The question of political / conspiracy theory content

It seems to me a parapsychology forum's moderation is better when it is more restrictive - For example I know a lot of people didn't like Andy or David as moderators, but it's arguable that you do need someone to keep shepherding discussions. Especially if we want to invite guests to interview - many people in the public eye expect something of a tidy house before they jump in and associate themselves with a group.

A political forum is better when it is more "liberal" - Inevitably someone is going to hurt someone else's feelings as one person's anathema is another's sense of self. And as we saw on Skeptiko, almost everyone has a limit to free speech in a forum. I've even pondered posting most of the Gnostic, World-is-Prison, stuff on liberaparolado.com/phpBB3/ as the people who want to discuss dream telepathy may not want to ponder Reality itself hates them while sipping morning coffee?

I wouldn't put too much stock in the LP forum at this point. We should concentrate on this forum I think.

Heh, well then back to square one. 

If I'm being asked what I find of interest and what would cause me to think of leaving this forum, I'll try to put it in a nutshell.

- Evidence and resources pertaining to psi, afterlife, consciousness, philosophy and science are all obviously preferred and should be the main focus.

- Borderline conspiracy theories such as whether the establishment or mainstream media is perceived to be suppressing information or spreading disinformation should be discussed. Particularly when such information is pertinent to our core discussions.

- Politics? Perhaps from a spiritual perspective such as why has the collective consciousness brought about a situation with two crazy leaders threatening to launch a nuclear war (that's an example, not an invitation to defend DT).

- Religion? When the debate moves into whether Satan is at large or whether God should smite ISIS I have one foot out of the door. Much more of that kind of thing and I'm gone for good.

- Judgement. I really don't enjoy the judgemental tone of some posts (not that I've noticed any here so far). If, as many believe, this reality is one in which we learn by experiencing many lives, some as pretty vile human beings, then the focus should be on trying to understand the lessons rather than judge each other. No doubt I'll be caught out being judgemental often - we are all human - but perhaps we should try to be less so.

Finally, there has to be some moderation otherwise we will lose people of good will for the sake of tolerating spoilers. Personal attacks should be deleted and combatants should be asked to continue feuds by way of PM. Banning should always be a last resort and reserved mainly for obvious trolls.

Judgement. I really don't enjoy the judgemental tone of some posts (not that I've noticed any here so far). If, as many believe, this reality is one in which we learn by experiencing many lives, some as pretty vile human beings, then the focus should be on trying to understand the lessons rather than judge each other. No doubt I'll be caught out being judgemental often - we are all human - but perhaps we should try to be less so.

I think this is part of why I a[m] wary of political posts, including my own. I think many of us are on the older side, at least over the 30 mark, and we're all a bit set in our ways I suspect.

Political posts - again, including my own - come off as proselytizing about why we should think of things a certain way, rather than a person coming in honestly believing they're going to change their minds. This ties into conspiracy theories as well - I await the day when someone remarks that their "side" is supported by a globe-spanning conspiracy or alien/interdimensional demonic entity.

As R. Scott Bakker once put it, "No one ever says *they* are Chosen and *we* are Damned."

I just don't see how politics or conspiracy theory relate in any way to the stated subject matter of this web site. 

I mean- we don't talk about sailing do we? Or barbecue. or making beer. All of these things have merit. I'm not saying they are inherently bad, or out-of-bounds to me: they are simply not applicable to the point of this forum. Are they? Isn't this obvious?

Just because the owner of a web site many of us frequented happened to have an odd affinity for these things, I don't see why that should steer this site in that direction. If those topics are of interest to some then I think they should find a site where those topics or relevant to the central theme of the site: perhaps skeptiko.com for instance. I just don't see how these things can be interpreted as affiliated with psi in any way.

Yes- of course I can ignore those threads. But for the same reason I'm am suggesting that we shouldn't have a beer or sailing thread that others must ignore, I'd rather not have a CT thread that I must ignore.

Need a more specific logistical reason? 
Ok here's one: every time I visit the site, I look at the "new posts" tab to see what I've missed and might want to take a look at. I would really rather not have a list of 10 posts that have a high probability of being interesting, turn into a list of 20 things, half of which are non sequitur.

In other words- don't clutter up the pertinent stuff with irrelevant postings. Please don't get emotional about the terminology- By pertinent I mean directly related to psi, and by irrelevant I mean not related.  Your beer recipe is certainly important (at least to you) but it is clearly irrelevant here at psiencequest.

