caught on as the part of the lexicon that it has at this point, so I renamed that board 9/11, The Iraq War, and Related Topics, and placed such subtopics there, such as those on The Iraq War, My Day at Ground Zero, Homeland Security (renamed “Homeland Security, Privacy, and Civil Rights”), Airport Security, and War Protests.

Secondary and Tertiary Boards
As with LM, I have done away with all second and third board subtitles, so such boards will simply be known as “Board 2,” “Board 3,” and so on.

Politics Kitchen Sink
--The DMCA and SSSCA board was renamed “Copyright Infringement”, and because its permutations are more legal than political, I moved it to Legal Musings.
--As aforementioned, My Day at Ground Zero, Homeland Security, Airport Security, were moved to the 9/11 board. Because the Homeland Security, Government Surveillance and Privacy boards in the Sink appear to be identical in topic, and since I had already moved HS to the 9/11 subtopic, I decided to delete the other two. Because the last post on HS was in January 2004, and the last five posts on Privacy were from January to October 2004, I took those five and stuck them on the end of HS before deleting Privacy and GS. War Protests was also moved to 9/11.
--Because there was a Political Jokes & Humor subtopic on the main board, and also a Politically Correct Jokes in the Sink, I sought to combine them, but looking through the latter revealed that that’s the board that for some reason became primarily an Evolution vs. Creationism board, so I changed that board’s name to that, and took the few posts from that board that actually contained jokes and moved them to the Jokes & Humor board.
--The board “Is There an Alternative to the UN?” was renamed “The United Nations”, and all the posts on that board in which I and others debated Peter and the nature of moral relativism and objectivity were moved to their own board titled “Moral Relativism, Absolutism & Subjectivity.” Because doing this shrunk the size of the first U.N. board, and there were only three posts on the second one, I took the last post from the second one (because it was made this past October), and put it on the end of the first one. The first two were not really relevant to the discussion, and I deleted that second board, re-opening the message capability of the first.
--The Republican/Conservative Babes board and the Democrat/Liberal Babes board were moved to the Political Figures subtopic, since it centers around people.
--I deleted the What I Like About You board, as it was last posted on in March 2002, and had nothing to do with politics.
--The Gays in the Military and Scouts board was renamed “Gay Rights”, because the discussion also progressed to include talk of gay marriage and notions of gays and molestation. After deleting a good number of comments and entire posts from those two boards because they were inflammatory or irrelevant to the topic, I combined the two boards onto the first one, making the second one currently empty (but open for posting).
--I then moved all the remaining topics in the Sink to the PM main page, and deleted the Sink, along with the posts on its main page, since the last one was made in September 2002.

The Rest
The first four boards of the Middle East Crisis topic have been about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the fifth is about the Iraq War, so I renamed that main board “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” in order to make it clear what that topic’s about, and moved the board for the Iraq War as a subtopic under “9/11 and Related Topics”, because that war has been ostensibly linked to 9/11.

The “Politics on TV/on Radio/in Movies” board was gutted quite a bit. Since there is a separate board for the West Wing, of which Cynical Chick is moderator, and since the last post on that board here in PM was March 2002, I deleted that board. The Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher board was renamed simply “Bill Maher” and moved into Political Figures. In my opinion, the Politics of Star Wars and Star Trek boards were more about those shows/movies than politics in general, and even though the last post on the Trek board was made recently, (and the last one on SW was in August), I think they belong on those boards, so I deleted them. Ditto for Favorite Political Movies, which degenerated into flames, and hasn’t seen posting since September 2002. I’ve taken the “Fahrenheit 9/11” boards and placed them in a subtopic I made for Michael Moore in Political Figures. The “Air America (excepting Al Franken)” board was renamed to omit the parenthetical, and is now the only subtopic in “Politics on TV/on Radio/in Movies” aside from the General Discussion.

