We can hardly say that no-one's allowed to suggest the removal of A&E, as if A&E has some kind of specific constitutional protection. But we have a policy on A&E that seems to work now, so that's what we'll say. If anyone can make a good case for why that policy doesn't work, and why an alternative would be better, we'll listen. Nothing is to be ruled out of court. But I see no such case being made here.
Plotinus, I hope you can understand why I consider it rude that certain people keep bringing up this issue. It happens far more frequently than issues concerning other specific non-OT forums, and since the admins have said repeatedly over the years that there are no plans to eliminate or merge A&E with anything else, all these periodic "Merge A&E/eliminate A&E" threads accomplish is to start an argument, cause anger, and stress people out. To borrow Lefty's word, they are
unnecessary. You know yourself that there are far fewer moderating issues in A&E than there used to be, and the discussion rarely gets to the point of needing a "calm down" message, let alone a warning or infraction.
To everyone else: Once a forum is created, it's up to the members to use it. It's absurd to expect that somehow there will always be something there to entertain you; if there isn't, the obvious choices are either to find more interesting areas of the forum or start a discussion you do find entertaining. You get out of a forum what you put into it. If you contribute discussion or pictures or artwork or videos or writing in the form of stories/poems to the A&E threads, that's wonderful. I daresay that those who do these things get much more out of A&E than the people who never bother and just complain that the rest of us haven't entertained them and therefore the forum is useless and should be merged into OT. There
are topics and activities that thrive in A&E that would die in OT, buried under a mass of serial threads and political/religious arguments. Those of us who take part in these topics and activities are, as I said before, happy and grateful that there is finally an area of the forum where we're not in anyone's way and where we can find our threads without hunting through hundreds of unrelated ones. We're not causing trouble, and it's unfair to keep dredging this issue up as though it's a problem.
As for the "I don't post in A&E because nobody ever goes there" complaint... as I said, you get out of it what you put into it. Want more traffic in A&E? Then contribute more content. Let people know you've started a thread there, or posted an interesting video or picture or whatever else.
The existence of a forum like A&E is something that some of us have wanted for a long time. I've been on other gaming forums where their media forums have been thriving for many years, even though there is a lot of scrolling down to get there. The key to this is that media discussions are not allowed in the general discussion areas - if you want to discuss movies, books, TV, writing, etc., you have a dedicated area in which to do it. The members know this and use it accordingly. I honestly don't understand why there has been so much resistance to this on CFC. It's not like A&E is as far from OT as, say, OT is from the Civ forums.
I never understood why "what movies have you seen" or "what musicare you listening too" are kept in OT, while "what classical music are you listening too" (for instance) is A&E. But I'll go with Plotinus' explanation.
That being said, I'll go and listen to some more classical music, so I can add more posts in A&E
