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Future of the Forum

lionking said:
It's only 18GB. Destroying the forum archive would be nothing short of vandalism.
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It's their property.

(The reason for my belief is the limited authority in the JREF's non exclusive licence to reproduce which I understand not to extend to transferring any of it to another party)
 
(In addition I don't see how ban enforcement could be carried over without the passing on of private information, or intelligence derived from that, for use in sockpuppet detection)

In short, I suspect the solution will be a new forum, started from scratch.
 
Francesca R said:
(In addition I don't see how ban enforcement could be carried over without the passing on of private information, or intelligence derived from that, for use in sockpuppet detection)

In short, I suspect the solution will be a new forum, started from scratch.
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I suspect you're wrong. Too much effort by too many competent people is currently going on to at least effect some sort of transfer. The little contretemps over Admin rights (not yet Admin rites - we're not ready to order in Father O'Banyon to do extreme unction) may have been precisely to prevent that sort of thing. If I get my rumor and innuendo correct the Admin rights were assigned to someone at the JREF not the JREFF, and calmer heads are prevailing to get things done without just pulling the plug,... or at least that's how I read it.

I'll bet you a glass of Pinot Grigio, m'kay? (It doesn't matter what you drink since you're not going to win.)
 
abaddon said:
It's not about volume of data, it's about what that data is. If JREF feels they have no legal right to transfer it, they won't. If JREF believes that it's continued availability on the web constitutes an ongoing risk of litigation, they also won't.
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I don't get that. One of the reasons I joined was because I saw Randi on TV sticking it to Doris Stokes and Don Lane. Randi has been courting legal action his whole life. You can't be a skeptic and not stir up vested interests that try to shut you down. To this day, Randi is still making accusations against people on his web site that they will not like.

If they are going to change this web site into one that won't say anything that will risk legal action, it's going to be sad day. I have no problem with having standards of dialogue and swearing, that doesn't stop you making factual claims based on evidence.
 
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That also isn't the thing. The thing is--will the JREF take on any legal risk whatsoever for the purpose of preserving historic forum content (which they absolutely do not wish to keep themselves and which they do not consider they will getany benefit from).

So not about whether the foundation would ever take legal risk but whether one believes they would take it (no matter how small) to benefit the interests of forum members they evidently don't care about.
 
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Yeah I'm not sure to what degree I really buy that JREF is an organization somehow terrified of litigation.

As noted James Randi essentially built his career on outing frauds. I'd wager there hasn't been a point in his professional career where he hasn't been involved in some sort of continuing litigation.

As others have (morbididly) suggested I'm beginning to get the vague vibe that JREF is starting to lay the framework for a post-Randi existence.
 
And again: it is not about whether the foundation is scared of litigation at all. It is about whether they will take that risk with no benefit to themselves. Way to miss the argument.
 
Francesca R said:
I will just add here that I am in favour of all legacy sanctions and disciplinary records being torched. Just like if a new forum was started. That obviously includes lifting all bans.

The rules would be best if kept the same as they have been.
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I'm curious about this, as there seems to be a rather obvious conflict between these two ideas. People who have been banned are, almost without exception, people who repeatedly and flagrantly broke the rules that you are saying should be kept. They are people who were given warnings, and multiple chances to change their behavior, and refused to do so.

Starting up a new forum is going to be traumatic enough; why would we want the additional difficulty of welcoming back people who've proven they pretty much don't give a **** about following the rules of the community of which we are a part?

To make an analogy...I have an NGO here in China, where I had multiple staff who refused to adhere to our policies and practices. They were subsequently ejected from the organization. If I were to start a new organization, with essentially the same policies and practices, what benefit would there be to offering 'amnesty' to the very people who'd previously proven to be most problematic?

And I know that comparing an organization like that to a forum is not perfect...it's just to illustrate the argument.
 
Well of course if anyone broke rules anew then there could be new bans.

I guess I see it as the JREF (as in owner) sponsored the bans and sanctions--all of them were implemented and enforced at the foundation's behest. And that entity will leave the scene.

Disclosure--I don't have any disciplinary history myself (yellow cards, suspensions), so I have no stake in an amnesty from that perspective.
 
JoeBentley said:
I'm sorry but I have to disagree. The inability to follow the rules as they are in place at that specific place in time is the relevent issue here.
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In that regard, I'd disagree with you. If someone got banned specifically for breaking a rule that does not exist in the new forums, and did not break any rules related to what the new forum does expect, then it is reasonable to assume that person would be able to abide by the rules of the new forum.

