Do you like the ideea of an "invite only" private forum ?
Yes.
No.
Undecided.
0voters
I’m here to elaborate on what i’ve said in a topic here; i believe there should be a private forum where only people who understand philosophy and study it to some extent would be allowed to post. Others would be allowed to read if they wanted to.
To determine who gets in or not i believe the staff here should come up with a couple of examinations on how capable a user who wishes to join is.
I’d be glad to come up with a few ways to test people if asked.
I’m sugesting this because there are too many people here whith no studies at all in philosophy who can barely construct a coherent argument. Moreover they hardly know what the main branches of philosophy are and believe philosophy is chatting/talking about your opinions, never reaching a conclusion.
P.S. I’ve taken the liberty of starting a poll; please excuse me
You didn’t get a registration link to the invitation only forum? There is another forum at the bottom of the main index page. Just ask the mods to send you the activation link, then when you log in you can see another sub-index. Maybe it’s in your junk mail, I thought everyone could join. Maybe you need X number of posts?
There used to be a forum (Heavily Moderated) for this purpose. There was much debate about it in the past but it was hardly used and was eventually abandoned altogether.
I think if there ever was such a thing, nobody who isn’t invited should even be told it exists- there should be no link to click on to go to the ‘special’ forum, to inform people they aren’t elite enough to belong. No reason to broadcast such a thing.
You probably could get most of the benefits you want by PM’g a few key people and asking them to respond to a particular thread and only to people in your group.
There’s nothing to say you have to respond to posts/people you think aren’t adding value to the discussion. After a while those people will either drop out – due to lack of feedback – or have their own private sub-thread with their own group.
Voila!
I don’t like the idea of building hierarchical walls and equally, I don’t like mass dumbing down either. I think the control should be in the hands of your own private group (to answer others outside the group or not), and not in a walled-off forum structure.
the heavily moderated, although fun to read wasn’t posted in frequently enough. plus you say people who study philosophy to some degree but im studying it at uni, and i dont think i belong in the kind of room you are talking about as i dont post intelligent enough philosophy ever really, so i think your system works
sara
The truth is that there are great threads all over ILP, on many different topics. There are also some poor threads in every part of ILP. So be it.
As I keep saying - if you want a particular kind of thread then create it yourself. As I grasp it, there are 3 sorts of forums here. The first is the discussion forums, named after broad topics (like ‘philosophy’ and ‘natural sciences’). ‘Me and my mates’ is not a sufficiently broad topic.
The second type relate more directly to the posters’ own work and discussion thereof. The Review and the Art Forum are recent additions but Creative Writing and Essays and Theses have been around for as long as I’ve been here.
The third type are the technical forums, for site maintenance and development. Most of them are semi-private or private. This is so that surprises can be launched on the unsuspecting ILP public, and so that disciplinary issues can be discussed without every single person weighing in with their opinion.
So, unless your new forum falls under one of these three broad categories then it’s probably not suited to ILP as a site and as a community.
