Tyralak wrote:If you see it as a Trek version of SDN, then I have a lot more work to do. It really is the opposite of SDN. They seem poised to suffocate themselves with their own arrogance and pompery. They take themselves and their hobby to vulgar extremes of seriousness. My site is lighter in tone, and has very few rules. I want it to be a place with interesting debate, and discussions of all areas of Sci-Fi. But I also want it to be a place where you can go to just have fun, even if you aren't that into the subject material. That would be the ultimate success. I'll give the example again of TrollKingdom. I'm there daily. I do not consider myself a troll. The art of trollery isn't even all that interesting to me. But I've made friends there, it's never boring, and there's always things to keep me coming back. ASVS was the same way. Even when I tired of the debate, (which happened from time to time.) I went there to argue, talk with friends, read fanfics and catch up on things.
The thing is that you're fighting tyranny with anarchy (to an extent). What you need is a healthy ballance of things with moderators that aren't biased. Take JMD; he allow for fairly loose opinions and debating, so long as you keep it civil and mantain a decent standard. You need to take some of that good moderating and put it to use. That doesn't mean you can't have your own style or preference, but take some of hte good stuff you see and roll with it.
I might even suggest asking him to take up a moderator position or ask him to be an advisor, since he probably dedicates a great deal of time to this site already, so maybe moderating is a bit of a bad choice for him since he won't be able to do much of it, but if you need to an extra hand of if he decides to make regular visits to your site, it's good to have someone you can trust to lend a hand. And I don't just mean people who aren't SW fans. People that you know will be responsible. Mr. O and l33tboli are also good choices if they're up for it.
Your idea of free speech is good, but that doesn't mean you should allow others to abuse that right. If a debate has become nothing but potty words and clever 'yur mamma' insults, then the thread has failed. If a debate is going nowhere because some idiot is evading his responsibilities, then you need someone to step in and tell them that's wrong.
And that's why I would say that O and l33t are good choices; both of them have dealt with people like Leo or Point who play around with bullshit claims, trying to use the letter of canon or the quote to see them through rather than the meaning or the intent. And given their personas, they're capable of backing up and taking a sane take and making an unbiased judgement.
I realized this almost immediately after I put it up. Which is why I added the line to the banner "Free Speech Sci-Fi Community." I am wanting to branch this out into more areas. I have a large off topic area, and am trying to add content to the other Sci-Fi areas. If you have some input or suggestions on what you would like to see that you would enjoy having there, by all means let me know. I'm completely open to suggestions. Why not register and bring some of your ideas to the table?
I would say try and meld them into the concept. The downside is that you'd want to add some other sci-fi to the already nice picture you have, which would be a shame if it didn't work. It depends on how good you are at working that sort of thing. But more so, try to make it a sci-fi chat/debate group. Have a news section where you can post updates to sci-fi popular sci-fi shows or/and events.
For bans that last longer than x amount (say a week), maybe you might need two mods to agree that the one on the block is deserving of a longer sentence. For permabans, I would suggest a larger amount plus your personal approval (barring sock puppets). I would also suggest that having sock puppets is a bad idea, since it allows for a measure of dishonesty. And really, after a while some of us will be able to tell who they are via writing style.
I would also suggest putting up a section focused towards tech analysis and I would suggest asking JMS and 2046 if they wouldn't mind allowing you to post some of their works, perhaps a section devouted to essays on entire subjets. Hell, l33t, Mr. O, and even myself have some rather impressive bits we could add for particularly troublesome arguments that some indivuals push forward.
Putting this into a neat and organized section would mean that many people could go over the arguments and analysis of other, more experienced debators. For that section though, I would suggest a sticky thread(s) where only mods can post, so as to keep a level of quality. Perhaps then you might have another section or those within that section as regular threads for those submitting works. That will allow other members of the board to go over the paper, point out weak points, mistakes, and suggest how to fix it up. When all is said and done, the paper can be tweaked or rewritten to satisfy the level of quality you would like and post it with the rest (you might want separate threads in said section for specific issues, such as weapons, defenses, industry, debate arguments, debating tips, and others that will allow people to learn, not just learn dogma).
This way, you’re not just allowing for free discussion, but enabling people to give free, knowledgeable discussion, rather then letting them run their mouths until someone more experienced spanks their ass around the forum. I would also suggest having a few other moderators. This way, you can encourage growth rather than raw, untamed ideas. Chaos is good for creating ideas, but it has little idea how to use them (ironically enough).
Hell, I would say that making 2046 one of the mods might be a good idea, though I would suggest his be in said threads that show for essays, since a) he has written a good deal of papers on the issue, b) he’s not a loon, and c) he’s very focused on the matter. Of course, I wouldn’t suggest him being the only power or else people are going to accuse him of bias moderation. I would say that essays that get stickied should have a variant of mods looking over it. L33t, Mr. O, and JMS should also help with that sort of thing. Hell, I might even suggest Aratech if he isn’t too put out by the idea, simply so we can have someone who is an SW and Halo fan who isn’t a) batshit crazy b) an asshole, or c) a loon. He might be uncomfortable with the idea however and I wouldn’t suggest that until we have more things in place. But the point is that we need to keep a balance of power, less we let our general conclusions allow bias to corrupt our vision.
And remember, you need stable people who can moderate and make good choices based on the rules, not their opinions. Those stated, especially l33t, Mr. O, JMS, and 2046 are really good choices, especially for the areas selected. Personally, I would put l33t, Mr. O, and yourself (thus far) in charge of the Vs. Debate section, with JMS on hand if you need him.
