Get rid of PoliticalOutsider

You might be correct. Time will tell.

Compared to a few other Mac forums, the traffic here on Mac subjects is very light, especially when you remove the numerous threads generated by the host from consideration.

Maybe they will listen to you, great input.

I don't see the problem. Political Outsider is a sub-section of only one part of the AppleInsider Forums. You have to click "AppleOutsider" (clearly labelled as "Discussion of everything other than technology, ie. The Real World.") then on "PoliticalOutsider" (clearly labelled "Civil, factually informed political discussion.")

If you don't like PoliticalOutsider, don't go there. Simple as that.

Perhaps what would help you is a filter on the "new posts" link so that you can filter out any posts from PoliticalOutsider. I suggest PMing Lundy to find out if that's a feature he can add (admins have more privileges/capabilities than moderators so it's not something I could do).

I believe the OP is saying that this is becoming The PoliticalOutsider Forum more than it is The AppleInsider Forum. That's not a problem, per se. It's just an observation.

During many years, I have been very active in the Apple outsider (and then the politcal outsider forum) . Now I am not anymore. The addiction is finish.
As a mod, and an admin, it was a real mess to deal with. Many time we have considered to lock this one. But our advice was (perhaps it has changed now) :
- no one is forced to enter in this arena.
- it allow the other forum to be more cool. People willing to have reason whatever subject they are dealing with, find a great place here.

Using terms like "turd blossoms" doesn't lower the standard of discussion on this site?

Just use a little self control and avoid reading posts from PO if they're that upsetting to you.

I think having PO around is actually a good way to prevent such discussions from popping up elsewhere in the AI forums and driving threads off topic (more often).

Which happens anyway. Some people can't resist using any discussion, no matter the topic, to air their political views. (Sadly, the more extreme the political views, the more likely they are to make appearances in unrelated threads.)

I'm not advocating either way for the fate of the PO forum. Good arguments could be made both ways -- I just don't see where having it prevents anything.

You're right. "Prevent" isn't the proper term for what I was trying to say. Maybe "diffuse"?

My point is you can tell people "hey, there's a forum for that. Talk about this kind of thing in there". Not saying it always works, but it's another option to try stop the political tangents from going too far.

I think you've hit on the real issue here. When the posts are all generated by news articles generated by the site, it makes discussion harder. I've seen where a topic not reported on here will be started as a discussion and soon after it, when the site decides to address it, a new thread is created for that purpose completely ignoring the old thread.

PO in this regard isn't the problem. It just happens to be the only part of the forum that the news portion does not generate any content for and thus, it actually operates like the forum ought to and thus, garners posts and activity.

AppleInsider used to be strictly a rumor site and the forums were where all us Apple guys could speculate.

Now it appears to position itself more as just a Apple news site and the articles, of which there are now MANY, MANY more, are generating threads for article feed back.

In some instances, especially with rumors, this stops overlap, but in many instances, it just generates clutter and spams the forums. Also it would be nice if there were occasional "meta-threads" with regard to a topic. Many are speculating about the Apple tablet for example. However instead of having all that in one thread it will end up split due to the news articles generated related to that point. So there will be 50 comments in a thread about the LCD supplier, 50 comments in a thread about analysts and their predictions, 50 comments in a thread about a pending Google tablet, 50 comments etc...

Not to say that those comments and articles don't generate hits, page views and banners because the site has to make money. But perhaps there is a way to find a middle ground whereby we can have some fun speculating about what is going to be crafted and created by Apple. No one is going to spend 500 comments arguing who is going to supply the LCD for the next iPhone or possible tablet. They want to discuss form factors, post mockups, argue about user interface issues, etc. Sometimes threads are still created by members for that purpose, but they often get dropped down the page by the news feedback threads.

Just my two cents.