MoapaPk wrote:While I certainly appreciate the OP's desire for an open forum, and do like to play Devil's advocate myself... I would rather see non-mountain news discussed elsewhere. No matter how logically and civilly one presents pro or con arguments for AGW, eventually people start to shout; and when everybody shouts, nobody is heard.
I would like to rename "News" to something like "News related to outdoor recreation," but that wouldn't fool anybody. It wouldn't be long before everything became rationalized as recreation-related.
That's basically how I saw it. I did not view it as really related to "Mountaineering, rock climbing, and hiking news." (from the Forum main page, under the description for the "News" forum). Since SP also is supposed to encompass "other outdoor activities" (from SP's mission on the home page) I would expand "News" to cover the "Lost at Sea" thread, since sailing is an outdoor activity.
But really, the AGW threads seemed like an opportunity to revive old AGW discussions, minus the insults that went on in the past.
Perhaps you consider people lost at sea, gnus, or lunar eclipses more relevant news for mountaineers? Just let me know!
Good question. Answer: probably because I only perused the SP forum for a few minutes and did not see these other topics, which probably are "Off Route" fodder, except for the "Lost at Sea" thread (see explanation above). Discussions in these other threads have already petered out anyway.
Personally, I'm ambivelent about the Off Route forum's existence anyway, but that is a topic for another day.