Forum Post: Is there another forum that's SERIOUS about discussing OWS objectives ?
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 11, 2011, 8:38 p.m. EST by Rico
(3027)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
This forum has become largely useless thanks to all the children playing games, adopting multiple user names, promoting ridiculous conspiracy theories, promoting antisemitism, etc. Does anyone know of a forum where folks are serious about discussing OWS strategy and objectives ? It needs to be one where user identifies are confirmed, and threads moderated.
Update:
So far, I've been told about http://thetruthofitall.com and http://www.themultitude.org . thetruthofitall doesn't have many posters, and it seems to be a bit conservative (see the discussion with the moderators at http://thetruthofitall.com/smf/index.php?topic=55.0 ). themultitude.org appears more like this forum in terms of perspectives, but lacks the BS we get here. I am particularly impressed by how freely they advertise the other forums out there; it's a sign of integrity in my opinion. See http://www.themultitude.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=166&p=799#p799 .
I'm now Rico at http://www.themultitude.org !
This TROLL-INFESTED forum is a DISGRACE. It has been neglected by the admins for so long that, with the exception of the "News" section, it no longer feels like an OWS forum, but more like an ANTI-OWS HATE SITE.
See the post that garnered A WHOPPING 386 COMMENTS in less than 3 days: "Why aren't the OWS moderated against this Right Wing Garbage?"
http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-arent-the-ows-moderated-against-this-right-win/
So is is a disgrace because they let all of the 99% exercise there freedom of speach or because some of the 99% doesn't agree with your views? Seems to me that the intent of OWS is to allow all ideas in it's 99%. Am I wrong?
There is a difference between expressing idea's and intentionally disrupting/spamming. It's just a matter of common http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netiquette.
sounds like somebody is upset that anti-ows users are "occupying" their site. that's probably how i would feel if ows tried to stop me from getting to work (blocking ports, etc). it's easy for you to "occupy" other peoples' property but when somebody "occupies" your forum you whine? well, i'm one of the 99% that thinks you guys are uninformed hypocrites being led by the corporations you're standing against to do their bidding. enjoy this winter in your tent. maybe you can curl up next to a warm steamy pile.
History has proven that fighting fire with fire is very effective. occupywallst.org has been occupied. Wake up everyone.
So far, I've been told about http://thetruthofitall.com and http://www.themultitude.org .
thetruthofitall doesn't have many posters, and it seems to be a bit conservative. See the discussion with the moderators at http://thetruthofitall.com/smf/index.php?topic=55.0 . Not a big problem for me as I tend to lean conservative anyway.
themultitude.org appears more like this forum in terms of perspectives, but lacks the BS we get here. I think I'll try there first.
It would be nice if the serious suggestions were moderated and kept in another link where only well thought out ideas are kept alive. For the most part this seems like Craig's List Rants and Raves but there are some very good ideas proposed at times.
How could the owners of this site filter out the psycho babble and give us a real discussion page?
Who are you to decide what is well though out and what isn't? I submit that 99% of the posts you dumbass OWSers make aren't thought out at all.
I'm afraid it would have to be moderated. The folks with their conspiracy theories and antisemitism rant against that, but a good moderator knows where the line is and adds a lot of value (obviously). I'm off looking for alternatives.
At least we get a good look into what sort of nut cases are out there. They have no ideas just insults to sling about.
I once heard a saying from a source I can't remember anymore but the quote is, "Profanity is the crutch of the ignorant." When I see profanity or the inability of people to know the difference between words like "there", their", "they're", or "here" and "hear" then I just shut them out for any topic they are trying to talk about.
A good group of honest moderators would be great for this site and for people who are trying to discuss solutions.
So far, I've been told about http://thetruthofitall.com and http://www.themultitude.org .
thetruthofitall doesn't have many posters, and it seems to be a bit conservative. See the discussion with the moderators at http://thetruthofitall.com/smf/index.php?topic=55.0 . Not a big problem for me as I tend to lean conservative anyway.
themultitude.org appears more like this forum in terms of perspectives, but lacks the BS we get here. I think I'll try there first.
thanks for the link. I have run into this site as well, not too familiar with it yet, but it seems worth checking out i think;
http://www.occupycafe.org/
http://interoccupy.org/
There are bunches more listed at http://www.themultitude.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=166&p=799#p799 ! I'm impressed that themultitude so freely links to other forums; it's a sign of integrity.
no doubt. the more links the better imo.
you should know by now there aren't any ows objectives. I've given up trying to find what we were working for.
