In light of recent events, the staff would like to open up some discussion on balancing free speech with an at least somewhat welcoming environment that's conducive to on-topic discussion. We would like to take suggestions from the forum on how we can promote an attitude to that end without inhibiting our ability to share our opinions and criticize each other's world views. This is where you can share those suggestions.

Please note:

In the interest of organization, we ask that you please do not respond to each other's suggestions in this thread. Please only make your own suggestions and/or kudos the suggestions you like and move on. This will help us get to everyone's suggestions without wading through conversations, but you can, of course, create a peanut gallery thread.

We also want to emphasize that we're trying to consider every single suggestion, but there is no guarantee we can implement even one of them, so please remember that coming into this thread. We're doing the best we can to find a balance.

ETA: I am deleting comments that are responses to suggestions. I told ya not to do it. Also, serious suggestions only.

When are we getting a poop emoji, for chrissake??



ETA: A smilie just to clarify I'm joking!

-Teresa

I would suggest just enforcing the already in place forum rules. I believe them to be sufficient. Organizing is another issue.

I would like the new posts filter to be variable to preference. Ie. under user prefs have an option to show all new posts or only posts I’m subscribed to.

Either that or have results nested under the forum it belongs to like a collapsible folder structure.

Either option would help with accidentally posting in an area you might not really wish to post in.

Yall are doin great in a shit job, keep doing you.  This place will never be everyone's cup of tea.  That's my suggestion.

Not a clue.

1. Expand the debate area to allow panel discussions for closed invitation-only groups.

2. Moderate thread titles to remove insulting, vague, or provocative references.

Thread safe option or civil rules in place option for people making threads. Label the thread that. As well, have it as a limit of 3 or something like that, per month per member. So that it over all stays all rules allowed, but some threads have civil rules in place.

Really, the only difference I can think of is extending the amount of time where editing a post is allowed. It can be annoying to look back on a thread and notice that you really made a glaring typo. Or fix whatever bug causes certain words to disappear from a passage that's in links.

I still suggest a Civil Discussions section to be available for those interested. I feel like it is a good compromise because people can choose whether or not they want to post in it, and if they don't like it, they still have the rest of the forum for more freedom. If Tibs is the only mod willing to mod it and needs help, Poca has already volunteered to be made a mod again to help mod that section.

Another thing I suggest is making a rule about thread titles not being overly nasty. The reason for this is that it may attract the wrong kind of people to join. From an outsider's perspective, try to imagine what you would think if you were looking for a forum, clicked on here, and were immediately met with thread titles with hateful words towards particular groups of people. It may certainly attract the wrong kinda crowd, and scare off the type of people who aren't about that. Also, I feel it kinda sets the tone and atmosphere for the forums, in a way, since it's right there and staring us in the face all the time.