regional politics off topic yet short stories not?

I just saw that the short story forum comes under the main recent page yet regional politics is still considered off topic along such important things as cooking, dogs and tv shows?

While not having an issue with people writing stories it does somewhat belittle things like UK, European and Canadian politics to name a few (as I know we make a reasonable dent in the ATS demographic.)

I assume that we have all given up on the repeated request for our own little spot here but this really does put it in something of a perspective does it not?

I might write a little poem about a lamb looking at a sunset with unicorns and pretty flowers and it be given more importance than anything so unimportant as an issue that is from outside of the US.

nonspecific

Although it has a reasonable number of foreign users, ATS is still, inherently, an American website. So far as I can recall much has been done to facilitate the foreign user base but...

I'm sure if it's an important foreign issue those affected by it will likely learn of it one way or another.

originally posted by: CagliostroTheGreat
nonspecific

Although it has a reasonable number of foreign users, ATS is still, inherently, an American website. So far as I can recall much has been done to facilitate the foreign user base but...

I'm sure if it's an important foreign issue those affected by it will likely learn of it one way or another.

The issue was with seems to be an imbalance more than anything.

ATS was actually born in the UK not far from where I used to live, ask Springer about it.

We spoke at some length with the owners about a little bit where we could debate our own "little issues" and things seemed promising but to no avail.

To see that short stories are deemed important but that political or sociological issues that occur outside of the US seems to be what we in the UK could call "a bloody desgrace and no bones about it".

nonspecific

I wonder if non American forums have the same issues with American users wanting those websites to balance their regional politics with those of America.

Funny.

originally posted by: CagliostroTheGreat
nonspecific

I wonder if non American forums have the same issues with American users wanting those websites to balance their regional politics with those of America.

Funny.

But ATS is an international site and represents itself as such does it not?

Non US members have a small demogrraphic here but that does not mean that we should be any less part of it surely?

There is a sterotype about the American people that suggests that they find themselves to be the most important people on the planet and everyone esle is inferior and I did not think that on the whole the core ATS community felt this way.

a reply to: nonspecific


I asked something similar a way back.

"General Breaking News" or "Regional Politics" are both in offtopic but imo shouldn't.

Once upon a time The Above Network (TAN) was four main websites: News, Politics, Off Topic and Conspiracies. The initials used were ATSNN, PTS, BTS and ATS. Over time the sites consolidated and condensed. First to go was News, then Politics and finally the beloved and still used in common conversation BTS.

The consolidations tried to balance the forum distribution without overloading the two remaining websites. Weight was given for the likelihood for actual conspiracies at play in the particular forums versus general information. Hence Regional Politics ended up on BTS.

But since integration and final consolidation into a single site with a tab (at the time) separating the two remaining sites. There have been more political forums added to ATS (mostly to funnel the bickering a single easy to ignore forum--US Political Madness and then later just the Mud Pit). Both the Bully Pulpit and the Mud Pit were originally PTS forums that were cut when PTS ended.

Bottom line it has been a long strange road but it has always been evolving. In fact I have an old IBM Thinkpad somewhere that has bookmarks to survival threads long before there was a Survival forum.

a reply to: Ahabstar

I understand the basics of how complex the site is and fully understand how hard it is to alter for SO and the others but it just kind of got under my skin that stories were "more important" than any politics that occured outside of the US.

On reflection maybe a bad day, a stinking cold and a bottle of wine may have made me a little more upset about it than it warrented...

a reply to: nonspecific

Oh, I have mentioned making all the politics forums as a third area a few times. Maybe one day during a major site revamping it could happen.

a reply to: Ahabstar

That would be a good thing at a time like this although the other sides might look a little threadbare without all the trump threads.

a reply to: nonspecific

We just hate the British

(says the Canuck)

I'm kidding, but yeah forum placement is just from when we had the 4 websites as noted above.

There maybe changes in the future, but I can't really give you an ETA on that.

~Tenth

a reply to: tothetenthpower

That's only because you read the plan authored by then PM Cameron to have the US fake a war in order to substitute your maple syrup for that maple flavored corn syrup we get here in the US.