I think we need to focus on one big unifying idea. See my post at http://www.themultitude.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=720&p=4260#p4260 (scroll up to the top)
Although many of the posts are thoughtful and well-reasoned, there is just too much garbage in this forum without clear, concise goals and objectives. Knew it was just a matter of time before OWS began to splinter. It's a shame - you have the eyes and ears of the world on you, and a chance to make significant change. OWS needs to grow up.
There are a thousand good ideas in here, but they get lost due to the saturation tactics of the trolls. I also think we need to focus on one big unifying idea. See my post at http://www.themultitude.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=720&p=4260#p4260
Besides trolling, the problem that I see this forum is the huge number of threads deployed. I, for one, do not have real time access even only to those whose titles seem interesting. Perhaps this is a tactic of saturation, that admittedly, is giving good results. Or, without going into paranoia, it is a communicational phenomenon due to the horinzontal transfer of information. What in turn can be a potential analogic model for studying the political impact of OWS.
Yes, it is clearly a saturation tactic by the trolls. At least over in themultitudes, I can see all the posts of someone who consistently posts high quality material and I like to follow. I can also report a post that I feel is in appropriate for review by the moderators.
try the nycga link up top
I did. They don't seem to provide a "forum" per se at that site. Did I miss something ?
this site is backed by george soros. so think like an investor and try to determine what his agenda is and how he intends to profit from the occupy movement. what are his ultimate goals...?
No matter what forum I'm in, I recognize that whoever runs it has some intent. In the best of cases, they simply want to promote dialog. In the worst of cases, well, I can't think of how someone would profit from hosting discussion unless they host advertisements. None of these sites have advertisements, and the folks at themultitude.or say they won't ever do that. Who knows waht will happen in the future... regarding forums or anything other thing in life ?
i don't understand the aversion to advertising on any of the site. you think the site and upkeep should be indefinitely supported out of someone elses pocket. the web is only full of the free services you enjoy every day with the trade off that you tolerate advertising. this forum has no advertising, true, this forum as you pointed out also sucks. you get what you pay for. same with the multitude. same with the new forum. none of this is on anyones radar and never will be because the resources to take it beyond where it is now, do not and will not exist because that would cost money. you guys hate on the donation buttons and you hate on ads. you want a quality product for an undetermined amount of users for an undetermined period of time and you want it without any compromise on your part. well this forum is exactly what such a socialistic view of the web looks like. sorry for the rant but but i spend half my day defending this movement against the idea that it's all just a ploy for a handout and here you are, asking for a handout.
That's a fair criticism. I hadn't thought of it that way. I suppose I should say that I don't want to think the moderators are being influenced by their advertisers.
web ads are almost always handed by third party advertisement vendors such as facebook, google adsense, and linkshare. only a few very high end sites deal directly with those purchasing the ad space.
Good point as well.
As a counter point, the cost of putting up a forum is astonishingly low, and themultitudes.org is actually allowing users to be promoted up to moderators. Thus the operating costs of the forum should slowly be moved over to users.
User moderation would eliminate the need for a lot of funding, and there is ample evidence that users will put in the required time. Consider, for example, the open source movement and all the gratis time folks are putting in to produce high quality software. Moderating takes a lot less time that writing software, and there are a lot more people qualified to do so.
In the end, I suspect themultitudes.org will only need to check in now and then to insure their moderators are moderating without bias. I suppose moderated users could even call for moderation of a citizen moderator if need be.
yes, true, it can operate at very low cost. but there is a cost. the other half of my argument and also part of your earlier complaint was lack of exposure. that is defiantly not low cost. we can bitch in the background but there has never been a shortage of that on the web. what separates OWS or the 99% from the rest of the background noise? that will take money. there is a thread on here from owsjournal. they are now accepting donations. good move on their part. now they will be able to market their message to the masses.
I agree. The hours put into promotion can be very high. I have put at least 40 hours of labor into promoting the OWS consumer guidelines compiled from these forums at http://bit.ly/DoYourBit where they are more widely accessible and sharable via social media (note how I depoliticised the message and "hid" the anti-bank and anti-machine positions under the employment topic to broaden the appeal of the message).
