... is why people complain about the political threads, the lionshare of these have fairly inoffensive and routine title and have 'Politics:' right next to them. They aren't even that numerous, about 1 a day, they show up at the top of the list only if people have 'newest replies first' and here's a shocker... controversial threads are about the only sort that gets tons of replies stretching over days because there's precious little point in being the 57th person to say "That was a funny joke" or "Interesting article". All the 'bday' threads and the like don't stick around long because there's not a lot to say other than "Happy birthday!". Honestly when people bitch about the political threads it feels like someone's leaning over to my table at a restaurant to tell me they find my conversation with my friend or date boring, with the difference being it is not unheard of for dinner chat to get loud enough to kinda force it on other people. Clicking on a thread clearly labeled 'Politics:" and complaining about it is akin to someone sitting down at your table so they can hear you then complaining about the conversation. Sweet God, they change their settings from 'newest replies first' and your setting to 'send email notification' and don't click the threads that say 'Politics:'.

Worse, a pretty big chunk of the people who do complain about this stuff are often in those threads themselves and a lot of them are the sorts who make short nasty remarks that they clearly think show them to be at the pinnacle of human wisdom and when they don't immediately sway the audience they pack up and leave in a huff. You can't tell them that though, they'd never believe it and would be full of indignation, but while I'm sure a few of the people who have complained really were apolitical I can't think of a single person who has complained about it who hasn't had multiple flaming entries into one of those threads.