Thanks to everyone for their input - and to those that made the original suggestion. Looks like everyone is in favor of having politics and religion in their own sub-forum. The issue of whether to put that sub-forum here or in the Woodshed - well as I count them, the "votes" seem to be evenly split (and there were some that essentially said they were fine with either location.
Two good points were made - one for each location. For the BS forum, it's that having to follow the regular Board rules would lead to better, more civil discussions. For the Woodshed, it's that these topics seem to be "blood sport" to a lot of folks, and they want to express themselves, uh, fully.
Again, both are valid points. So, here's what we're going to do - we'll create a sub-forum here in the BS forum for now. I say "for now" simply because circumstances can change. And if the Mods and Admins end up having to step in too much, we'll move it to the Woodshed.
A final issue is what will go in this new sub-forum. By that, I mean those items that might blur the line. For example, we have a thread in the BS forum debating legalization of drugs. Is this "political"? In one sense, yes, as it would require some form of government intervention to bring it about. In another sense, no, as it doesn't immediately address political philosophy or theory. However, given the reason for the original request - which was to allow folks to come into the BS forum for "lightweight" discussions and not have to wade through topics that were of a more "serious" nature that touched on politics or religion, I think we'll start off with putting threads about "policy" in the new sub-forum.
Again, thanks to everyone for their input!
