Thread Ethics and Design

[NonEntity]

A thread to try and improve "our" board.  Please feel free to contribute constructive ideas and maybe we can make our world a bit better off for it.  I'm starting this thread on my own for the following reason:

I'm dismayed that Neo has locked two threads in which I thought we were having a productive conversation, or at least that was what I was attempting.

I hereby repost a comment that I made in one of the threads which Neo locked, because I think it is important.  If you disagree, please feel free to comment and let me and others know your thinking, but you will NOT be able to lock this thread and prevent others from expressing their thoughts.


Quote from: Neo on Today at 08:40:19 AM
And even if I deleted any of my posts or threads, I wouldn't do so until all those I feel should be banned would be and, if not banned, certain threads of there's deleted or locked, or certain posts, like many of your posts, as you already know, which I considered inappropriate.

---------- this was the end of the quoted material from Neo, and my thoughts continue below...


On this topic I'll share this idea:  I used to be on a board/community where the posts were permanent.  It was  permanent record that anyone could refer back to at any time.

I like that idea.  I find the deletion of posts reprehensible.  If I said something then I said it and that is that.  If I made an ass of myself then that is what I did and I cannot change that fact.  What I CAN do is to comment, ammend, apologize or explain.  That, to me, is the more responsible way of behaving in my life.  To pretend I didn't say something is childish, in my opinion.

So I favor having a board where deletions cannot occur except in a very short time frame to correct mistakes, or by the Admin for their own reasons... it IS their board, afterall.

I would suggest that someone might be able to add explanatory material to a previous post perhaps, but not to delete nor edit it after a day or two at most.

In my ideal world this is what I currently see as being a good model.

- NonE


That is the end of the quoted material from the thread that Neo locked.

I would like to continue discussing the ideas of how to better this board with those who care to work toward that goal.  I will NOT be deleting posts nor locking this thread as I don't consider that honorable behavior.

- NonE 

[Darren Dirt]

IMHO, thread locking and posting deleting "rules" are of secondary concern -- with the primary issue being How To Organize The Forum In A Way That Best Allows For Intelligent And Focused Participation, As Well As Encouraging Initial Lurking By New/Potential Members. (see here)

[eye2i2hear]

Along the lines of seeking to improve "our" guest quarters here in Marc's domain...

I "vote" for request more categories/sub categories/headings.  See Darren's site & Stefan's FreedomainRadio forum for ideas?

I really don't have any comment at this time on deletion or locking of posts... (other than to say again, it's Marc's "house"/castle to "rule" as he sees fit-- which in no way negates or dishonors voluntary association imho, any differently than if he told me to get off of his literal toes if I was literally standing on 'em...)

[heidi]

(A) Right now we have two forums:  General, and Bringing About a Voluntary Society. 

Under General, we have four subforums:  General Discussion, AiLL Article Discussion, Alternative Fuels, and Private Property. These topics don't seem at all intuitive to me. 

(1.) I'd place Alternative Fuels under a new subforum such as Construction: Land and Locomotion. 

(2.) Private Property could go in a Philosophies of Anarchy section.    (Religious or spiritual takes on voluntaryism can fit comfortably here.) 

(3.) AiLL Article talk could be pinned at the top of a subforum named Leading Lights where current similar articles could be posted.

(4.) I'd add a subforum on Money to feature the major biggie writings we're familiar with (pinned); another subforum on Health would organize medical and alt-suggestion posts. 

(5.) Education Insights wouldn't be just about children, but how to catch up on our own.

(6.) Business Ideas and Working Enterprises is self-explanatory.

(7.) Of course, we'd need Horrors and Halls of Shame  set up for those times when the shock is hellacious and we just gotta rant.  :o

(8.) I'd rename General Discussion to ChitChat and Qs for Marc & Kurt, and move virtually everything out of there, all except (a) self introduction of new members, and (b) direct questions for the webmeister or Marc that are unrelated to discussion of other standard topics.

(9) And finally (on this 'first draft off the top of my head) I'd ditch the Bringing About a Voluntary Society forum and rename the General forum just that.  It's what the whole board is about, imho.

Note -- Anyone, including a moderator, could post a link in one forum to point to a post in another, so that we each can place our posts where they most substantially belong, yet direct possible interest in another forum to that post without repeating it. 

(B)  Whether a structure like this works is dependent 90% on the participants thinking before they place a post, and moving or wiping the post if they discover it doesn't fit/add value to the thread.  If we do have the structure, it's easier to avoid both repetitions and hijacks.

© I wouldn't impute negative motives to one's deletion of posts; there are many good and salutary reasons for doing so.  An author may wish to lighten the bandwidth by removing surperfluous messages, or to zap something no one replied to, or which received irrelevant heckling rather than thoughtful response. 

So, I believe anyone should be allowed to delete or modify their posts at any time -- just as we are given the option to quote a post at any time.  Please don't change that setting, Kurt.  :'(  Coercion to force one's work to remain on the board would be unwelcome to me.  :-\

thank you!    :-*

[heidi]

LOL, I could have set up the categories on the board in less time than it took me to write it all down. 

