Since I've been riding shotgun over this forum for 7-8 months now, I should comment on this. In general, as MS stated, the description and actual practice have been that all historical periods were fair game. The current thread in the Watchtower was to discuss 1) should the description of the Monastery be updated to include history in general, and 2) should there be a cut-off date as to what is "history" and what is "current events". It seems everyone agreed that the description should be updated, but where the cut-off should be was not adequately resolved. While early replies indicated a cut-off somewhere in the first half of the 20th century, many of the later responders differed with this, one even suggesting "history" as anything up until the fall of the Soviet Union. It isn't clear to me where we go from here, but I'd definitely prefer 1960 as the absolute latest date, with 1945 being better and 1900 or 1918 as being best.

As for some of the more recent and more controversial threads (in subject matter and applicability to the Monastery), I have to take the brunt of this criticism. Unfortunately I am out of time at the moment, so I'll comment on this later. Sorry.