Proposed Forum Rule

Quote: DorothyGale

Restrict free speech?

No. He may be the Wizard, but he's lacks the capability. If he tried it he'd surely land in jail. Only governments can restrict free speech. Private individuals, businesses and corporations can only restrict or regulate speech in their property. They cannot fine you or throw you in jail for saying somehting they don't like, nor prevent you from speaking elsewhere. Governments can.

My proposal is just a proposal. The Wizard can do about it whatever he wants. He can ignore it, act on it, tell me to shut up, any number of things.

Sorry, while I don't like to see personal insults used, the last thing I believe we need is word police monitoring the playground. We are all grown ups and should be able to take cyber-insults and attacks from trolls and strangers.

Quote: ruascott

Sorry, while I don't like to see personal insults used, the last thing I believe we need is word police monitoring the playground. We are all grown ups and should be able to take cyber-insults and attacks from trolls and strangers.

That sums up my position as well. The feature to block any other user you wish should be up soon.

That's a good rule of thumb, but it's an awful lot of responsibility to heap on the moderator(s). What passes as friendly banter to one may be of utmost offense to another, "for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so" (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2). Who's to judge?

As a long-ago regular in several Usenet forums, I can say with confidence that flame wars tend to have a dampening effect on productive conversation. Several modern techniques have mitigated this effect, and allow you (individually) to control the level of decorum without requiring a massive policing effort from the moderators:
1) The "ignore" feature, where a user's forum content has certain other members' posts filtered out
2) The ranking feature, where a post's value is ranked (plus/minus, thumbs up/down, etc) and ranked posts below a certain threshold are hidden by default.
There are others in a similar vein, but you get the point.

As a lurker, I understand the sentiment, but such a rule also strikes me as unworkable.

This board used to be populated by a comparatively tight group of regular posters. As the site has become more popular, that intimacy had diminished and the exchanges have sometimes increased in coarseness. I share the disappointment; I enjoyed it as a calmer and more intelligent version of other boards that are so common on the web. But that's the internet.

In the past 3 months this forum has definitely taken a turn towards nastiness and name calling, and we are all worse off because of it. I find it hard to believe that adults feel compelled to behave on this forum the same way preteens behave on other internet forums. I watched the same thing happen on the Motley Fool Forums years ago. You start out with a great site, and lots of informed people willing to help anyone who ventured in. Soon enough the trolls showed up, and the easy ambiance of the site started to decline. Once it got bad enough, the informed people who did not want to put up with the juveniles left, only to be replaced by more juveniles, and more name calling. Eventually you end up with something as useful as the brilliant Yahoo groups. Motley Fool headed it off by charging a subscription. That weeded out the bozos. I'm not suggesting that is needed for this forum by any means, just saying.

In person discussions are more civil since the risk of getting punched is real. Call someone enough names and they may react. On a forum, I can antagonize someone all I want and they have no real recourse. That makes me braver and allows me to act like an idiot. Social media at its finest.

Already on here, I have noticed some posters who used to be regular contributers have not posted in a while. Could it be that the decline of informed posters has begun here as well?

I tend to agree with RaleighCraps' sentiments. This forum is "maturing" rapidly. Certainly, it's easy for us to be offended and innocent barbs turn into insults turn into flame wars. Such is the nature of social media. We all can tend to be idiots online. It would be nice to tame these a bit.

I don't believe in moderation except in organizing threads in the right place and moving things where necessary and also removing absolutely offending posts.

The ignore and rating features will help, as will private chat. They apparently are coming soon.

Another thing that is happening is that the sheer number of threads and volumes of posts make it difficult to get caught up. If I am away at work, I can come home to find a thread on the 2nd page of forum postings and by that time, it's passe. So I would like to see the home page have a listing of the latest 40-50 threads instead of the last 10, which is no longer adequate.

Quote: Nareed

No. He may be the Wizard, but he's lacks the capability. If he tried it he'd surely land in jail.

Naw, he wouldn't have done anything criminal. (This isn't Mexico! :P). WoV=Paid for by Wizard=Wizard's Property=Wizard's right to put whatever he wants on the site including restricting free speech. That's a basic right to be able to do whatever you want in a private forum; you don't have to follow the Constitution.

There are two posters who made the atmosphere of this board really nasty. The first one is gone for now, thankfully. The second one adds a lot to the discussion be does so in a very argumentative way and seems to want to take an adverse position to everything and break down every statement. This isn't in itself a bad thing but is mentally grating and not really what this board is about.

I would pay for access to this site. I think it is that useful. I think one of the other Vegas sites, I think it was VegasRex, started charging for his forum and got a lot of subscribers.

RaleighCraps, I agree. We joined about the same time, by the way. Initially I found the forum to be rather cliqish, ala the high school group that is less than welcoming to the new kid in school. When I finally dared to express an opinion at odds with one or more of the inner circle, I felt I was rather harshly treated.

Thanks to some members who pointed out that words posted on an internet forum are not important, I did get past that. I must admit though that the urge to strike back is sometimes uncontrollable.

teddys, I agree with you also. I was reviewing the "casinos should be able to bar advantage players" thread and was amazed again at how many believe that a private business must welcome any and all comers. If Daniel Negreanu shows up at my weekly neighborhood poker game wanting to play, do I have to allow him? Anyway, I think the website owner can do just about whatever he or she pleases with his/her website short of libel and slander. Of course those who disagree can bring their civil action.

RaleighCraps, I have another craps topic in mind. Would you join me in another thread? I must warn you, I and possibly any respondents to my question will probably be subject to much disdain and ridicule.

Quote: boymimbo

Another thing that is happening is that the sheer number of threads and volumes of posts make it difficult to get caught up. If I am away at work, I can come home to find a thread on the 2nd page of forum postings and by that time, it's passe. So I would like to see the home page have a listing of the latest 40-50 threads instead of the last 10, which is no longer adequate.

As I've stated elsewhere, the standard forum feature elsewhere that tracks a users last read article needs to be turned on or implemented.

See the Help section "More features" thread.

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