In spite of my 40 hours of effort, I have still only seen about 1,000 hits on that site. The hopeful part of the message is that I have seen about 40 shares on Twitter and 43 shares, 38 likes, and 27 comments on face-book. Promoting a site is hard.
To help promote forums, the users need to become more proactive at sharing links to posts via face-book, twitter, and e-mail. In my opininon, the moderators can't do it themselves.
Our Flier
like buttons, labor, thats all free. facebook and google ad campaigns are some of the things i have planned for the project i started. this will be an added benefit for our writers and help us compete with mainstream media.
If not profit from advertisements, how else could a billionaire like George Soros profit from say...bigger, macroeconomic events associated with the forming of not websites, ie discussion boards, but mass protests, etc...He is a the top of the food chain and has a much bigger agenda.
Well you may be right, but people only protest if they are annoyed about something. We can argue all day about who "sparked" this movement, but it takes a lot more than just a "spark" to get some many people out in the streets living in tents; it takes dissatisfaction with the status quo. This has grown way past the "spark" stage.
the spark stage isn't the end game... the spark stage is only phase 1.
All forums are subject to trolls and the ones that have been around the longest do have a program to reduce this problem. Give this one some time and they will work it out eventually.
I think the problem boils down to staffing. This forum appears to have none. Understandable given the strain on OWS finances (per the GA minutes).
Staffing may be part of it. I think philosophy is part of it too. Anything and everything goes. That's a fundamental part of OWS.
If OWS wanted to moderate the forum more strictly and enforce the few rules that there are, I would think that they could get some volunteers to increase the moderator staffing. No?
Probably so, and I think several of the heavy users here have volunteered to do so. I was off reading the minutes from the General Assembly, and there is zero mention of these forums. I don't think we're even on their radar.
themultitude has the fortunate or unfortunate position of being rather small. Depending on how you look at it. Small is easier to moderate. Large attracts undesirables. Not to say a large forum could not be properly moderated. But it would take a high staff level and the will to do so.
Yes, but they actually allow users to be promoted to moderator, and the "report" button helps identify the posts that need to be reviewed.
Huh, I think I shall give that a look, and perhaps considering moving over to there. I feel like the inflammatory posts here might actually be detrimental to my health...
GirlFriday, ZenDog, Puzzlin, cmt, and myself are a few of the posters over at themultitudes.org you might recognize. I like the fact that they have a nice prominent "report" button on every post. RichardGates is there too. I just read every one of his posts and guess what... they're all respectful.
Huh, yeah, I'm moving. This place gives me a headache, and in way too many instances I have been wishing to dispatch the monitor with my face.
I have found the moderators over at themultitude.org to be pretty cooperative. I sent them a complaint that I couldn't direct message folks because I'm a "newb" on their site and explained how this was preventing me from greeting known friends. They fixed it immediately, and I can now direct message folks (as can all newbies).
Richard is OK. The only problem is he tries to spam links for his crappy website. When he enters into discussions he's pretty good.
Yea, he's doing that over at themultitudes.org as well. It doesn't really bother me much. What I'm really tired of is the same crap you fight so hard to control... the nutjobs and trolls.
I agree. Those conspiracy theorists are a real pain, and in a category absolutely apart from Richard. I like Richard actually. He's a pretty nice guy. Do the nutjobs post at themultitudes.org or are they filtered out? I might be going there if so.
The nature of the board prevents a lot of the crap. I do see a few posts by the idiots, but they're contained. It costs nothing to join, give it a try. Please keep your name so I recognize an "old friend" !
Thank you for the links and input. I'll check them out.
This site has so many posters and so many comments posted every day that I'm not sure a moderator could keep up with them all. But my suggestion would be a "report" button where the honest conversationalists could draw attention to a post so a moderator could look at it.
Yes, I know that there would be false reports, but it would at least get some of the trolls noticed.
I just saw a post selling products moderated away at themultitude.org . Awesome!
They also have a "report" button featured prominently above each comment.
I visited there last night. It's a place I think I will return.
"Voting with your feet" is a proven way to effect change.
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http://www.themultitude.org/forum
It seems to be a good site - about 300 users, kinda slow, but I haven't noticed the same kinda bullshit we get here
It is a bit slow to load though, I only notice because I'm on dial-up.
I don't believe there is a lot of monitoring taking place as you suggest, but I could be wrong.
