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Future of the Forum

JoeBentley said:
But will we really have the "same mods" seeing as how a great deal of how this forum is moderated has come down via decrees from "the higher ups."

The rules on smut especially seem to exist only because JREF dictated so.

Honest question how much of the moderation here was JREF dictated?
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As a quick summary rule 1, 2, 9, 10, no smut we're American and legal action threats are instaban are JREF edicts. The rest evolved with various levels of input of JREF input over the years.
 
JoeBentley said:
But will we really have the "same mods" seeing as how a great deal of how this forum is moderated has come down via decrees from "the higher ups."

The rules on smut especially seem to exist only because JREF dictated so.

Honest question how much of the moderation here was JREF dictated?
Click to expand...

I don't know how much was dictated and how much was preventive in order to head off something the mods thought the foundation wouldn't like.
 
JoeBentley said:
But will we really have the "same mods" seeing as how a great deal of how this forum is moderated has come down via decrees from "the higher ups."

The rules on smut especially seem to exist only because JREF dictated so.

Honest question how much of the moderation here was JREF dictated?
Click to expand...


I can't answer that question fully, because I wasn't around when the MA formed out of the primordial ooze. There's one rule, Rule 10, for which there's a general consensus (but far from unanimous agreement) among the current staff that it would not be necessary in its current form if the JREF weren't around to insist on it. There are portions of other rules that fall into the same category; for example, the rule against hotlinking could be re-examined once the threat of e.g. the JREF's reputation being damaged by a malicious or vengeful image host replacing a hotlinked image with porn no longer exists.

I think, though, that the question you asked is the wrong one. The more useful question is, how much of the moderation here is necessary to keep the manner of discourse and the social dynamics of the forum the way the members want it to be kept? If enforcing a rule contributes to making the forum what it is and what we want it to continue to be, it doesn't matter where it came from.

One rule that I think falls under this category (this is just an example; it isn't for me to dictate such decisions now or later) is Rule 11. Though it's responsible for a lot of work for moderators (moving, merging, and splitting threads, moving derails to AAH) and consequently the cause of many complaints about specific mod actions, keeping threads generally on topic has enormous benefits, one of which is making the discourse more inclusive. That's because when you see a thread topic that you have something to say about, it won't have drifted off into some other completely different topic by the time you got there.

It's premature to be talking about rule changes and moderation changes at this point in the process. But people are going to be thinking about them, so I ask you as you do so to keep in mind the key principle I just stated, and will now restate for emphasis. If enforcing a rule contributes to making the forum what it is and what we want it to continue to be, it doesn't matter where it came from.
 
Darat said:
As a quick summary rule 1, 2, 9, 10, no smut we're American and legal action threats are instaban are JREF edicts. The rest evolved with various levels of input of JREF input over the years.
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tsig said:
I don't know how much was dictated and how much was preventive in order to head off something the mods thought the foundation wouldn't like.
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Okay so would it be fair to say that the a fair amount of moderation on the board was either decreed by JREF or done based on probable reactions from JREF?

If that is true then I think the hope that the moderation will continue "mostly as it is" is a bit hopeful.

Now the question to whether JREFs influence on the Mods was negative/positive overall is a matter of opinion.
 
JoeBentley said:
Okay so would it be fair to say that the a fair amount of moderation on the board was either decreed by JREF or done based on probable reactions from JREF?

If that is true then I think the hope that the moderation will continue "mostly as it is" is a bit hopeful.

Now the question to whether JREFs influence on the Mods was negative/positive overall is a matter of opinion.
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Granted, but will you find anyone who thinks it wasn't negative? Now that the JREF is finally giving up this ship, I suspect things will improve in a few regards:

  • Rule 1 can go back to being "No posting CP, viruses, torrent links, and how-to guides for bombs" instead of having to be on guard against extensive discussions of the effects of "chemical enhancements".
  • Rule 2 can be rolled back to "please don't hotlink hardcore right in the middle of the the ****** thread, eh".
  • Rules 5, 9, and 10 can be discarded.
I think people have routinely misunderstood just how image-conscious the JREF was and how panicky they were. With there no longer being a need to protect a relies-on-donations organization's nebulous reputation, much of the ticky-tack stuff can be let go.

As a veteran of USENET, I can say that the civility rules might well be the only reason you can actually get worthwhile discussion in some of the threads (Farsight's is a great example), instead of "You're a bloody fool" being repeated over and over.
 
