I would like to propose a self-moderated thread again.
I am 100% for free speech, however, free speech does not entail trolling. I'm afraid people misunderstand this because they also misunderstand what freedom means. Freedom entails some kind of self-imposed limitations. We are free in so far as we don't intentionally wrong our neighbor. We simply cannot enter someone's house and kill them or destroy their home and claim we have done it in the name of our freedom. We are not free to do such things and if we do them we have to pay a big price for that. Similarly, with free speech, we are free to express our opinions and thoughts, even disagree and criticize whatever we want but that freedom becomes the seed of destruction when in the name of free speech we allow people to deliberately and intentionally troll and destroy our hard work(without paying any price).
This is not freedom, it looks more like madness and there seems to be a great incentive on the internet for people to do that, because at least for now, they don't have to pay any price for their deeds however dreadful they may be. I am not interested in political correctness, I'm only interested in what is right and what is wrong, and allowing trolls to run free in our "home" seems obviously wrong.
If we have a self-moderated thread it does not mean we will delete every comment which criticizes or disagrees with us. As long as this is done with a minimal degree of decency every discussion is welcomed. But trolling should never be allowed just because the system we use is to dumb to find a way to penalize such behaviour.
So what shall it be fellow Nemsters, right or wrong? Remember, whatever our decision we will be the ones who will suffer the effect or consequence.
I genuinely believe support for a self-moderated topic is a farce. From what i can see, there's a number of users in this thread that use similar mannerisms and sentence structure to our beloved Come-From-Above; implying that, there's a good chance he's using multiple accounts to peddle an agenda.
From what i can gather, i think support for a self-moderated topic -- if carried through -- will just simply be used as ammunition for the troll(s) and their accounts once it's done; hence why the idea is supported.
The best course of action, is, again, stop acknowledging suspicious users. Don't quote them, don't reply to them, dont give them the spotlight they so desperately seek. Only constructive posts, and legitimate idea's and criticisms should be responded to. For the record though, I am neither for or against a self-moderated topic. What i am for is a bit of community cohesion to see through the blatent trolls. This subject has already been given more attention then it deserves.
An alternative that i can think of is moving all discussion to the main NEM forums, if people are that concerned.
Someone who wants to peddle their own agenda has every right to start their own thread (which CFA's already has) and do what they will . That doesn't mean we should put up with with these activities on OUR space. There is a line between free speech and slander. Most of is are reasonable people and I can't see many being opposed to putting a stop to these childish posts. This is supposed to be. Place for adults and some have not proven their puberty .
Yes, i agree. Nonetheless i'm just stating what i think the consequences could be. Seeing as the previous thread was self-moderated (and not censored, to the dismay of trolls) doing so again is hardly against NEM's interests.
I merely state what i do purely so any spectators know we've weighed up the outcomes. As i've already stated i'm not fussed what way we go given the current circumstances. All we need to ensure is, if it is self-moderated, it's done so with freedom of speech in mind. It was accomplished before, it can be done again. Ideally, we wouldn't moderate the topic - of which i'd be very content with - but we're not being given much options.
We have consequences either way. Our ideal situation has ceased to exist.
Considering our current situation and more importantly, what we want to achieve we should take our chances and make a wise move. Will we waste time, energy and further allow for any intelligent discussion to be killed by trolls or will we take responsibility and decide for ourselves the course we want to go on by cleaning up this mess and making sure we rebuild our community?
I think in order to rebuild a healthy discussion and community we need to make the harder and obvious chooce of cheaning up things(which we already did internally) and cutting this troll desease at its roots. That's the only way we will grow again organically.
