Oh my! Where to start?
Let's first review why we are discussing this.
In a contentious political season, partisan posters could not maintain civility. Even in a forum with lax rules, they couldn't resist name-calling, personal attacks, lying and demonizing opposing politicians and posters. As Q-Tip said, collectively we were acting like 6 year olds.(remember that phrase)
Management, faced with the choice of banning prolific posters or shutting threads, chose the latter.
So now we have a proposed path forward with 2 non-negotiable criteria. Let's look at the criteria and judge whether it will address the problem of "collectively we were acting like 6 year olds".
1)The forum must be a closed, invite-only forum. That will make banning someone from that forum much easier, and give us a chance to protect ourselves from trolls.
-Does a "closed forum" address posting behavior?
No, of course not. It only hides that behavior from the general public.
-Does an "invite only" policy address posting behavior?
It can, depending on who is doing the inviting and what criteria they are using. It goes without saying that, absent other controls, inviting posters who act like 6 year olds will get you the same old same old.
So...the only purpose of "invitation only" is a de facto ban on certain posters. The question then becomes, who is doing the "pre-banning" and what are his/their standards?
1a)New people could be added based on consensus.
Wow, talk about ambiguity!
Consensus as in majority, plurality or unaminity?
And who votes? Those who are invited? Those who are invited and accept?
If the first three people are invited by(someone, we don't know who) can they then vote to exclude any future candidates?
Again, the issue is "collectively we were acting like 6 year olds".
So what are we doing?...empowering a few selected 6 year olds and giving them an island where they can fashion their own exclusive secret political club? Will there be a secret handshake? a jacket? a pointy hat? mutual masturbation?
There will be one moderator -- and everyone who participates on the forum must agree to take any issues to him only, and no running to Ben or to anyone else under any circumstances. @@jking948 has been approached and has agreed to do it. He's a very even-tempered and open-minded guy willing to listen to everyone. If people have concerned about how the forum will be moderated -- and I do as well -- this is the thread to get this stuff out in the open and discuss it.
-My sympathies @jking948.
-I see most of you like this idea. I detest it, and here's why:
Political discussion, by its very nature, will have outliers. These are people who don't and won't fit into the the main political thought-streams. You can call them extremists or independents or mavericks, but the point is they won't march in either parties parade.
In a rule-based political discussion forum they can get their views heard because they can obey the rules and still voice unpopular opinions.
In a 'membership-by-consensus' political forum they will be ousted, if not by pre-emptive exclusion, then by majority disapproval of their ideas, which will be deemed trolling, shitposting, hateful, bigoted, sexist or racist. It is inevitable.
First the partisans of the two major parties will play nice with each other and gang up on the outliers. Then they will go after each other, eliminating the easy pickings from both sides.
I currently have 6 people on ignore because I don't find their postings useful. But I would never advocate for voting them off the island. They have a right to voice their political opinions to anyone that will listen.
There is a reason that discipline in discussion forums is rule-based rather than popularity-based.
Forgive my pessimism but I can't see myself participating in a forum where the continuation of my presence is dependent on the consensus opinions of people who act like 6 year olds.
