Ok, finally have some time today to sit and respond thoughtfully...
Here's my thoughts on this subject...
First, let's get this out of the way: I'm CLEARLY a troll. I don't start threads to offend people. Never have, never will. But when I see a thread that is clearly baiting, I'm just the right kind of Jerk-Hole (read "word that I shouldn't say") to take the bait and run with it. I don't do it out of some sense of "I'm better than anyone." I do it because I believe that if I disagree with someone, I have every right to state that disagreement just as loudly and obnoxisously as the original post. Should I do it? Maybe, maybe not, that's debatable, and my friends often debate it with me. Believe me, many of my friends (rocktery and other) tell me all the time how much trouble my mouth gets me in... BUT, we're still friends, and they understand that I'm an a-hole. Keeping them around helps me remember that I can get carried away, and I try to stay just inside the line of offense. When I do cross the line, I apologize as soon as I realize it. Actually, in a recent spat on TRF, the whole thing ended quite amicably. I called and spoke with someone that disagreed with me. We spoke for 20 minutes and I found him to be pretty cool. Another guy and I PM'd back and forth a little bit, and we buried the hatchet. Those that find me offensive, if they're brave enough to interact with me personally, we usually find some common ground and agree to disagree and move on with life.
Second, I find it impossibly ironic when people tell me "If you disagree/take offense, you can just move on and not click/comment." So that person finds me disagreeable/offensive, DID NOT just move on and DID click/comment, but wants me to move on and not click/comment... ... ... Cognitive Dissonance, anyone?
Okay, now that that's out of the way...
1) The Watering Hole is a "social media space." There will be all kinds of dissenting voices and differing opinions about all kinds of stuff. I was thought, incorrectly, that politics and religion are forbidden topics on TRF. They're not. Directly insulting a person or a group of people is. Knowing that goes a long way towards establishing where, exactly, the guard-rails are. Having clear boundaries makes things much easier for knowing what's acceptable or unacceptable in this particular forum.
2) Many threads in TWH are at least a little bit rocketry related. Example, awhile back there was a thread about the movie "The Martian." I had zero interest in seeing the movie, but after reading some of the thread, I decided to see it. Where would that thread have happened? High Power? Recovery? TWH gave that thread a common-sense home, and why shouldn't it be on TRF? Some threads just have no where else to live on TRF, so The Watering Hole becomes a "catch-all" space for topics that don't really fit anywhere else. Why not have that? Does it take away from TRF as a whole? Nope.
3) Are there threads posted on TRF, specifically in TWH, that are clearly weird and awkward existing on a rocketry forum? Sure. But, having clear boundaries about what is and isn't acceptable makes it easy to know what we should or should not report to moderators and expect to be closed/locked.
4) Are there threads that are clearly just baiting a political/religious fight. Yep. But closing The Watering Hole doesn't stop that from happening. To make an analogy... (WARNING, analogy coming up, don't take this literally!) Should we ban all cars because a few drivers get drunk and run over people? Nope. That would be silly. What we should do is hold those people responsible for their irresponsible actions and let everyone else continue driving. If there was an easy way to prevent those people from driving then we should do that. But predicting which person is going to make an idiotic move like driving drunk is nearly impossible so all we can do is deal with it as it arises. Such is TWH... We can't preemptively stop people from being weird/idiotic/mean/whatever with their posts, but we can shut them down when they do that. Again, clear boundaries and clear consequences for breaking those boundaries is the best way to "prevent" such behavior and at the very least, makes it perfectly clear how to respond when it does happen.
5) All that being said, there are some REALLY off-topic threads in TWH. You never know when one is exactly what someone on TRF needed to read in that moment. And you never really know when someone is going to be offended, so what should be limited and what shouldn't be limited? Seems like the solution to the problem (if there's even a problem, and I don't agree with the premise that there is a problem to begin with), is to establish CLEAR boundaries and CLEAR consequences.
All that being said, I'll probably be a juvenile a-hole from time to time. I do it in real life as well as online. Ask anyone that knows me. I know it. My wife knows it. I accept it, AND I'm willing to accept the consquences that come from such behavior. AND I'm willing to accept that there will be others out there like me. So, yeah, as long as there's a space of any kind for people to interact with each other, there will be friction points. I'm okay with that. And I think you should be okay with it, too. If all else fails, technology is pretty super in allowing us to Block and Ignore things...
One final thought. This is one of the few spaces where I interact with people on the opposite political spectrum as me. The way Facebook works and other social media, it's super simple to become enmeshed in a bubble where I only hear from those that think as I do, and it happens VERY unconsciously. I didn't set up my facebook page to be a bubble, it's just happened over the years. I find it pretty GREAT that people of ALL stripes enjoy rocketry and come together and find common ground. If only our Congress and various state legislatures could start with the common ground of a common hobby, we might live in a better country. I'm a firm believer that diversity is the key to growth and happiness. I had never in my life held a gun until this past November. Never would have either, it it weren't for some rocketry friends. Now, I've got a need to fire a gun again. If I didn't keep spending my money on rockets, I would've bought a gun by now (oh, and my wife is still opposed to having a gun in the house). Anyway, point is... having this kind of friction-point in my life is a good thing. It makes me more self-aware, and it expands my horizons beyond my own little personal bubble. Keep the Watering Hole. Just EXPECT and be ready to deal with whatever kind of "hole" shows up...