viscousmemories
05-30-2005, 08:24 PM
In our thread Introducing the Freethought Forum (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=138#post138), we gave a brief outline of what we set out to achieve when we created this forum. As we explain there, we have gone to great lengths to provide each member here with tools to control his or her own experience by way of blocking out content or members that offend them.
What we haven't done is make clear the extent of the options and our own expectations for their use. Our initial vision relied on a community-based post voting system (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50) to take care of the issue. We commissioned a programmer to add a vote counter to each post and custom filtering features that enabled each member to select for posts that had sunk (or risen) to a particular numerical value. Unfortunately, some serious flaws in this approach -- some of which we've seen raised again in recent discussion -- were uncovered by the membership very early on, and as a result we disabled the entire system. We've been struggling to determine a sufficient replacement for that idea ever since. As a result, the ignore features have tended to be utilized as the last line of defense instead of a flexible means to reduce board frustrations before they become full-blown rages.
Our efforts to provide each member with control of their individual experience will continue -- we have already begun to plug some of the more glaring holes in site-wide ignore features -- but we will redouble our efforts to emphasize and clarify these features.
Having said that, we have recently come to realize that some board damaging difficulties cannot be resolved by members on their own, that there are times when a single individual is so disruptive to the community at large that it begins to impinge on others' free speech, some directly, many others indirectly. In such cases we feel that revoking that individuals membership is the only reasonable means we have of upholding our committment to provide an environment for everyone else to engage each other freely.
And so consistent with that conclusion and with our comments in this thread (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2952), we have amended the Forum Rules (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=133#post133) to add the following disclaimer:
"The administrators reserve the right to withdraw or deny membership at their discretion."
Naturally we don't expect to have to invoke this right often, and prior to doing so we will send an explanatory PM and/or email to the member in question so they understand our concerns and have the opportunity to rectify the situation.
To be clear, our judgement of whether to revoke the membership of a particular user will always be based on what we perceive as the impact of their participation on the community at large, not on the degree to which they offend any individual member(s) here. We still believe the vast majority of member conflicts can and should be resolved through a combination of the built-in ignore features and willpower. Only when we think a single member is having a substantially disproportionate negative effect on the forum community as a whole will we intervene.
We have already begun to enhance the set of software controls we provide to make them even more comprehensive and less disturbing to the flow of discussions. Some of these recent changes are outlined in the Ignore Enhancements (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3062) thread in Forum Administration, and more will come soon.
As we also mentioned in the Introducing the Freethought Forum thread, one of the four principles that inspired us in the creation of this forum--and as important to us as the principles of free thought, free expression, and community--is self-determination. As much as we are committed to doing what we can to facilitate a productive and invigorating community environment here, we expect each member to do what he/she can toward that end as well. One person can definitely make a mess on a forum, but the size and impact of that mess broadens every time someone chooses to respond in kind.
Our thanks and appreciation to everyone who participated in these discussions, both for holding our feet to the fire and for being so nice about it.
What we haven't done is make clear the extent of the options and our own expectations for their use. Our initial vision relied on a community-based post voting system (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50) to take care of the issue. We commissioned a programmer to add a vote counter to each post and custom filtering features that enabled each member to select for posts that had sunk (or risen) to a particular numerical value. Unfortunately, some serious flaws in this approach -- some of which we've seen raised again in recent discussion -- were uncovered by the membership very early on, and as a result we disabled the entire system. We've been struggling to determine a sufficient replacement for that idea ever since. As a result, the ignore features have tended to be utilized as the last line of defense instead of a flexible means to reduce board frustrations before they become full-blown rages.
Our efforts to provide each member with control of their individual experience will continue -- we have already begun to plug some of the more glaring holes in site-wide ignore features -- but we will redouble our efforts to emphasize and clarify these features.
Having said that, we have recently come to realize that some board damaging difficulties cannot be resolved by members on their own, that there are times when a single individual is so disruptive to the community at large that it begins to impinge on others' free speech, some directly, many others indirectly. In such cases we feel that revoking that individuals membership is the only reasonable means we have of upholding our committment to provide an environment for everyone else to engage each other freely.
And so consistent with that conclusion and with our comments in this thread (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2952), we have amended the Forum Rules (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=133#post133) to add the following disclaimer:
"The administrators reserve the right to withdraw or deny membership at their discretion."
Naturally we don't expect to have to invoke this right often, and prior to doing so we will send an explanatory PM and/or email to the member in question so they understand our concerns and have the opportunity to rectify the situation.
To be clear, our judgement of whether to revoke the membership of a particular user will always be based on what we perceive as the impact of their participation on the community at large, not on the degree to which they offend any individual member(s) here. We still believe the vast majority of member conflicts can and should be resolved through a combination of the built-in ignore features and willpower. Only when we think a single member is having a substantially disproportionate negative effect on the forum community as a whole will we intervene.
We have already begun to enhance the set of software controls we provide to make them even more comprehensive and less disturbing to the flow of discussions. Some of these recent changes are outlined in the Ignore Enhancements (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3062) thread in Forum Administration, and more will come soon.
As we also mentioned in the Introducing the Freethought Forum thread, one of the four principles that inspired us in the creation of this forum--and as important to us as the principles of free thought, free expression, and community--is self-determination. As much as we are committed to doing what we can to facilitate a productive and invigorating community environment here, we expect each member to do what he/she can toward that end as well. One person can definitely make a mess on a forum, but the size and impact of that mess broadens every time someone chooses to respond in kind.
Our thanks and appreciation to everyone who participated in these discussions, both for holding our feet to the fire and for being so nice about it.