Senate I Want to Believe-The Senate's Social Thread and Secret Society Roundtable

Double post, but these are interesting claims.

Yes, I get it... you assume that people who frequent the jcc are incapable of engaging in in-depth discussion, and should, therefore, be kept separate from everybody else. You make a lot of assumptions and judgments about people you are very unfamiliar with.

Nope. No one, including me has said anything like this. You can engage in all the in-depth discussion you want, that's why the Senate exists. Come over and take part in all the the in-depth discussion you want. However, if someone (not specifically you) says "I'll only come over to a forum if the standard is reduced," it gives the impression, that yes, they are uncomfortable with engaging in such discussion. It's like if someone said "I'm capable of running in a marathon, but will only choose to do so if I can ride a motorcycle.." Yeah, that kind of defeats the whole point of the marathon.

Academic sports discussion... okay.

I take it you're unfamiliar with the depths that sports discussion reaches. To use baseball again, it has some of the most in-depth, mathematic-based statistics of any sport. But regardless, I think you're mis-characterizing what "academic" means in this case. It's simply a discussion with other people on a more thoughtful level.

The truth is, this was thoroughly discussed by the community and moderators, and a decision was made. I'm sorry that you chose to not take part... I guess it's equivalent to somebody choosing not to vote and complaining about who gets elected, after the fact. For the most part, the collective community have adjusted and are running quite smoothly. It's unfortunate that you were late to the party and are unhappy about how it was organized, but really, you can choose to take part, or you can continue to make the same identical complaint, day after day. You are trying take part in a discussion that happened several months ago.

And this is what works against you. Again, to redirect your point, why are you so fearful of change? Just because a decision was made months ago during the temp board period, it's forever locked in stone? It can't ever be revisited or undone? Pish pish... I know you don't mean that.

Forgive me, it's a little difficult to keep up. What are we discussing now? Is it
a) the level of mod strictness and standard expected of Senate posts,
b) whether the Senate should be taken out of Community, or even survive at all, or
c) how to attract new Senate debaters?

It seems to me like a mish mash now. Let's take one thing at a time, eh?

True. If you don't like a member you can always place them on ignore. I've done that with only two people thus far. Not too bad.

I think deserves repeating.

I'm not fearful of change. I've embraced the change. My problem lies with the assumption that the senate will be diluted if it remains in the community forum. Whether you mean for it to, or not, that sort of language really comes across as elitist and condescending. Truthfully, I honestly don't care whether the senate stays in the community or not. If you really feel that it can't survive where it is, if you really need the perception that you are in your own safe little bubble where you are free to prove your intelligence to a handful of people, day in and day out, then I say you few people should go off and intellectually stroke each other.

I think we may experience an influx of new posters when the details of Ep. VII firm up. Maybe some of them will be senate-level posters. We should take a 'wait and see' posture at this point.

For what it's worth, the remove "Senate from Community" claim wasn't an immediate request, it was just used as alternative to illustrate the concept of change.Some people were saying that the Senate has to change and change now. As if change was the goal on its own... If that's case, then doing something like removing Senate from Community would be just as change-based as reducing Senate standards, if change, and change alone, is the goal. Re-naming the Senate as "Mr Happy's free ice cream social" would also represent change, but I would question the wisdom of that as well.

See, this is the language that I have an issue with. Define "senate level poster."

Well, you would get your choice of Rocky Road....

Hey, Mr. Happy's Free Ice Cream Social is an excellent name for a thread. Why, I remember when the Atheism thread had its own clever and sometimes not so clever names.

I think you might have come late to the discussion. The issue isn't that standards are currently being reduced by those who are participating in the forum. The mods are doing an outstanding job enforcing the standards, and the level of discussion is top notch...

The issue is that some people made the suggestion that standards should be reduced in order to possibly attract additional participants because those potential participants don't identify with the current lofty level. The argument is should the Senate remain a forum with higher standards, or should it be reduced to be closer to the JCC so more JCCer's might come over and post in it? My point is that if the Senate is made to be more like the JCC, then what's the point of having a choice? Everything here is hypothetical.

Yeah, the "Jedi Council Community" tab within the "Community" forum is a bit redundant. You could say that about any of the names on the tabs--that they will make little sense to new users, and "sports, media, games, poll, politics, general, etc" would make more sense to somebody new to the place.

