Democracy Forums

Democracy Forums is a new discovery, but one I'm extremely happy to have made. This is one of the most intelligent forums on political science and current events that I have found. Democracy Forums is running 3.7.0 V-Bulletin Software. It's clean, professional aesthetic is a welcome reflection the quality of its post content.

One of my favorite sections is the Pool Booth. For political forum addicts, we all know how subjective the average poll on a political forum usually is. We see options presented like, "I think George Bush is a great president" followed by "I think George Bush is horrible and I hate America". The polls in this section for the most part offer a wide range of objective options, which really speaks to the intellectual fairness of the regular members at this forum.

Another thing that makes Democracy Forums unique is that its most popular section is Current Events. Members here are constantly posting new news stories for discussion, half of which (this is a relatively high percentage) end up fostering a high quality discussion on the central issues. Like other political forums, the staff here has established a Conspiracy Section. I view this as a plus because moderators can move threads like "George Bush was behind 9/11" and other low quality absurdities out of high traffic sections to the Conspiracy section. This tends to keep discussions in the higher traffic areas a bit more... rational.

With what appears to be a great moderating staff and a fantastic member base, the only flaw that I have found is that it appears to be sharing server space. I'm not sure, of course, but it takes a few seconds to open a section or a thread. But this is a tiny, irrelevant flaw compared to the quality of these forums. I definitely hope to have the time to become involved at Democracy Forums.