Anyone else think it's bizarre to have a Middle East forum

Ditto Climate. I'm not in favour of cordoning off contentious or difficult topics, away from general view. As a result, the Climate board languishes in a backwater, hardly visited, when it is one of the most pressing political concerns of our time.

Much more concise

Some people got fed up with it being discussed elsewhere so shoved it out the way. Like with covid

New boards appear to come about in a reactive rather than planned manner in 2 main ways

Either someone starts a thread in Site Stuff requesting one and depending on the support expressed there MNHQ will set one up or not eg most recently Muslim Mumsnetters

Or as in the case of the Middle East Conflict board in response to posters complaining to MNHQ about Active being 'flooded' with material they don't want to see so the new board quarantines away all the unpleasant/boringly repetitive/anxiety-provoking thread titles - exactly the same happened with the pandemic resulting in the Covid Board

All rather mundane and not really 'bizarre' at all

Boards get created when either MNHQ realises one would be helpful or when one is requested and gets enough support

They are hidden form the main boards to give them some protection, when the time is right.

The Middle East one was created after 7/10 & the main boards were full of threads re the situation. People didn't want to be faced with them when they came for a bit of a chat/entertainment/to take their mind off of it, plus it's easier to find existing threads this way.

I would say this topic is an example of a new board coming into existence in response to a pressing news story that elicits a lot of interest and strong feeling.

It seems to me like a wise move to give such topics their own space.

You make a very good point. It is strange when you put it like that.

I assume it’s come about as a knee jerk to hide threads from main boards for various reasons.

This one is reasonably new! MNHQ created it shortly after 7 Oct last year because Chat and AIBU posters felt upset about the lot of us [regardless of affiliations] harping on about "upsetting stuff".

You could say that this is the "quarantine space" for people who care about any of this!

I personally am not up to date with the Middle East but am sure there are people on MN who really need to chat . Absolutely not a problem.