We are getting a major uptick in attention now. We need to make the forum more effective. Key goals:
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Encourage prolonged and deeper dialogue between scholars.
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Prevent quality conversation from off and on topic disruptions.
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Minimize reliance on moderator judgement, and activity.
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Highlight the best examples of Peace Science for visitors, and for regulars.
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Maximize freedom and inclusiveness, so even “bad actors” are not totally silenced and can have their voice heard.
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Reward good behavior, credentials, and Patreon support with increased visibility.
We are not the first group in origins to face this complex set of mutually contradictory goals. We now, however, have a critical mass of scholars. We can try and to do this in a different way.
Two Groups
I propose these general groups of participants, thought there will be tweaks:
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scholars, which will include those we manually add to the scholars group, trust level 3, and patreons.
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Public, which will include everyone else.
Inclusion in the scholars group will be by our discretion, and will include a mix of these factors:
- Noteriety
- Credentials
- Expertise
- Pattern of behavior
- Patreon support
We will actively seek a diverse group. Right now the scholars group includes @pnelson, @nlents, @jordan, @T_aquaticus and many more.
Many Categories
I propose these categories.
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Scholars categories, such as “Office hours” to function as it has done so far, only allowing scholars, but everyone can see. Though it would be renamed.
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Platformed conversation, a new category everyone can post and reply to, but will all posts will require moderator approval.
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Conversation category. This will work much as it does currently, though mess tightly moderated. One big change: it will no longer appear on “latest” view, and topics will have much less visibility. Quality topics will be promoted to platform often. So good posting behavior will increase visibility on a thread by thread basis.
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Private conversations will function like the back Porch, to take conversations off search engines though they will remain visible to logged in users. This will be less necessary going forward because most conversations will be off the front page anyway.
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Private scholars category. This will be a private category only visible to scholars. It will be the one place threads cannot be moved into public at a later date.
Scholars will be able to post everywhere. The public will not be able to post in the public or private scholars category. The most visible threads will be scholar category, but a approval-gated conversation thread will be portable to everyone.
What are your thoughts? Please let me know.