[jyl]

My interpretation is that often what makes a thread PARF is not that it touches on political issues, but that the thread participants take an blatantly partisan, name-calling, mud-slinging approach to it.

We've been able to have discussions on healthcare, tax policy, solar power, hybrid cars, economic outlook, state budget shortfalls, stock markets, etc that stayed out of PARF. Even though all of these topics do involve political factors in some way. It's hard to come up with a serious topic that doesn't have some connection to politics.

The reason those discussions stayed out of the PARF sewer is because the participants refrained from throwing in the cheap shots and name calling ("its Bush's fault", "its Obama's fault", etc) that quickly turn a thread nasty and partisan.

Once threads go to PARF, they become remarkably dumbed-down and pointless, in my view. I check in on the PARF threads occasionally and have no desire to participate.

So, my interpretation of the "hope this doesn't go to PARF" comments is that they are a plea for people to be civil, mature, thoughtful, analytical, and non-partisan in their comments.