Many of the posts on the Political Jokes and Humor board (which I renamed “Political Humor”) dealt with dumb laws, so I moved them to Dumb Laws & Legal Rulings in Legal Musings. Also on that board was the recent thread on the 2004 Election, so I moved that thread to that board under Specific Elections. After doing this, the two Humor boards shrunk, so I combined them into one. I also didn’t see any justification for a separate boards for Cartoons, so after purging the Cartoons board of posts with dead links and stuff not pertinent to the topic, I removed the few remaining posts to the Humor board. I also did not see what Rate the Presidents had to do with humor, and indeed, much of that thread was a discussion of George W. Bush. I moved those posts to the W. board under Presidential Administrations, and placed the Rate the President posts on the Various Other Presidencies subtopic in Presidential Administrations.

The subtopics that were part of the George W. Bush and his Presidency boards under Presidential Administrations—“Tips for President Bush”, “The Bush Cabinet,” “How would it have been different with Gore?”, “EPA Resignation”, and “The Best Bush Jokes”—were all deleted, as they had not been posted on in years, had few posts, and/or were redundant anyway. I would suggest to all of you not to create entire boards just for something as specific as these things, for the simple reason that they’re not going to stay devoted to that narrow topic beyond the first few posts. They will all (and did all) eventually stray into general discussions of Bush, which makes no sense, when there are already boards for him. Just because you have a set of “tips” for Bush or want to talk about one of the government agencies under his purview doesn’t mean you make an entire board for that. Simply make a post for it on a pre-existing board.

Regional Politics
The two subtopics pertaining to the UK were combined, as were the two boards pertaining to Massachusetts. The Public Schools and Separation of Church and State board was deleted, because it consisted of two posts (The first regarding an item debunked by Snopes, and the second being a post whose author pointed this out) from 2002. I also created a Germany board and an Italy board, into which I placed the numerous posts on German politics and Italian politics that were on the Regional Politics main page. I also changed the board about a proposed California Feng Shui law to simply “California”, and added to it a post on the main board pertaining to that state. I deleted all other posts on the main page that were not pertinent to the subject, except for one.

Taxes
Because I discovered a Taxes board here in PM, I took the one post from the Taxes board in LM, moved it here, and deleted the LM one.

The Supreme Court
Although the first 14 posts on the first board were about the Court's ruling on virtual child porn, the rest of these three boards became primarily a discussion of the Pledge of Allegiance, so I moved those 14 posts to the Censorship and Freedom of Speech board, and renamed this one The Pledge of Allegiance.

The Constitution
The Constitution boards seemed to be mostly unused, so I deleted everything except the material from the 1st, 2nd, & 13th Amendments, which I moved into more pertinently organized categories. In case anyone wants to know why I deleted all that, the reason is this: The Constitution boards consisted of two subtopics: Preamble & Articles, and the Amendments. The former consisted of eight boards, six of which were completely empty, and two which had two posts each, the most recent one on each from January and October 2002 respectively. The Amendments boards had more material on them, but were still mostly large areas of empty space. The boards for Amendments 3-8, 10-12, 15, and 17-23, 25 & 26 were completely devoid of posts, so I deleted them. The board for Amendment 16 had two posts that were two and a half years old, and not relevant to the subject, and the Amendment 27 board had one post just as old, so I deleted those as well. Because there is a Censorship board already on the PM main page, I took the posts from the two First Amendment boards and merged them onto that one, renaming that board Censorship and Freedom of Speech. I deleted the Ninth Amendment board because it had just a handful of posts, the most recent from this past May, and the Fourteenth Amendment board because the last of its several posts was made in May 2003. The Twenty-fourth Amendment board also had a few posts, and while the most recent was November 9th 2004, the topic had drifted, and that last one instructed the author of a previous post from March 2003 to the reference in the Announcement area of the10th Amendment board, which I had already deleted for being empty.
---Although the 13th Amendment board had three posts, I kept it because they were all from September 2004, the Amendment relates to a powerful issue, and the last post was a detailed one that I believe deserved to stay, so I renamed it “Slavery & The 13th Amendment” and moved it to the PM main page. The Second Amendment board was the only board other than the First Amendment one that had a lengthy history spanning two boards, so I renamed it “Gun Control & The Right to Bear Arms”, and placed it also on the PM main page.

