Inviting Comment on Forum Reorganization

Meaning: I will add you.

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I do want everyone, especially those in the scholar group, to consider Patreon support too. @dga471 has signed up, as a graduate student. I’ll explain more about why this is important in time.

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In a previous comment in another thread @swamidass wrote the following:

[quote=“swamidass, post:74, topic:1780”]
Peaceful Science is not where scientific thought is usually going to change. Public debate is not how that happens.[/quote]

The proposed changes appear to be addressing that concern and I can appreciate that. If substantive dialogue is the goal I agree restrictions have to be in place.

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Okay, most of the changes are made. Please give me feedback here. Also, please let us know about conversations you think should be moved to featured.

I like the stated proposed changes, @swamidass, and agree with and support @Agauger, @T_aquaticus, @dga471, @PdotdQ 's comments.

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We just had a long discussion about this. In the #Conversation:featured category, approval is needed. In the Conversation category, it is not needed. MOST posts are in the Conversation category. You can add more if you like.

There is a pretty large consensus about giving this a shot. If it doesn’t work, we will adjust.

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I just had a post altered by a Modulator without my knowledge or approval. Is that part of the new PS going forward too?

Changing posts without attribution was Sal Cordova’s disreputable tactic. You sure you want to emulate him?

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I had that happen yesterday. But there was a notification of the change. And when I followed the link from the notification, I could check the edit. A moderator had corrected my misspelling of a person’s name, which was okay by me.

So, there has been a large number of changes, too much for once. I’ve undone one big one, that was confusing people.

Featured conversations no longer require approval to post. They WILL however, be tightly moderated. If everyone behaves properly there, we may not need to change the setting back.

@Timothy_Horton and @jongarvey, ope that helps with your questions.

The #conversations category is post-able by everyone, and does not require moderator approval.

I have enjoyed reading the things @PdotdQ has posted. I also think too many discussions get to an unproductive point but things go on and on. I think this is not unusual for a forum that is growing rapidly and it is a challenge how to manage that. I hope the Scholars area can be open enough that someone educated but not a specialist in a certain field can ask questions (not that someone who has a pet theory can lecture real experts why he is right and the world is wrong).

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You are in the soon to be formed “peaceful” group. For now we will call you a scholar. Actually no, you are TL3, so you can post directly in the scholars place any ways.

I can not as a matter of conscience provide financial support to any group that supports any religious or faith belief. I only support secular charities and organizations.

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Is there a thread or post that explains Patreon in more detail? I am unsure what it is or what to do with it.

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Here you go: Soft Launching Patreon.

I’ve noticed since the reorganization in the last few days that the front page is filled only by Scholars and Featured Conversation. And there seem to be quite a lot of Featured Conversations, more than regular conversations. Perhaps we need to be more judicious about what gets to be counted as Featured Conversations? I think the tag becomes meaningless when there are 10-20 featured conversations active at one time. I am more in favor where there are only 3-5 of such conversations (and preferably with a diversity of subject areas), so that the forum can devote their energy to those few topics. Thus, we will be able to make normal Conversations go on regularly. Perhaps we could then allow some normal Conversations to be listed on the front page as well (after the Scholars and Featured conversations).

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Quite possibly – worth a shot, at least. I will see how it plays out.

Ever since the reorganization almost every time I click on a thread It puts me back at the top and I have to scroll all the way back down.

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@Timothy_Horton,

It certainly isn’t censorship.

But @dga471, what exactly is the point of imposing a number of postings or number of words?

I don’t believe any of the “discourse” systems are set up to monitor those numbers…

If someone is FLOODING the airwaves with too much, they get knocked down to a lower trust level… but we would only need a very HIGH limit to accomplish something like that.

Imposing a limit that is so low that lots of people bump into it seems counter-productive… even assuming the system knows how to do it…

@T.j_Runyon

I seem to recall that being a setting … it may even be a PERSONAL setting… something you might be able to control… I’ll look around…

@purposenation

Boy, do I agree with that !!!

A week or two at Trust Level Zero, where any bashing is simply stopped before it can be published would solve this pretty well. After a while, they may even learn to edit their own hostilities… (maybe).

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