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

[Laird]

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

This is a good segue into my perspective as a board custodian on all of this.

My view has been all along that the original compromise that we as a community arrived at near the beginning of our existence was/is optimal: to confine discussion of controversial sociopolitical subjects to a set of opt-in forums.

Over time, and with certain posters exhibiting certain behaviours in those opt-in forums, other board custodians have developed a different view: that intervention or even abolition is required given what they perceive to be inappropriate postings to those forums. For the sake of compromise, I have gone along with those interventions, and even implemented the technology to limit to three the number of links that may be posted to the opt-in forums in any seven-day period. I also helped to draft the proposed new rules above.

I emphasise though that that was purely for the sake of compromise: I have never supported these rules/interventions outright, only as a compromise. As indicated above, when it comes to the opt-in forums, I support the status quo.

I understand that other board custodians have reasons for wanting to change the status quo so as to restrict posting behaviour in the opt-in forums: reasons that they consider good and proper. I don't dispute that those board custodians have the best interests of this board at heart in proposing their restrictions.

I have, though, on recent reflection, come to a position in which I am no longer willing to present a united front with the board custodians with whose approach I disagree, nor to compromise other than this:

I won't block the implementation of the rules proposed above (so long as the three-link-per-seven-days limit is removed), but nor will I have any part with them myself: those board custodians who wish for them to be implemented and enforced will have to do so on their own steam, as far as I'm concerned.

Here's the caveat: if the majority of active Psience Quest members indicate that they want those rules to be implemented and enforced, then I am willing to do so. I support a consultative, democratic approach to the management of our board.

I guess I'm still a little mystified why there are essentially two forums here. I know that I voted that the alternate forum should be opt-in and I have argued that this solution is an elegant one that allows users a clean break from a kind of internet discourse that they may be tired of, or simply may not want to experience.

I don't have a problem with the current set up. But I'm wondering what it says about the forum that we have funneled certain discussions into a kind of hidden room. 

I've rejoined the hidden forum subgroup and I will read there for a bit again to try and understand the issues. I don't want to have the feeling that I somehow tacitly support certain viewpoints by being a member of a forum where those viewpoints are supported, even if those views are only expressed in an opt-in hidden forum.

[Ninshub]

I don't want to have the feeling that I somehow tacitly support certain viewpoints by being a member of a forum where those viewpoints are supported, even if those views are only expressed in an opt-in hidden forum.

This is one of the issues some of the people on the admin board have as well.

[Ninshub]

Perhaps the time has to come to have a new vote on the issue of the opt-in forums.

 I don't want to have the feeling that I somehow tacitly support certain viewpoints by being a member of a forum where those viewpoints are supported, even if those views are only expressed in an opt-in hidden forum.

This is an interesting point.  I am not wanting to attack or single out Chuck, I appreciate that a point is being expressed.

I had never thought that if I post on a discussion board it means I support what all other members of the board say.  However I am not an owner of the discussion board.

In our current world there is a great concern about whether certain actions are giving a "platform" to inappropriate content.

There are many groups and companies that feel the best approach is censorship and deplatforming.

I vote for free speech and the free market of ideas.  I also oppose coerced medical treatment.  If the forum owners consider these views unacceptable then I will seek other forums.

I do think the idea of "free speech" sometimes gets bent out of shape in these discussions. There is of course no guarantee for freedom of speech on any private platform. 

I guess one of the questions we need to ask ourselves is this:

Even if we are able to have nuanced and intelligent conversation on a topic outside of the stated scope of this forum, is that something that the founding members feel has a place here. (I am not a founding member.)

That is the best case. In fact many topics on politics sink to the point where one faction faces off against another.

What is the intended use of the forum? What is the spirit of its conception and actualization? Looking back over these years have we fulfilled this ideas? Does it matter? Is the forum willing to change one way or the other? 

I can look back to times at mind-energy when I flat out loathed certain of the skeptical members. I hated their views and their stubborn refusal to entertain any possibility that the amazing things I knew in my soul to be real made me feel real anger. Now I feel affection when I see their posts. Something has changed in me. 

But these disagreements were about psi. Whether the supernatural exists. Whether NDEs represent some real experience beyond the physical, or are simply electrical impulses from a dying brain. At the time many years ago, these ideas were life or death for me. 

Disagreements about politics seem different to me. It no longer seems inconceivable that wide spread political violence could erupt in several English speaking countries. No one who is aligned with any of the factionalized belief systems is going to change their views because of something that is posted on this forum. And I include myself in that generalization. There are thousands of places on the internet where a person can go and find an echo chamber of their views if that is what they want. Or they can find a spot that makes a good place to pester the enemy. Why should this place be a spot where these views occur? I don't want to know people's political beliefs any more than I desire to know what takes place in the privacy of their bedrooms. I find it abhorrent. I would be interested in a discussion about the psychology behind bias. I think discussions on cult psychology could be relevant to this forum. 

Just some random thoughts. Sorry for the rambling.

[Ninshub]

Disagreements about politics seem different to me. It no longer seems inconceivable that wide spread political violence could erupt in several English speaking countries. No one who is aligned with any of the factionalized belief systems is going to change their views because of something that is posted on this forum. And I include myself in that generalization. There are thousands of places on the internet where a person can go and find an echo chamber of their views if that is what they want. Or they can find a spot that makes a good place to pester the enemy. Why should this place be a spot where these views occur? I don't want to know people's political beliefs any more than I desire to know what takes place in the privacy of their bedrooms. I find it abhorrent. I would be interested in a discussion about the psychology behind bias. I think discussions on cult psychology could be relevant to this forum. 

You've well expressed my problem with the issue of the opt-in forums, whether I participate in them or not. 

We're obviously having current dissension among the forum founders on that topic. There's another founder* actually that feels like me and is ready to leave the forum over it (and so am I - it's not meant as a threat but it's the truth about how I feel). And then Laird, if I understand him right, simply wants the final decision to be a democratic one, based on what the forum membership thinks.

I thought the proposed new rules were a possible compromise that I could potentially live with, or at least see. But now Laird has expressed that he's not OK with that compromise anymore, unless it's supported democratically by the forum membership. (Laird, feel free to correct me if I misunderstand you)

I don't see how we're going to solve this issue unless we bring this whole thing up to a vote again. 

(*There were ten originally. One left immediately when the forum got off the ground, one has since passed away, and Stan, contrary to what he's asserted here that he is still a "founder", told us in no uncertain terms - we've got the written post - that he was leaving the founders and was no longer to be considered a "founder" in September 2017, one month into the forum's life. Another we consider gone because there's been pretty much no trace of that person in about four years. Of the six left, two are rarely active or seen in recent years.)

haven't re-joined the sub-forums but my worry is getting rid of them brings a lot of political stuff into the forums generally.

i think it's easier to be stricter about what gets posted in the main forums because that stuff can be placed in those opt-in forums instead.

[Laird]

But now Laird has expressed that he's not OK with that compromise anymore, unless it's supported democratically by the forum membership. (Laird, feel free to correct me if I misunderstand you)

That's correct, although I also won't block the compromise even if it's unilaterally placed into effect by the board custodians as a group, given that the alternative might be board custodians leaving a situation that they can't abide.

Are we being asked another question?

Because I don’t understand why there is any remaining controversy… although there clearly is…

and please be BLUNT, as there appears to be lots of dancing around an issue (or specific forum subject matter) which is at the heart of the matter, but which is not being stated clearly here. Please name the subject…