Of the three boards in the What If... topic, two were deleted because they had only a few posts made well over a year ago or more. The third, What if a Scientist were Elected President, has posts from this month, and was moved to its own board under Presidential Administrations in the Political Figures subtopic.

Wow! talk about a new broom.

I think (this is strictly IMHO) that you might have gone overboard, though, in eliminating some of the Poilitics on TV (etc.) boards. The West Wing is a show about politics and there was a lot of overlap between the contents of the show's board and the board here, but some of the others were definitely more appropriate here. The politics of Star Trek, for example was not about any one thing in the show(s), but was about possible alternatives to our version of constitutional republicanism. Questioning, for example, how much socialism can be added before it can no longer be considered democratic, or whether an alternative to our adversarial system could work in their courts of justice.

Still, it is your board to organize and police as you see fit. I just wish you'd given warning that you were going to delete so many boards wholesale so that those that wanted to could make back-up copies.

Thanks for you input, Tom. I'm sorry if you're upset about those deleted boards; maybe I didn't look as closely at their content as I should have, but had those board been titled what you claim they were actually about, I would've been less likely to have deleted them. I can assure you that I looked quite closely at the boards as a whole (I spent about a day and a half organizing), and spent a lot of time deleting inappropriate posts, and merging entire boards by integrating posts chronologically, so did put a lot of thought into what I did. Perhaps I did not put enough into the Media boards.

For what it's worth, I've renamed the Political Parties board Political Parties & Philosophies, so if you want to continue the conversation there, please feel free to do so.

Yes, they're "my" boards, but only to the extent that I'm supposed to serve the needs of those who use them, and I don't intend my actions to be entirely unilateral, and I do NOT in any way want to discourage feedback and suggestions, which only serve to make me a better moderator. So for future reference, keep letting me know what you'd like and don't like, and sorry again for taking away boards that you liked.

MODERATOR'S NOTE: I have created individual boards in the Politic Figures subtopic for Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity, moved all the posts on the Talking Heads board to those new individual boards, and deleted the Talking Heads board.

MODERATOR'S NOTE: The last 23 posts from the Political Humor board were moved onto the newly-created Historical and Cultural Musings board, which is now a subtopic on the PM main page. For more details, please see the brief announcement at the top of that board.

Frankly, I'm afraid to post anything on these boards these days for fear it'll be moved to a whole other topic and I'll never be able to find it again.

Benn, that post is not relevant to this board's topic, and thus, I'm afriad I'll have to move it too.


Just kidding.


Seriously, if you place a post on the proper board in the first place (particularly if it's the first post that begins a certain thread), then you shouldn't worry about that problem.

I also have a question: What method does everyone use for casual browsing here? Do you use the Last Day page to see what new posts have been made, like I do, or do you just click on a topic on the Topics page and keep going through the branching tree of sub-boards until you get to the board where a particular thread you're following is? If you use the Last Day page, then why would you not find a post? It'll still be there, but simply in a different subtopic. Is scrolling down a bit to look through the currently active PM boards really that hard? Or looking at the Moderator's Notes I'm posting when I tweak the subtopic structure or move posts? It seems odd to me that finding a post is actually harder when it's on the relevant board.

I use "last day" most of the time to see what discussions are happening now.

I use "Last Day". Thus, I often miss anything that the Chief puts on the master page!

I use the "New Messages." Usually I'll search on how long it's been since I was last on NitC plus a couple of hours (which can work out anywhere from three hours to three days -- beyond three days the search database becomes overwhelmed: apparently we post more here in three days than most other boards post in a week or two. Don't even try to use the "Last Week" search.

It's when scrolling back looking for an old post from a day or two ago that I want to reference, that I get lost. It can be frustrating searching through the dozens of hits from a "Keyword Search," when normally I only have to scroll a couple of posts up in the thread where I originally read it.

That is one of the reasons that I suggested waiting to move it until the thread of the conversation lulls. Yes, move it if you feel the need, but have a little patience.

I was actually thinking today of doing just that, Tom.

I use the last day.

I should point out that my initial post was meant sardonically. I was not in the least bit serious.

That said, like Tom, I prefer to use the "New Messages" function, rather than the "Last Day" one. It'll tell me when (though not where) the last post on this site has been made. But that's just me.

