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SI - Site Forums : Silicon Investor - New feature discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lahcim Leinad who wrote (3222)	1/20/2014 8:57:46 PM
From: Dale Baker	1 Recommendation Recommended By Celtictrader Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7352

SI didn't have political threads and all-politics posters much at all before 9/11; the political discussions that started then brought out (and drew in) a whole new group obsessed with attacking their "enemies" whenever possible, and violating the SI TOU on personal attacks and language literally daily. Without bans now, much of SI would literally be unusable and unreadable. Just look at the most active unmoderated threads and see what they have to do with investing. Subject 473 Subject 30630 Subject 57143 Nothing. Nothing at all. The one hot unmoderated investing thread is all Canada all the time. The US political junkies just don't care about anyone posting there: Subject 57810 Without a firewall, the few remaining quality investing threads will go the same route as the open political threads in a flash. I checked out several other "investing" message board sites and their threads were totally polluted with this garbage. The world ain't what it used to be by a long shot.

To: Lahcim Leinad who wrote (3222)	1/20/2014 8:59:59 PM
From: SI Ron (Crazy Music Man)	Respond to of 7352

Posts were deleted back in the early days on SI, fact. People were booted on a regular basis, fact. Your facts are wrong. You can't see the notes I can see.

To: Lahcim Leinad who wrote (3222)	1/20/2014 10:04:14 PM
From: Snowshoe	1 Recommendation Recommended By Dale Baker Respond to of 7352

>>When SI started, there were no bans. None. SI operated just fine without them. In fact, Brad and Jeff sold SI for over $30 million in stock, before bans came into being. Search SI, you'll see it's a fact. No bans, very few deletions. Deletions back then were severely disputed, and deleted posters often won: they got to repost what had been erroneously deleted. Count me among the winners during those battles, back then. Check the History of Silicon Investor thread.<< When I recently tallied the annual number of posts on SI, I noticed that a large number of posts had been deleted in the early years. There were dozens (maybe hundreds) of posts missing, as if whole threads were deleted or data had been lost. As best I recall this was somewhere in the 1995-1997 time frame.

To: Lahcim Leinad who wrote (3222)	1/27/2014 7:20:25 AM
From: sense	4 Recommendations Recommended By Bob greenspirit SiouxPal Zilyunz Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7352

"free discourse must flourish, censorship must die" Free discourse doesn't exist without civility... but, you already know that freedom and anarchy are different things, when you're lobbying for anarchy. The quality of debate in Parliament would not be improved by a change to tolerate and encourage profanity and personal attacks based on nothing but base or vulgar personal insults... instead of brilliant use of wit that tends to remain relevant to the topic under debate. What you're really saying is that others who don't wish it, should be forced to tolerate your lack of civility... and reality is you don't have an unlimited right to offend other people... or to impose your preferences on them. As far as censorship... does SI have a list of banned topics ? I must have missed that. I assume they won't want to host discussions that violate or advocate violating the laws. That you can start your own thread, here, on any topic, and can define and enforce your own rules... explodes your argument. Perhaps Lahcim Leinad voting with his feet... in fact... would be taken as a proof that SI is making progress in regaining an ability to control their culture and their brand... in a way that will allow them to begin making it a more appealing choice of destination for more people... not fewer. What is the value people here seek, and want ? Is it a particular quality in the information on investment (or, whatever) or is the value people seek really only the lack of limits in how abusively they can behave towards others ? From the perspective of a board moderator, the problem isn't censorship, either the ability to practice it, or the lack of that ability, but a lack of tools to simplify the enforcement of the board rules, whatever they are... If I had tools like those, I'd gladly apply them to prevent the use of vulgar and abusive language... because I find it tends to propagate into a massive waste of bandwidth, and my time... I'm more than capable of holding my own in a contest of insults... I just don't find it useful, and don't choose to spend my time or exercise my grey matter in bothering with that. How many years ago was it that Eudora came out with filters that allowed you to monitor, and if you opted that, to censor your own use of language as you typed your e-mail... with a wide ability to monitor and alter the level of aggressiveness you wanted to accept ? I don't have any problem with moderators setting rules for their boards... and limiting others use of language to that level of civility that they prefer... The biggest problem with that is that the tools for enforcement of rules still require board moderators, and SI Admin, to exercise editorial oversite... manually... Society has always had and enforced rules for what is acceptable, or tolerated in use of language, and what those rules are has always varied with the venue... so you don't use language that is acceptable in the barroom when you're talking to your buds... when you're at work, or talking to the judge in a courtroom. Context... varies... and the rules for the proper use of language vary with the context. We'd not be made better off for having every venue reduced to the gutter level of the least... which Lahcim wrongly claims to be the standard that defines freedom or not... nor would we be better off for having every venue be required to apply the standards of a courtroom... ? Variation and choice would be good... if you could get people to both recognize and accept the rules as they vary in various venue... and modify their behavior accordingly. Tools should simplify some of that, by automating it... Perhaps the missing ingredient... other than better tools... is only in the lack of the obvious social queuing mechanisms we have and depend on in real venues... that enable people in applying the proper choice of language to use in the proper venues, to conform with social expectations. The lack also means people are not being socially enabled very well, by "social media" in ways that enable them in choosing the sorts of venues that they're seeking... ? If you can't TELL if you're in a barbershop or a church... faux pas are unavoidable ?