Darth Guy said:
"Also, the idea that the traditional Senate is necessarily "more intelligent" or "serious" because the posts are longer and the sticks are farther up the rectums is funny (as are faux-academic citations).

The Senate is and always has been a more "serious" forum not because of the length of the posts or the stick up the rectums (although there is a bit of that) but because of the thread topics themselves. Like I said earlier look at the threads on the first page of the Senate tab and compare those to the thread topics on the first page of the JCC tab and you will see that they are very different. No one is talking about intelligence ( I seem to recall that the JCC beat the Senate in the last forum challenge some years ago ) but rather the scope of the subject matter of the threads which generally comprise the content of the two forums. They are different, that is all. Not better or worse just different.

Exactly.

This is why defensiveness about "capability" misses the point. If you feel like participating in an in-depth, richer discussion, make a post in the Senate. If you feel like a more rapid-fire, whimsical post, then do so in the JCC. There are no barriers that exist in either, and any person can inter-change between the two. It' s not better. It's not worse, it's just different.

What I don't get is when someone says "I'm able to post in the Senate, I'll only choose to if it's more like the JCC.." Because if that's the case, then just go post in the JCC that day. The Senate will still be here.

The generic stuff would've been bad. Good thing you bunch decided against it.

Fearful of change? The changes already happened, 44.

I don't think there's going to be a major influx of new posters. Message boards are well past their prime as a form of discussion and communication online. There will be some new people, of course, but not all that many, and not nearly as many as some believe. Any new people will be faced with entering a community that has been around longer than potentially a few of them have been alive.

Why would it have been "bad?"

This ranks up there with my memories of your epic tantrums in the old unban request system on most levels. Less tears, but the same kind of infantile, impotent rage at a world you don't quite understand.

Moving back to the grown-up discussion:

This discussion has found itself in a familiar Senate spot of entrenched position A talking past, or not talking to, entrenched position B and vice versa.

To clarify, in case anyone else is having FIDo thoughts (God forbid); I don't think either KW or myself are trying to make this a popularity contest. It's not, and frankly if anyone thought that you shouldn't be posting in a place that prides itself on quality content.

If anything, the idea is that this place could probably afford to open a few more doors and windows and get some of the stuffy, stale air out of it. Show some collective leadership in taking users - new users, both to the boards with Episode VII coming, and given the amazing opportunity the new forums afford you - on a journey about how to construct an argument. How to understand differing points of view, be they social; cultural; religious; economic; political, or other.

To borrow from a fairly prolific book, from my POV anyway, it's about not storing your treasures up with moth and rust.

So, factoring all this in, my question would be this: You guys own the Senate tab/forum as much as the Mods and the Admins and the site owners. The world you are living in is the Community forum with tab for sub-forums. What have you done to capitalise on that? What opportunities does that bring you (assuming seeing only challenges is failing to take advantage of it)?

And bear in mind, those of you who were around when I was moderating this place (that excludes you FIDo, since you were on a ban, I argued for you to come back and your chronic recidivism saw me with egg on my face and you back out the door) - I did what I could when I could to promote this forum to the outside world and encourage participation.

IT WAS DIFFERENT.

The change was really unnecessary, but that's besides the point. You're acting as if things are set in stone. They never and rarely ever are. But I do find it a bit amusing that you're acting like a stone wall on something that's not set in stone no matter how many fingers are placed in your ears. Or since this is type, your eyes. Which is just a very disturbing mental image.

Thank you for confirming my worst suspicions about you, but you didn't prove a point beyond being insulting for..I guess I insulted your infantile chatter about 'CHANGE!' As if that's any better. Problem is the 'world I don't understand' was actually quite thoroughly investigated on the temporary board. The reasoning for the change wasn't sound, in my opinion.

The comms thread was the catalyst, but separate.

If that's all you're arguing about, I agree with your position. The higher moderating standard are what make the Senate

Yes, exactly.

For the record, when we set up the forum the tags were "Social", "Debate", "Sports", "Media", "Polls" and "Games". We had second thoughts about it, though, so we moved back to using the names of the old forums. I like the descriptive tags better, myself.

Those are more descriptive, but more plain and less community building. The thing is, none of this would be an issue if the Senate stays the Senate. The JCC stays the JCC, and every forum fulfills their role.