Gotta go do some work.  Looking forward to more comments on this topic.

[Darren Dirt]

heidi Wrote:Gotta go do some work.

Madam, I read your posting offering suggestions re. categorization/organization. You have already DONE some very valuable work. 8)

eye2i2hear Wrote:I "vote" for request more categories/sub categories/headings.  See Darren's site & Stefan's FreedomainRadio forum for ideas?

PS: sorta off-topic, but did anyone here on AiLL mention that Stefan has recently* put together a BOOK!? ... might be a good "gift" for folks in your inner circle, by the looks of it ;D


*recently, as in post-"Revolutions"

[Lummox3]

About censorship...not really in favour of it all that much. People can make up their own minds.

That said, Marc has set this forum up and there is the potential for new business for him through it and it would be churlish in the extreme to sit here typing into a free-for-me resource while bemoaning the process that helps keeps it funded. It's his board, let him decide about how he wants to use it and the rules for it.

Heidi's suggestions are great, maybe add a FaQ to each section and a troll sub-basement. More work it's true, but I am sure we can help if asked to. Given the nature of the site an "introduce yourself" section might look pretty empty so whether that's worth working on is debatable imo. (But then agaun, we can have a 400 million page thread about property rights with no conclusion even though we all live in houses and type on Pc's so maybe we can just argue about anything. ;D )

[Neo]

So far as I'm aware, everyone starting a thread has the power to lock or unlock it when they like.  Only Marc and his webmaster can override that function.  They have not overrided either the Spank Me or Innocent Man threads so I take it they agree they are fine remaining locked.  I did not lock the Use of Force thread, only M or Marc could have, and Marc did.  Good.

I lock a thread when I feel it's done.  It's not censorship because anyone can restart it anytime they want (as this thread proves).  For example, I started what I think is the most popular thread ever "Super Quotes" on the old forum.  I was slow to join this new forum so FreeRadical restarted that thread here.  And, somehow, it lives on, even though I almost never post to it.  Gimme a metal, or applaud the heck out of my Karma meter, at the left.

Spank Me was done / it's point made.  Same for Innocent Man.  Grishman is turning activist.  Maybe we can reach out to him and turn him into a [describe yourself] too.

I'd like to see an "intuitive" organization to everything, as Heidi prescribes.  The best forum I've ever see was the "Enya Unity" one, run by fans of music deva Enya.  Any of you Enyites?

Perhaps someone can do some Google research for "best forum software / designs" etc.?

Eye2i2, a voluntary society includes the freedom, within it, to set the rules in your own house / on your "private property," but not outside of it, unless you "own" the land around it too.

Interesting how my "bad" threads SpankMe and InnocentMan have led to this thread re: a long overdue overhaul of this new forum, isn't it?  Maybe I'm doing something right.  Applaud.

I create threads like WAKE UP, and have many more, to try to get newbies up to speed as fast as possible.  In the future, I envision a school, where our graduates can go out and ---

I'd like to see a way that those with money can send some of it to those running the forum, to pay for it's increasing bandwith, etc.., and maybe pay a salary to a full time moderator, long term.  It should be understood this forum can and "should be" a key to "destroying the Matrix" by "unplugging" as many as possible as soon as possible.  There are lots of other ways.  PM me to discuss it further.  Post your story on my new Personal Freedom Story thread.

I'd like to see Sr. Members have the right to share "ownership" of the forum by rights to have periodic access to it's entire database for quick/easy backing up of the whole forum to one's own computer because the material on this forum can be used in many positive ways to help bring about a v. society (create inventions, products, services, books, movies, TV series, webisodes, documentaries, etc., a freedom lovers' dating service, etc.)

I like the idea of making it impossible to delete one's own posts after a period of time, maybe a day or so.  This is becuase some write some great things that others may want to revisit to quote or use somehow (see above paragraph) but it's a pain to copy and paste everything all the time, as they come up.  Better to have some way to download particular threads or the entire forum all at once.  Quickly.  It's a horrible feeling to go back to the forum to find stuff simply gone.  I just had this experience today.  Darren deleted a great post on my SpankMe thread just because Marc didn't care for it (at first?).  I was forced to copy the whole thread before Marc might delete it.  I don't like having to do that.  Why not just put a big disclaimer on the home page: HI NEW VISITORS, PLEASE NOTE THAT ANYTHING YOU READ HERE IS JUST THOUGHTS OF VARIOUS VISITORS.  IT DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT MARC'S OPINIONS.  That should be so obvious that it doesn't bare stating, but if that's what it takes to keep Marc from losing the sale on a book, then post a disclaimer.

Do visitors of Enya's fans' forum Unity, believe stuff they read there is her opinion.  Of course not.  In fact, I believe the forum home page has a disclaimer.  See:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://unity.enya.com/">http://unity.enya.com/</a><!-- m --> (home page)

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://unity.enya.com/index.php?s=6ec35905a24fc083e4fb795b737e4ff1&act=boardrules">http://unity.enya.com/index.php?s=6ec35 ... boardrules</a><!-- m --> (terms of usage)

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://unity.enya.com/index.php?s=6ec35905a24fc083e4fb795b737e4ff1&showforum=59">http://unity.enya.com/index.php?s=6ec35 ... owforum=59</a><!-- m --> (member's guide to unity)

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.enya.com/helpdesk/faq.php">http://www.enya.com/helpdesk/faq.php</a><!-- m --> (help desk)

[damageinc.]

