proposal : no closed threads anymore

Discussion in 'SF Open Government' started by sweet Pentax, Jan 22, 2004.

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  1. sweet Pentax Registered Senior Member

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  3. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    Are you referring to threads in this particular forum, or all forums?
     
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  5. sweet Pentax Registered Senior Member

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    this particular forum, at least
    in my opinion , threads should be killed - not closed ( to show the people how much you respect them, their input

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  7. Undecided Banned Banned

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    Yes it does sound oximoronic, this forum really shouldn't have any mod control. I mean this is supposed to be based on Greek direct democracy it seems. I mean I wouldn't want to click to the virtual agora to be pushed around. If I wanted that I would go to North Korea!
     
  8. Porfiry Nomad Registered Senior Member

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    I'm closing threads for proposals that are either finished or which have no chance of succeeding (because I choose to veto them). There's no point in voting/posting in such threads. Just trying to save some time.
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Is that about aesthetics, then? Is the lock icon ugly?
    On the one hand, I think of a scandalous 60 Minutes when I was a kid that talked about the wasteful habits of the US Senate, including coverage of debate and voting on "National Bagel Week." To the other, though, are the folks in Oregon who tried to fire every homosexual public employee and to compel the state to include a recognition of God in the Constitution.

    SFOG should not waste its time on issues that are either:

    (A) dead, or
    (B) stupid and wasteful.

    I see five (5) locked topics at present:

    • "About SFOG" - Sticky, informational, closed because it's a declaration.
    • "Bring Back Spookz" - The ruling is made; the authority is quite set on its decision; the debate was getting to be useless
    • "Proposal: Ban Fluid 1959 (with poll)" - Again, a ruling is made pertaining to the issues at hand. New issues can be included in a new topic.
    • "Merge Nerd Culture with Computer Science" - Ruling made, action taken; future issues can be included in future topics.
    • "Proposal: Ban EI Sparks" - Closed for being essentially pointless.

    Deleting or closing topics? I don't necessarily like to purge history. When I was a kid, my mother started flipping through a bunch of my school papers at a time when my ego was hypersensitive; I actually took back a short story I'd written and burned it. Every time I think of it now, it actually hurts. A part of history is lost.

    I burned it because looking at it, all I could hear was the mocking snickers of my classmates; it is only as time passed that I recalled my teacher sitting there with her mouth open: Did one of her students really just write that?

    And one of the foundations of my literary ambitions is gone. Because I found it in some way embarrassing.

    Personally, I think our acts should be left to stand as representative.

    I think, for instance, comparatively, the topic about banning Undecided is more than slightly ridiculous. But Sparks has his reasons; he's generally not a ridiculous poster. However, for sake of argument, what if asking for bannings becomes a habit? And people roll their eyes when a couple come up, but past topics have been deleted instead of closed, so people won't necessarily have before them a record of how many times the poster puts "oversensitive" or "improper" or just plain ridiculous ban requests before us?

    Think about it: When I tangle with someone, most people seem to roll their eyes and say, "There goes Tiassa, again." In fact, in a recent discussion where "paranoia" was an issue, a poster actually went back and deleted a post in order to make it look like it never happened. It might have worked if I was the only person who responded to the post in question, but I wasn't.

    People need to be held to their integrity. Seriously problematic topics will most likely be obliterated entirely, but especially here in the early stages, as folks want action with no real basis for action but their own concern, I think it's very important to keep a record of how we're behaving.

    Imagine our understanding of American history without the letters of Thomas Jefferson or other writings by the folks involved. No record of Common Sense or Poor Richard or, since it was stupid laws in the first place, the Tax Stamp Act or other offending records like troop quartering, confiscation of weapons, the problems of English law that inspired four Amendments in the Bill of Rights protecting people against law enforcement ... &c.

    A vacuum in history sucks up the dirt and grime. Look at the myths and conspiracies people believe in lieu of history.

