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Living Room / Re: The case for and against Censorship on the forum
« Last post by mouser on April 20, 2012, 11:17 PM »Some quick personal thoughts:
I try to think about forum policies in terms of balancing different goals that are occasionally in conflict, and in shades of gray.
The forum serves multiple functions.
It's a community where all of us regulars like to talk to one another about whatever is going on in our lives and about our ideas, etc. -- totally unrelated to software, technology, etc.
It's also a place where new visitors come for help and guidance on technical issues -- on software that we make but also on other technology problems.
This is obvious but it bears repeating: The forum is not the only place to talk on the internet. In fact many of us regulars hang out in the irc chat room and talk till all hours of the night about whatever pops into our heads (politics, jokes, programming, employment, etc.). And the internet is filled with wonderful political blogs and all sorts of different forums.
So I do think there is value in having a tangible kind of focus, flavor, spirit, mood, energy on this forum that is different from most others. I don't want our forum to turn into something that looks like all the others. And I'm very sensitive to the danger of our discussions becoming insular -- becoming just us regulars talking to ourselves and not being an inviting place for new visitors.
So for me, I don't see an issue of censorship as much as I see us trying to formulate a set of guidelines and principles that helps us keep this forum open, inviting, and, for lack of a better word, specialized.
I am warming though to the idea of setting up a special section (soap box) which is slightly off the beaten track here -- such that there should be no concern that discussions there would detract in any way from the main general public sections.
I think perhaps that is the crux of the dilemna here -- that with only one public "Living Room", there is some pressure to ensure that it reflect well on the site and be inviting and representative of the focus of the site. But if we allow a "Soap Box" area where anything goes (politics, etc.) then perhaps that would not be an issue.
Having said that -- I think a great deal of the charm of this forum is that we share a common experience -- that we aren't broken up into little enclaves. So I think it would be important that the soap box not become a kind of alternate forum inside a forum where there is no shared experience.
I try to think about forum policies in terms of balancing different goals that are occasionally in conflict, and in shades of gray.
The forum serves multiple functions.
It's a community where all of us regulars like to talk to one another about whatever is going on in our lives and about our ideas, etc. -- totally unrelated to software, technology, etc.
It's also a place where new visitors come for help and guidance on technical issues -- on software that we make but also on other technology problems.
This is obvious but it bears repeating: The forum is not the only place to talk on the internet. In fact many of us regulars hang out in the irc chat room and talk till all hours of the night about whatever pops into our heads (politics, jokes, programming, employment, etc.). And the internet is filled with wonderful political blogs and all sorts of different forums.
So I do think there is value in having a tangible kind of focus, flavor, spirit, mood, energy on this forum that is different from most others. I don't want our forum to turn into something that looks like all the others. And I'm very sensitive to the danger of our discussions becoming insular -- becoming just us regulars talking to ourselves and not being an inviting place for new visitors.
So for me, I don't see an issue of censorship as much as I see us trying to formulate a set of guidelines and principles that helps us keep this forum open, inviting, and, for lack of a better word, specialized.
I am warming though to the idea of setting up a special section (soap box) which is slightly off the beaten track here -- such that there should be no concern that discussions there would detract in any way from the main general public sections.
I think perhaps that is the crux of the dilemna here -- that with only one public "Living Room", there is some pressure to ensure that it reflect well on the site and be inviting and representative of the focus of the site. But if we allow a "Soap Box" area where anything goes (politics, etc.) then perhaps that would not be an issue.
Having said that -- I think a great deal of the charm of this forum is that we share a common experience -- that we aren't broken up into little enclaves. So I think it would be important that the soap box not become a kind of alternate forum inside a forum where there is no shared experience.
