No if, it will be left as it is now. I suspect the political postings will die off as some of the attention hounds aren't getting the attention they used to get. Still like to see the occasional jokes and other threads as you do and of course I can click on the Paddock and read them if I like.
I "enabled" the paddock as soon as you turned it off, Ron...I enjoy almost all of the content there, political and otherwise. I haven't posted much recently, as I have "ignored" a few of those whom I consider trolls on the political threads. If a thread is authored by one of those "trolls", I just never read any of it...
I mention this b/c I wouldn't want you (or anyone else) to think I have quit posting b/c I was one of the "attention hounds" you mentioned above, and I suspect that there have been more than just myself who have stopped posting so much just b/c of the devisive nature of the postings by many of those exact individuals whom I have "ignored"...just my way of not "feeding" the trolls in hopes that they will take their hunger for divisiveness elsewhere.
It is quite a bit different. If this site were sort of like a TV you'd have twenty little boxes pop up when you turned it on showing you what was playing on each channel. However, the TV is supposed to show GT40 content only and when you turn it on most of the little screens show programs that have nothing to do with GT40s. That's a busted TV.
I joined the forum in 2006, I think, so I don't have the advantage of the historical experience from the very early days of the forum, but I do recall that when I signed up the Paddock was described as "...anything goes", or something to that effect....not necessarily needing to be related to the GT40 at all.
I guess my question is whether it was your intention to exclude the rather "explosive" topics....religion, politics, etc.....from the Paddock from the beginning. If that were the case, it sure escaped me!
I do agree that there are MANY worthwhile threads on the Paddock that are NOT politically oriented...but, then, I do agree that many of the politically oriented threads are worthwhile, too....it is just the abraisive nature of some of the participants that have reduced my participation, not the issues themselves.
Ron, since it is the political content of the Paddock that caused it to be "shielded" from the New Posts function, what about starting a new board, separate from the Paddock, specifically for political discussions? Then, the Paddock would be free from the content (although, I do admit that managing that political content would be a burden for the administrators/moderators even if it only required moving the offending threads from the Paddock to the "new" board....but, it is possible, I participate on another automotive forum where politics are rigidly forbidden and the mod's make no excuses for their actions when someone violates that rule) and then the Paddock, with it's non-political/religious content, could be re-enabled.
Just a thought....:shy:
Cheers!
Doug