Failings at the CS forum

I am partially in agreement with Davamanra with respect to the condition of these forums. Our failures, in my opinion, are as follows:

1. We have allowed this forum to degenerate into a standing argument on the liberal and conservative sides of american politics.

2. We have yet to come to a consensus on even one single issue. This is utterly disdainful.

3. We have abandoned the CS ideal of using totally new solutions, as previously mentioned just arguing over the Republican vs Democrat view.

4. Instead of focusing on the truly big picture, we have argued over tiny points. I consider the big picture to be things like what our goal for the CS is, answering questions such as 'freedom vs safety', broad desirable aspects for the culture, and wiping the slate totally clean and reconsidering ethics themselves

5. We have forgotten the very premise of this forum: In short, assuming global civilization will fall, how can we make a CSCS that will be a shining beacon of civilization?

6. The forums aren't organized well (not your fault, mike, it's just the way discussion went). What we really need is a subforum for CS technology, then one for CS government, then economy, then everything else can go under topics.

All of these are more or less equally important. And while criticism is useful (I will use Orwell as an example), I suggest these solutions:

1. A strict ban (strongly enforced) on discussing american politics. All posts in violation should be deleted.

2. Only we can change this, but perhaps yet another subforum, entitled 'polls', where there could be simple, one-post subjects with polls, created by users supporting an idea, and a link to the topic where it is discussed would suffice.

3. Only we can change this, it is due mostly to a fault in creativity.

4. Same as 3. We need to keep the general picture in mind, and this is my most important point.

5. Once again, this is our fault, so we should fix it.

6. Already addressed. The final forum organization, if my plan was followed, would be like this:

Topics
>CS Government
>CS Economy
>CS technology
>Polls
Off topic
Links

If we are to be a successful forum, this, IMO, is what we have to do.

I have included, as you can see, a poll with this topic. I believe the results of this poll should be made binding, if we come out with a majority yes, we should implement it. If it fails, I would suggest splitting up these 6 solutions and voting for them individually.

Excellent suggestions Redsand11j. I will be eagerly awaiting the poll results and any further suggestions for improving these forums. Thanks for bringing the topic up! ;-)

thanks. Hopefully we will come out with a majority.

But some of the suggested 'new solutions' are just silly (CS Time to use an example). I suppose those would be voted on in the poll section, then?

yes, that is more or less what I meant.

I will agree with all of your points, but would like some clarification on number five:

5. We have forgotten the very premise of this forum: In short, assuming global civilization will fall, how can we make a CSCS that will be a shining beacon of civilization?

The Clean-Slate City is not a result of apocalypse, it should be the antidote, so to speak. Collapse of global civilization would happen after the founding and success of our city-state, if it was to happen at all. Or is this what you meant?

Well, it would be hard to make a CSCS after global civilisation fell.

Locksley wrote:

I will agree with all of your points, but would like some clarification on number five:

5. We have forgotten the very premise of this forum: In short, assuming global civilization will fall, how can we make a CSCS that will be a shining beacon of civilization?

The Clean-Slate City is not a result of apocalypse, it should be the antidote, so to speak. Collapse of global civilization would happen after the founding and success of our city-state, if it was to happen at all. Or is this what you meant?

Yes, that was exactly what I meant. Basically, I was reminding everyone of this

we have 6 votes in, more or less all that could be expected, the final outcome was 5-1 for.

We should implement it now.

Mike? The vote has come out clearly in favor, 5 to one. nobody has voted in about 5 days. I think its definite- so Implementation would seem to be a good idea.

This is what I was talking about in complaint 2.

Who voted against?

We haven't even come to a consensus on this!

We ave come to a consesus on CS Time though, haven't we? And travel. It's just the politics we haven't come to a consensus on. For which I proposed a multistate solution.

A consensus is a majority of opinion, so yes we have come to one.

Discussion has been a little sluggish lately, I'll be posting some interesting articles in the next couple days that I think will get it going again.

I'll know Mike has endorsed it when he creates new subforums, and until Then I'll continue to be irritating.

I've seen this happen too many times on small forums.

I've created those new forums as requested. The question now is do we want to move the old topics into these new categories; or shall we use the opportunity to start from a 'clean slate'? ;-) At this stage I'd like to leave it up to the original author of the topic to decide whether or not to move it (mostly as this is something they can do themselves ;-). And I would suggest that the decision to do so would be based on the merit of the discussion contained therein.

As for more strict moderation; I'll have to think about the best way to go about this. Personally; I would prefer if participants of this forum, respecting a higher common purpose, would regulate the content of their own posts and refrain from unpurposeful bickering. Perhaps one day I'll create a forum charter, as Redsand11j has suggested, and sticky it to the top of the forum homepage. But as for now I'm leaving it up to you guys. I think we've all come to an agreement on this...

Hopefully I'll have more opportunity to involve myself with the forum in the near future.

- Mike

Thank you very much Mike!!

I'll be moving all of my topics over, there's a lot of valuable information that would be a shame to lose. Turn your cheek to the less-than-stellar comments

Edit: Looks like you're going to have to walk me through it, it seems I can't figure out how to move the topics myself.

Thank you.

I will be doing the same as locksley.

And I agree that it should be up to us, to avoid talking about AP, but if we fail to do so, perhaps if someone reports it, then it gets deleted? Well maybe two people in support of deletion, then it's gone.

We'll talk about it.

Now let's hope we stick to it!

Mike- I don't think we have the power to move even our own threads.

Hmm I think you're right. Redsand11j, just as an experiment, if I make you a moderator can you let me know if you're able to move your own topics? I'll probably just make you all moderators for a few weeks and see how that works.

Heh, I can't figure out how to make anyone a moderator. The choices seem to be restricted to general users or administrators only! I'm not sure if I want to give you that many rights so it looks like I'll have to sort through the existing topics myself. In the mean time you are all welcome to start new topics under the new subforums if you feel the need.

well, I could go through all of the topics and post a reply for where they should be. That way you would just have to move them.

Actually, if you could make an index and email it to me that would be perfect!

sure- I'd be glad to.

Ah, now we can get on with actually discussing things properly. One question: should Ethics & Morality debates (such as on Abortion) be in Topics?

Mike wrote:

Heh, I can't figure out how to make anyone a moderator. The choices seem to be restricted to general users or administrators only!

The Moderator group should exist, since I've applied to join it! You're the group moderator, but no-one else is in it. If it's not there then you'll have to create it.

I have applied as well. Perhaps if you click on the link that says 'moderators' under the free chat forum?