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With that said, I don't really support a return to the arbitrary "no skeptics" MOD+. There is a difference between asking for some common sense and barring entry.

Absolutely agree - I always thought that MOD+ was a cop out.

OK. Cool. It isn't my intention to drive away any existing posters or to discourage anyone from joining. If that happens then I would have to reconsider why I am part of the community here.

OK. Cool. It isn't my intention to drive away any existing posters or to discourage anyone from joining. If that happens then I would have to reconsider why I am part of the community here.

FWIW, I also wasn't referring to you!

I love Chuck's guilty conscience/persecution complex...




Hang on, is it ME?

Why not? I would like one where people are not allowed to go in circles, at least make them work new arguments for subsequent posts. I would not abuse it (i.e. not tag all of them), but we saw how ridiculously off track the thread about Guerrer's work went. Depending on the topic, it could be desirable. Also, since it will likely be argued... No, I don't see it as a form of "censorship", new threads are cheap and nobody is preventing offshoots.

We definately don't want that... the Guerrer thread didn't go off topic...?

I've changed my mind on the whole issue.  It would have been nice to be able to moderate my own threads but in practice, it is too open to abuse.  The sceptics wouldn't get a look in in most peoples threads here.

Sauce for the goose isn't sauce for the gander?

Just out of interest, is it possible to have private groups by invitation? That might be useful for discussing some subjects.

[Laird]

Just out of interest, is it possible to have private groups by invitation? That might be useful for discussing some subjects.

It would be possible to set up subforums like we've done for political and conspiracy theory discussions, so that one has to be a member of a group to view those subforums, except that instead of members being able to join the group at will, they had to be added by a moderator (they could leave at will though). It might be possible to allow members other than moderators to add members to a group, but, without investigating it, I suspect not. As for invitations, I think that those would have to be manual - e.g. a moderator, potentially on behalf of a non-mod user, PMs the invitee asking, "Would you like to be added to this group so you can view such-and-such private discussions?".

It would be possible to set up subforums like we've done for political and conspiracy theory discussions, so that one has to be a member of a group to view those subforums, except that instead of members being able to join the group at will, they had to be added by a moderator (they could leave at will though). It might be possible to allow members other than moderators to add members to a group, but, without investigating it, I suspect not. As for invitations, I think that those would have to be manual - e.g. a moderator, potentially on behalf of a non-mod user, PMs the invitee asking, "Would you like to be added to this group so you can view such-and-such private discussions?".

Thanks. By "invitation", I just meant that people wouldn't be able to join of their own accord. 

I was thinking of the precognitive dream experiment that ran on Skeptiko for a while. But perhaps there might be other subjects, such as technical aspects of certain papers, which might benefit from private discussion among a limited group.