"As for me, give me liberty or give me death."

I used "New Messages" for the longest time, but recently I've switched over to "Last Day." It's one click instead of two, and it does pretty much the same thing.

Benn: I should point out that my initial post was meant sardonically. I was not in the least bit serious.
Luigi Novi: Great! I never take you as such.

(Just kidding.)

I don't have any trouble following the conversations, but honestly Luigi I think you're overdoing it. Topic drift is inevitable, and what you're really accomplishing is killing off records of the original conversation.

Your consolidation of your two topics is causing the same thing: the history of the community's conversation is taking a beating.

I'm not killing off records of the conversations, I'm just moving them to the right place.

I also don't see how consolidation gives a "beating" to the threads, for even in threads as they originally appear, you will see one idea being discussed in every other post, and another idea in the intervening ones. People have no problem following such threads, and I wouldn't see why they would.

If anyone decides to look through an old thread, he/she will see one statment being quoted/responded to in an subsquent one that might not be the very next one. So what? That happens already without consolidation. Someone genuinely curious about an old thread won't have trouble with it. If indeed we are talking here about such people, then is having two or three boards with the same topic really helpful to them? If such a person is curious about an old thread on Gay Rights, are they honestly going to remember that it was on the Humor board, and look there? Or will they assume that it's on the Gay Rights board (er, I mean that Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered Board), go there, and actually find it there because I put it there?

Drift may be inevitable, but I've seen people respond to an idea on one board that did not pertain to that board's subject by doing so on the appropriate one. I myself have done this, as when Zarm Rkeeg brought up the topic of evolution on an Enterprise board, and I responded to it on that latter topic's boards.

I don't see what's wrong with moving the threads after the conversation has lulled, as Tom mentioned.

Uh huh... We're coming closer to a consensus.

When a topic has completely drifted, I'll often post my response on a more appropriate thread, with quotes and links to the post to which I'm replying. It only makes sense.

If the drift is slight, or there is no appropriate board, and it is not likely to be necessary since the OT sub-thread is limited, I'll continue to post in situ.

With old merged threads, the trouble of sorting through two or three interlaced unrelated threads is compensated for by the convenience of not having to look for the one you want on several related boards.

With ongoing threads, there is a distraction factor which tends to kill off some of the debate prematurely. Most people don't have the attention span to sort through two or three pages of interlaced current conversation to explain their point. That's why I suggested waiting for a lull, a suggestion I'm glad to see you agree with.

Still, a lull is a subjective term. On a very busy board, one day with no posts might be persuasively be considered a lull. On another board, a post made over a year after the post it responds to might still be considered part of an ongoing conversation.

When the interlacement occurs naturally due to a split in the converstion it is easier to sort and skim the two sub-threads separately because most posters only reply to one or the other thought. Just skim the board twice, once reading the posts by those interested in topic A, then looking for the Topic B posts.

I know that the following suggestion would be a lot of extra work on your part, with relatively little gain, so feel free to ignore me on this point, but one way to recover the sense of continuity that I feel, (and that Morgan apparently feels even more greatly) would be to use the \font{} or \rgb{} formatting tools to visually distinguish the original threads.

(For example, one thread could be in Times New Roman, and the other in Courier New, or the first one might be in a reddish "off-black" (rgb 800000), the second in a greenish "off-black" (rgb 008000), and the third in a bluish "off-black" (rgb 000080).

Never knew about those formats. But Tom, who, ideally, is the person doing the searching? Someone who remembers having (or remembers there being) some discussion on some sub-point, and is going looking for it? I mean, I'm not sure there's a point to this; All they need to do is find one post in that thread, from which point they can work their way back to find the beginning of it, or forward to follow it, etc. Is there really a need for separate fonts and colors?

Like I said, it is probably more trouble than the small gain it imparts, and so not worth the effort. And I agree about it not really mattering to someone using "Keyword Search" on an "archived" board.

I was really thinking that making the distinction would help the average poster, whose patience for following several conversations in an active thread is not as developed as yours. That it would be a secondary concession to allow for the possibility (even the likelihood) that you would occassionally mistake a momentary pause for a full lull and merge the threads "too soon."

