i am interested to see if anyone else would desire a forum expressly for advanced/academic discussion only; such a forum would require refraining from ad homs/insults, as well as requiring that you “back up” what you say either with strong argumentation or source material. it could be a place for higher-level philosophy or literary review/criticism.
anyone else besides me interested in establishing such a forum here on ILP?
we had one years ago, it didn’t work…
-Imp
why did it not work?
and maybe the climate has changed now so that such a forum would be beneficial?
It was hardly ever used, and when it was, it was the same shit only in a different forum.
I, like Three Times, am interested in bringing it back.
I think it might be better to create a forum in which the thread starter can set rules for the particular thread.
Members who doesn’t respect the rules set by the original poster will be banned from that forum.
Let’s say, a forum reserved for “respectful” (or "'moderate) person who can play according to different (and possibly strange) rules. 
For example, TTG can say I want academic discussion, only.
But he must clearly state/define what he means by “Academic discussion”.
If a poster can’t set clear rules for her/his thread, s/he will be banned, too.
To reduce the work load of moderators, the forum should be “self-moderated”, in the sense all participants of the forum must agree to obey the moderation/judgment of the thread starter.
However, the thread starter will be banned if he demonstrates poor moderation/judgment ability. 
(This part will require interventions of “qualified moderator”, though …)
And finally, members who want to post in the forum should ask the right to participate agreeing these guidelines. This will eliminate the possibilities of spammers and other “non-respectful” posters polluting the section.
This can be done by the forum software ILP uses, very easily.
I’ll tell you what I know. It was actually before my time, so this is hearsay; hopefully someone who knows more can correct me if I’m wrong.
The old ‘Heavily Moderated’ philosophy board was made to be a place where people could have high level philosophy talk, but it was perceived as being elitist and being based more on favoritism than merit. It sparked more dissention than good discussion, and it was eventually boycotted and bashed, and then removed.
There are merits to a serious philosophy board, but there are also problems which it’s important to point out:
My ideal, which I’ve advocated since I became a mod, would be to have an organic system that rates users (based on posts, words/post, warnings, post ratings, etc.) and defines certain forum permissions by rating. That would solve the elitism problem, the moderation problem, and to some extend the perception problem, because of the incentive to perform to achieve access to the better forums (I’m basically describing a market of sorts on the forum, especially if it were to incorporate a peer-evaluation process like post ratings).
I’ve looked for this solution in the available mods for the phpBB software, but none exists. I’ve submitted the suggestion to the designers, but so far no luck. In the next software upgrade, there will be a feature to limit certain features by post count, including forum access, which will be a step in that direction, but not as far as I’d like it to go.
One thing that’s getting very close is that we’re fixing up Symposia (some may have noticed that it is down), and that should provide an outlet for more rigorous contributions. I also think that, unlike the heavily moderate forum, an active journal will have the effect of encouraging better discussion across the site, by modelling good contributions and attracting more serious types. Maybe that’s being over optimistic.
Anyway, I’m not opposed to the idea of an actual heavily-moderated forum, but these are things to take into account in the design of one. I’d like to hear peoples thoughts on solving/miminizing/ratiocinating away the problems and making it work as it didn’t the first time.
Nah, your idea is interesting, but I think it will be difficult in practice.
EDIT: Let me flesh that out: does having everyone define their criteria for what passes in their thread mean letting someone say “no being stupid” and using it to justify booting anyone who disagrees with them? We’d need a flock of moderators, not just to keep up on the constantly redefined rules of the boards so that they can enforce them, but also to deal with disputes about what constitutes following a certain set of rules.
With a consistent set of rules over time, it’s possible to look to precedent to extrapolate meaning, but even then there are disputes. Imagine if the Supreme Court worked off of a different Constitution for every ruling, how unpredictable their rulings would be even for those who know the constitution they’re currently applying.
It’s not impossible, but it’s sure chaotic and hard to administer. Do you agree?
i really wasnt advocating a forum that would be “by permission only”. i think all members should have equal access, just as any other forum on here.
the only difference would be that the posting rules would VERY CLEARLY spell out “no personal attacks, no ad homs, each post must add to the thread/content (no spam), using philosophers or their works in your post means that you need to cite/provide reference/link to that material.” i agree that there is a huge problem with perception, in that it is likely that some members would post their topics here, at the exclusion of the main philosophy forum, and that the main forums would then look “cheap” or “noob” or “childish” by comparison (even if this werent the case).
i dont think that the regular forums would need these strick rules (that i spell out above), nor do i think that most members would desire such strict rules all the time… however, i also think that there should be times when such rules apply. so, i guess it becomes a question of how to get both of those attributes worked into ILP in a way that does not create an “in and out group” or “elitism” feeling.
i honestly dont know how to accomplish that. i just would like to see some way to incorporate both the average, common discussions (which are completely fine and desirable most of the time) with discussion formats that are more strict in keeping content focused, sourced/cited, argued well, and of a more academic-minded type. but i certainly am not advocating for a hierarcy of members; i strongly feel that, if you are a member, you should have access to every forum, without restriction (unless for some specific reason you personally have been banned from one forum or another).