In any case, I happen to be serious - here, see for yourself:
And if you haven't heard about the Sanders Proposal, please review it and sign the petition:
Sanders Proposed Constitutional Amendment:
Sanders Petition here:
Rep. Deutch's amendment discussed here:
and you can read repelican reaction here.
Zen, You and I have spoken, and I know you're serious. Remember me, I'm the one who first posted the Rep Deutch news, and Lockean added the Sanders material (our posts are cross-linked to one another now).
oh yeah - without little icons and chit I get lost.
the text is so small I often skip the comments, depending on the content - and names almost always
unless they happen to be righties whose names I recognize, then sometimes I pay attention just to see if they've said anything I can use against them . . . .
I'm now Rico at themultitude.org ;o)
Some recommended the 'thetruthofitall' but then I saw the discussion with the moderators at http://thetruthofitall.com/smf/index.php?topic=55.0 .
I'm over there as ZenDog - but I don't spend much time over there - it's a bit slow.
Slow to load, and not a lot of people on at once.
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themultitude.org
They are very serious, and are really trying to work out issues. However, I find the design of the forum rather dull.
This one seems to go through phases, and right now is the worst it has been.
Yep. I see you're there. I'm now Rico at themultitude.org
Some recommended the 'thetruthofitall' but then I saw the discussion with the moderators at http://thetruthofitall.com/smf/index.php?topic=55.0 .
I saw your post there, and like the idea of encouraging a central theme. I do wonder, though, if any of these posting sites will have an actual influence on the people who are out there in the protests, as the talkers and the doers may not overlap much, if at all.
There is no leadership in the movement, and you have about as much influence in a forum spouting off your ideas as in a mob of people shouting them over the din of the crowd. The journalists and politicians don't go into the masses, they go online, and I suspect some of the General Assembly people do as well. My general tactic is to refine the ideas in the forum then externalize them and post links on all the occupy pages on face-book. I've received over a thousand hits, over 50 retweets, and 80 face-book shares on my consumer guidelines at http://bit.ly/DoYourBit .
There IS no legitimate discussion because OWS is manufactured from whole cloth by those unwilling to identify themselves. And although they are known . . .they diffuse their motives through HO-BOs, Annonymous Social Media manipulation and social Terrorists.
That seems a little extreme. There are a lot of people presenting very well reasoned and heart-felt material here, they just get lost in the tsunami of Troll-Posts.
Though I call OWS a "movement," that term isn't really accurate because it lacks a coherent message. There are some folks with heavy duty agendas with which I do not agree, but the vast majority of people are really just advocating we take a closer look at the system we have evolved and reconsider whether it's really the best we can do. Few can argue that's a fair question given the events since 2008, the bail-outs, foreclosures, and wealth distribution.
"Evil forces" may have sparked the movement, but it is sustained by the large number of dissatisfied citizens that fill our streets. When so many people are dissatisfied, a Democracy must consider their grievances.
I consider the vast majority of OWS people to be simple citizens lobbying for change. That is their right, and a Democracy cannot long live without citizen engagement. I am happy to see so much engagement. It bodes well for our future.
I'm thinking of moving too. I'm hoping for a site that doesn't spread the conspiracy theory mind disease. A site free from the ramblings of the truthers and their friends the Ickers.
Look at this feature: "What are my Friends and Foes lists? You can use these lists to organize other members of the board. Members added to your friends list will be listed within your User Control Panel for quick access to see their online status and to send them private messages. If you add a user to your foes list, any posts they make will be hidden by default.
wow, i wish I had your computing knowledge. i am left with just my words and to much time on my hands. I usually just fallow people i relate to by what they say into the posts that they are commenting in. damn, I knew I should have majored in computer science.
It's not that complicated and no programming is required. They provide a dialog box where you enter the username into either the friend or foe list then click 'Submit'
That's a really sweet feature. I'll try the site a bit later tonight. I have some work to take care of today. See you there!
Moderate this site, or censorship? Come on guys, don't be babies!
You're perfectly free to stay here and be inundated by the high quality discussion of ideas going on. Just click on the 'Forum' button above and see all the quality material that awaits your consideration. As for me, I'm looking for a site where the off-topic crap and trolls are moderated away. I'm not an anarchist.
The OWS forum is like just about any other form of media out there today, Sometimes one has to shovel some shit to grow roses.
Sure, but too much shit smothers the rose, and all you're left with is a big pile of stink.
Www.theseriouspeople.com. Knock yourself out.
Thanks. That site has about as much content as most of your posts.