Discussion of moderation policy

[Kinser79]

Quote:When the thread contains personal attacks.

This needs to be defined otherwise it will be abused.  People like Eric (and a few others) confuse ad hominum arguments and insults on a daily basis.

There is a difference between someone posting the following: "You are wrong because of X, Y, and Z.  Also you are an idiot.", and someone posting "You are an idiot and are therefore wrong."

I would consider that the concept of personal attacks be strictly limited to libelous speech.

Quote:When the thread has drifted from the original topic, this can happen without anyone doing anything wrong conversation naturally drifts, however thread drift makes it difficult for readers to follow the discussion, when there a posts in thread on a different topic the thread can be split.

Again this needs to be defined.  A discussion of say Musician A turning into a conversation of Musician B probably should not be split if there is a clear indication of when the discussion shifted.  A discussion on the theoretical implications of the rise of nationalism would obviously need to have a split--or perhaps even a post deletion when someone starts bringing up the Holocaust as part of their argumentation that nationalism is evil/immoral/etc.

In both examples we can see that the progression of one is natural and remains on topic.  In the other it only serves to derail the conversation.

Quote:When a thread is posted in the wrong forum, mistakes happen and they can be corrected in about 30 seconds.

Not a problem, but this assumes that there will be more than one moderator with the authority to move threads to the proper forums.  I would also suggest that descriptions be added to the main forums to prevent unnecessary reporting.  Thread reports can get tiresome as I know from experience.

Finally...

Quote:I plan on moderating this forum a bit more than the old forum was moderated, as the lack of moderation was turning people off.

The total lack of any moderation except in the most extreme cases was a problem with the old forum.  Moderation ideally should tackle those extreme cases before they get out of hand.  At the same time over moderation will turn off far more people, and turn the forum into an echo chamber.  In truth the lack of moderation on the old forum was both a weakness and a strength.

As I've said in other posts here, I think that we should maintain a policy of absolute free speech excepting in cases where said speech is clearly illegal (and using US law here) or is libelous.

Overall the moderation team, which this forum will eventually need should permit all expression excepting those which promote criminal activity, or are themselves criminal actions.  As such community guidelines should be clearly and explicitly written.  An echo chamber turns more people off than the chaos of the old forum ever could.