The problem here is that A) I think the new rules are going to be similar enough to the old ones that this won't be much of an issue, and B) it'd be hellish determining which people were banned only for offenses that are no longer offenses in the new forum.

As I said...for the most part, I support keeping bans in place, unless someone can present a compelling argument as to why their particular ban should be removed.
 
Francesca R said:
Well of course if anyone broke rules anew then there could be new bans.

I guess I see it as the JREF (as in owner) sponsored the bans and sanctions--all of them were implemented and enforced at the foundation's behest. And that entity will leave the scene.
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Quick note -- from what I've seen of discussions from mods past and present, there are very few situations where the banning of a member was exclusively because of the JREF's rules, and not because the mod team themselves agreed that the person should be banned. The only exception to this that I'm aware of would be people who were insta-banned for things like threatening lawsuits.
 
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Clarification of my role if the plan icerat has given the JREF goes ahead. I have committed to staying on for the transitional period, helping with any technical and administration issues, once the new structure and organisation is created I'll then make a decision as to level of my involvement. I don't feel I can give any more commitment at this point, and of course the new organisation may not want my continued involvement so it would be a tad egocentric to assume I would remain involved in the management of the new place.

At the moment I think icerat's plans are the most likely to keep the forum alive in a technical sense and also retain the spirit of this place, which is why I'm on board with his plans.

Fingers crossed the JREF accepts his plans.
 
When Bad Astronomy and Universe Today combined to form BAUT there was a General Amnesty.
This was partly because there were members banned on one site not banned on the other and partly because it was felt to be a New forum.

Some were re-banned after they did the same stuff again on BAUT others played along happily.

When BAUT became Cosmoquest there wasn't an Amnesty.
 
smartcooky said:
Never heard of them before your post.

I seriously thought he was using the word "Anonymous" as a placeholder for a username, like "John Doe" is used for an unknown dead body, or "Joe Bloggs" for your average man in the street.
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Me neither. One has to admit it wasn't clear from the post in question. One also has to admit that, since Anonymous users exist, it's an easy mistake to make.
 
Wolfman said:
In that regard, I'd disagree with you. If someone got banned specifically for breaking a rule that does not exist in the new forums, and did not break any rules related to what the new forum does expect, then it is reasonable to assume that person would be able to abide by the rules of the new forum.
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I think the point is more: are they able to follow the rules ?

If they couldn't follow the rules in place at the time, then the answer is no. Changing the rules may make a difference, but it may not.
 
Darat said:
Clarification of my role if the plan icerat has given the JREF goes ahead. I have committed to staying on for the transitional period, helping with any technical and administration issues, once the new structure and organisation is created I'll then make a decision as to level of my involvement. I don't feel I can give any more commitment at this point, and of course the new organisation may not want my continued involvement so it would be a tad egocentric to assume I would remain involved in the management of the new place.

At the moment I think icerat's plans are the most likely to keep the forum alive in a technical sense and also retain the spirit of this place, which is why I'm on board with his plans.

Fingers crossed the JREF accepts his plans.
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Good to hear, Darat. I can sense a general breathing-more-easily going on amongst the great unwashed.
 
Wolfman said:
there are very few situations where the banning of a member was exclusively because of the JREF's rules, and not because the mod team themselves agreed that the person should be banned.
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Which is consistent with how I view it. The mods of the day are the foundation's appointed reps.
 
Francesca R said:
Which is consistent with how I view it. The mods of the day are the foundation's appointed reps.
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Actually, I think you're quite wrong in that regard. From the time that Jeff Wagg left the JREF, and there was no longer any forum liaison, all control of the forum was turned over to Darat. With the exception of a few rules that the JREF insisted be included, the actual running of the forum was up to Darat, and the JREF had no involvement whatsoever in choosing mods. When Jeff was forum liaison, the JREF had at least some idea what was going on, and if Darat or other mods made decisions the members thought were wrong, we could appeal to Jeff. When Jeff left, Darat became the highest forum power.

So again -- the vast majority of bannings were because of a mod team that was essentially independent of the JREF; while I can't speak as a mod, I'm pretty confident that the mod team would agree that there were very few bannings where the mod team thought the person shouldn't be banned, but rules put in place by the JREF forced them to ban that person.
 
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