Debates forum suspended temporarily

When it returns, the process for alerting posts will be improved and open to all, rather than just subscribers.

I would encourage all to alert posts that they find objectionable when it returns.

edit : 2020-07-03 Please see Thread 186097 & Thread 186098

A good decision. The Debates forum was really going downhill and some closer moderation is needed to prevent it being taken over completely by unsavoury elements.

I’m not in favour of moderation.
But I do agree that a lot of the threads and posts are horrible, racist and obnoxious.

And I’m not saying I’m innocent in any manner.

Edit: well, I’m not a racist, but I certainly can be horribly obnoxious...

Perhaps upon reopening you should just rename it the "Alerts Forum". That's probably were its heading.

Just keep it deleted, debates has been a cesspool of hate for as long as I’ve been here.

Regarding moderation, it doesn’t help that we don’t know who the moderators are and they often don’t reply to questions as to why one post is deleted and other seemingly worse posts are left alone.

@trev33 said
they often don’t reply to questions as to why one post is deleted and other seemingly worse posts are left alone.

Needless back and forth about why a forum post has been removed is unlikely to happen, and even less so in the future if the process is to be streamlined somewhat. Hopefully more of the worst offenders will be removed in future.

@russ said
Needless back and forth about why a forum post has been removed is unlikely to happen, and even less so in the future if the process is to be streamlined somewhat. Hopefully more of the worst offenders will be removed in future.

Debates about censorship and moderation are rarely needless, it’s that attitude which has caused this situation.

Understand it’s a difficult one, on one hand people want to be able to freely express themselves but there’s obviously a line and that line has always been pushed that little bit further in debates.

@russ said
When it returns, the process for alerting posts will be improved and open to all, rather than just subscribers.

I would encourage all to alert posts that they find objectionable when it returns.

I'd prefer non-subscribers have less influence over Debates not more. Perhaps they should be limited to a certain number of posts and/or participation in a limited number of threads per week/month.

Many of the most toxic and disruptive posters in Debates have no "skinny" in the game and some periodically start new usernames. It would be nice if something was done to control these problems.

@russ said
When it returns, the process for alerting posts will be improved and open to all, rather than just subscribers.

I would encourage all to alert posts that they find objectionable when it returns.

I suggest to ban the people whom post blatant racism. Making a joke on these forums you will piss on somebody gets you a 30 day ban, posting racist remarks day in day out goes unmoderated.

Why not just give a forum ban to whatever poster(S) involved rather than shut the whole forum down? Just my humble opinion.

-VR

@kegge said
I suggest to ban the people whom post blatant racism. Making a joke on these forums you will piss on somebody gets you a 30 day ban, posting racist remarks day in day out goes unmoderated.

Why not just ban people who post anything that is antithetical to the principles of politically correct Orthodoxy?

That way we can have a nice echo chamber wherein all of our priors are nicely confirmed by all others around us.

That's what I look for in a "Debates" forum.

@sh76 said
Why not just ban people who post anything that is antithetical to the principles of politically correct Orthodoxy?

Because it doesn't exist. You should take it to the spirituality forums instead.

@kegge said
Because it doesn't exist. You should take it to the spirituality forums instead.

This persons caption under his name is offensive, a-politically correct terminology. They are also calling for an action of violence against this particular group of individuals. Force them to remove it.

https://www.lpaonline.org/the-m-word

Moderator Alerted!

@no1marauder said
I'd prefer non-subscribers have less influence over Debates not more. Perhaps they should be limited to a certain number of posts and/or participation in a limited number of threads per week/month.

Many of the most toxic and disruptive posters in Debates have no "skinny" in the game and some periodically start new usernames. It would be nice if something was done to control these problems.

Agreed.

And I'm not talking about these 60 day wonders either. I see long-time posters
that are quite toxic who are non-subscribers that do nothing to support the site
and much to tear it down.

A limit to the number of posts per week for non-subscribers would be fine with me.

@russ said
When it returns, the process for alerting posts will be improved and open to all, rather than just subscribers.

I would encourage all to alert posts that they find objectionable when it returns.

You might want to restrict non-subscriber accounts from alerting more than 5 posts per week, or month or whatever time period seems appropriate, to stop people opening accounts for the purpose of mass alerting of posts against people they don't like. Your system needs to be robust against denial of service type attacks.

Also, when the games modding system was first introduced you sent everyone a reminder of their responsibilities under the Terms of Service. It might be worth doing something like that again with regard to posting in the forums.