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Post by Ambrose Yarwood on Dec 2, 2011 13:01:13 GMT
I've been asked this once or twice, and I really haven't been able to say. So I'm going to throw out some ideas for what could be this forum's selling points, based on what I see and how it's been so far. It's probably not going to be much, but you have to start somewhere. Throw in your ideas too.
* Drama (you can't deny that we've had some of that)
* A wide variety of opinions. Rather than having 1000 atheists and 10 theists knocking about, I want this place to be for everyone.
* A no nonsense approach to trolls, or a different approach
* A forum that started from nothing at all and somehow inexplicably grew and became successful
* Here's an idea that I've been considering : Theme days. ie, No-Rule Fridays / earn immunity from the rules for the day, spot the sockpuppet (ie I allow one of you to create a sock for the day and everyone has to guess who it is), weekly random bannings, etc
Over to you.
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B
Junior Member
Expect Us
Posts: 74
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Post by B on Dec 2, 2011 16:28:11 GMT
* Drama (you can't deny that we've had some of that) How is this a selling point? Do you want to attract people who aren't interested in actually participating in thoughtful discussions or in engaging debate? Cool, but having a higher number of atheists/non-theists/non-Christians than theists is inevitable for any place. It's the Internet. People can disprove the Christian God with freaking Google. And these Creationists, Intelligent Design idiots and others who don't provide anything of worth aren't exactly good as "selling points". ALCATRAZ is already unique, akin to the WWGHA forum's former Emergency Room. That's a start. Um..how is this a selling point? Uh, random bannings? Meh. As for the rest, definitely! It would be cool and a good "selling point" on how unique this forum is.
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Post by rjh01 on Dec 2, 2011 21:13:11 GMT
I was thinking of having a sub forum that is not on other forums. Not sure what that sub forum should be.
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Post by ksen on Dec 6, 2011 17:55:56 GMT
"What's so special about this forum?"
Nothing really.
eta: ooohhh, I can get a 2012 Camry lease for only $229/month!
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Post by waymarker on Dec 8, 2011 14:37:59 GMT
I was an admin/mod at the Few Good Men Club military history/world affairs site for 2 years and it ran smooth as silk because we had zero tolerance towards immature trollers and disrupters, we simply kicked them straight out and the atmosphere was great. Then in the middle of this year the Big Boss decided to be more tolerant towards them and as a result the good atmosphere flew out the window and the club decended to 'noisy schoolyard brats' level, so i quit and walked out. I've also walked out of 3 other sites this year (Amkom/Armageddon/Randi) for the same reason, namely they tolerate brats. From my experience, brats shouldn't be suspended or negotiated with or tolerated in any way, they should simply be KICKED OFF sites permanently! Every site boss should therefore decide in his own mind whether he wants his site to be a sensible adult discussion/debate forum that attracts decent goodhumoured regular people, or an out-of-control noisy schoolyard full of loud brats..
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Bayes
Full Member
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Post by Bayes on Dec 16, 2011 21:19:33 GMT
I can see that approach working well for a military site, not so much for a site devoted to discussion and even arguement of philosophical views.
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Post by ferryman on Dec 18, 2011 12:21:05 GMT
Beg to differ. I can see that approach working on any site. You think a christian site would tolerate an atheists being disruptive? Hell no! They would ban you so fast your head would spin! I think the same should be done with atheists forums. I mean after all they are not going to accept anything an atheists says that cast doubt on their little closed belief system.
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Post by Ambrose Yarwood on Dec 18, 2011 12:58:08 GMT
Beg to differ. I can see that approach working on any site. You think a christian site would tolerate an atheists being disruptive? Hell no! They would ban you so fast your head would spin! I think the same should be done with atheists forums. I mean after all they are not going to accept anything an atheists says that cast doubt on their little closed belief system. I have no intention of running this forum as a clique, and I hope that we can all be mature enough to handle that.
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Post by ferryman on Dec 18, 2011 14:02:57 GMT
Not sure what you mean but your the boss will abide by what you set as the guidelines...
