Rules update: new policy (#10) and its immediate implementation

I also would not want @Laird to leave, even if he's no longer maintaining the site. Same with @Ninshub - would rather have him stick around

Neither do I. Laird seems to offer lots of good insights on the subjects we should be focussing on.

Ninshub has not posted often in recent times, but equally I would rather he continues as a member.

I’m shocked reading this description of members I’ve debated with on several occasions. I want to be absolutely clear that I take complete and unequivocal distance from anyone involved in the kinds of serious harms outlined in the new rule, and I fully support banning such behaviour and ideologies from the forum. Even though I often represent a minority viewpoint here, I’ve always assumed that discussions took place within a framework of basic human decency. This rule is therefore important and necessary, and I support the moderators’ effort to enforce it.

Please do not judge anyone - including me - without joining the politics forum and examining what was said.

David

Perpetrators of serious harms

Rather than discuss this problem using vague phrases such as this, I suggest you open up a section of this forum where we can openly defend ourselves.

At the moment I feel I am accused of something, but am prohibited from explaining myself.

David

Since there seems to be a consensus that having two forums are not an option, then we'll have to find another solution. If we will only have one forum, then I don't see any other possibility than that Laird must resign as a moderator if this forum will have a future. There are so few members already, and there are so many of them that will either be banned or choose to leave if the policy are implemented. What point would there be of having a forum without any members? I also think that it would be much more difficult to find new members for the forum, since there are many people that has the political views that are no longer being allowed, and it are also not always obvious exactly which views that are allowed and not allowed.

I agree with David that there does not seem to be much moderation work to do on this site. I think one of the members can become moderator without having to do more than an minimal amount of work, so to find a moderator should not be a problem.

However, the big question are whether someone else are willing to do the work needed to maintain the forum. Are there anyone that are willing to do it? If not, then an alternative could be to create a new forum on www.boardhost.com and the whole Psience Quest community can use that forum instead. The advantage with are that one does not need to maintain it, Boardhost does it on their own. All we will need to are to moderate the forum. In that case, obviously the question arises of what we should do with the already existing threads and posts, which I would not want to disappear. Perhaps Laird could keep this forum online and somehow "lock it" so that no one can write new posts, which would mean that this site becomes like an archive of old threads.

By the way, I would be interested in an clarification from Laird about whether he will continue as an ordinary member of the forum if the policy are not implemented, or if he will leave the forum completely. Laird has made many good posts over the years, and this forum would become a much lesser forum without his posts. So obviously it would be much better if he would be willing to stay on the forum as an member. The same thing are also true about Ninshub, and it would be better if he would be willing to stay as an ordinary member instead of leaving completely.

[Laird]

I'd simply remove (or lock) the hidden forums and leave it at that.

There seems to be consensus on this general idea, or at least no opposition to it, so I've gone ahead and disabled access to them by removing all but admins from the usergroup that has access rights, and removing that usergroup from those which are publicly and freely joinable (and there were/are no others in case that might seem to imply otherwise).

I've also edited the original post in this thread to remove names and reasons accordingly (see the new editing note within that post for more on the reasoning behind this).

By the way, I would be interested in an clarification from Laird about whether he will continue as an ordinary member of the forum if the policy are not implemented, or if he will leave the forum completely.

Clarified earlier, with no change since then.

I have been thinking more about this and I have changed my mind. I think that the least bad solution are that the policy are implemented. It are not only the amount of members on the forum that matters, but also the amount of activity. Laird are one of the most prolific posters on the forum, so if he ceases to be a member on the forum then that would damage the forums activity a lot. And if Laird would leave, Ninshub would also leave, which means even less activity.

I have communicated with InterestedinPsi and he wrote that he will probably not login on the forum again. I don't know if that would change if the policy are not implemented, but the impression I got was that he are not planning to return to the forum again. We have no possibility to reach Max_B, so we has lost him as a member no matter whether the policy are implemented or not. That means that we will only lose five members if the policy are implemented, namely those that will be banned plus Enrique Vargas. Enrique Vargas does not seem to be very active posting on the forum so not much activity will be lost if he ceases to be a member. My estimation are that the activity of the four other members that the forum will lose are not greater than the activity of Laird and Ninshub combined.

All things considered, I think that the option that will preserve the most activity on the forum are that the policy are implemented. I think that it would have been much better if Laird and Ninshub would have continued without the policy being implemented so that we could have kept all of our current members, but since that will not happen I think that implementing the policy are the least bad option.

https://discord.gg/MJQhT7SZy

Friendly reminder for those of you who are interested in joining us, the Bernardo Kastrup discord is a majority nonphysicalist discord (not all of us are into kastrup but we are mostly nonphysicalist) with one of our mods writing articles for the essentia foundation.

Server is majority psi believers and nonphysicalists, and we’re super well modded

I hate to see this site have so much unhappiness and I’d love to have you guys join us

This deserved a clearer response:


The terms you've used to characterise holding the line on a matter of principle are categorically false.

Your choice to characterise as "despicable" principled opposition to fascism, warmongering, and paedophilia in the form of excluding those who support them speaks only to your own moral character, as does the moral sanctimoniousness with which you cast aspersions of moral sanctimony based on a political camp while hiding behind a pseudonym and not revealing your own political views.


You're right about that. You've burned your bridges. Don't look back

 Does anyone know a sufi story or some kind of insight that would relativize this dynamic that appears to be possessing this forum. Most all of us have been seeking the deeper truths of our existence through spirituality and a more open pscientific  investigation of our world and ourselves hoping that suppressed phenomenon (like the telepathy tapes or sheldrakes morphic resonence. . .   would move us toward a paradym shift the would help us see through and evole beyond the primitive polarizations we humans are prone to. I hope this doesn't sound to santimonious -  If there is a "deep state" or dark force in this universe that benifits from our digressing in this way,it's probably licking it's chops

[Laird]

That went way too far. Sometimes finding my way in this world is just too much.