    Beyond that, I've waited for something like SFOG for a while; Web Nation, World-Wide Web, e-Community ... none of these things make sense to me yet because folks don't invest the same sincerity in this form of community that they do in other parts of their life. I've spilled many words in the last couple days trying to extract some value to SFOG from topics both useful and useless. I'd be personally annoyed if my attempts to salvage value from the useless and stupid topics were obliterated for any but the most necessary reasons.

    However, I'm willing to sacrifice these words--especially since they don't do much--for an experiment, if Porfiry wanted to test the theory and delete this topic altogether.

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  10. sweet Pentax Registered Senior Member

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    I'm closing threads for proposals that are either finished or which have no chance of succeeding

    so this poll had no chance ( because it wasn´t finished , me thinks ) ? fine , people wasted enough time for nothing ? you could have killed the thread instantly - but no , pofiry even participates in this poll and gives the people here a "warm democratic feeling" , the feeling that they can change something !
    nice try , but it didn´t work this time , aye ?


    tiassa
    Is that about aesthetics, then? Is the lock icon ugly?

    to be really honest , i´m just angry that the spookz-thread has been "somehow disrupted"
     
  11. Undecided Banned Banned

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    Direct Democracy simply cannot exist where there is central figure, we essentially have a council of 9000 people here, who can vote. The only thing porf idealistically should do is enforce the will of the majority of the posters? Incorrect? Now I don't expect Porf to give up his position, nor do I necessarily want him to. But if this supposed to be a democratic forum area where all proposals should be taken seriously, and if not taken seriously that just fade into obscurity? It is a touchy issue, if Porf is the head of this. Then can we really call it an "open" area? I am wondering if this is a truly democratic area, or one of limited expression?
     
  12. sweet Pentax Registered Senior Member

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    power to the people

    that´s his slogan for OPEN GOVERMENT !
    now i just think this is a comfortable way to spare some of his important time

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    ( well .... of course it doesn´t work )
     
  13. Porfiry Nomad Registered Senior Member

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    Well it's not democracy, especially since I will always maintain a veto here. But really, this particular forum is intended as a place for proposals. And in order to make it obvious which proposals are open and up for consideration, it is necessary to close those that are not. If you want to say something after the fact, then Site Feedback is the appropriate place for such free-form discussions.
     
  14. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    In other words, would it be safe to say there will be no "Sex Toys" forum, no matter what people vote?

    (I promise, there is an obscure point in there somewhere.)
     
  15. CounslerCoffee Registered Senior Member

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    I hope, Tiassa, that you remember the previous thread that dealt with sex topics on sciforums.
     
  16. ScRaMbLe Chaos Inc. Registered Senior Member

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    I'm in no way impling that anyone other than Porfiry should have final veto, its his show and he can run it however he chooses. However, threads should remain open for a decent amount of time, because there may be some members who have a valuable contribution to make to particular debate who miss out on having their say simply because they dont log on often enough.
     
  17. Dapthar Gone for Good. Registered Senior Member

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    Undoubtedly, most of the threads are going to be about events that the posters deem unfair, with undue banning being at the top of that list. Frankly, if someone can get 100 people to vote on a (non-financial) proposal, I think that you should let it pass, since most of the posters know that getting even 80 votes on a poll is rather rare, even with the 9,100+ registered members of this forum.
     
  18. Porfiry Nomad Registered Senior Member

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    Of course, it's safe to say that there will be proposals that I reject.
     
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, I don't. If I put in an appearance, I was definitely high. Or else I am now ... or ... not high enough, or something. I vaguely recall it, but I don't think I actually paid attention. Or else I'm trying to forget it.

    Something about known unknowns and unknown knowns.
     
  20. CounslerCoffee Registered Senior Member

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    I looked for the thread, but found something else that kept me entertained for about five minutes. I have A.D.D.

    High... Drunk... Drunk... Drunk... I'm drunk a lot when I post on sciforums.
     
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