Myriad said:
If enforcing a rule contributes to making the forum what it is and what we want it to continue to be, it doesn't matter where it came from.
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Exactly, just because the rule "came down from above" doesn't necessarily mean it was wrong. Yes we should discuss the what moderation is needed, but I'm assuming that we want the forum to continue to be seen as an educational resource that people take seriously, and that means we should be concerned about what shows up attached to it's name in Google searches.
 
rdaneel said:
Exactly, just because the rule "came down from above" doesn't necessarily mean it was wrong. Yes we should discuss the what moderation is needed, but I'm assuming that we want the forum to continue to be seen as an educational resource that people take seriously, and that means we should be concerned about what shows up attached to it's name in Google searches.
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This.
 
Darat said:
As a quick summary rule 1, 2, 9, 10, no smut we're American and legal action threats are instaban are JREF edicts. The rest evolved with various levels of input of JREF input over the years.
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Well, to be fair, Rule 1 in particular is a complete no-brainer. I can´t see you guys - or anyone running a forum, really - no come up with something like this, sooner or later... probably sooner.
 
Myriad said:
It's premature to be talking about rule changes and moderation changes at this point in the process. But people are going to be thinking about them, so I ask you as you do so to keep in mind the key principle I just stated, and will now restate for emphasis. If enforcing a rule contributes to making the forum what it is and what we want it to continue to be, it doesn't matter where it came from.
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Knowing the histories of the various rules might streamline the rule-updating process. Anything like "we added rule X because we were having problems with Y" or "We tried rule V but it had unintended consequence W" would be useful.

That being said, I'm not advocating for any big rule changes right now.

If there isn't already a thread for that rule change discussion, there should be. If nothing else, it'll keep people like me from going off on tangents like this in this thread.
 
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I would hope the current level of moderation continues. It's what separates this forum from most of the others. It's one of the things I mention to friends, one of the reasons I recommend to them that if they want to join a message board this would be a good one.

I looked at one of the forums that was recommended as an alternative to JREF. I discovered a number of posters here are active members. I wasn't impressed with the level of discussion. In fact in some of the threads I looked at there was no discussion at all. It was all trash talk. Now writing messages like, "Dude you seem like you got sumpin on yur mind! Ain't nuthin' but a hat. Haha!" may be amusing to the person who writes it but it's not a discussion.

I don't want to see it here. Without proactive moderation I know I will.
 
icerat said:
Yes, feel free to start a new thread to discuss possible changes to the rules on the new forum.
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Someone want to do that? Perhaps post up the rules and ask for comments or votes or something? I'd do it but I'm relatively new to the forum, would be better coming from a mod I think.
 
icerat said:
Yes, feel free to start a new thread to discuss possible changes to the rules on the new forum.
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I think personal attacks should be allowed. It takes too much time to come up with clever ways of wording a response to make it clear someone is an idiot. Being able to tell them directly is more efficient.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
I think personal attacks should be allowed. It takes too much time to come up with clever ways of wording a response to make it clear someone is an idiot. Being able to tell them directly is more efficient.
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Perhaps you find it challenging, but it doesn't slow me down a bit.

See. Easy peasy!
 
I for one am sticking with this forum wherever it goes.

When it comes to forwarding from the current forum to its new home, it is possible to forward a URL like:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=281170&page=31
to a new home as follows:
http://theforumsnewname.org/showthread.php?t=281170&page=31

I know it's possible to do this because I've done it. It requires someone willing to make the change on the JREF server to get it to issue a "301 Moved" response and the new URL. I'll send this information in a note to Sharon.
 
Myriad said:
I can't answer that question fully, because I wasn't around when the MA formed out of the primordial ooze. There's one rule, Rule 10, for which there's a general consensus (but far from unanimous agreement) among the current staff that it would not be necessary in its current form if the JREF weren't around to insist on it.
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Keeping the forum kid friendly makes sense. Inconsistency moderating what constitutes trying to defeat the auto-censor however, is evident.


Myriad said:
for example, the rule against hotlinking could be re-examined once the threat of e.g. the JREF's reputation being damaged by a malicious or vengeful image host replacing a hotlinked image with porn no longer exists.
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Well well, what do you know. All that talk about burning up other people's bandwidth wasn't completely true, or rather it wasn't the complete truth. A little more honesty would have been nice.
 
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