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Future of the Forum

The Central Scrutinizer said:
I think personal attacks should be allowed.
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You are confused about what "personal" means. For example, you learning that you are wrong about what a word means isn't an attack, but it does make it clear you are ignorant. Which isn't a personal attack.
The Central Scrutinizer said:
It takes too much time to come up with clever ways of wording a response to make it clear someone is an idiot.
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No, in fact it takes no time at all, and even less effort. Since somebody who is posting idiotic statements is already clearly an idiot to anyone who is not, you don't actually have to say anything. It just makes you feel good to do so.
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Being able to tell them directly is more efficient.
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Not really. For example, just being told you are wrong, in regards to the post I quoted, would do little to educate you. Being told "you are an idiot" is even less helpful.

This little gem of a post took less than a minute, and made me feel better.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
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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Actually, linking to an image you are hosting would make it quite easy to switch the image later, unlike a link to a news or science web page, which would probably never switch out a scientific image for a porn one.

If the intent is to avoid somebody slipping in a goatse image now and then, it would be illegal to link to any image outside the site, with exceptions made for trusted scientific and news organizations.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
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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Those two reasons (consideration for other people's bandwidth, and protection from malicious action by image hosts) are not mutually exclusive and have consistently both been mentioned as reasons for the current rule.

Hot linking does burn up other people's bandwidth, obviously. Whether or not that remains a sufficient reason under today's Internet economics would have to be discussed. I've read strong opinions on both sides of that question. That's why I said "re-examined," not "tossed away at the first opportunity."
 
On a new and non-JREF forum, anything JREF-specific might be removed. That might extend to JREF-imposed rules,such as the autocensoring of certain words; but that sort of tweaking may be a matter for later, once the basic forum is in place on a server where it is likely to stay for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps of more importance is to decide what sort of forum it will be.
Sceptical, I assume- but will it be as concerned with claims of the paranormal as before?
This, after all, is James Randi's prime area of interest and (I presume) will continue to be so in the new version of JREF's own website which is expected to roll out soon.
Do we want to be in competition with JREF? I see no gain in that for anyone.

More science? Well, we can all talk about science, but only a small subset of posters are really qualified to talk authoritatively.

More computer / internet stuff? I've certainly found the existing computer section a useful resource, but how many posters feel the same?

Maybe we need to try Crick's "Gossip test". Look at the stats , see which sub forums got most posts and concentrate on those - but in these latter days of social media, how much can be achieved by a purely "social" forum if that turns out to be where most activity is?

I reckon it's matters like this we might be pondering, while the back room boys (and girls) struggle to make the whole thing happen at all.
 
Belz... said:
Yes, I can see how much more "lively" the forum would become if we were allowed to insult each other rather than just use arguments.
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You have to be kidding. Right?

I see insults ALL the time on this forum. It's a defining characteristic.
 
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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I, for one, would not want to see the current rules of engagement change to any significant degree. The state of moderation of this forum is one of the primary reasons I'm here, instead of one of the other skeptical fora. Especially rules 10, 11, and 12. I strongly appreciate how the moderators work to keep threads on topic, and reign in threads that have devolved into personal attacks and bad noise. With most other fora I've looked at, once a thread gets over about 3-5 pages, any useful discussion has long since evaporated. Here, while there tends to be a lot of repetition after that point, there is still a lot of useful commentary as well.

I think that the rules as they stand have stood the test of time very well, and to change them too much would be to change the forum into something considerably less useful, less entertaining, and less like the ray of sanity that I've come to depends on.
 
r-j said:
You have to be kidding. Right?

I see insults ALL the time on this forum. It's a defining characteristic.
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No, this place is not even remotely free from insults and personal attacks and ad hominem arguments. However, by comparison to nearly every other forum I've been involved with, it's a freakin' Sunday school. Remove the civility rules, and how long before this places devolves into A+?
 
It says right in the MA that you will not be insulated from all insults. I agree that we should not make major changes to the MA, but it will certainly be reviewed and possibly tweaked (I would not oppose relaxing the rules further in the Community section, assuming there is still a Community section).
 
abaddon said:
The standard get out clause in any MA is something like this:



IOW, the forum itself is not responsible for what users may post. Each member is personally responsible for what they post themselves.

Now, while this technically covers the forum as an entity, it does not obviate the cost of vexatious litigation. The whole Corn Gods saga being a case in point.

With that in mind, I will make two points.

1. Most of the vexatious litigation stems from the association with Randi.org. It follows that whatever is developed after must be carefully separated from Randi.org, the MDC and so forth in a legal sense.

