A Proposal for Curated Conversations

Conversation
21

Especially if they raise too many points, rather than just a lengthy explanation

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22

I agree that quality over quantity is better. There are a few people here who have a tendency to be long-winded and digressing into other topics. At the same time there are people who tend to treat the forum like a chat. (My observation is that the latter group are more numerous.) It’s hard to find general guidelines that will address both of these problems.

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23

Hard guideline are going to quickly run afoul of necessary exceptions. Let the participants decide within their own discussion.

Some loose rules:

  1. A curated discussion thread should begin by making clear the members invited to participate. Rules for the discussion should be stated and agreed on in the opening post (edit to include if necessary).
  2. Uninvited members may have their comments (re)moved at the discretion of the invited members. There should be some expectation that constructive comments will remain.
  3. No firearms or bladed weapons.
  4. There is no rule #6.
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24

I’m not sure I like this rule. What I want to prevent is 3-5 people ganging up on a single person with a minority view - many instances of which we have already seen in this forum. It is more interesting, I think, to see one person pursue a line of questioning for an extended time rather than multiple people saying, “Yes, I agree with your argument X that person A is wrong - let me show you another argument Y why”. Such comments are “constructive”, but they should be in a side comment. I think moderators should have the discretion to move out comments that are off-topic or make the discussion unbalanced.

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27

This is worth considering, making a chat topic that auto-deletes replies so its ephemeral: Using a topic as a chatroom - community - Discourse Meta

The other option may be this, but I"m not sure what chat provider would be lowest weight, or that could even work for us: Chat Integration | Discourse - Civilized Discussion

Here is some more of their advice: Effectively using Discourse together with group chat

28

Sorry, I should have gone back a read your suggestions more carefully first.

I think there are going to be exceptions, maybe lots of them, and it should be up to the original participants to decide when and what exceptions should be allowed. Moderators should prevent piling-on and assist the curation as much as needed. Otherwise, I suggest mods should interfere as little as possible (forum rules always apply) and allow the discussion to progress freely.

If a member of the discussion can do the moderation/curation themselves, more power to them. The moderators then only need to supervise a bit.

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