The usual public place for political chat is the talk radio echo chamber bubble, dominated by the right to fringe right.
This forum is one of the alternative outlets for discussion that centrist to leftist leaning have to exchange thoughts and yes, occasional rants to let off steam. The right wing Excrement in Fraudcasting guys screen calls, so there's not much balance there.
Here, pretty much anything goes from anyone willing to give and take, good ideas or bad.
I don't see that it is broken or that there is anything that needs fixing.

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Haven't read too many of Tom Joad's posts, I take it? :p

Tom's just one poster, I'm just another, and so are you. Some are outrageous just for effect or to get a reaction, others try to stay factual and informative with good neutral solid sources. It tends to meander between the extremes on average.

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Tom oscillates between extreme and outrageous except he does not take himself seriously. Most of his far out posts are tongue in cheek and I enjoy reading them. YMMV.

I vehemently take exception to your statement. The mods CANNOT read your pm messages, unless they log in as you. Since they cannot change your password, they do not have access to that.

Regarding personal emails, if one uses the Contact Us link, that goes to Grumpy. BUT, if someone replies to a notification email, the one that says, DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL!, instead of emailing the individual they wished to contact, that gets sent back to Grumpy. It happens more often in vB that one might reasonably think, and it is a PITA, especially on a site larger than this.

So, to make a long story short, (I know. TOO LATE!) your pm's are as private as personal emails, and, if you are careless about replying to notification emails, then the pm's are more secure.

I use pm's.

And, since this thread is a comment on the site moderation policy, it is being closed.

JBS, start another thread on this topic, and you will find that there are consequences to your action.

To the mods in this thread, I apologize for taking action without first discussing it with you.