Starfleet Jedi

Just a random thought recently: Is it possible that boards with lots of free speech last longer and stay more viable over the long run than ones that try to lock down as much as possible? Here's one example: SB.com vs. SD.net

Check the posting stats for both these boards:
(SDN) http://big-boards.com/board/355



(SB.com) http://big-boards.com/board/408


If you had check back like a few years ago, you'd find that SDN was more popular than SB.com in terms of traffic. Now things have reversed. SB.com is bigger in traffic than SDN, but more importantly, SDN is shrinking, but SB.com is more stable.

Well, two cases does not a study make. I think you could draw a link, but it's a pretty tenuous one.

Stricter board rules mean a smaller active population. Now, you can make up for this with higher post rates (SDN's members post much more than SB.com's members, individually), but perhaps after a while, people start running out of things they want to talk to each other about.

Perhaps new people, by and large, drive posting activity in this particular type of forum. (I've noticed it here - someone new starts posting, everybody gets all lively.) So maybe not as many new people, who don't stick around for as long, means much less posting activity.

What standards are you using to judge "free speech"? Seriously guys drop the vendetta already.

A vendetta now? That would be news to me. Has Nonamer been out terrorizing someone?

Jedi Master Spock wrote:A vendetta now? That would be news to me. Has Nonamer been out terrorizing someone?

That's not required for a vendetta:

Dictionary.com

1. a private feud in which the members of the family of a murdered person seek to avenge the murder by killing the slayer or one of the slayer's relatives, esp. such vengeance as once practiced in Corsica and parts of Italy.
2. any prolonged and bitter feud, rivalry, contention, or the like: a political vendetta.

The constant sniping I see against SDN on this site certainly qualifies as the second.

Cpl Kendall wrote:What standards are you using to judge "free speech"? Seriously guys drop the vendetta already.

What are you talking about. This came from the random thought territory, because I knew SDN was much bigger of a website than SB.com a few years ago. Today it's the other way around. My first thought is that the restrictive limits on speech was the cause.

As for definition of free speech: at SB.com, you can say what you want with risk of being perma-banned. Very few people are perma-banned there but many are perma-banned at SDN for seemingly trite reasons.

You guys just trot out the same tired old reasons for your bullshit vendetta every time the subject of SDN comes up. Do you have a SDN Tract you refer to?

Cpl Kendall wrote:You guys just trot out the same tired old reasons for your reasonable vendetta every time the subject of SDN comes up. Do you have a SDN Tract you refer to?

I don't know what your talking about. It seems like you have a vendetta against me or something.

Cpl Kendall wrote:The constant sniping I see against SDN on this site certainly qualifies as the second.

"Constant" sniping? Qualify as some variety of bitter "feud or contention?"

Nonamer commenting that SDN has relatively restrictive standards of speech does not qualify for what would normally be called a vendetta. Granted, there is no point in trying to require that vendetta refers to a blood feud, but you seem to be engaging in hyperbole here in making of Nonamer's comment a "vendetta" practiced by, of all things, "this site."

Now... since I'm curious about the possibility that this is a phenomenon, I'll suggest that we examine other boards.

A board which has gradually become less active over time (check back pages and "last posted" dates): The Furry Conflict, which at least pretends to have restrictive posting rules (how restrictive are they, anyway? Anybody?).

JMS wrote:

The Furry Conflict, which at least pretends to have restrictive posting rules (how restrictive are they, anyway? Anybody?).

Well, they are restrictive in that none of the language allowed (or tolerated) on SDN and SB.com is allowed. Period.
Use of that lamguage will be severely punished, as will be Trolling and Sniping.
But their general rules of conduct resemble the rules on most websites (no plagiarizing, nothing above PG-13 material, etc...).
And you can talk about almost everything, as long as it is in a civilized manner.

Things have slowed down there, but IMO it really has more to do with the disappearance of a lot of the cast members (i.e., the shakers and movers) then with the rules.
The few original members still posting there regularly have had added responsabilities, so have had a lot less time and energy to devote to the site itself.
IMO... :)