You are arguing a straw man.
I'm not arguing with anything.
I didn't say there was no duplication in Anandtech. I stated "Anandtech emphasizes no reposts", which is conventionally regarded as posting multiple threads about the same story. A hot and wide-ranging issue such as firearms and the Second Amendment unavoidably encompasses a wide spectrum of stories. Deciding where to draw the line defining differences warranting a new thread is subjective. Most normal stories, however, get a single thread, with moderators locking or merging duplicates.
Double? No. Increase by some amount? Certainly. Please note what I said: " Many people will want to follow both threads" while only "Some will want to actively participate in both threads." Less than double, greater than none.
Easy tiger. I'm not sure I grant substantially greater than none; time is a commodity on both ends of the equation. Following threads takes time, yes, but posting in them takes even more so. In order for the posting volume to go up, which is what this requires, either these changes will cause people to spend more time posting than they otherwise would have, more people to participate than they otherwise would, or people narrowing their focus only discussing a few issues when they otherwise would have discussed more.
If someone only has a few hours in the day to post and they were already filling that time, this isn't likely to cause an increase in their overall post total. Perhaps it will cause the average poster to spend more time here so they can post in all the places they want to post, but the whole premise of your argument seems to stem from insufficient time to read everything they want to read. If people don't have enough time to read all the threads they want to read they probably aren't going to post in all the threads they might otherwise post in.
The second option, more people participating, would be a good thing, so we will leave that alone.
The third one, a greater focus, is interesting but still unsubstantiated. I don't see any particular reason to believe two places they can post will cause them to post on fewer topics. What's more, if everyone has different hot-buttons, which seems to be the case, you would expect an increase in specialization amongst the post base to more or less even out in most cases as people select different foci. I'll grant it could become an issue when a high profile event happens, like the Sandy Hook shooting, but if we are being frank, P&N fills up with dozens of threads different by only the slightest degree anyway.
Sorry, I can't just grant this. Unless you can give me a plausible source for all the extra time required to make the duplicate content for the threads to significantly impact the overall reading volume one has to do, I'm going to have to say your objection seems, while not impossible, at least unlikely. Yes, you will get double the number of threads, roughly, but the overall reading required to follow them probably won't change much.
Which sounds like a great solution for you, and I have no quibble with that. Others may have different preferences, however.
That is going to be true of any solution you care to propose. Some people, such as yourself, would be happy with broad rules and moderator discretion being the dominant guideline in their enforcement. Some people wouldn't like that. Very clearly some people like P&N as it is, as evidenced by them posting the way they do. Your proposed changes would not meet their preferences either.
In all cases a solution for one will not be a solution for everyone.
I agree that if one looks only at the new sub-forum, content should be more concentrated (or to put it another way, the S/N ratio should be better). If one looks at both P&Ns together, however, content will be diluted overall. The issue is where people post unique content. Some will be repeated in both forums, meaning people reading either forum will see it. Other content will appear in only one forum, however. Therefore, reading ALL of the content available will require reading both forums, including wading through not only the usual noise but also the now-duplicated content. Thus, total P&N content will be diluted, at least to some extent.
Each person will have to decided for himself whether it's worth the time and effort to read both forums to see all unique content. That's not the end of the world, but it is a drawback for those who don't want to miss anything.
Perhaps, but I still don't consider it to be overly likely to significantly increase it for the reasons went over above. All the duplicate content takes time to create and adding a subforum won't give them any more time to post there. People will have to pick and choose what they post just like they pick and choose what they read.
Which brings me back to my original point. "While not my preference, the split P&N approach is certainly a viable alternative." I thought this was clear that I wasn't suggesting the sub-forum was unworkable, or even that it was a bad idea. I like the idea, at least as an experiment, even though it isn't my first choice. I was simply responding to the suggestion that it has no drawbacks by pointing out a couple of them. There are pros and cons to everything.
Fair enough. It is often hard to tell when someone is against an idea or merely just pointing out the downsides to an idea where the upsides have already been sufficiently covered when all they focus on are the negatives. If you say you are doing the latter, I have no reason to doubt you.
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