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Bayes
Full Member
Posts: 206
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Post by Bayes on Dec 20, 2011 18:15:37 GMT
Beg to differ. I can see that approach working on any site. You think a christian site would tolerate an atheists being disruptive? Hell no! They would ban you so fast your head would spin! I think the same should be done with atheists forums. I mean after all they are not going to accept anything an atheists says that cast doubt on their little closed belief system. The difference is that this is not a board set up for internal discussion of one belief system. This isn't an atheist board, it's a rational board and although many Rationalists are Atheists many are not. I think that many of the posts by Christians here asserting that Atheism is nonsense, or that Intelligent Design is a sound theory, with no backing evidence or supporting arguements whatsoever could be considered disruptive behavior. However they are not disruptive enough that anything but derision from the community is required, hopefully the proponents of intelligent design realize from that derision that evidence is required to support assertions, and they will then produce some evidence and an actual discussion can ensue. Meanwhile, to others, that derision might look disruptive, however it is required before any sort of evidence is going to be produced in many cases and is an important part of actually reaching the point where discussion is possible.
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Post by waymarker on Jan 8, 2012 15:50:27 GMT
I've just walked out of the David Icke forum because of the heavy-handed little-Hitler moderation, they couldn't mod a whelk stall let alone a forum.. That makes 5 sites i've walked out of in the past year- Armageddon/ Amkon/ Randi/ Few Good Men/ Ickes. Maybe i should start my own forum, it'd be completely without rules and i'd let people say whatever they liked, provided they said it without any childish insults or nastiness or i'd boot 'em straight out. That way the place would attract sensible adult posters and not noisy brats.. PS- Does anybody know how we can get avatars? They'd make our posts easier to find.
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Post by rjh01 on Jan 9, 2012 7:28:57 GMT
I've just walked out of the David Icke forum because of the heavy-handed little-Hitler moderation, they couldn't mod a whelk stall let alone a forum.. That makes 5 sites i've walked out of in the past year- Armageddon/ Amkon/ Randi/ Few Good Men/ Ickes. Maybe i should start my own forum, it'd be completely without rules and i'd let people say whatever they liked, provided they said it without any childish insults or nastiness or i'd boot 'em straight out. That way the place would attract sensible adult posters and not noisy brats.. PS- Does anybody know how we can get avatars? They'd make our posts easier to find. What was your userid at Randi? That is a lot of forums to walk out of. It suggests the problem may not be the forum. Though how any sane person can stand Ickes forum is beyond me. If you want a forum where you could say almost anything try this one www.skepticalcommunity.com/forums/
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Post by Ambrose Yarwood on Jan 9, 2012 11:40:36 GMT
I've just walked out of the David Icke forum because of the heavy-handed little-Hitler moderation, they couldn't mod a whelk stall let alone a forum.. That makes 5 sites i've walked out of in the past year- Armageddon/ Amkon/ Randi/ Few Good Men/ Ickes. Maybe i should start my own forum, it'd be completely without rules and i'd let people say whatever they liked, provided they said it without any childish insults or nastiness or i'd boot 'em straight out. That way the place would attract sensible adult posters and not noisy brats.. PS- Does anybody know how we can get avatars? They'd make our posts easier to find. At the top of the page can you see where it says Home...New topics...Help...Search...members...etc? Go to Profile and you can make various changes, including adding an avatar. Avatars cannot be uploaded, you have to enter the URL.
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Post by waymarker on Jan 9, 2012 15:58:31 GMT
..What was your userid at Randi? That is a lot of forums to walk out of. It suggests the problem may not be the forum. Though how any sane person can stand Ickes forum is beyond me. If you want a forum where you could say almost anything try this one www.skepticalcommunity.com/forums/Thanks i'll check it, i'm already a member at several different forums including Rational and can't remember all my userID's without looking them up on a piece of paper. Most other forums demonstrate how bad forum rules and bad mods can ruin a site. Ickes is a sloppy mess with a poorly-planned subforum layout and petty-minded mods. Icke himself never looks in to tighten it up so it reflects badly on him.
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Post by rjh01 on Jan 9, 2012 21:19:54 GMT
..What was your userid at Randi? That is a lot of forums to walk out of. It suggests the problem may not be the forum. Though how any sane person can stand Ickes forum is beyond me. If you want a forum where you could say almost anything try this one www.skepticalcommunity.com/forums/Thanks i'll check it, i'm already a member at several different forums including Rational and can't remember all my userID's without looking them up on a piece of paper. Most other forums demonstrate how bad forum rules and bad mods can ruin a site. Ickes is a sloppy mess with a poorly-planned subforum layout and petty-minded mods. Icke himself never looks in to tighten it up so it reflects badly on him. You are right about one thing - I have seen small forums with many of the sub forums not used and others with hardly any active threads. Makes it very hard to use that forum. Forums when they start should only have a few sub forums. Let them create more when they grow. Not seen a good definition of what bad rules are. They appear to be dependant on what you want. There are also many forums that are smaller now than what they were several years ago.
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