Feedback wanted on the three links per week limit in the opt-in forums (and beyond)

On this topic, I've expressed my own preferences and motivations for them here.

I think in terms of practical reality it's a good idea to have sub-forums for this sort of content - I've seen this done of forums about games, TV Shows, etc.

Given the forums are opt-in people can just take a look and opt-out if they don't care about the content. Which is pretty much what I did - I just don't find it worthwhile personally and am glad it doesn't spill over much on the main forums.

[Laird]

Can you give me a clue which bits you would need editing for it to be acceptable?

Steve, thanks for editing your post as you've already done. Can you please additionally edit out the reference to vaccines and pharmaceutical companies, or move that commentary into the opt-in forums? That would be appreciated.

(Not an automaton, but collectively-agreed-upon rules require enforcement).

Not an automaton, but collectively-agreed-upon rules require enforcement).

Sure. Anything to help ‘enforce the rules’.   

The PMs are flying tonight.

It is frightening to me how little interest there is in having discussions about important topics.  Is this a discussion board?

Recently Whoopi Goldberg was suspended from her job at "The View" for having a different view.  I would have much preferred for there to be ongoing discussions about these different views.

The covid-19 pandemic raises issues with how is scientific evidence presented and evaluated.  I would repeat that these issues are very germane to interest in PSI.  Why is certain evidence denied and ignored?  Who are the gatekeepers of scientific knowledge?  Isn't scientific consensus an oxymoron?  Does science need censorship?

Limiting me to three links in an opt-in forum seems needlessly restrictive.

On another forum related to PSI issues, one forum member posted endlessly on his personal political hero.  I found these boring and put him on ignore.  Why isn't the ignore function adequate?

I think it is fine to have rules on polite discourse.  I am not interested in insulting others or reading others' insults.

But if I want to make a reasoned argument, I need to refer to evidence and I should be able to link to evidence that is not breaking laws.  It also allows me to include a quote from an external source without violating copyright rules.

If you want to address crap flooding you could have specific rules such as do not repost links, instead refer back to your earlier post.  Links to content must be on topic, etc.

However in my read of the opt-in forums, the material has related to the specific content under discussion.  Some content I find useless, but I can move past it quickly and is NOT impacting me in a negative manner.  Is the issue that some material differs from your views?

Show me a thread that included real discussion along with a member posting multiple youtube videos per day. I'm guessing that thread doesn't exist. In my experience, multiple links to videos are often posted in cases where someone is campaigning for some particular point of view. 

Just because people don't want to discuss on certain topics on this forum doesn't mean they don't discuss them. I have interesting engaged discussions often with people in real life on many of the topics that are in the opt-in forums. I have found little joy in discussing these things online. Many times I have spent time crafting a reasoned response to something someone has posted and their reply is just posting another video and saying, "watch this." No thanks.

[Ninshub]

Speaking as part of the admin team (or whatever we should be called), we have been discussing these issues among us, taking into account what's been brought up in these threads, and our own individual concerns, pretty intensely and exhaustively, and we've come up with something we want to present. But there have been delays in doing so, in part because of the time zone differences. I'm expecting this to happen in the next 24 hours I would imagine.

North, you bring up many fair and reasoned points.  I fear that the core of the issue is when a topic becomes much more an emotional one than an intellectual one (for one or more posters).  To Chuck's point, in these cases we see a degradation in the quality of "discussion".

I don't know anyway to legislate this out.  We're all humans after all.

That said I'd be more than happy to discuss these types of topics.  The Joe Rogan explosion (along the lines of the Whoppi dust-up) has been an interesting phenomenon for me.

Show me a thread that included real discussion along with a member posting multiple youtube videos per day. I'm guessing that thread doesn't exist. In my experience, multiple links to videos are often posted in cases where someone is campaigning for some particular point of view. 

.... Many times I have spent time crafting a reasoned response to something someone has posted and their reply is just posting another video and saying, "watch this." No thanks.

I have a preference for reading as it is faster than watching videos.  However there are some interesting videos with personal testimony or showing a trend in how media is presenting an issue.  we also seem to be moving from a text world to a video world.  My son was posting videos on youtube before he could read.

How about if a video is posted there should be either a quotation of key text, or a brief summary of why this video matters?

I also usually check the duration of a video, I don't normally have time to watch videos that are longer than 10 minutes.  (However I am starting to enjoy some Joe Rogan's long form interviews - but I would not post these as the relevant content is harder to summarize) -  also I have a bias if a video has humour I will give it more attention.

If somebody is just posting videos, I would ignore them, because I do want to know what it is that somebody is proposing/debating/articulating.

[Ninshub]

So here we go - for your consideration and discussion:

We are proposing new rules for the opt-in forums. The overall spirit guiding them is the following and should be considered by members when posting to those forums. The intention should be to make a reasoned argument about a case - perspective, set of facts - in a way that invites discussion and isn't mere campaigning for a cause or alerting of a situation. This section of the forum should not be considered by a forum member to be his or her personal social media feed or blog, and a reader of those posts should be immediately able to distinguish them from something that is posted on a social media account or in the comment sections one finds under internet media and websites.

New rules governing the opt-in forums
These opt-in forums are intended for reasoned discussion and/or debate between members in their own words. In that spirit of originally-expressed discussion and debate, members are expected to respond adequately to any reasonable challenges or questions put to them in response to their contributions, prior to making other further contributions.

Links and embedded media may only be included as supplementary material to support an originally-expressed argument, case, perspective, opinion, sentiment, etc, and not as a proxy for same. Campaigning via link dumping is not permitted, nor is the dropping of links/embeds merely to alert readers to some situation, event, report, etc, or merely to invite opinions on same. Members should save that kind of sociopolitical crusading for their social media accounts or blogs.

These conditions will be strictly policed by moderators after an initial period of acclimatisation in which breaches will be pointed out along with the reason they constitute a breach.

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The choice is between these rules (potentially amended) and closing down the opt-in forums.

So here we go - for your consideration and discussion:

We are proposing new rules for the opt-in forums. 

I am happy that you are going to use human moderators and not rely on an algorithm.

Deepening discussion seems a good goal.

I have slight concern over the requirement to respond to a "reasonable" question, in that skeptics ask many questions about psi evidence which they consider reasonable, but are really nit-picking.  However, I hope that if the "reasonableness" of questions becomes an issue, the group of administrators would discuss it.

I like that this forum has multiple administrators challenging each other on best approach.