Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Should we update to new forum software?

**Posted by John West** 1/05/2019 2:02 am

Honestly, I think both of you need to lighten up. Jeremy was telling the truth when he said that we've gotten complaints about you before. You can come off as rather cantankerous. (I've always wondered if it has to do with your prose style or English, perhaps, being a second language?) He can be heavy-handed. He and I have differed on how to approach hard cases in this way for years.

I'm not going to promise that you will never be moderated again, but if you think you've been treated unjustly please contact me privately and I'll look into the matter.

**Posted by John West** 1/05/2019 2:05 am

Laissez faire means that we're going to be taking a more hands off approach in moderation. Not that we're just going to do whatever we want ourselves.

**Posted by Brian** 1/05/2019 11:29 am

It's impossible to define inappropriate conduct with sufficient clarity before hand. Honestly, if you think the way you were treated is unfair, you should say something. But posting a long message on the thread guiding people to the new forum not only buries the original instructions to get people there, but it seems like an underhanded way to discourage people from moving there. How about we get everyone to the new forum, proceed as normal, and if you feel you've been wronged, you can post about it in the admin forum or message me privately. Does that seem fair?

**Posted by John West** 1/05/2019 9:49 pm

By the way, Jeremy isn't just an administrator on this forum. He's the owner. I literally couldn't remove him if I wanted to. I couldn't remove him if he wanted to. (We actually tried once when he wanted to step down.) He's not the owner of the new forum. I would be more worried that between the massive cloud of poison now in front of the new forum's entrance and natural human hesitation, you've made a move unlikely and thereby Jeremy untouchable.

**Posted by John West** 1/05/2019 9:57 pm

Here is the link to the new forum again for anyone who still wants to sign up. I hope to see you all there (and so does Jeremy, for what it's worth). It's still under construction, obviously, but it has potencies that this forum lacks.

**Posted by Etzelnik** 1/05/2019 11:02 pm

I feel like a lot of members never enter this thread. maybe you can put up a banner announcement or send a mass PM to each member?

**Posted by John West** 1/05/2019 11:32 pm

I hadn't even thought to see whether we can add banners. Thanks.

(I edited this in above, but I'll put it here for good measure as well: in case anyone reading earlier comments is worried, there is no bad blood among staff. Jeremy and I are friends going back like ten years now. I think he's wrong about quite a lot, of course.)

**Posted by seigneur** 1/07/2019 5:30 am

Brian wrote:
It's impossible to define inappropriate conduct with sufficient clarity before hand. Honestly, if you think the way you were treated is unfair, you should say something.

And say something is exactly what I have been doing. I said what the unfairness consisted in, namely locking threads when there is no rule about it, which is why I asked if debates are discouraged altogether. Why would I ask it? Because there is no rule about having debates either! Moreover, I directly proposed rules to address the issue as impartially as possible. Was I not clear, fair and impartial?

Your response to all this: Laissez faire, i.e. you explicitly prefer the current lawlessness to rules.

Forecast: Conflicts over this will continue to come up until I get banned or until you adopt rules to address these conflicts.

Besides, having a debate is not even a conflict. Debates can be easily regulated. You can borrow experience-tested rules e.g. here https://forums.serebii.net/threads/debate-forum-rules.623301/

But I get it: Likely the problem is that *I* make proposals to solve the issue. If anybody else did it, it would have been done already. You have not completely demotivated me yet, but you are quickly succeeding.

And Etzelnik made a good proposal: Mass PM everyone about the move. This way everybody is bound to get the message.

**Posted by CharlieBlack** 1/07/2019 6:26 am

Everyone else here manages to act like an adult without all sorts of rules. Why can't you? Just look at your reply to Daniel. That is obviously not what he meant.

**Posted by John West** 1/07/2019 6:39 am

seigneur wrote:
Your response to all this: Laissez faire, i.e. you explicitly prefer the current lawlessness to rules.

My response to all this was to adopt a policy that explicitly reins moderators in from the kind of heavy-handed threadlocking you're worried about.

What you're proposing would actually increase moderator power. Based on the rules you just linked and what Jeremy has said, he would have banned you at least half a dozen times already.