Then again, if someone is disposed to notice tiny markers like that, he probably can navigate the interlaced thread without them, and if he ia having trouble sorting the flow of the threads, he is probably too agitated to notic the subtle hints.

I think I owe most of the people here an apology.

I was just reading a transcript of a "chat." It reminded me of why I don't chat online. Anyone who can follow the various interlaced threads in a chatroom, and in real time no less (Goodness knows I certainly can't!), does not need any help following the interlaced threads of a BB thread.

MODERATOR'S NOTE: I have created a new subtopic called Health Care Issues, on which I've placed the thread on birth control and STD's that just ended on the Election 2004 board.

MODERATOR'S NOTE: I have renamed the Pledge of Allegiance board "Separation of Church and State, The Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, etc.", in order to cover all the various sub-issues pertaining to SOCAS that might come up on that board. The exception is the issue of school vouchers, which is discussed at length on its own board, "Educational Issues." I chose not to integrate those threads into the SOCAS board, because it was such a specific sub-issue and a very tightly and heterogenously-discussed thread, and because it doesn't fall squarely under the SOCAS topic, as it also has permutations pertaining to taxes and other things.

Luigi, under what section might one post about political bloggers, i.e. Andrew Sullivan, Daily Kos, the Volokh Conspiracy, etc?

Political Figures, the first subsection at the top of the list. If you have a post that doesn't pertain to any one person, you can just post it on that board. If, on the other hand, you want to comment on someone in particular, and think others will join you in conversation, the button for creating a new board for that person is active.

Moderator's Note: I've alphabetized the subtopics for individual people named in Political Figures, and moved a post by Blue Berry on that main board about Ted Kennedy to the board for that topic.

Ahh. Finally got rid the phrase "Politically Correct Jokes" at the top of Boards 2 and 3 under Evolution vs. Creationism. Much better.

NEW SUBTOPIC: I've created a subtopic for Judicial Bias in response to a request from TomM.

MODERATOR NOTE: I was going to create a subtopic on Embryonic Stem Cell Research, and then realized that it and the board on Evolution vs. Creationism both constituted science-related issues, so rather than make the PM's main subtopic list longer, I folded both of those subtopics under a new one called Science & Politics.

I've posted an article on the new ESCR boards that I found highly interesting.

At the risk of stirring up another thread title brouhaha, like I did in the former "Gay Rights" thread, shouldn't that be "Religion vs Science in Politics"?

It wouldn't necessarily be a bad title, but I think "Science & Politics" is okay, especially since I'm not sure if the opposition over Embryonic Stem Cell Research is exclusively religious in origin. Since it involves the use of unborn embryos and fetuses, the origin of opposition to it would appear to mirror that of abortion, to which religion provides some opposition, but not all of it.

MODERATOR NOTE: As you can see if you're looking at the Last Day page, I have moved the Space Program subtopic to Science and Politics.

How about a conversation about the Kennedy assassination?

There is a JFK board under Presidential Administrations in the Political Figures subtopic. Have a party.

Just stay away from the grassy knoll, the overpass and the manhole cover in the middle of the street.

And the Book Depository.

Why? Did something happen there? ;-)

Well, aside from the fact that witnesses saw/heard someone shooting from it, including two workers leaning out the windows on the floor directly below the sniper's.

I was joking. Yes there where witnesses to shots being fired from that location.

Although there are witnesses who claim they heard and saw shots fired/shooters from the grassy knoll as well as the overpass. And as for the manhole i think that was in Xfiles or somewhere else.

Luigi,

is there a board whether Hollywood (movies and TV) is liberal, or does that belong on this board?

As I indicated on the very first post on this board, I'd prefer it if this board were used only to discuss issues pertaining to administrative issues (kinda like the PM version of Nitcentralia, or a "Bug the Moderator"-type board).

Although many people may think that the word "media" pertains only to journalism, it also refers to TV and movies in general, so I think that yes, discussion of that does indeed belong on the Liberal Media board.

Luigi - I request that you NOT delete any boards, even if they haven't been posted on recently. Some of these are topics that will only come up again if somebody thinks the subject has never been dealt with before. Also, somebody might learn something from reading them.

