User Suggestions for Future of Atheist Forums

[Shell B]

Moderator Notice
I've deleted multiple comments AGAIN that are just reactions to other people's suggestions with no new suggestions of their own. STOP. This is taking a lot of time as it is, and it's nice to have this much feedback. Save the other shit for the peanut gallery.

[tackattack]

Here's something I just thought of, but haven't thought about to consider whether it's good or bad.  Allow one-on-one or group debates in the current debate forum section, just don't have a moderator.  If people who aren't originally invited want, they could PM a member and ask to be invited.  Participants could choose to veto any specific person joining.  (Still spitballing, but participants--maybe--being allowed to eject a participant by majority vote.  Maybe too much Robert's Rules for a discussion, I don't know.)

I thought I did discuss leaving things the way they are and just using the debate section more. Perhaps it was in Ryleh. Then asa suggestion I would suggest a debate type that would be informal like an Impromptu debate with panels and word counts and possibly no round set. It could even start man-to-man (debate type not to be sexist) or have an uneven panel. Topic introduced by a moderator that would have the panel list. As with every debate, a peanut gallery is generated for less restricted content and members of the debate, can't quote outside sources.

 I would even possibly be amenable to drawing up scorecards, or rule sets if that is desired.

[mlmooney89]

I would like to agree that some things shouldn't be allowed in the general public threads. Move it over to Ryleh. Things I think should be banned from general view are name calling of any specific group of people (religitards,republicunts) I'm not religious nor a republican but it angers me every time I see it, foul language in the thread title, foul language directed at someone (ie "You are a dickwad" vs "This area is fucking awesome")

I'm not asking to rinse out potty mouths because cursing isn't the problem. The problem is that as a group we are allowing each other to be hostile and most find it funny. Let them find it funny in a sectioned off area. Y'all were right we don't need a civil section because we should just be civil in general. Y'all that want to be nasty and crude can go play together.

---

Also one more suggestion. I suggest this one after literally seeing a mod do it just a few minutes ago.

Mods need to give up the right to "speak their mind" when their mind is insulting others and calling names. I think it would be in the site's best interest to make the mods agree to no insults regardless of what color or style they are posting in.

[I_am_not_mafia]

My suggestion would be for the moderating team to ask what they want to achieve with this forum. Is it a community? Is it a place for people to have a conversation about religious matters? Is it meant for heated debate? Is it for people recovering from religion? Is it to educate and promote critical thinking skills?

It's tempting to try and be all that, and yes it can be done. But trying to achieve one objective can make it more difficult to achieve some of the others. So you need to put them in order of priority. Once you do this it will become clearer what needs to be done.

[Angrboda]

Here's something I just thought of, but haven't thought about to consider whether it's good or bad.  Allow one-on-one or group debates in the current debate forum section, just don't have a moderator.  If people who aren't originally invited want, they could PM a member and ask to be invited.  Participants could choose to veto any specific person joining.  (Still spitballing, but participants--maybe--being allowed to eject a participant by majority vote.  Maybe too much Robert's Rules for a discussion, I don't know.)

I thought I did discuss leaving things the way they are and just using the debate section more. Perhaps it was in Ryleh. Then asa suggestion I would suggest a debate type that would be informal like an Impromptu debate with panels and word counts and possibly no round set. It could even start man-to-man (debate type not to be sexist) or have an uneven panel. Topic introduced by a moderator that would have the panel list. As with every debate, a peanut gallery is generated for less restricted content and members of the debate, can't quote outside sources.

 I would even possibly be amenable to drawing up scorecards, or rule sets if that is desired.

Yes, but my suggestion is that the debates in the debate section be essentially self-policed, instead of enlisting the services of a member or staff moderator.

