The question of political / conspiracy theory content

[Laird]

Laird, I'd like to share something in private if I may.

Please do.

Maybe we should examine the issue in terms of what those frequenting political/conspiracy threads add on balance to the psi/consciousness discussions. At Skeptiko, it seemed to me that a fair number of P/C denizens seldom posted anything outside that narrow range of interest.

Do we need to encourage such people to join our site? If we pull out the welcome mat from under them, would psi/consciousness discussions suffer?

I've already volunteered.


Pretty sure it won't take more than a single moderator.


You could say the same about the content in any other subforum - and worse, because these subforums would be invisible to the general public and even registered members who haven't opted in.

I'm quite confused, Typoz, because these seem like relatively minor concerns.

My point was because presumably the majority of members would not be aware of what was taking place in those forums, and particularly if there was no moderation, then things could get out of hand in which case it could impact the entire forum. Hypothetically some undesirable content found there might be published elsewhere, for example by a guerilla sceptic with the aim of smearing the forum reputation.

Since you have stepped forward as a volunteer moderator that allays most of those concerns.

[Laird]

Maybe we should examine the issue in terms of what those frequenting political/conspiracy threads add on balance to the psi/consciousness discussions. At Skeptiko, it seemed to me that a fair number of P/C denizens seldom posted anything outside that narrow range of interest.

Do we need to encourage such people to join our site? If we pull out the welcome mat from under them, would psi/consciousness discussions suffer?

That had crossed my mind too, Doug, but when I thought about it, I found it hard to identify anybody in particular... then again, I'm not the most observant guy, so you may have identified matches that escaped my notice.

[Laird]

Edit: N.B. Instead of asking people whether they object to this proposed compromise, I've set up a poll for members to vote on whether they even want to allow conspiracy theory / political content in the first place. Please vote here: POLL: should conspiracy theory / poltiical discussion be allowed on this forum?

OK... let's try this second compromise-consensus. Same deal as before - anybody who disagrees, speak up within five days, in which case we really will have to go to a vote. Otherwise, let's go with this compromise.

• Two new subforums are set up, named something like "Politics" and "Conspiracy Theories".
  
• These two subforums are only visible to members in a newly created usergroup(s).
  
• Likewise, the posts within these two subforums are only visible in lists like "View New Posts", "View Today's Posts" and "View Unread Posts" to members in the new usergroup(s).
  
• (If possible, which I think it is) Members can freely add themselves to and remove themselves from the usergroup(s) i.e. on their own, without moderator intervention.
  

Please speak up within five days if you disagree with this proposal in general, knowing that we can discuss later as to the names and placement of these new subforums, and the name(s) of any new group(s), as well as whether there should be one group for both forums, or one for each forum.

In an attempt to avert the objections already raised to this proposal (based around concern that even in opt-in forums, these subjects would take significant air from the core subjects of the forum), we've added the following amendment:

These new subforums would be trialled for a fortnight. If traffic in the main forums suffered significantly, or if disagreements and subject matter from the subforums bled over significantly into the main forums, then the trial would be deemed a failure, and the opt-in subforums frozen. Otherwise, they would become permanent fixtures. The metrics for deciding whether traffic had suffered significantly, or whether disagreements etc had bled over significantly are yet to be determined.

So, hopefully this new third compromise is acceptable to the membership - again, please speak up within five days if you object to even this.

I would be willing to help Laird with moderating such forums if required, a second opinion if he wanted one. 

While this forum was being discussed at the very early stages, I would have been vocal if I had thought it was to have been too restrictive. This is the first time I have felt that might be a possibility, and I feel uneasy about it. As Laird has said, we are already being careful that things don't get out of hand by being aware of it and monitoring such discussions carefully. If they are hidden from the forum core, my feeling is that they will not generate a problematic momentum. Personally, I really only want to talk about one or two CTs, and possibly make Macro observations about politics possibly linked to spirituality, rather than the details. If Trump were assassinated, for example, I'm certain that most people would be interested in talking about it, it would flare up and die out, like all threads do, but would I want to discuss it with strangers on a different forum? No way. My trusted friends are all here, and I would want to discuss it with them.