Don't worry; if there are boards that have posts on them, I don't delete them, no matter how old they are (although I admit I did make a couple of rare exceptions over a year ago).

Luigi, Can you please move the 9-11/Iraq/Bush/Whatever discussion out of the Space Program Board 2 and into someplace more appropriate?

Thanks,

ScottN

Done.

ANNOUNCEMENT: I have banned KGood (aka Biggy, Vinny, Fizzle Von Shizzle, Bored to Tears, et al.) following his most recent rude comments to constanze, despite my repeated warnings to him about his behavior.

Luigi, thanks for defending me, even though I missed the attack completly - probably I was sleeping at that time , while you were on guard. Thanks.

Any time.

MODERATOR NOTE: I have merged the Welfare and Government Assitance board and the Government Relief Aid and Generosity board into one new board: Communism/Socialism/Government Control VS. Capitalism/Libertarianism/Economic Freedom. Somewhat long, but accurately inclusive of everything going on in it, which is all related.

Thank you. Its usually better to have a one stop shopping experience than to have to wander all over trying to find what you're looking for. (Besides with the plethora of threads running around its problematic to keep track of whats where anyhow.)

You're welcome.

MODERATOR ANNOUNCEMENT:
R has been banned from Politial Musings, and any other board that I moderate. Despite the copious amounts of vitriol that he has directed at me and at others over the past several months, I have attempted to conduct myself in an intelligent and civil manner, and to explain to him that this conduct was not appropriate. I have been generous in this regard ever since I took over as PM mod, even preferring to respond to ad hominem arguments and flames by refuting them on the basis of their validity, and keeping deleted posts to an absolute minimum. But I feel I became a bit too lax in this regard, particularly when R starting attacking others such as Dustin Westfall.

For trying to explain to R that arguments, particularly of an empirical nature, should be based on facts, evidence, and reason, R (who refers to this as allowing such things to "control" me, and who feels that emotion also helps decide empirical matters) called me "a cold hearted SOB", and made numerous other self-serving statements, distortions, falsehoods, and irrelevant fallacies that I will not respond to. I have deleted those posts, including one by MikeC in which he responded to R.

I really am very sorry that it has come to this, because I honestly do not relish the act of having to ban people from these boards, especially people like R, who, prior to our debates on the Communism boards, enjoyed a cordial relationship. But my decision is final, and I sincerely hope that this does not have the effect of discouraging people from coming to PM, because I really do value the disagreements that we have here--so long as they are both rational and above all, civil.

I have deleted the many posts made by R since his banning. I left the posts by MikeC and Josh up on the Communism board, and if you want to continue with that thread in scrutinizing my actions as moderator, then I would encourage it. Just a couple of things: Please keep it on this board, and not on one devoted to talk of government. In addition, please do not encourage banned persons from coming here. If you want to continue the discussion with them, then as a friendly suggestion, I would say that perhaps the Moderator Actions board is more appropriate. Thanks.

Thanks--will do.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Because R has continued to post here on numerous PM boards in direct violation of his banning, I have been forced to close those boards, hopefully until this matter recedes. I apologize to all other visitors for the inconvenience.

ANNOUNCEMENT: R has continued posting on other PM boards, including the Ohio board in Regional Politics and the Immigration boards. Those have been closed, as well as the ones I mentioned above, which include the Main board here, the Communism/Capitalism board, and the Freedom of Speech board.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Because R has continued to post on any PM board he can find, I am closing PM for posting until his rule-breaking ceases. I apologize for the inconvenience.

PM is back open for business. No flames or ad hominem arguments, please.

Okay, guys, Phil fixed PM, so it looks like we're back open for business. I've asked him if he can also fix LM.

Is there a board to discuss the Israel-Hez... (don't know how to spell it) war going on?

I created an Israel board under Regional poltics with two subtopics: One for the Israel-Lebanon crisis, and one for the pre-existing Israeli-Palestinian Crisis, which I moved there from here.

