A new Board? Any interest?

on that note, thank you for starting this thread, I get what your goal is and I appreciate your effort. I would suggest that in the future if you, or anyone, thinks a post needs to be looked at by the staff that you report it and bring it to our attention. If you and others truly believe that this place is nasty and you want it to improve, how about volunteering to help moderate?

So what I'm hearing that it boils down to: you want more moderation. You don't want people banned, you want freedom of speech, but you don't want to read what you are currently reading in the Courthouse. Where would the line be drawn at what is acceptable? Obviously personal attacks, which are already split out (albeit not always timely, for which I apologize). For example, I've had posts reported because someone is bashing on all liberals or all conservatives in general, not a specific member per se - should that go?

Any posts that don't contribute to the discussion, like someone just saying "this thread sucks" - should that go?

Anytime someone says Teabagger, libturd, libtards, Democraps, Oblama, Obamazombies, etc or changes a posters's name to an insult?

If I hear a consensus on this, we'll change how we operate as this site as its management respects your opinions and wishes to operate it in a way that you find enjoyable and want to keep coming back to. As jf1acai said, this site was started with the idea that we'd self-moderate so we could enjoy more freedom, but that hasn't worked so we can tighten things up, it's up to you.

**FYI, this "site" isn't vile. on that note, 90.31% of your posts are in the Courthouse. We've got 28 other forums, 10 subforums, and 20 Business Partner forums to participate in and I guarantee you you do not see people posting in any of those forums (excluding the Ring) like they do here in the Courthouse - if you, or people who are leaving, are only judging this whole site on your/their experience in this one forum then you/they are selectively biasing your/their raw data and coming up with the wrong conclusion based on it. There are forums here where area nonprofits, businesses, and other members of the community post their news, events, what they need, and what they are offering. It's a place people can sell their products and services for free, or ask for something they need. A place for people to connect and help each other out when there is a disaster.

This site has installed 13 webcams and has more coming up so you can finally see what's happening on the roads from Aspen Park to Grant, it reports traffic issues, weather, lost pets, and much more. This site spends hours each month attending and videotaping various community meetings and posting them for free to the public so you don't have to attend but can stay informed. This site has supported several area nonprofits, both monetarily and with volunteer efforts, thanks to the revenue from our Business Partners.

So if anyone says that this place is nasty, and they wouldn't want their business associated with it, that is certainly their right. But I would appreciate the opportunity to talk with them myself so I can see for myself why they think that and what I can do to fix that for them. Because since our site upgrade, we've increased our unique visitors a month by 300%. We've lost only 1 advertiser in the last 8 months and the reason given was because they are a seasonal summer business and wanted to stop for the winter so akilina, I'm curious as to where you are getting your idea that businesses are "leaving here". We've added 6 in that time and are about to add 3 more in the coming week. If you refuse to recommend people visiting this site merely because of this one forum, then you are doing them a dis-service because there may be something else here that would serve them well.

Despite that defense, I understand that the Courthouse is the most popular forum and that many refuse to participate anywhere else on the site and want this forum to be better, as they have a right to expect and we have an obligation to provide. It is not my wish to have a forum that makes people unhappy, or causes them to leave the entire site altogether and I will do what I can to make it better.

FredHayek wrote: Should we have three forums? One for righties to preach to their choir and vice versa for the Lefties and then the one for everyone.

This idea has been floated before, and in actuality also tried. The problem with creating a separate forum is that no one would really go to it - they want to see what the other side is talking about and argue with them or smack them down. We used to have a locked forum that only approved posters were allowed to post in, The Tea Party subforum, and you know who used it? No one.

An alternative idea that I myself asked twice was if we could start separate, left-only and right-only threads in the Courthouse. That way they'd still be seen by everyone, but only conservatives could post on the conservative thread and only liberals could post on the liberal thread. You can talk about what the other thread brought up for a topic, but only on your own thread so that each "side" would have it's own space to post without having to worry about being directly attacked. Frankly, I don't think that will work either, since people tend to a.) not pay any attention to where they are when they hit "Post Reply" so it will again have to have posts split out, b.) we'll still have the same problem of things getting ugly, it'll just be contained in one thread that people will read for the train wreck it is and still hate the place, and c.) people wouldn't have threads started with the title of their topic that they want to share so it would make it harder for people to find topics of interest to read or reply on and those who post and like to see the title of their thread on the Home Page wouldn't use it anyway so the "locked" thread will drop off the front page. The only thing I can see is that has a chance of working is that we have to tighten moderation, so if the majority of you come to a consensus on what you'd like to see here, we'll do our best to follow those guidelines. It's obvious we can't self-moderate.

By the way, there is another board already in existence that is completely un-moderated that everyone is free to participate in - 285freetalk. For a disclaimer, I do not own the site, but I do now own the domain after residenttroll offered it to me. No one really participates there anymore so you can make it whatever you like. http://s1.zetaboards.com/285Freetalk/index/

akilinia wrote: Speaking of has been journalists. One night I was on posting and I wasn't allowed to post in one thread as many times as I tried and it wasn't because there were other posts being made at the same time. I would go to other threads thinking that maybe something was wrong with the site in general but could post in those yet when I would come back to that thread some idiot behind the scenes was stopping it and I don't think it was SC. I don't need that kind of crappy harassment.

akilina, can you PM me about what forum you were trying to post on? The only forum that is "locked", ie open to approved members only, is our Scanner and Emergency Info forum - you should be able to post anywhere else on this site that you like and if you are having trouble, please let us know. We are not trying to harass you by preventing you from posting somewhere, technical glitches happen quite often and unless you let us know about them, we don't know to fix them. Please let me know where the problem was and we'll see if something got messed up in the permissions that shouldn't have. Thanks!

My apologies that this response got long. Please take some time to read all of it, as I've tried to as concisely as possible address everything and it's packed with info. FYI, I do not consider it tacky that on that note suggested starting another board here, as competition is good for the community and I am here to serve the community, not myself. I would appreciate that if you all have problems that you Report posts, or send the admin nics, or me, PMs and let us know - we can't fix a problem we don't know about, or don't think is that serious a problem, unless it's brought to our attention. Thank you. And thank you for being here all of you. This board is you, and I myself appreciate all the viewpoints I get to read as it makes me a better educated, more well-rounded person. I only hope for it to grow and better serve you and this whole area with everything that we offer, not just a place for open political dialog and you to not fear being banned for expressing your thoughts and opinions.