Malinson Wrote:I don’t understand why you want me to read all this material you shove in my face when you refuse to even  deal with the issue I put forth. All this locking and deleting is to me a red flag. If you think that I’m a government agent then your more misguided than I think.
Tell me, what is it you want that our current government is not allowing you to have? I look at my life and I’m living my dream. I got a good truck, a nice plane, and what else do I need? I see people like Marc being all upset but he makes good money on what he dose. He’s got a good show, a good following, nice house, hey he’s got it good.

Why can’t you all stop complaining and start living? We got a great country here that can use some help getting back on track. There’s a lot of problems but with the right motivation and unification I think we can salvage it.

As far a government agents patrolling this site, don’t believe it. Anarchism is a weak following that can never win the support it needs from the majority of the people. I know this because like me, they will have issues that they won't answer.

-Malinson

We SHOVE IT in your face?! Help me out here. :rolleyes:

There was a post by malinson before this post but it's not here anymore. :-\ Well it's a good thing I quoted it before it was lost hay.

[Neo]

Good work catching it, DamageInc..  I can see why it was deleted.  That one "says it all."  I knew M had posted something because you can see the name on the main menu showing who last did, but I didn't bother to read it, as promised, and only did because you caught it in time.  Bravo!  I'm sure we'll have no trouble accomplishing all our goals with such a mindset at work.  If he's an agent, he's terribly ineffective, isn't he?  If only they were all that ineffective at doing their jobs or winning over converts, huh?  I doubt he's an agent, though, he may as well be!  8)

Keep up your excellent work documenting the crimes of the alleged protectors d/b/a 'government' in your "Victims Murdered by Cops" thread. 

"There was no conspiracy, go back to sleep."

[3rdear]

Neo Wrote:So far as I'm aware, everyone starting a thread has the power to lock or unlock it when they like.  Only Marc and his webmaster can override that function.  They have not overrided either the Spank Me or Innocent Man threads so I take it they agree they are fine remaining locked.

Or it's possible that neither of us have seen those threads. At least it's possible in my case. Don't get me wrong, I love this place, but I don't have the time or the inclination to read every post or every thread, let alone parse them for subtext and psycho-analyze them. 

[Neo]

Right.  Thanks for writing the footnote I didn't want to, for my own lack of time.  8)

[drugsareus]

Malison said one thing I agree with: Stop complaining and start living.  This really says what I have interpreted Marc to mean, that being, live in a manner so you can be left alone.

This Neo seems to want to be the boss around here.  Heidi seems to be doing the same thing.  I don't post much here because of the contention (not Marc's fault).  I probably won't check this site for a few weeks, but when I do it  will probably be more of the same.  Neo gives anarchism a bad name.

[Neo]

You can never live fully as long as there is anything left to complain about.

drugsareus, your post is itself a complaint.  Why not "just live and not complain" about me or Heidi?

You've misinterpreted Marc.  Under the current world political/religious/economic system we live in, no matter what we do to be left alone, we can never fully "live in a manner so you can be left alone."

I welcome Heidi's efforts to "be a boss, around here," as you call it.  Anything to improve this forum is welcome.

drugsareus, please never come back, until you've first visited the WAKE UP thread and do as much reading as you can of the items found therein.

You clearly don't know what anarchism even is to say "Neo gives anarchism a bad name."

I'm adding you to my list of member posts to ignore.  I encourage you to ignore my posts like they aren't here.  No one's forcing you to come here at all or read anything here.

===

Prior Post above by druggy:

Malison said one thing I agree with: Stop complaining and start living.  This really says what I have interpreted Marc to mean, that being, live in a manner so you can be left alone.

This Neo seems to want to be the boss around here.  Heidi seems to be doing the same thing.  I don't post much here because of the contention (not Marc's fault).  I probably won't check this site for a few weeks, but when I do it  will probably be more of the same.  Neo gives anarchism a bad name.

[NonEntity]

Okay.  I've finally figured out that life is not fair.

Neo creates a thread, starts a discussion and then locks it so I can't reply.  THEN>>>  he and Marc continue to have this long conversation on this locked out thread where NO ONE ELSE is allowed to comment.

THEN>>>  I start a thread where I want to continue the serious issues that were starting to be discussed on the thread that Neo locked, and which I can't reply on even though NEO AND MARC can continue having their party over there, and what do you know?  Neo comes over to MY NEW thread and trashes people here that have nothing to do with the topic of the thread, and I CAN'T EVEN DELETE HIM in MY OWN THREAD without trashing the whole thread with his impolite comments to another.


See?  Whud I say,  I MEAN, whud I say???  Life ain't FAIR!


Harrumph.  I need to go find a steering wheel to poop on.

- NonE  ;D