MODERATOR NOTE: Due to the current spam attacks, I've disabled Anonymous posting in PM and LM. One of my suggestions when I first took over as moderator was that if you wanted to post anonymously that was fine, but to try being creative in coming up with a username other than the generic "Anonymous" so that others could tell who you were from post to post. Now you'll pretty much have to.

Good try Luigi but now it's just posting as fake names, I just saw one on RM posted as "bonus" and another one posted as "games"

I've shut down posting to the Political Humor and Science & Politics subtopics, since those were the two boards being targeted by the spammer. If it's a person, they could just pick other subtopics, but if it's a 'bot, as has been asserted, then hopefully that might not happen.

Could sub categories under UN be created?


One board to discuss everything UN is a little difficult. I was wanting to make a post about some things relating to a few of these sub cats but I was hoping to keep it more topic based. So could Secretary General of Political Musings: Luigi Novi add those sub cats under UN?

I'd also like sub-sub cats made under Sub cat I

If you do, I promise no military coup...

oh, and other sub cats ppl would like.

Subcat I: Rights of the:

Subcat I-1. Nation/State

Discussion relating to national/state rights and the authority of the UN

Subcat I-2: Child/Parent

Discussion relating to Parental/Childrens's Rights and the authority of the UN

Subcat I-3: Men/Women & the Individual

Discussion relating to Equality whether it be gender, ethnic, racial, or economic and the authority of the UN.

Subcat II: The general effectiveness and efficiency of the UN.

1. Do you want to talk about the current Secretary General, or that post in general? If it's the former, I can just create a board under Political Figures if you like.

2. As for the other topics, why do they need their own boards? What's wrong with talking about them on the main board? If the discussion gets too long, I'll just create newer ones, and if you think the current one is too long (I think it's at 112K), just let me know.

"1. Do you want to talk about the current Secretary General, or that post in general? If it's the former, I can just create a board under Political Figures if you like. " - Luigi Novi

I was calling you the secretary general, I wasn't wanting to talk about him or the position.

----
Regarding 2.

Well to be honest, its kind of hard to find stuff in general around here. If one is searching for a particular topic, one has to read through lots to find out any previous information on it. And lumping it altogether means one has to review material that is not related to the topic.

I was hoping for some order, some structure. It's not just PM, much thread topics in this entire site are hard to find. I usually just hit last day and thus, my posts are typically restricted to what is currently being talked about by others.

If you do not want to bring order to chaos Luigi, I'll live. However, I think PM will end up like the Kitchen Sink... if its not like it already.

1. Whoops! Sorry for not read that carefully enough!

2. You don't have to read through the entire board. Just use your browser's Find feature, or use the Keyword Search function. Or skim it. There's only one board right now, and there's it's not that big. It's only 149K, and consists of just 84 posts. Skimming through it or using a Search method should let you know if people have discussed those permutations you suggested. (I myself just skimmed it myself to get a sense of what the conversation was.)


Well, I'm sorry you think that PM's arrangement of topics is chaotic. Me, I think I've brought quite a bit of order to the chaos that was PM and LM when I first took it over, back when it did resemble the Sink or RM. I thought I organized the topics in a manner that was mostly straightforward and user-friendly, and avoided overlap or confusion. As far as the U.N., I don't see why creating boards to discuss subtle permutations of a main topic is more organized than just having the main board. Branching out sutopic boards should done, IMHO, when A. A given subtopic is distinct enough from the main one that it can be assured to enjoy its own thread that won't overlap with the main one, and B. When there is some assurance that enough people will participate in that thread to make its own board worthwhile. Looking over the thread(s) on the U.N. board, I don't see why discussing rights under the U.N. has to be on a separate board completely segregated from the previous discussion of the legitimacy and efficacy of the U.N. and global relations that took place on the current board. In fact, your second SubCat, "The general effectiveness and efficiency of the UN", pretty much sounds like a description of the thread on that current board.

What I'll do is this:

Since no one has posted on the U.N. boards in almost two years, I'll close down Board 1, and start up Board 2, a shiny new tabula rasa for you to start off your musings. I hope that'll suffice.

