Thread Cleaned
Those of you that were attempting to derail the thread won't be able to reply to it.
I missed all the action!
I started the thread here in the Feedback Forum, it was derailed into yet ANOTHER thread of the kind I'm concerned about, & thus briefly moved to CE, and now it's back here where I'd originally intended it to be, minus several posts that were, in fact, off topic, including one made by me this morning.
First and foremost, I want to be clear in saying I think the moderation here is superbly even-handed.
I don't find myself wondering "Why did they do that?," but rather easily able to follow the logic, including this thread's prodigal journey.
But my originally stated concern remains, though it's part of a larger landscape in which forums in general are experiencing diminishing participation.
The reasons for this have been discussed online for years, and include the impact of more user-centric later models of a more superficial nature, and with limited capacity to readily explore more complex issues.
If discussion forums can ideally be a banquet hall of ideas, newer sites are often more of a McDonald's-like experience - simple, fast, and ultimately unfulfilling.
But the demographics are a killer.
Most forums of this type simply have no Gen Y or Z participation, and only a few Xers.
And when your core participants are aging, that's a one-way ticket to Scooby's Ghost Town.
So I look at this current crisis here as one occurring in the context of inevitable diminution, and thus even more serious than if it were happening in a more thriving environment where new posters and their new ways were destined to solve such problems simply by pushing old ones aside and presenting new ones.
The environment here now is far too static AND far too toxic - massively toxic in fact.
And it's far too static/toxic to maintain itself.
Two thirds of the forum is now accusing the other third of being psychopathic monsters, and both sides are ABSOLUTELY certain that they are on the proper side of morality and history.
My position on this issue is well documented on the forum, and requires no reiteration here; this was not the purpose of posting this thread in the first place.
But we've gone from calling each other names but (barely) tolerating one another to a state where far too many people are simply ignoring one another, either via scroll or the ignore feature.
Even the limited and narrow-minded grunting and poo-flinging which could be discouraging in the best of times have given way to endlessly repeated toxic diatribes in which thoughtful dissent is simply impossible.
And worse, those in the minority - liberals and independents, and even a handful of leftists - are simply disappearing.
I've seen the results of this minority flight on other forums, and it's ugly.
Whether such forums become almost exclusively liberal or almost exclusively conservative (as this forum is on the path to becoming), what you see is pure echo chambers which invite no one in the minority to participate.
Why would a cat knowingly walk into a pack of dogs, or vice versa?
In an environmental context, it's like a toxic algae bloom in which all the animal life - the fish - die as the plants consume all of the oxygen.
Whoever one sees as the villain in the I/P conflict, the battle over this issue is consuming all of the oxygen on this forum, and no younger fish are dropping in to participate, eat the algae, and offset the crisis.
But there IS a solution, and one used by nearly ALL political forums.
It was even announced here a few weeks ago!
Contain the toxic spread as most other forums do, and place I/P threads in the sub-forum created for this purpose, and make it clear that this is where ALL such topics must be discussed - no exceptions.
If this isn't done?
The forum will surely continue on - for years if not a decade or more.
But it will be yet another place of no diversity; less of a pond choked by algae than a dead sea of ideas.
So a choice needs to be made between creating a zombie kiddie pool, or to maintain a forum which contains the toxins in another area, and permits much slower evaporation to continue as the ebbing follows its natural course.
Thanks for reading, and for maintaining a great forum far longer than most have even been capable of doing.
