With the new season of the NFL upon us I think maybe a sports debate section may be in order. Just another suggestion from me.

Oh, come on! Again with the voting without explaining why! There is a science, a health and medicine, an environmental, media, and business section. Sports is an important part of society and there are many things to be debated. Off the top of my head are sudden death in OT rules that some disagree on, steroid use, rules in all sports, Olympic regulation debates. I'm not asking for a separate section for each sport just for sport debates in general. All the topics I thought of tie into politics in some way too.

I voted "Yes," because I'd enjoy it and I think sports lend themselves well to debate. But given the intent expressed here to limit debate to political topics, I can see why a decision might be made not to go there. Where a sports-related topic enters the realm of politics, it would already fit within existing categories (Current Events, Media, Education, Domestic Policy).

Maybe I should have voted "No."

I voted no. My reasons vary.

First, I personally could care less about professional sports in general.

Second, debating sports locally (as in at a pub in a city) can be fun, educational, etc. However, it can often get loud and angry as people fight over who was the best pitcher / coach / quarterback / goal keeper that their city ever had. whether or not this or that player / manager / coach is/was a bum, etc. Debating sports nationally can be more partisan, vicious and ripe for flame wars than even political debate. This is because of the deep emotional attachment fans develop with "their" team. That concerns me because difficulty in maintaining civility in sports debate would mean much more work for the site's volunteer moderating staff and the possibility that civility issues in the sports area could bleeding into other areas.

Lastly, I see it as unnecessary. There are sites out there that already do this and do it well (just one example).

In my opinion, as with religious debate, its better to keep one's participation in sports debate separated from their participation in political debate if for no other reason that to avoid unnecessary turmoil from differences of opinion / grudges in one area coloring the debate / discussions in another.

No

If you think about it enough, questions about sports would fit into other forums. Headline News and Casual Conversation come to mind. Education might work if the question has to do with higher education supporting sports teams.

For many years I enjoyed watching football, played it in high school. I was a Vikings fan, have mercy!

I voted no, selfishly for the reason that the dominant professional US sports are different from the ones I like, so it's be no more use to me than would a chocolate fireman.

The idea of a need for a sport debate has been brought up before. Is there really a need? There are so many sports debate sites on the internet. Why add one here? This site fills a unique need, the chance to debate public policy in a moderated civil forum. This should remain the mission of .

You would think there would be many sites which does what does. There are not. We Americans have our priorities. Civil debate of sports is valued but such for politics civility is not expected and supported. I guess public policy is not as entertaining nor easy.

With all due respect, doesn't this argument fit every topic for debate? Why have any subforums at all then? On the contrary, with no sub-forum for sports I believe there is less a chance for this kind of debate to take place. Its a subtle way of saying....sports discussion not welcome here.



I understand but i'm not sure I agree. First, there are many euros that debate here so you probably would have at least a few topics here and there to debate about. Also, a new sports debate subforum might bring more folks keen to your favorite sports to the site.



Can be? Sure. But if you are trying to state that sports discussions are more contentious on average than the average political debate, I couldn't disagree with you more. Sports debates can get vigorous but there's a reason for the quote "never debate politics or religion".



I personally haven't made much of an effort to find other "quality" debate sites. I will take your word for it there aren't many. I just wonder though...if they are so hard to find, why wouldn't the participants here want to encourage more like minded people to join? Certainly restricting what can be debated must tend to dampen the enthusiasm of new particpants to join in.

As you might have guessed by now, I voted yes.

From a purely selfish standpoint I think that it would be interesting to debate something that I am interested in and can more easily relate to than say... yet another political food fight debate.

From the standpoint of growing the site, a small subforum devoted to sports debate can't help but bring in more participants that currently lurk only or who stumble upon the site looking for a place to debate steroid use in baseball and stay to debate Health Care (for example).

I'm a bit taken aback that folks are voting no so quickly. What harm does having this type of subforum bring to the site? It certainly lends itself to debate with very hot topics and is a large part of our society in general. As ZeeSaga mentioned there are debate forums for science, health and medicine,environmental, media, and business. Certainly sports is AT LEAST as conducive to debate as these topics?

Its just my opinion of course, but if the site is called America's Debate and it already covers a wide range of topics....why wouldn't it cover a topic that tens of millions of americans have a connection to?

The site is currently dominated by by political debate - even with all of the other categories, but that's why it was created in the first place.

Certainly hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people have a connection to TV and Film, and yet, there is no forum dedicated to that topic except the one dedicated to news (which ties into the political debate). We don't want this site turning into an E! on America's Debate site either.

