"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso
I think I would stop using a forum that required a thread starter to review and approve every one of my posts, and I would find it a total pain in the butt to have to do that for people commenting on my threads.
Aside from the odd thread/user here or there, I think you are trying to fix a problem that probably doesn't need fixing, but I guess that all depends on what you want out of a forum or what your preconception of 'a forum' is.
As a community, I think we collectively have a responsibility to define what is/is not acceptable, and to set a 'tone' to proceedings. We don't/shouldn't need 'functionality' to achieve it.
Frikkin Lasers
http://www.frikkinlasers.co.uk
You are using Bonetti's defense against me, ah?
I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.
Any sort of censorship is bad in my book - except maybe self-censorship. The fact that PL is little moderated is a big plus in my opinion. If I want to make an arse of myself (which I sometimes do) I can - as can others.
A place of free speech soon distils personalities, motives and character and I rather like it.
Keith
The nice thing about a feature is you don't have to use it - just turn it off - The current alternative is smiling and ignoring the buffoons, or wading in and punching it out to make PL a better place - and even if you're willing to turn the other cheek - the thread still gets hijacked by others who won't. I'm suggesting a rather pointed way of saying, "I may not agree with what you're saying, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it." Somewhere else!
"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso
That could work because it's effectively doing what a very off-topic poster should have done in the first place. Also, because determining 'off-topic' is a thing for a brain, not a machine, and because too many cooks spoil stuff, it should either be possible by the thread originator, or not at all. (Depends on Spec's judgement and coding effort.).
The thing the rest of us can do is decide how off-topic our post will be. A drift in subject is no problem, no real discovery or invention is achieved without it, but a direct challenge to a person arising out of a passing reference IS a thing that should get a new thread. The sooner that gets its own thread, the sooner discussion will follow that thread, so whatever it is, it should be done fast. For now, if you see a challenge likely to spawn a lot of angry noise unrelated, you could flag it to Spec because the opportunity is given to say why you're flagging it. If he agrees he'll probably move it. If he doesn't, then there's nothing we can do about it so we might as well shut up about it and drown out the noise with on-topic posts.
EDIT: I also agree with Keith about the free speech effect. I never use forums that don't allow it pretty much unfiltered because they always act like they own our words and thoughts. In this case though, if a thread originator can move a very off-topic post to a new thread without changing its content, other than perhaps to add a link to the original thread for context, then it adds more to free speech than it removes. (Though like all things it may have unexpected and undesirable consequences we don't know about).
I agree with that too. If the thing gets so bad that we can't think straight, then the 'cleverer' a forum function gets, the more likely it is to be another way for us to go wrong. The best free-speech forum I remember had brutally simple code compared to today's forums, and arguably went downhill when later forum software was used.
Last edited by The_Doctor; 01-09-2014 at 08:49.
Great idea.
If only someone had thought of identifying something of no relevance years ago .....
Attachment 41754
Ouch. I don't think anyone's proposing a 'total cleansing' though. A better analogy might be to allow people holding a party to turn people away from their house if they look drunk enough to smash stuff up.
... such 'thread-cleaning' is best done by mods (or admins) not direct involved in the thread ... the OP or 'involved' users with such powers tends to kill discussions, even if they are not heated or totally OT ...
Viktor