2. Many fora live on the intertubes and have no litigious issues at all, but it would be unwise not to provision for such. That said, I have known some where the provision was simply death and reincarnation. In the event of litigation, the forum would dissolve and re-emerge elsewhere under a different guise.
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Thanks for the general comments, abaddon.
Still
1. Most of the vexatious litigation stems from the association with Randi.org. It follows that whatever is developed after must be carefully separated from Randi.org, the MDC and so forth in a legal sense.
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The litigation magnet would be the JREF, then, not the forum.
The reasoning that the forum attracts vexatious litigation makes less sense than ever.
 
Belz... said:
Yes, I can see how much more "lively" the forum would become if we were allowed to insult each other rather than just use arguments.
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The rules here and the way they are enforced have stopped neither insults nor personal attacks.

Allowing both would not make the forum more or less lively (or "lively"), but result in less work for the mods.

Alternatively, an open discussion about how to better go about reducing insults and personal attacks might yield some results.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
...snip...

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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Perhaps a little bit more research is called for before making such aspersions? The change of a hotlinked image to a porn or otherwise unsuitable image has always been one of the stated reasons for the no hotlinking rule. Indeed the forum has actually had incidents in which an innocuous image was changed to a hard core porn image.
 
Much as I hate using Something Awful as any kind of an example for the way things should be run around here, I'd like to point out that the owner of that site has faced many, many vexatious lawsuit threats and has gotten out of all of them without any legal fees at all. AFAIK he has responded to all lawsuit threats with snarky letters he wrote himself. I believe that the JREF could have easily gotten out of the whole Corn suit without responding whatsoever since the complaint was so ludicrous. The court simply didn't need an answer from the JREF in order to see how ridiculous it was to attempt to sue internet posters for being rude to someone on the internet.

I'm just glad that I got my internet connection back in time to know what's going on over here. Another month or two of E-darkness and I might not have been able to reclaim my account on the other side :(
 
Darat said:
Perhaps a little bit more research is called for before making such aspersions? The change of a hotlinked image to a porn or otherwise unsuitable image has always been one of the stated reasons for the no hotlinking rule. Indeed the forum has actually had incidents in which an innocuous image was changed to a hard core porn image.
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I've been goatse'd on another site on which I hotlinked. I forgot about that. Horrors. :boggled:
 
Blue Mountain said:
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.
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This is amusing to me. I do have to wonder why there have been so many incidents of mods and people on the site saying something "can't be done" when it's done by us in a few minutes.

I think that people will eventually find their way around to each other again. What's up with the Australian Skeptics Site? Aren't they up and running already?
 
Given the hundreds of references to this forum on Wikipedia, I hope the JREF makes the effort of doing a 301.
 
A link to the Rules somewhere on the front page of the forum would be nice. By this I mean a link on the black header where it says "Forum Index, UserCP, Members List" etc that says "Forum Rules") , not a link that requires a considerable amount of guesswork and searching to find.

There does not appear to be any direct link to this...

Rules for all sections of the Forum (includes private messages & visitor messages and any other kind of post)

0. Be civil and polite.E1

1. You will not post anything that can be considered to be potentially criminal. The posting of computer viruses, child pornography, or links to computer viruses or child pornography is strictly prohibited. As are posts made under circumstances indicating a considered likelihood of inciting a violent or felonious act, or an intention or knowledge that its content will be used for, or in furtherance of, any criminal purpose. (Such posts will be moved offline and referred to the appropriate authorities.)

2. You will not post anything that is pornographic, obscene, or contains excessive reference to violence and/or explicit sexual acts. This includes representational artwork as well as photographic or video media and includes linking directly to such content from the Forum.

3. You will not post anything that demonstrates a clear and present danger to the welfare of another person, or otherwise tends to create alarm or apprehension that the welfare of any person is in imminent jeopardy. (Such posts will be moved offline and referred to the appropriate authorities.)

4. You will not post "copyrighted" material in its entirety and do not post large amounts of material available from other sites.E2

5. You will not "hotlink" unless it is explicitly allowed by the website.E3

6. You will not spam, flood or otherwise post in a manner that disrupts the functioning of the Forum, this includes using disruptive formatting in your posts.E4

7. You may only have one Membership account. Only the person registering an account may use it.E5

8. You may only post a Member's personal information if it is both publicly availableand is relevant to the ongoing discussion.
​
Additional Rules for posting in the JREF Topics, General Topics & Forum Topics sections

9. You will not post anything indecent. This includes content that depicts or describes sexual or excretory organs or activities in an offensive manner.

10. You will not swear in your posts. This includes using swear words in a disguised form, for example, by replacing certain letters in the word with another letter, character, or image.E6

11. You will not deliberately attempt to derail threads or start threads in the wrong section.E7

12. “Address the argument, not the arguer." Having your opinion, claim or argument challenged, doubted or dismissed is not attacking the arguer.E8​
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Help > Membership Agreement then scroll down to the rules is not obvious enough, especially for people for whom English is not their first language.
 
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