The unease I feel is has something to do with it being important to go anywhere we like, ask any questions we like, to not feel restricted with what we can or can't discuss. For me, it wasn't about PSI exclusively, it was about Spirituality & Science, just as Skeptiko was. Just because Alex has gone off the rails, it doesn't mean our reaction should be to go the other way. As this forum is not a dictatorship like Skeptiko, I trust that if I or anyone else gets 'too far out' from others, they will be reigned in by the rest, gently at first, but ending with permanent bans if required. 

I am a gentle lefty, with a hard centre as long as it doesn't involve violence! 

That had crossed my mind too, Doug, but when I thought about it, I found it hard to identify anybody in particular... then again, I'm not the most observant guy, so you may have identified matches that escaped my notice.

Here's a short list of users I recall as much more focused on political/CT topics than psi/consciousness/spirituality, etc.:

Hurmanetar
Roberta
Red
Reece
Enrique Vargas
PJ (original username for FDRS, Super Sexy, et al.)

There are also a few who appear to have posted only in the global warming threads.

I would add that anyone wishing to visit our site for the purpose of engaging principally in political/CT discussions probably wouldn't be a good fit for us. Of course, we don't have to discourage them from joining, but we also don't have to enable the pursuit of their political/CT fetish.

In any case, I'll support your plan to have a forum for such discussions. I just wonder whether we really need it at this time.

Some of those names are really interesting characters that would add colour to any forum. I think some might require some moderation than others, but none of them I really feel uneasy about. 

Would I like them all? Want to hang out in person? Probably not, but can we be friends on a forum, maybe even have strong positive feelings about them? Yes, I definitely think so.

Is this post relevant? Go on, Laird, give me a warning. I was far too goody goody at Skeptiko! 

Here's a short list of users I recall as much more focused on political/CT topics than psi/consciousness/spirituality, etc.:

Hurmanetar
Roberta
Red
Reece
Enrique Vargas
PJ (original username for FDRS, Super Sexy, et al.)

There are also a few who appear to have posted only in the global warming threads.

I would add that anyone wishing to visit our site for the purpose of engaging principally in political/CT discussions probably wouldn't be a good fit for us. Of course, we don't have to discourage them from joining, but we also don't have to enable the pursuit of their political/CT fetish.

In any case, I'll support your plan to have a forum for such discussions. I just wonder whether we really need it at this time.

I was wondering this too Doug. Perhaps we need an initial poll as to whether we want to go there at all as a community. 

I'm torn myself over the issue. I get dragged into CT threads but they are mostly boring in that they play out a predictable dance. I've enjoyed politics threads more as it's nice to realise common ground with posters you don't always agree with. One moment Sci and I would be tearing strips off each other about the nature of reality, the next lacing daisies into each other's hair in the Trump thread.

I was wondering this too Doug. Perhaps we need an initial poll as to whether we want to go there at all as a community.

Not a bad idea, malf, but it may be too late for that.

I'm torn myself over the issue. I get dragged into CT threads but they are mostly boring in that they play out a predictable dance. I've enjoyed politics threads more as it's nice to realise common ground with posters you don't always agree with. One moment Sci and I would be tearing strips off each other about the nature of reality, the next lacing daisies into each other's hair in the Trump thread.

You're a special case, malf, in that you're a skeptic and were generally not permitted in the consciousness threads at Skeptiko. For that reason, I haven't counted your very frequent contributions to the political/CT threads. Besides, they tended to be brief and often witty.

I'm alright with having political threads too, if only to better understand the people whose posts I read elsewhere and who I've become very familiar with over so many years. It's nice to get a more rounded picture of some people.

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As a footnote, for better or worse I archived the entire Donald Trump thread to WayBack (archive.org) over the weekend. I also archived the Brexit thread and the one about 9/11, plus those global warming threads that didn't appear in the show forum. I also archived the entire initial thread indexes for the Other Stuff and CD forums, so having WayBack links to them will enable posterity to follow each archived thread from start to finish. If anyone's interested, here are the WayBack Machine links:

https://web.archive.org/web/201708210914...ums/other/

https://web.archive.org/web/2017082...ko-forum.com/forums/believer-skeptic-detates/