…and the member ranking idea is interesting, but i dont think it would work well in practice. it would engender infighting and favoritism in that when someone doesnt like you personally, they would just keep marking your posts/name negatively, or create new accounts to do so. i dont think that letting members rank other members, in any way, is really that good of an idea. it seems that such decisions as whether or not youre “good enough” to be a member or have access to certain forums should be completely in the hands of mods/admins. thats what they are there for. members themselves should not have control over content or other member’s privileges, even indirectly.
Given my guess that only a few embers would enjoy this, it seems to me that the Chamber of Debate could be a suitable venue for this sort of thing.
maybe in some cases, but not all; sometimes it would be nice to just carry on a conversation without having to formally debate one another.
however, i did think of a new idea, let me know what you think: why not create a forum where people can post a “call for interest” or intention to have a discussion on a specific philosopher or a specific philosopher’s works/ideas? any threads created in that forum would just be specific to an individual philosopher and/or a specific part of his/her works/theories-- we could have the forum be:
[title of forum]Academic Discussions-Call for Interest
[description of forum]Please post here only if you wish to call for a focused discussion on a particular philosopher or one or more of a certain philosopher’s specific works/ideas. Interested parties may carry on discussion in this forum, or are also encouraged to converse via PM messaging.
This forum is for specific and focused discussions of a more advanced or academic nature only. The rules for this forum are those of ILP in general, with the following as additional requirements: refrain from any and all instances of personal attacks/comments or ad hominem; keep content posted here strictly relevant to the thread topic in question; and cite or link to your sources, and back up your statements when you invoke a philosopher’s ideas or words.
then, once someone makes a post in that forum, say with the topic “Nietzsche”, this would be a call to anyone out there who wants to engage in a conversation specifically about Nietzsche; the OP would then define the areas of interest for the discussion. you could also be more specific and post a thread titled “Nietzsche: Affirmation and Dionysus”, for example. interested parties could then either carry on this discussion there in the thread, or also via PM messaging if they wish.
the difference between this forum and the Philosophy forum would be that this new forum would posit rules such as i mentioned earlier: keep content strictly about the thread topic, no ad homs or personal comments AT ALL, and do your best to always source/cite your referenecs. in this way, this forum would be a sub-forum from the Philosophy forum, pertaining not to general philosophy but only to specific questions/discussions about specific philosophers or their works/ideas.
what do you think?
A discussion section about philosophers, while an interesting topic in many ways, would quickly become repetitive on an internet forum averaging 140 posts per day.
However, for the original post, and following on NAH’s heals, I would say there wouldn’t be anything wrong with a sub-forum in Philosophy titled, “Sermo Pro Axioma” (The conversation on behalf of the axiom), where the starter of the thread defines the boundaries that the discussion will have and follow.
I am currently considering something similar to this for the Religion section.
I wouldn’t call this, “advanced” or “academic” though.
Why not make a nesting of philosophy forums similar to this?
Board index >> Philosophy (no adhoms) >> Hard Philosophy (no, seriously, no adhoms) >> Advanced Philosophy (ok, seriously guys, no adhoms in here, this is where we actually enforce the rules) >> Academic Philosophy (ok, ok, really don’t do that crap in here, this is serious philosophy now, I mean it)
Are you serious, or joking?
Either way, I found it amusing.
Been tried I’m afraid 3Times, just doesn’t work. The urge to ad hom is innate; may as well tell people not to breathe.
i was afraid of that. i agree, but i still hold out hope that an open-ended conversation could be carried on in an academic-minded manner where we just learn from each other and people dont just spout shit they made up on the fly, or call each other idiots every other sentence.
sure, ad hom is great, dont get me wrong. what else is the internet for, if not releasing psychological rationalizations, projecting or pent up frustration from your RL? but, it would be nice to have a quiet, exclusive corner of ILP in which to carry on more relaxed, informative, literary or documented/researched conversations, for academic rather than entertainments sake…
There is, it’s called your own Pm box. What you do is, get really, really fucking hammered, create a new user name and pm yourself on some philosophic point, wake up in the morning not rememebering anything and whoa you’ve got this incredibly interesting, if a bit erratically written, pm from this mystery figure, new to the board, who thinks scary nearly the same as you.
Mind you, at some point you’d probably get fed up and ad-hom yourself.
probably, yes.
although i never get that wasted anymore. body cant really handle more than a few drinks. i would probably just get sick, puke all over the keyboard and wake up going “who the hell puked on my keyboard?”… not really the sort of discussions im trying to engender here.
…at least, not usually :-"
I had a friend who used to get really drunk, then, before he went to bed, used to set the alarm clock really, really early, just to piss off his ‘sober-self’ the next morning.
How schitzoid is that…?
thats pretty messed up
T, a radical elitist or an elitist radical? 