I think you're conflating two different groups of users there PersonFrom2045 to make a point that doesn't bear scrutiny. Your point that 'lumping' sections together attracts vocal opposition, is completely consistent with my suggestion that 'splitters' are the connoisseurs who use that section a lot, enter it directly rather than via 'active' and have a vested interest in its structure.
That has nothing to do with 'regular Mumsnetters', if by those we mean the people who read and post across the site and may have preferences but have no strong section allegiance.
So my point stands that 'regular Mumsnetters' are likely to be one of oblivious, confused or discouraged, if faced with a new, specialist section within FWR.
We've all been oblivious to the fact that an active post wasn't in AIBU and accidentally posted as if it was, haven't we? (I have).
Many of us have been discouraged from responding to a thread in 'active', once we notice it's in FWR rather than Chat, because we perceive 'serious discussion requiring academic levels of discourse', rather than 'everyday chat that makes no particular demands upon me'. (I have). Titles declaring the type of feminism allowed, rather than the much friendlier 'feminism chat' will exacerbate this effect.
Examples of people posting erroneously in one section because they're confused about what the title means, include people posting in 'conception' about how madly fertile they are. Things like that happen and some people care far less about their casual incursion than others.
There is no sub-section I'm aware of on MN that has its own set of formal posting rules, in addition to the Talk Guidelines. Policing the TGs and kicking out trolls is literally a full-time job for multiple staff already.
It is true that many sections have a strongly specific raison d'etre and self-police accordingly. There are also regular threads with very cliquey titles. What I can't think of is an example of a section being split into two sub-sections that the casual user can't make sense of fairly easily, without needing to be educated, in quite a formal sense and one that probably relies on knowledge obtained outwith the cliquey confines of MN.
You know pretty quickly whether you fit into a 'conception post-40' thread, or a 'we're all obsessed with whatever TV programme', or 'we've been chatting aimlessly together since 2011' one. But needing to identify what sort of feminist I am before feeling comfortable posting in the 'feminism chat' section? That's not 'chat' that's 'feminist theory' - and there's already a sub-section for that.
So I'm making two opposite points, both of which are true - because different MN users behave differently.
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Casual but confident users who mostly respond to threads in 'active' won't know or care what the 'house rules' of a particular feminist chat sub-section is, they'll jump in with whatever wording and content they please, if they find the topic interesting.
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Casual but cautious users, lurkers, who pay attention to section headings, will be put off posting and take far longer to de-lurk, if they ever get that far at all and aren't quickly and permanently put off by overt sectarianism.
And finally, as I said on the other thread, how long before someone, in all innocence, in a discussion about threats to women's rights and safety, mentions self-ID as one factor? Knowledge of 'trans issues' and self-ID is out there, because they are real things in the world. That knowledge isn't exclusive to the MN FWR board. MN does not have the power to put the genie of that reality back in its bottle. Insisting on a whole board full of discussion of FWR, that excludes mention of one threat to women's rights and safety, is flat-earther thinking.
So, where is the 'flat earth' section? Where is the 'promoting the march of economic progress - no you may not mention climate change' section? Where are the party-specific sub-sections in politics and news?
As an occasional reader and far less frequent poster there, I do recognise that there is something of a siege mentality in Feminism Chat. But also that that is because the section itself is literally under siege. It is true that it is an intensified version of what happens in the rest of the world, not a microcosm. That is because it's one of the only places on the internet where the threat to women's rights and safety of trans-activism may be discussed - so much of that, much bigger discussion, happens here. Also because of the same old, same old troll-luring properties of women talking amongst themsleves on issues that pertain to power in the world. But intensified because of the preceding point.
My answer to 'what to do' about that, is simply for MN to recognise and perhaps drop in to explain occasionally, that the proliferation of 'trans threads' is because MN's policy on free-speech is unusual amongst internet discussion forums, so other people interested in that topic happen to come here to discuss it. People not interested in those threads shouldn't 'misread' their proliferation as changing the focus of the FC section as a whole and should just get on with posting their own threads on topics that interest them.
That's a very long post for someone whose ultimate view is 'do what you want, give LibFem or whatever a go if it makes a few people happy, I don't really care (even though my prediction is it will be tumbleweed and if, for a while it isn't, it will soon fail)'. I'm looking at the issue more from a problem-solving perspective than an ideological one.