icerat posted this
Suggestions so far -
Rule 11: Rewrite
Independent process for considering appeals
Transparent, democratically functioning organizaton (Economic power, IP rights, or any rights are not in the hand of any particalur person)
Rule 10: Rewrite/Scrap
Sub forum for homework/Schoolwork (also Free from bullies)
Lift the "mod approval" of new events
Reduce the time allowed between searches to 0 sec
Bring back the monthly newsletter
Scrap the Forum spotlights section
Archive the Million Dollar challenge or make it a sub forum of other skeptical Organizations
Change the tags so that they are spelt correctly [Colour][/Colour]
Add banned members to the member list so they are searchable
Allow sockpuppets (set up a register if you must)
Have a 1 year suspension as the default 'final warning' a ban
Add a like button
Bring back LaTex support
Birthday notices: Able to turn them off – both for display for other people and for display for yourself
Allow swearing in the sections in which Rule 10 applies, "disguise" swearing (e.g f**k or f***) rather than ***** and just deal with any "excessive" swearing under Rule 6 and Rule 0
All rules to apply throughout the Forum
Rule 12: "Attack the argument, not the arguer", no reason it should be against the rules to address someone who's making an argument
Quoted quotes appear in replies
Conduct public experiments in building wiki-like information resources (e.g using commonly repeated themes in the skeptism, science or philosophy forums as starting points)
No Members-only section, per se, although the Nonsense and Miscellania area might have a more relaxed rule-set from the rest
Increasing avatar max size (e.g from 48 kb to 100 kb)
Video section, with sub-divisions (e.g Science, How-to/tutorial, Funny, Kittens, Cats)
Add autocencor with option to turn it on or off
Advertising to attract new members
Make an elected panel of moderators
Upload pictures to be easier
A "thanks" button or (+1) to express agreement/endorsement of a post without actually posting
Notice in the upper corner if someone responded to your post (e.g someone quoted you) or thanked you. Clicking it takes you to the thread/post in question
If there is a open and amembers only section: can we make it clearer which sections we're in
Themes for "members only"
Website mainpage with articles, including About us with standard explanation of what skeptic is, and links to main articles elsewhere
Feature articles for main web submitted for approval by members to moderators or webmaster. Either topical or in-depth on an issue
Comments on those articles link to forum and draw in new members for discussion
Allow a more scholarly initial take on an issue than what fits in an OP without it beeing a wall of text
Introduction of a [textarea][/textarea] BBCode tag (e.g allows you to quote something from an outside source and put it in a box coloured background. The advantage of a textarea box is that it get carried into a quoted post – a quote box doesn't)
Chat room, where the avatars appear to be in a scene of something, and our remarks appear in speech bubbles coming out of our avatars. (e.g Excite had such a chat program)
Eliminate moderated threads (e.g in grade school collective punishment was often resorted to moderated threads are collective punishment). We are not in grade school
"Find like-minded people issue": Try to link with the Sc(k)eptics in the Pub movement. Perhaps get them to put a link on their website, maybe even in their email
VIP section
Poll the top 200 users (over the last 12 month) to get a variety of answers to both "Who we are?" And "Why am I here?"
Lead article from anywhere in the world, reprinted with permission, as "Skeptical Issue of the Week". Structured properly it could bring up hits from readers who are attracted to that issue and/or interested that they found a site that hilites one such piece of reading material
Blog with commentary from various skeptical writers (Number of past and present members who could contribute really great material
Offer mini-challenges to those making paranormal claims (e.g offer the opportunity to set up a properly conducted, double-blind experiment to test their claims)
Establish a wiki, or some similar resource, that people can go to in order to get information on specific topics (e.g Conspiracy theory wiki, with links to the core arguments made against various conspiracy theories in our own forum)
To require money: Kickstarter campaign to raise funds. Also set up a Patreon account, for people who want to give regular donations
Register an official non-profit organization, with a Board of Directors (e.g atleast nominate people from our ranks that we think would be suitable, out of those, see who is willing
Use NGO to promote skepticism and critical thinking. By providing part-time payment to people who will help to oversee some of the ideas suggested here (a blog, a wiki, etc.)
Start organizing official ISF meetup events (get togethers, debates, presentations, etc.). Can be organized by our memebership, in different regions and then use the site's resources to publicize it, and get mote people coming
Look at partnering with things like SkeptiCamp. Pay to have tables at major skeptical events.
Promote/sponsor ISF members to be speakers at these events, carrying the ISF banner
Formal debate threads (moderated) with a peanut gallery thread would be fun
About 75% reduction in the heavy-handedness of moderation (e.g with mod action solely reserved for serious and or exceptionally persistent breaches of the rules
An appeal process which is not self-evidently ludicrous, and which is handled by a person (or people) whi sit(s) entirely separate from the body of people who issued the infraction in the first place
Long suspensions and bans reserved solely for extreme cases of serial serious breaches of the rules
Ask the previously 10 most active users why they didn't rejoin ISF. An open ended question with space for free form answers (Use sliding scale answer, e.g Strongly agree, agree, neither agree etc..)
Video chat room, like Tinychat
Change the name (e.g Put the E in ISF) for easier finding the web site
WHo is the MA an agreement between?" One side is obvious – the member. But what about the other? Options (e.g Forum, Owners i.e Icerat, Admins, Someone else?)
Allow one time amnesty for any from the old site who request it. Not on probation, just let them in and if they misbehave they will be gone soon enough anyway
Reset all current yellow cards
Stop caring so much about discussion of sexuality. This doesn't mean we need to allow abusive language
Send out an invitation to all members including those who did not make the transition to the new site with the new rules as described
Moderation policy that will act pretty swiftly
a) Serious personal insults
b) Clear descents into uncivil squabbling between two members
c) Attempts to derail a thread which can reasonably be viewed as deliberate and malicious
d) Any sort of spamming or commercial activity
Moderation: If posts beeing edited or removed, let people who wrote those posts get informed why the posts were edited or removed
Yellow cards to be very rare and to be issued only those who are on the verge of a suspension
Suspensions to be very, very rare, and to be reserved solely for those who are either
a) Hugely frequent violators of the rules
b) With a smaller number of posts that might be regarded at the more extreme end of rule-breaking
Bans to be exceptionally rare, and to be reserved solely for the most serious of offences (e.g posting illegal material, posting extreme pornography, harassment of other members in real life, legal action brought against other member(s) or the forum itself)
Welcome screen with the newest threads, plus threads which we have posted into and have been updated since our last visit
Statistics: Posted by Samson — Mon Feb 29, 2016 3:56 am