Matt, the owner of the Useless-knowledge site, has given me discretion to make some forum changes. I've had administrator access for quite a while, though I usually prefer a light-touch and have done little more than grant people access and some occasional moderator duties and other behind the scenes stuff like adjusting the nanny-filter and so on. Now it's time to make some heavier changes, however. Here are the changes that I will attempt to implement gradually starting at some near future point. The goal is to make the forum a more popular and vibrant place, yet remain a hangout for UK authors, while at the same time stamping out some of the abuses that occur there.

First, I'd like to fix our moderator issue. There are many moderators for each section, many that are no longer regulars on the site. People complain of deleted posts, which leads me to believe that there are closet mods still working behind the scenes from time to time, deleting posts that irk them for whatever reason.

My answer to this is to accept volunteers which I will place into a mod-pool. Only two will be mods at any given time unless the forum grows to the point where we need more. Mods have the authority to delete posts, and I'll post some rules to aid in that endeavor. When a post is deleted or moved, the mod responsible will post and explain why the action was taken, using the rules as reference. If any posts are deleted without an explanation post from a mod, BOTH mods will be replaced and two new mods from the mod-pool will be selected. I think that's a pretty fair system that could work despite the little alliances and such that form and break and reform, etc. This is a required change, in my view, because our current software doesn't record who deletes what.

This change I can implement rather quickly and easily, so I'd welcome some volunteers – please email me. Just this morning, I checked my email and saw that several threads had new responses, including some recent threads where some people tried to insult and have a little fun with me. I went to see the replies and to offer my own responses, and lo and behold, they were gone without explanation; more on that below.

The next forum change has to do with structure. There was a rule that each topic could only accept a post if it was related to a main page article. So, if I wrote a piece about religion, then someone could respond or comment on my piece in the religion section of the forum. For a while, it seemed like the forum was taking off, but once this rule was implemented, that upward swing ceased due in part to this constraint. If there was no current article about religion, for example, no one could post anything about religion, unless they stuffed it into the UK Community section.

What I propose will be a section explicitly for commenting on main page articles, regardless of topic. The rest of the forum will be open to general chat about a range of topics which need not be related to articles.

Due to a group of people attacking one of the writers, we changed the forum registration policy to be by invite only. However, before we implemented this policy, folks “snuck” on with multiple aliases. There is no rule suggesting that folks have to use their real names, either at the forum or on the main page to sign their articles, but what I want to stamp out, if possible, are persons with multiple identities, especially those with clear agendas to cause trouble or gang up on specific writers.

To this end, I'd like to request that people email me their main page article name and their associated forum handle. Some I know from reading the various posts, and others are obvious because they are the same at both places, but many baffle me. Those folks who post in the forum, but who have not written main page articles, will be asked to do so to comply with the policy that all new-comers are subjected too. Nothing will happen fast, no one will just vanish – this can be a slow process, allowing due time for us to separate the trouble makers from the writers.

Folks who have written over 100 articles will have automatic access to the forum for as long as it exists, baring anything really extreme on their part (like tenure, maybe ;) ). Folks who have written fewer articles will have their forum login frozen from the general sections if they cease writing articles for some yet to be determined period. This is to help avoid the petty feudal fights that have so often plagued the forum – I don't want someone writing a main-page article just for the purpose of getting on the forum and causing trouble, doing the bare minimum to get past the invite-system, in other words.

Naturally, some people out in Internet-land just want to comment on something they've read, so my plan is to leave that section which will cover main-page articles open to the public without invite. To counter-balance the potential abuse here, the rules for what types of posts are allowed in this section will have to be more strict. This, by the way, is not at all unusual for other Internet forums which are actively moderated. Off-topic posts and such are often deleted and whatnot, as anyone who belongs to such sites knows.

Now on to the missing threads from yesterday that I mentioned above. There is no further evidence of those shenanigans at the forum, but being the free speech nut that I am, and trying to demonstrate that it wasn't me who deleted those posts, let me explain what transpired. There was a genuine discussion about our recent writing contest. One person disagreed, and asked another forum member to quit being such an “N”. I assumed that the capital N represented the racial slur for “African American”, so I reminded everyone that if there is one rule that is to be seen at virtually any forum, it is that blatantly racist remarks are not allowed. That's a taboo that I do not mind upholding - there are proper ways to discuss race relations, as many have done at UK, for example, regarding the recent Don Imus incident.

The response came as a “clarification”, and an attack. I was told that a capital N obviously refers to the word “narcissist”. One wonders why that word needs an abbreviation? If this is common knowledge, then perhaps I'm behind the times. In any case, that person added that only someone who believes in aliens wouldn't understand something so simple. That was the attack, to which I of course responded in kind. This same person identifies with a group of people who claim to be the “anti-bully” crowd at the forum - ironic...

No doubt by scanning (though not by reading or understanding), the thread that Thomas Keyes started about “Fred's aliens”, they claimed that I was a fat loon, Jabba the Hutt in fact, who believes in aliens and other silly stuff without any evidence. I don't really know why anyone would presume that I'm Jabba-sized, but I'll allow them their fantasies. It bothers me not in the least. Others have attempted to insult me by calling me homosexual, but as a non-homophobic straight man, what possible effect can this have on me? The “anti-bully” crowd is free to continue to call me both obese and gay. In fact, I hereby give them my official permission in black and white. Onward Christian soldiers!

As for aliens, this isn't the article to discuss such topics. Further reading is below – these are some of the things I've actually written about or mentioned:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

Here is how you, the reader, can help find aliens, model climates, and do other interesting and beneficial work by donating your space computer CPU cycles:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/index.php

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