As to my suggestion of having civil threads, marked as such, with participation and civility being, mostly, voluntary. I think it could be successfully implemented with the addition of the following rule:

Civil threads

Something something about the purpose and expectations for behavior and content of civil threads. Explanation of indications that a thread is a civil thread. Members posting in civil threads are asked to police themselves. However, repeated posts containing insults, insulting language, off-topic or inflammatory material, or other disruptive content may incur a thread ban for that particular civil thread. Multiple thread bans for violation of this rule may result in site-wide bans. Repeated site-wide bans for this offense may result in a permanent ban.

[emphasis simply to highlight the important bits, not proposed as part of the rule]

I think with that rule in place, and visible differentiation of civil threads, that should be enough to allow enforcement of civility, while simultaneously allowing some freedom and not requiring as much moderator intervention, while at the same time prevent abuses such as Neo suggested in which people target civil threads for disruption as doing so then has consequences.

[Catholic_Lady]

New suggestion, bouncing off Mooney's idea:

We should strive to choose mods who are the type of people who are cool headed, fair, and not emotionally driven. It sets the tone/atmosphere of the forums when we see how the people who run this place behave - whether that be in a positive or negative way. Choose people who model what you want AF to be, and perhaps it will encourage others to follow suit.

[no one]

Can we get a taco button?

[J a c k]

Moderator Notice
Again, guys. If I can’t tell if you’re serious, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, anything other than serious suggestions will be unapproved.
And to clarify, please refrain from responding to other suggestions. If you hit reply, you’re responding. That’s what the other thread is for. This one is for suggestions only.

[Ravenshire]

After a chance to cool off, I'd like to make a couple suggestions:

First, I think we need better enforcement of the rules already in place before a decision is made to add more/change existing rules. Even Tibs has said that the rules (at least the Prime Directive rule) haven't been effectively enforced. Along with this, a more stringent application of the existing rules. We've got a thread that has gone (as last I checked it) nearly 800 pages, driven by one or two (if one's not a sock of the other) trolls and no move to shut them down. We've got one member who spammed the board from months with different flavors of "proofs" using different words to convey the same message over and over. I know, I should report behavior I see that I think is violating the rules. The problem with that is that I'm almost always told "they're not trolling/spamming/whatever." Hell, my last report, as far as I can tell, was simply ignored. In short, the rules we have are fine, as long as they're enforced.

Second, in light of recent comments about the staff (and the roughly bi-annual flaming of whoever happens to be on staff at the current time), I'd like to see all the staff members given an additional, generically named staff account. By all means, keep their personal account names in green and red, there's no reason to hide who our moderating team members are, but give them some anonymity when speaking "with mod hat on." I think people will be less offended if it's not their "buddy" posting a speed bump, passing out a warning or dropping a week-long ban on them. It should also make it far easier for everyone to look at staff members as SteelCurtain or Shell B (not trying to single you guys out, just an example) despite the color of the name when they're participating as members and not as staff members.

[Ravenshire]

After a chance to cool off, I'd like to make a couple suggestions:

First, I think we need better enforcement of the rules already in place before a decision is made to add more/change existing rules. Even Tibs has said that the rules (at least the Prime Directive rule) haven't been effectively enforced. Along with this, a more stringent application of the existing rules. We've got a thread that has gone (as last I checked it) nearly 800 pages, driven by one or two (if one's not a sock of the other) trolls and no move to shut them down. We've got one member who spammed the board from months with different flavors of "proofs" using different words to convey the same message over and over. I know, I should report behavior I see that I think is violating the rules. The problem with that is that I'm almost always told "they're not trolling/spamming/whatever." Hell, my last report, as far as I can tell, was simply ignored. In short, the rules we have are fine, as long as they're enforced.

I'd like to expand a little on this point...
Along with better enforcement of the rules, I really think some of the rules are to ambiguous to enforce. I'm not going to go point by point through the rules here (I'm writing a post, not an essay ), but if any of the staff would like to hear suggestions about it, I'm game.

This place became my home for years after AF.com became untenable and I would truly love to help everyone get past these latest difficulties.