Casual Conversation covers all of the other topics not specifically given a forum. I think discussions on sports are best served there because you have a little more leeway there regarding discussion. You certainly don't want me showing up to point out the logical fallacies in your argument regarding Brett Favre's throwing arm. (I keed, I keed.)

Sports discussions are mostly about opinion without proof... mere preference and personal opinion. Those types of topics usually go in Casual Conversation.

now that I think about it some more, we have two subforums in casual conversation already, so I could see a case for creating another subforum under the heading of Casual Conversation for sport threads, though I'm not sure what kind of debate threads would be much use. Maybe "What about the proposed rule change to make cheerleaders alternate with the quarterback?", rather than "which is the best NFL team?" which would just provoke a bunfight.

I still doubt there'd be many takers for rugby topics, though. There aren't many Kiwis or Taffs on here, and we're about the only two nations that get that worked up about the game to post if it's not just a "what about last night's game?" thread, which you really can get almost anywhere.

Well I could care less about some topics on here as well but I don't have to post anything about them. Yes there are sites that do it but probably not with as much civility.



Yes, they could, at least, make a subforum for it. The questions I see being debated would be mostly about rules and regulations not on "favorites" or "best". And as someone had pointed out, there are plenty of non-americans on here to argue about which type of rugby is better League or Union? Also the cite is called America's Debate NOT America's Political Debate. I also thought that the comment saying it might attract new members who would also get in on other topics was a good one and saying it might bring the wrong crowd is silly as we have rules and regs that you can get kicked off for not following.

I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist if we added a sports forum, but I likely wouldn't post in it. College football is the only sport in the US worth mentioning, and it's too short of a season.

And outside of perhaps Julian, I'm not sure if I would find any other Hurling fans either.

You believe that most people who would come to this site because of a sports forum would do so to debate rules and regulations? How many conversations about sports have you had that were about rules and regulations? Now, how many conversations have you had about favorite moments in a game or the performance of a player? I would venture a guess that the majority of sports conversations center around the latter and not the former. My belief is that people searching the web for a sports forum primarily want to talk about highlights and their favorite teams.

Kiwi's rock!...bring on Super 12 (Super 14 now) talk. Gotta go for my Canterbury Crusaders!


You think sports aren't political? Do you follow college football at all? Explain the current poll system for picking (supposedly) the national champion without bringing up politics at all.

Further, even if they aren't political, so what? The sports threads that have been started on this site have been enjoyable, I think, precisely because they haven't been political. Nice to take a break from political back-and-forth, and participate in something just for fun. It's also good because you find that some posters who you disagree with politically are kindred spirits in something else. Sports threads therefore seem to tone down the rhetoric, not increase it.



Sounds like a good solution. As to what would likely go there, I suspect threads similar to sports threads we've had before, which were usually of the same 'whose gonna win this year' that sports people talk about everywhere.

I see where your coming from but I have to say that I think most people specifically searching for a sports debate place would glance over this website and realize that it is not the place for "Rah Rah" type debates. The sign up process alone would scare them off also as well as the inability to start topics without posting a few times first. Maybe a few would get through the red tape but it seems like the moderators do a good job keeping this place clean. Plus we may gain a few good members due to the bit of traffic it would cause.

My mistake, I was not specific in my use of the word. I meant political debate in terms of government, and government policy and basically what is primarily about now.

No worries...the politics of the college football poll is just a hot button issue for me. You cannot possibly have a stupider way to choose a national champion. Which, BTW, would probably make a good topic in such a forum: College football: how do you like the bowl system, and if not, what would you do to change it?

On the main topic here, though...we've had sports threads periodically, and they were always in good fun, with no flame wars, etc. They seemed to tone down the tension, not ratchet it up. Doing as Julian suggested and just adding it as a subtopic in casual conversation would be fun, and I can't for the life of me think of what harm it would do. We have other non-political forums, on issues that not nearly as many people are interested in as sports. I say give it a whirl, and see what happens.

I support a sports forum as an appendage to casual conversation.

In Texas sports in general and football in particular are a sort of lowest common denominator.

There are people down here that sports is about all they can or want to talk about.

So, to survive, one has to know at least a minimum about sports in Tejas.

With all the steroid abuse and use of human growth hormones, and the phonyness in certain sports like Professional Wrestling, Sports would definately make a hot topic for debate. I'm all for a sports section.

I wonder how the poll would have gone if there had been a 3rd option? (don't care, no opinion, etc)