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July 2, 2006 Useless-knowledge.com has always been a rather open place, with sometimes rather heated articles gracing its main page. If a reader was moved to respond in anger, and wanted his response public, he would write a rebuttal article which would also grace the main page. Sometimes, the main page resembled a debate forum, where the response-articles outnumbered the other articles. Keeping that in mind, UK underwent some changes a while back and during the transition process, folks where asked to participate and give their suggestions. Some wanted an end to all rebuttals, others, just as passionate, wanted to keep the responses, heated or not. A sort of truce was reached. Keep that in mind as well. Another common request was a place where the family of regular contributors could gather. The answer to both was the forum. It can be reached by clicking Rebuttals on the main page, or by clicking “Comment on this article here!” at the bottom of each article. The forum allowed folks to respond to articles in negative or positive ways, without writing a full, main-page, article. Rebuttals can still be found there, but they aren't the main-stay of articles these days. One problem solved. Every solution causes new problems, and the forum also had its issues. Due to its very open nature, we soon saw a group of bandits with a focus on the Natalee Holloway case come on the scene. Most of these people had never written articles for the main site, and they often act in unison, using the open nature of the forum to viciously attack other posters. In between this battle, the true purpose of the forum went about its business, however. I've often responded to articles on the forum myself in lieu of submitting a general article. Indeed, my article count would surely top 300 had I used the old way, and many of my responses to debates exceed the 500 word article length minimum! Other users started threads discussing a range of issues and played literary games with each other – exactly what one would expect from a forum of writers. But the trolling, spamming and gang-attacks increased until finally, action was taken in the form of moderators with article-deletion powers. It was proposed that rigid rules be imposed, rules such as only allowing posts directly related to an article posted on the main site. While this solution would solve the gang-attack issue, it would also hinder the second key goal of the forum: the community and interaction between writers aspect. Yet another compromise of sorts was reached. Rather than give in to “terrorists”, there is now a specific section for discussing subjects not directly related to specific main-page articles. The general mood now is somewhat like raising the speed limit to 75Mph, but at the same, rigorously cracking down on those speeding, even those zooming at just 78Mph. The new section is young at the time of this writing, and has few posts. I'd like to ask the writers of UK to continue to criticize and complement each other in the old sections, but to also, please, engage in joking banter, poetry contests, and general “chit-chat” in the new section of the same name. I'm not certain, but I believe that the forum software does not allow the moving of threads, so we cannot simply move the older threads of this type to the new section. Please, start new ones. The place is evolving and sooner or later, it will reach a harmonious balance. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. I now have a blog that I will start to increasingly maintain and update. Here is the link: fredsuberview.blogspot.com/ About my personal background and life: I was born, I got some education, worked, ate, and had some kids. It seems I like to write � something that was unknown to me until relatively recently...How's that for detail? ;) Hate mail is welcome unless you are from the Army Of God. Please! It's not that I mind seeing pictures of aborted fetuses in my inbox, but once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all... Email: dahlek65@gmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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