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To: Alan Bell who wrote (17466)	5/22/2003 1:00:43 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32883

There are times that opposing views simply cannot be discussed civilly on one thread. People who are excluded are always able to create a new thread and sometimes that thread ends up dominating the original. What you are essentially saying is that it's not the opposing viewpoints that bothers you but the civility of the discussion. By saying you like the idea others can moderate their own similar thread you are admitting the disparity from one moderator to another. This is precisely why there should be no moderator at all. If things get out of hand, the site admin should be the one to restore order. Otherwise, the end result is fiefdoms, not truly moderated boards. In any case, iHub, to their credit, does have a rule, unlike SI, that there can only be one board per security. Thus, I'd have to guess that you are referring to generalized discussions. If so, then we are in agreement anyhow since, as I said, I have nothing against anyone moderating such non stock-specific topics. - Jeff

To: Alan Bell who wrote (17466)	5/22/2003 1:02:36 PM
From: SI Bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32883

I have this love/hate thing going with moderated threads. Changes to them will happen in the long term and the past 5 posts have brought up excellent points for me to consider. System-provided disclosure of who's banned is a given. Definitely need that one. My current inclination, which is subject to change based on feedback over the months it'll take before I'm in a position to implement any changes: 1. Keep them largely the same as they are now. Whoever starts the board can ban at their sole discretion. 2. Disclaimer with each moderated board explaining the danger of relying on them too heavily for investment information because of the potentially one-sided nature of their content. 3. People can feel free to start other boards if they're excluded from one. It's not unheard of for the new board to replace the previous one as the board of choice for a security. 4. Rather than complete termination from a thread, suspensions from the threads of increasing lengths. First time you hit the Boot button, for example, they're off the thread for 3 days. After the 3 days has elapsed, the Boot button won't work on them for, say, a day. Second time, 5 days. Etc. 5. To go along with #4, I don't like the idea of people being able to boot someone from a board, which is often done capriciously (I'm booted from Zeev's board here, for example) and then just throw away the key. Boots for specific periods of time. Not permanent. But possibly renewable indefinitely. I'm not looking to make sweeping philosophical changes to the site, though. The boat has been taking on water, and we'll fix that, but we don't need to rock it to try to get rid of the water. Just have to get the bilge pumps working. Any change to the way Moderated threads work will be pretty far into the future (I have a "boat" load of technical projects that are of much higher priority) and won't be done without plenty of feedback from the community. What I'd prefer to do is to table this discussion for now (I haven't the time for it), and when I've got a better handle on the site, having ported it over to my world, then let's open a new thread just to discuss it. Or someone can feel free to open such a thread now and I'll catch up when the time is right. I really don't have to be party to these discussions until I'm ready to change or not change the way Moderation works. But if that discussion/argument takes place here, it'll have been buried by the time I'm in a position to come up to speed on what the community thinks about it. If someone starts such a thread, please PM me the link so I can add it to my Favorit... I mean SubjectMarks.