Luigi, is there(or could there be) a place to discuss changes to voting methods? (Instant Runoff Voting, photo ID laws, a None of the Above option, etc.) I thought of discussing IRV after you asked me to vote again(essentialy a runoff vote )

If you want to wait until this spam all blows over, I understand.

I created a subtopic under Elections called Voting Methods, the Electoral College, etc.

Btw, Aaron, is an address I can email you at? Or do you have AIM? Thanks.

I do have AIM- dotter31 is my username for that too. I'm not too good about using it but I do try to check in when I can.

Thanks for the topic.

I filled out my profile and my email should be there(if you can look at it)

Just having used this for the first time, what's the point of a username if it also shows our real name? I don't care, it just seems odd.

If you're not on AIM that often (I admit I'm not either, at least not a much as I used to be), is there a place I can you email at?

MODERATOR NOTE: I've reopened PM to posting, not just because I know some of you want to discuss the recent elections, but also because PM did not see as many spam posts as Movies did. I don't know if the spam bot will adapt and fill PM with spam as it did Movies now that PM is the only one of my boards that's open, but we'll wait and see, and hopefully, I won't regret it. Enjoy.

Is there any way that a moderator could tell me if there is a problem with my profile? I can't seem to post when I type in my name and password.
I realize it doesn't matter too much since using a password is not neccesary anymore, but I wanted to post something to a private area that other people with profiles were posting to.

MODERATOR ANNOUNCEMENT: For her most recent uncivil behavior toward Polls Voice, myself, and others on the Iraq War board, despite repeated admonishments, I have banned Rona Feinberg (aka P.R., aka Princess Rona, aka Norma) from all boards that I moderate.

Is there a board to discuss the Iran New-Clear standoff...

Israel's been in the news lately about possibly planning to use tactical nukes on Iran; just wanted to know what board to be using...

I created an Iran board in Regional Politics.

Why can't I post in the Health Care Issues Board?

I was wanting to create a discussion on this if there wasn't one already.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/parenting/01/18/designerd.disability.ap/index.html

Um, because there was no Add a Message field activated on that board.

I've activated it.

MODERATOR NOTE: I've sorted the individual subtopics in Regional Politics into two subcategories: National and International. The Daylight Savings Time subtopic, however, remains where it was, on the main Regional Politics page as its own subtopic.

Within the National board, I noticed that there was a board for Louisiana with just a few posts on it, and a board for New Orleans. I merged them.

MODERATOR NOTE: I've started a new board called The Economy and Economics. Within that board I've created two subtopics: The Current State of the Economy, in order to accomodate a discussion started by John A. Lang. The other is the pre-existing Communism/Socialism/Government Control vs. Capitalism/Libertarianism/Economic Freedom subtopic, which I've renamed into the less cumbersome Controlled Economies vs. Free Economies.

MODERATOR NOTE: I organized up some of the subtopics:

1. I started a new subtopic called Drug Laws to discuss that issue, based on a story that I linked to in a post I made today. In looking over the subtopics listed on the main page, I realized that a number of them, including the newly made Drug Laws, could be categorized under the umbrella of Personal Freedoms for more easy organization. I created that new subcategory, into which I placed the following subtopics:

Censorship & Freedom of Speech
The Tobacco Industry & Smoker's Rights
Gun Control & The Right to Bear Arms
Slavery & the 13th Amendment
Drug Laws

2. I don't know why, but the Political Correctness board, which I was looking over to see it could be merged it or categorize it with Censorship & Freedom of Speech, was completely devoid of posts, which I confirmed even after I made sure that the Show Messages function was active. Thus, I've deleted that board.

3. Looking over the Taxes subtopic, I decided that that topic pertained to Economics, so I placed it as a subtopic in the subcategory The Economy and Economics subcategory, along with the two subtopics already in that category.

I hope this organizes things more easily for everyone here.

I have merged the Profiling subtopic with the Airport Security subtopic in the 9/11 boards, and renamed the merged subtopic Profiling and Airport Security. As the former was much smaller than the latter, and consisted mostly of a thread that predated most of the posts on the former, by placing them in chronological order, I do not believe that any two threads were broken up or interlaced in a way that would make following them difficult, just in case anyone would like to peruse them.