My fellow travellers,<BR><BR>With the proliferation of &quot;political&quot; threads appearing here, do you folks think it worthwhile to ask Fodors to create a separate forum for such topics?<BR><BR>Nothwithstanding the terms of posting etiquette requested by our host, I think there is some benefit for Fodors to consider creating a new forum along the lines of flyertalk.com's OMNI forum - where anything goes within reason; perhaps even moderated. The &quot;Miscellaneous&quot; forum just doesn't seem to attract those posts on Fodors.<BR><BR>Considering recent events - which absolutely have an impact on travel - maybe an area of this board could be set aside to air those &quot;issues&quot;.<BR><BR>Fodor's editors please note, with registration and advertising now on the boards, and the increase in non-travel but somewhat related posts, that garner a large number of responses, you have an opportunity to:<BR>1. Keep posters, who wish to post on a new somewhat off-travel thread, on the site - read click thrus.<BR>2. With judicious promotion of the new forum, you can drive threads that are potentially way off topic (deletable) to one area making them easy to ID - read saves time/money.<BR>3. Sweeping the entire set of forums (for objectionable threads) becomes easier.<BR>4. Helps to ID and remove those posters who continually abuse posting etiquette<BR><BR>Wadda' think?<BR>--<BR>mj<BR>

Perhaps. They do have an &quot;Other Topics&quot; forum. Looks like the Fodors team is working this weekend as a number of threads have mysteriously vanished.

Agreed and they could keep a tighter leash on me!<BR><BR>US

Looks like they are, Sam. Your replies are vanishing before our very eyes.

Sam,<BR>Don't think of it as a leash. More like a corral, a big one <BR>--<BR>mj

Thes emotional sandstorms come and they go. The board was seriously disrupted away from actual travel talk immeasurably after 11 Sep 2001.<BR><BR>This too shall pass, and maybe not in a hundred says.<BR><BR>Separate forum or not. It won't matter all that much. It's not like the Gettysburg address will be posted here.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>[email protected]<BR>

lol

Rex,<BR>With all due respect, this board was disrupted a good bit before 9/11. Yes, registration has helped w/trolls but as you point out &quot;maybe not 100 says[sic]&quot;. <BR><BR>Point is, the latest off topic threads were way longer than Mr. Lincoln's speech, the Declaration of Independence and the whole bloody Constitution combined.<BR><BR>My suggestion was to move the &quot;noise&quot; off the &quot;signal&quot; band without driving otherwise good posters away.<BR>

ah yes - - 100 _d_ays was my intention.<BR><BR>Fodors will move the noise away, as they have already begun to do. And events of the coming _d_ays will likely bring it back again, most likely transiently, and with no greater consequence than other squalls here in the past.<BR><BR>Gelato longa, politico brevis...<BR>