To all and especially to the moderators. First of all, this thread is not a debate thread. I welcome honest, objective feedback. Please lay all resentment aside as you peruse this thread. This is a brainstorming idea. Treat it as though you are at work and you need to work on administrative issues. PURPOSE: The purpose of this thread is to discuss the issues surrounding constructive informative dialogue, and to propose some solutions to attain this goal. This is a global issue affecting other forums as well. I wish to take a view at the 50,000 foot level. BACKGROUND: As a result of "noise" issues in forum threads, it is difficult, frustrating, and time wasting for both readers and participators. Moderators are overworked and expensive bandwidth is consumed with the "noise" that provides negative value to the discussion and subverts the original intent of the stakeholders. I have observed this theme over and over in threads where I have not even participated: People get mad, communication gets poor or irrelevant and moderators lock the threads in despair. DISCUSSION: 1) What does everyone want? I provide a poll as a thumbnail . Perhaps there should be a subforum or some other forum for those with special interests. 2) How does a thread progress into a shouting match, hurling of insults, and acrimonious emotionalism? 3) How can governance more effectively achieve the goals? Do moderators want to micro-manage every thread that is posted? 4) How do we measure the "health" of a forum in attaining its objectives while adhering to it's policies and procedures. 5) How are people informed at both the macro and micro level regarding forum health? What is their personal action plan to improve? 6) Are some issues strictly off limits for debate? How do you determine this? Perhaps some issues should be: eg homosexuality, religious conversion, any debate regarding racism, and others. RECOMMENDATIONS: A) I propose first of all that people should understand why other people are here. I don't have a specific recommendation on this point, except at the personal level, perhaps a poll should be conducted by each individual. B) Extreme views need to be separated. whereas moderate positions are allowed to participate in any thread. Perhaps icon "markers" should be used to identify their specific positions on hot issues, and hot threads should be marked by the originator. "Hots" are not allowed to enter a thread where their opposition is already discussing the issue that they are hot about. I personally have hot issues, and admit it. Others should be allowed to "brand" a person that is not objective about where they stand on the position. Hence if an atheist has a thread marked "for atheists only" my position as a christian automatically bars me from the discussion. Likewise if I have a thread marked "for christians only" I don't end up with 20 pages of emotional attacks and schemes from those that disagree with who I am rather than what I have to say. Think of the cost and time savings. C) Measures should be provided at both the macro level, sub forum level, and micro level (individual). Some that come to mind are: % of threads banned % of posts that contain abusive language based on a random selection members % ban ratio (bans per number of threads posted) satisfaction polling done by members D) I propose that intelligence testing should be administered before someone can join sciforums. This is supposed to be an intelligent forum, and the people that participate should be intelligent. There are probably several online testing functions that would accomodate this criteria. Pass the test to become a member. Perhaps IQ 120 is a resonable cut-off point. Also there should be testing for communication etiquette. E) I propose an auditing function (which I could supply independently from sciforums or any of the other forums). As a six sigma black belt I am qualified, and I would like to start my own forum to evaluate the health of other forums. There could be considerable savings in bandwidth consumption, wasted time (ohh how many hours I've wasted here), and improvement in satisfaction. I think site owners would appreciate a volunteer service like this. Sincerely, your infamous and often misunderstood Hippocritter My Votes: Debate Information I thought we could see how people voted. Moderator please change poll to make voters visible in the poll. Thanks.
Already I see a conflict arising from the poll voting. An informative dialogue does not fit in with chastisement and fussing.
I've actually gotten some pretty good advice when I wasn't fooling around pissing people off. It's kinda cool to have such a developed group of thinkers available to me for assistance. I somewhat admire this site for it's logical, insightful formatt.
Other: 1. Reading about clever people saying things. 2. Finding other people who like soup... and destroying them.