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When I hear the word "politics" I think of strategies to acquire power to affect changes in the law, but the scope of this site seems to be much broader. All questions regarding the mechanics of governance seem on topic. Why not call this site "Government and Politics"?

Edit: I don't think it's necessary to change the URL -- only the title. I believe that including the word "Government" would better convey the scope of this site to someone visiting for the first time, but the advantages of keeping a simple URL outweighs the costs of changing the URL. It's easy to change the title, however.

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    In my experience, the mechanics of governance is typically included as a subset of "Political science" and/or "politics".
    – user4012
    Mar 16, 2013 at 0:35
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    @DVK: I agree that "political science" entails procedures and government types, but it seems to me that "politics" has a much narrower connotation -- that in the public's mind "politics" is closely associated with "politician" (jockeying for power) and not with the mechanics of government.
    – Richard Hansen
    Mar 18, 2013 at 2:30
  • Quite honestly, I think the site is almost all government. It has very little politics because opinions are banned.
    – user9790
    Nov 2, 2016 at 20:42

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Personally, I wouldn't be opposed. We focus on:

  • personalities
  • processes
  • policies

In practice the objective discussion of politics requires focusing on the mechanics- hence how governments work are almost always a necessary part of a good answer.

As to changing the URL - politics and government might be a mouthful - I doing that would happen, but I definately would support having our name reflect this on the main page. There is currently a law and government proposal in Area51, half of which (government) I think really should be merged with this, and half of which (law) doesn't belong on SE at all...

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    I saw the Law and Government proposal, and I agree that the government part should be merged with this. But I also think that a separate law.se would be quite useful. I'd like to hear your objections -- perhaps you can start a new discussion at area51?
    – Richard Hansen
    Mar 18, 2013 at 2:19
  • My objection is strictly one of liability. Answers on law would open an SE up to charges of practicing law without a license.
    – Affable Geek
    Mar 18, 2013 at 2:56
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    @AffableGeek - there are plenty of web sites/forums offering lawyers' opinions. With sufficiently large disclaimer, why not?
    – user4012
    Mar 18, 2013 at 3:23
  • Unless you offer legal advice (IE go to court and say this) then there is no risk of that unless you claim you are a lawyer.
    – SoylentGray
    Mar 26, 2013 at 13:42
  • @AffableGeek, information about laws is not necesserily legal advice. Even information posted by a lawyer does not constitute legal advice if there is no attorney-client relationship. If it did, then advice from a prosecutor would be as good as advice from a defense attorney (both are lawyers, but only one is "your lawyer").
    – grovkin
    Mar 28, 2018 at 6:51

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