I don't get to decide, but since I do get to voice an opinion,,, that's mine.

I think we are all quite fortunate to have these sorts of "problems".

I just don't see how politics or conspiracy theory relate in any way to the stated subject matter of this web site. 

I mean- we don't talk about sailing do we? Or barbecue. or making beer. All of these things have merit. I'm not saying they are inherently bad, or out-of-bounds to me: they are simply not applicable to the point of this forum. Are they? Isn't this obvious?

Just because the owner of a web site many of us frequented happened to have an odd affinity for these things, I don't see why that should steer this site in that direction. If those topics are of interest to some then I think they should find a site where those topics or relevant to the central theme of the site: perhaps skeptiko.com for instance. I just don't see how these things can be interpreted as affiliated with psi in any way.

Yes- of course I can ignore those threads. But for the same reason I'm am suggesting that we shouldn't have a beer or sailing thread that others must ignore, I'd rather not have a CT thread that I must ignore.

Need a more specific logistical reason? 
Ok here's one: every time I visit the site, I look at the "new posts" tab to see what I've missed and might want to take a look at. I would really rather not have a list of 10 posts that have a high probability of being interesting, turn into a list of 20 things, half of which are non sequitur.

In other words- don't clutter up the pertinent stuff with irrelevant postings. Please don't get emotional about the terminology- By pertinent I mean directly related to psi, and by irrelevant I mean not related.  Your beer recipe is certainly important (at least to you) but it is clearly irrelevant here at psiencequest.

I don't get to decide, but since I do get to voice an opinion,,, that's mine.

One of the subforums is called UFOs. How can you even begin to consider the subject without tying in conspiracies? It's impossible.

[Ninshub]

One of the subforums is called UFOs. How can you even begin to consider the subject without tying in conspiracies? It's impossible.

I wouldn't have any problem whatsoever with people making political and conspiracy threads and posts when it's related to those topics, and I would think they should then be posted inside all of those related subforums. I'm just questioning, like others, the pertinence of having significant separate space for straight politics and world affairs-conspiracies when a specific "psi" theme isn't immediately relevant (I'm distinguishing this from the meta level that Jim was alluding to a bit higher up).

I just don't see how politics or conspiracy theory relate in any way to the stated subject matter of this web site. 

I mean- we don't talk about sailing do we? Or barbecue. or making beer. All of these things have merit. I'm not saying they are inherently bad, or out-of-bounds to me: they are simply not applicable to the point of this forum. Are they? Isn't this obvious?

Just because the owner of a web site many of us frequented happened to have an odd affinity for these things, I don't see why that should steer this site in that direction. If those topics are of interest to some then I think they should find a site where those topics or relevant to the central theme of the site: perhaps skeptiko.com for instance. I just don't see how these things can be interpreted as affiliated with psi in any way.

Yes- of course I can ignore those threads. But for the same reason I'm am suggesting that we shouldn't have a beer or sailing thread that others must ignore, I'd rather not have a CT thread that I must ignore.

Need a more specific logistical reason? 
Ok here's one: every time I visit the site, I look at the "new posts" tab to see what I've missed and might want to take a look at. I would really rather not have a list of 10 posts that have a high probability of being interesting, turn into a list of 20 things, half of which are non sequitur.

In other words- don't clutter up the pertinent stuff with irrelevant postings. Please don't get emotional about the terminology- By pertinent I mean directly related to psi, and by irrelevant I mean not related.  Your beer recipe is certainly important (at least to you) but it is clearly irrelevant here at psiencequest.

I don't get to decide, but since I do get to voice an opinion,,, that's mine.

One of the subforums is called UFOs. How can you even begin to consider the subject without tying in conspiracies? It's impossible.

Chuck: 
Surely you can see that there is stark difference between an occasional post or even a whole thread touching on a UFO conspiracy in a UFO forum, vs a whole sub-section of the web site dedicated to the general subject matter of Conspiracy Theory. Clearly those are two very different things. Yes??

The former is totally reasonable and would be expected, while the later is outside the psi topical scope of the web site. At the risk of being blunt,,, isn't this obvious?

It's one thing if someone wants to talk about CT and wants to advocate for including it herein. I say, go right ahead and advocate away. That's the point of this thread right? To sort through this issue and find out people's positions. But please don't insult my intelligence by suggesting that the whole subject matter of CT should be specifically included here because one can't talk about UFOs w/o mentioning it. That is a pretty hollow argument.