- Joined
- 10 February 2000
- Messages
- 2,677
After extended discussion in this thread http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119189 and a lot of sleeping on it, I set queenlives up as a moderator for Off Topic. Prior to the discussion and input from folks in that thread I was inclined to ban political and religious discussion entirely because it seemed that increasingly it was not possible for such discussions to take place without turning ugly and I felt it had a negative impact on the site.
At the time I said I'd ask for input after a month but I decided to give it longer so queenlives had some time to figure out how to approach moderation and get any existing "problem" threads under control. During that time I know he has spent time evaluating his approach to moderation, as well as trying to get inside my head a bit to understand how I want the site to operate.
Now it has been a couple months and I am curious to know people's opinion on a couple things:
1) Have you seen the nature of political / religious discussion changing from a negative, hostile and combative tone to one of curiosity and intelligent discussion even among those of differing beliefs?
This is not something I expect to happen over night, but it has been long enough now that I expect people to at least see evidence of change even if it isn't all the way to where we want it yet. If you have a strong opinion either way, can you post links to one or two threads you think support your opinion? I have only skimmed a few threads in Off Topic in the past month or more so I'm not really familiar with all the latest discussions.
2) Is it working out to have a moderator specifically for that section?
Do you think it has had a positive, negative, or neutral impact? Can you give examples?
If anyone is inclined to say negative, first please step back and consider whether that is an objective evaluation or you are just upset because you had a good political / religious rant going and found it squelched. :wink: I specifically challenged him to turn around the level of discourse in Off Topic, and as such expected a few bruised egos.
However if anyone thinks the moderation has been truly unfair given the ground rules (treading lightly on religion/politics and avoiding negative or combative comments in favor of intellectual curiosity and respectful debate) please contact me with details either in this thread or privately and I will look into it.
Thanks for your input and working to make NSX Prime a better place.
At the time I said I'd ask for input after a month but I decided to give it longer so queenlives had some time to figure out how to approach moderation and get any existing "problem" threads under control. During that time I know he has spent time evaluating his approach to moderation, as well as trying to get inside my head a bit to understand how I want the site to operate.
Now it has been a couple months and I am curious to know people's opinion on a couple things:
1) Have you seen the nature of political / religious discussion changing from a negative, hostile and combative tone to one of curiosity and intelligent discussion even among those of differing beliefs?
This is not something I expect to happen over night, but it has been long enough now that I expect people to at least see evidence of change even if it isn't all the way to where we want it yet. If you have a strong opinion either way, can you post links to one or two threads you think support your opinion? I have only skimmed a few threads in Off Topic in the past month or more so I'm not really familiar with all the latest discussions.
2) Is it working out to have a moderator specifically for that section?
Do you think it has had a positive, negative, or neutral impact? Can you give examples?
If anyone is inclined to say negative, first please step back and consider whether that is an objective evaluation or you are just upset because you had a good political / religious rant going and found it squelched. :wink: I specifically challenged him to turn around the level of discourse in Off Topic, and as such expected a few bruised egos.
However if anyone thinks the moderation has been truly unfair given the ground rules (treading lightly on religion/politics and avoiding negative or combative comments in favor of intellectual curiosity and respectful debate) please contact me with details either in this thread or privately and I will look into it.
Thanks for your input and working to make NSX Prime a better place.