Yeah, I know it’s never ever going to happen, but it would be cool if it did.
I crave a debate of some kind, but find GD a little intimidating, and know that the majority of people who post there are much better debators (sp) than me.
I know there’s IMHO and MPSIMS, but IMHO is not about “Butter or margarine, a debate” it’s more “Butter or margarine - what’s your opinion” in which a debate doesn’t really happen. And MPSIMS seems to be mostly about submitting anecdotes to the threads rather than debating the OP(s)
Basically I crave somewhere to have a proper two-(or more) way conversation, rather than posting once to either ask a question, offer an opinion, offer advice, or submit an anecdote.
While we’re wishing, I think General Questions is too big. It’s too easy for something to get lost off the front page, or hard to find threads I remember. I think it would be good to split into two or three forums, although I admit there’s not a natural divide.
Maybe “stuff Cecil might actually answer” in one forum, and in the other all the specialty stuff like computers, law, and theoretical science.
And I think we’ve got just about the right split that avoids fragmenting the board to a degree that might sap its vitality.
While IMHO does generate a lot of Pepsi v. Coke threads where many post and nobody reads the answers, it’s the perfect vehicle for “Debate Lite,” and serves as such.
And should you decimate GQ, I’d think you’d likely cut several potential respondents from the viewership of any one question.
<< Maybe “stuff Cecil might actually answer” in one forum, and in the other all the specialty stuff like computers, law, and theoretical science. >>
Well, Cecil has answered some of that specialty stuff. But basically, it’s unlikely Cecil will answer much of anything on the Boads – he’s paid for a weekly column, and that’s what he does. Period. He does sometimes take questions from the Boards as the launch of his column, of course.
As for there being a very small chance that Cecil will actually answer anything in GQ, I know. I guess I should have said “the kind of stuff Cecil answers” instead of “stuff Cecil might answer”.
Anyway, I don’t really think it’s that great an idea; I was just thinking out loud.
The only idea here with legs on it is the notion of a Religious Debates forum, or RD for short. (I don’t like the idea of fragmenting GQ along imaginary lines and I don’t think anyone here really knows what a Light Debate is.) But would even that work very well? Would that `clean out’ GD, and would it be amenable to effective moderation?
To the end of understanding the first question, I did a little counting. I have my preferences set to give me 50 threads in a page. Out of those 50 on the first page, I counted 12 threads that were mainly religious, 20 threads that were as strongly political, and 7 threads that verged on being both at the same time. 12 out of 50 is 24%, roughly quarter of the total threadcount. I don’t know the thread turnover rate in GD, but I know it’s significantly slower than that of GQ or most other fora. So a new forum with roughly a quarter of the traffic of GD would be fairly slow-moving and, to put it bluntly, anemic. Unless you anticipate the Second Coming to be particularly ambiguous, I think the RD argument dies on this point alone.
Would it be easy to moderate? Well, I counted seven threads on the first page of GD that would need moderator judgement to place correctly. 14% is not an outrageous amount, but moving a thread from a mainly political forum to a mainly religious one can have a huge effect on how it turns out. Take, for example, the issue of placing Nativity scenes on public land with public moneys. In a hypothetical, mainly political GD, the issue revolves around how the First Amendment is to be interpreted. In a hypothetical RD, the issue becomes a matter of Christian theology (“Worship in a locked closet” or something like that).
That is a benign example, but how would a mod react to an abortion thread? I think nearly all of the more vociferous anti-choice members are arguing from religious terms, so do they get to choose where the battle is fought? Or do the pro-choicers get to insist on a purely legal/political fight and thereby dodge any religious arguments? Is the notion of morality invariably intertwined with religion? I would argue that it is not, but others could reasonably disagree. Where would that debate go?
That 14% comprises some of the debates most likely to spawn massive, multi-page threads and true acrimony on both sides. Any mod action in the proposed system would create an atmosphere of distrust and perceived administrative bias. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” isn’t something the volunteers around here need.