Sotos wrote:erolz, what do you mean democratic forum? Every member that joined got access to the admin of the forum, the hosting and the domain name and you run elections and referendums on how to do things? So if a 1000 new members joined one day that wanted to take that forum in a totally different direction they would be able to do it? Sorry, but "democratic forum" in that sense seems very strange. Even if you didn't own everything yourself and you shared the ownership with several other people it would still be at best an oligarchy. For a forum "democracy" is not so much a question of ownership, but about allowing free speech and having an unbiased moderation... and in that way I think this forum is very democratic. Now I would understand if your argument was for stricter moderation... but that doesn't have anything to do with having more democracy, and as I said earlier a lot of moderation often results in biased moderation which creates something less "democratic".
Firstly I do not think I used the expression 'democratic forum' in any of my posts ?
Secondly it was GR who first mentioned this other forum. My post was a response to GR's claim that this other forum treated the members of the forum like a 'dictatorship' and this is why not just he decided to stop using it but why everyone else except 12 or so others stop using it and why this undisclosed 'we' remained with the 'tolerant' and 'just CF. This then is the context within which I reply to you.
Thirdly I would note that in the past on this 'just' and 'tolerant' and in your words 'democratic' forum merely mentioning or indirectly referring to this other forum, even in PMs to other users, was ground for and did result in arbitrary and summary suspension of the member concerned, not just myself but others too. For all I know doing so may yet again result in such for me. Who knows ? I would also like to refer to the discussions that were had here that relate to the 'evolution' of the idea of a 'different' forum amongst a whole range of former posters here but the truth is most if not all of those were summarily expunged from this forum a long time ago. I would also like to link to some posts on this other forum but it has been made more than clear that doing so, even in a PM, is unacceptable to the owner of this forum and despite all appearances I do not participate in forums and wilfuly seek to flout the desires of the owner of that forum. So I will try 'walking the tightrope' by offering some extracts from posts made on this 'other forum' (which is now essentially closed and has been for some time now), as an attempt to exercise my 'free speech' whilst also respecting the anonymous owner of this forum.
Again please do remember the 'context' of why and where this post of mine has come from and that we are talking here essentially about a comparison between this forum and the other one.
So some extracts from one of the earliest threads on this other forum started by myself and titled "Moderation and adminstration [sic] of your forum"
erolz circa 2005 on the other forum wrote:Although moderation of the site has not yet been needed to date I am keen that we put systems in place to handle such things _before_ they become necessary and not after they become necessary.
However I do not want to just arbitrarily apply these things without a discussion of them and the issues surrounding them with you the membership of the forum. This is NOT my forum. It is OUR forum.
Administrator status - the reason and the role
I do not want to be the sole administrator of the forum. I would like it ideally to have 2 joint and equal administrators. Myself as one and a Greek Cypriot as co administrator. I believe this is necessary to protect the balance of the forum into the future. Whilst I might strive to as balanced as I can in decision about the forum I am a Turkish Cypriot and having a joint Greek Cypriot admin would help restrict and balance any unilateral decisions I might make conscious or unconscious that are in fact biased towards Turkish Cypriot.
The role principally would be to act as a check and balance against myself should I start to loose my objectivity, create a clear impression and reality that the site is bi-communal at all it's levels and be a point of contact for any Greek Cypriot member who feels they have been treated unfairly and would not get a fair hearing from myself as a Turkish Cypriot.
Administrator status - how we chose one
[snip]My suggestion therefore is that I supply a list of people who I feel meet this criteria. If they are willing to take on the role we run some sort of poll to ensure they are acceptable to the members as well. This could require a simple 'more yes votes than no votes' or it could require X more yes votes than no votes. Minds [sic - clearly I meant names] that spring to mind immediately to me are. MicAtCyp. However I asked and hoped that MicAtCyp would take this role on from day one of this forums creation and so far he has chosen to decline such an offer. Keifas or Alexandros Lordos.
Moderation - the reason and the role
In addition to having two equal admins for the forum I would like to have 3 moderators as well. Again ideally these would comprise of one Turkish Cypriot one Greek Cypriot and one non Cypriot. These in addition to the two admins would make a body of 5 people that would be responsible for decisions about the forum and it's future, should consensus re such issue not be found or clear amongst the members themselves. If decisions about the forums future and how it operates can not be derived clearly from the membership themselves then these 5 people will democratically vote to make such decisions, with no one person having any greater voting rights than any other (and certainly not myself).
The principle of moderation is that it is a voluntary role of 'service' to the forums members and not one of 'authority' over them. Moderators will be asked and expected to act in the best interests of the forum and not their own interests. The main role of moderators will be to make decisions re the 'movement' of threads or posts within threads to appropriate sections or the merging of threads together, with the objective of making the forums as useful a resource as possible for all its users.
On the issue of moderators and the deletion of posts I suggest the following system. Moderators should have the authority and ability to delete posts in extreme situations imo. However I suggest that any such deleted posts are in fact moved to a special section of the site, that remains viewable by all members but does not allow replies to be made to the posts in that section. This way anyone can still see exactly what has been 'deleted' but such posts will be removed from the main body of the thread they originally appeared in and the incentive to 'respond in kind' by other posters will be reduced to a minimum. This to me seems like a good balance between 'freedom of speech' and the need to keep blatant rubbish and unacceptable posts out of the main threads in order to promote and encourage real dialog. To this end I have added a mod to the site that would allow moderators to use the normal 'delete this post' button, which will then automatically move the offending post to the 'special area'.
Moderators - How we chose
As per the section above on how we chose a co admin for the site, so I suggest a similar process for picking administrators. Again I am going to stick my neck out and suggest some names I think would fit the bill. I would stress that these are just my personal _suggestions_ and that it is for all of us that use the forum to ultimately decide and not me alone.
Turkish Cypriot Moderator - Brother
Greek Cypriot Moderator - Keifas or MicAtCyp or Magikthrill or Mikke2
Non Cypriot moderator - Cannedmoose
This thread lead to a discussion of around 30 odd posts from a range of different members that included the likes of 'cannedmoose','brother','city','Xenos 2Fan','Dhavlos','Alexandros Lordos' - all of which used to post on CF and now no longer do so. The thread in turn led to a series of other threads and polls and discussions that shaped the operation of the forum in both theory and practice as it evolved both in the 'who' and the 'how'. Alexandros Lordos, a former consistently 'adult' poster on CF that I personally consider genuinely is a 'first rate' intellect and believe is widely recognised as such far beyond the narrow bounds of the 'playground' that is CF, did become my 'co admin'. The forum did operate for a number of years on the principal and practice that 'no post was ever deleted' (other than blatant bot based spam posts later in its life) but were only 'moved' to a section of the forum that could still be publicly viewed. Public discussion and review of any and all moderating decision was allowed provided it was done in the section of the forum designated for such.
In closing I would again ask you to consider the above not in the context of 'such a system is too idealistic or impractical or unsustainable', which would be valid fair and adult comments about this forum. I would ask you consider the above in the context of GR's essentially puerile 'poo pants, poo pants' assertion that the I / the forum, and explicitly in comparative terms to this forum, treated its members 'like a dictator' and that is why 'we' abandoned it.
So where is your forum now? I made a Google search with parts of the text you quoted but I got no results. You do not allow the indexing of it, or is it open to members only?
But if you can't read my "mono-blocks" due to your dyslexia then let me know and I will add a few lines breaks for you.
Will the test be multiple choice? 
