Forum Post: State of the forum May 21
Posted 12 years ago on May 21, 2012, 2:41 p.m. EST by XenuLives
(1645)
from Charlotte, NC
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I made some public statements last week about starting new OWS forums for us to use should the bot attack continue to suppress some posters on this site. I believe that the attack has been stopped by the mods after the DDOS, correct me if I'm wrong. I said that if the attacks weren't stopped by Monday that I would look at alternatives for us to have a civil discourse about OWS and have a place where we can plan Occupy related or inspired activities.
So I ask you, of the non-trolls on this site, how many of you are happy with the boards as they stand today? Consider these points:
Is it easy to organize a local protest, activity, or otherwise on these boards?
Have you been bullied as a result of having expressed opinions that a few people do not agree with?
Do you feel that posting on here has helped you personally connect to this movement?
Do you feel that posting on these boards has improved the situation in your local Occupy groups, or whatever Occupy activity you are participating in?
Do you feel that this board is a welcoming environment for civil discussions about Occupy?
I have met a lot of great people on these boards. I have also ran into a lot of trolls, bots, and other entities that have made my time here less productive. If anyone else shares these sentiments, please let me know what you think we should do going forward. The point is, if you are not happy here, there are reasonable avenues that we can take to fix things. You don't have to endure the BS that polluted this forum, but I need to know who wants to do what before I humor any of these alternatives.
PS trolls: I have a few projects in the works that none of you are going to stop, no matter what you say or do. Have fun wasting your time censoring me ;)
http://occupywallst.org/forum/thrash-can-take-your-screen-name-and-use-it-as-he-/
Okay, any post from now on that is signed by ShubeLMorgan2 in fact comes from the entity we call "Thrashymaque" or "Thrash". ShubeLMorgan2 has left the building.
Sharing of information is always a good thing!
I think this board is very good. Good discussion, easy to use.
http://the99percentvotes.com can be used also for targeted discussion and voting about public policies. I think it is important to have a forum that can spread to a very wide group of people, and I've built my site with that goal in mind. The hope is to establish popular policies and get candidates to debate/adopt them.
I am new to being active with occupy here in Denver. Mayday was my first march and sit-in with this movement. But I have supported and defended this movement on various blogs since when I first heard about it in late September. I signed up for this forum shortly after the mayday event. So please take my opinion of this forum with that in mind.
The short period I have been here has lead me to think that this forum might do more damage than good. If an unsuspecting person, who may be interested in joining occupy, stopped by here and read through all of the trolling crap, and bickering that takes place here it might scare them off, and result in them changing their mind because of the crap that is happening here on a daily basis. They could easily assume that this is the type of conversations that takes place in the GAs.
I also think that this forum should only be able to be used by people who are actually apart of the GAs and who help organize local occupy groups. I mean, anybody can simply say, "Hey, I'm a member of occupy" while never actually having been apart of the GAs or organizing efforts. And then they will produce a message that is not based in the reality on the ground. If people who don't actually participate in occupy groups (but support it) want to express their ideas then they should come down and join their local movements to express them in the GAs. And if they don't want to do this then these types of people should be posting their thoughts in some other pubic forum, and not on an official OWS website because it causes confusion and sends mixed messages out into the world. I mean, the corporate media already sends enough disinfo into the airwaves about occupy, the last thing this movement needs is disinfo being spread around on their own website.
I'm not even sure how regulating members only could even work, or if it would. But it's just something I have been thinking about.
The other features here are awesome! I spent hours and hours using the livestream function this past weekend to check out what was happening in Chicago. But I mainly find myself trying to defend this movement from the massive amounts of trolls posting here on a continuous basis... so I find myself not spending much constructive time with others. I wish I could just ignore the troll BS, but I have a very hard time letting lies stand without a rebuttal.
Anyway... thanks for listening.
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Maybe we could have the total individual points eliminated and just vote up and down particular comments.
I would have no problem with that. Anyone who wanted to keep track of his bots could do so on his own, and the if he/she felt the need, they could make an announcement once in a while letting everyone else know how many bots they had. Of course, I wouldn't think this way if I had a whole mess of bots myself! lol
Just curious what you mean by bots. Do you mean points? LOL. I have never had a bot, never had a bot attack me, or have own of my own. I wouldn't know how to create a bot. LOL
I am not really that up on computer lingo if you have not figured that out already. I thought that bots were the same as points. I guess they aren't, eh? That was humbling. lol
LOL. I'm no expert either, but I know I don't have a bot! That is the program language that messes with people's points.
When you said, "I don't have a bot!"...That got me thinking. I quickly pulled myself together, though. lol OK, I can see that i have been misusing that term. Thanks.
Too funny. Thanks for the laugh.
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There are some of us for whom that is not doable.
As I've said before, I can remember when a group of what claimed to be old folks in a retirement home logged on and asked what they could do to help, and they were promptly attacked by just the sort of trolls we have voting down comments with bots here today.
They were never heard from again.
If we can not be respected for posting on these boards in support?
Then I don't know what you really expect.
Do you really want these boards given up to the bots and sock puppet cowards?
Thanks shooz for bringing that to my attention. I did not mean to be callous or suggest that the many good contributors here, including you are not doing something really worthwhile. Despite some of our differences, i have always regarded you as one of the good guys here with a lot to offer this movement. There was a time, not that long ago, that i could not wallk more than 2-300 feet without being out of breath, I just seemed to have forgotten that, so please accept my apology.
There are always other things that people can do for their closest Occupiers. Pick out any two, and buy them lunch; send them a check; give them a coupon to the nearest ice cream joint, etc. This is about building community. We are in a monumental struggle here, and we have to do everything we can to be there for each other on the darker days which are sure to come.
Yes.....Thanks for that.
WE should all try and do a bit more to support our local Occupies!
I know Occupy Detroit has done some good things over the winter, and deserves a bit more support from me.........:).
Yes we should all try to do more.
not until the equinox
yes I think they do, it seems that dicussing our problems to find solutions is not "helping out" maybe that's why things are so messed up, we didn't talk things through first,
I know for sure, I don't want to play some idiotic bot war game with the assholes that are doing it.
I agree with your points. There are some things that I mentioned on another thread about how the admins can modify this software to make it more conductive of good conversations:
Great to connect with other OWS'ers. Have learned much.
Too many topics are off topic.
Forum needs troll control.
Posters need to stop engaging trolls, it only encourages them.
Have doubts if the people running this forum want it to continue. If the core is Anarchist and the majority are non Anarchist, why would they want the non Anarchist's here?
They core group rarely comments here, and when they do, it's about an Occupy event that was never discussed before. Leaderless movement? Who are they consulting before these non leaders decide?
At the moment, there is difficulty discussing anything political other than voting D... But that'll settle down as soon as the elections are over and our voting power diminishes to zero.
indeed
and nationally as well
To a certain degree, I kind of think that the people doing the heavy lifting in this movement view this forum as a place where we are kept 'busy', and out of their hair. lol
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a camping vacation would do me some good
Yes, i am a firm believer in getting away from this once in a while, as i did this past week in Vermont. My main concern there was planting the potatoes at the right depth, and knowing where to hit the log with the splitting maul. I'm damn glad I didn't have any of that swamp oak! ;-)
My suggestion is to keep this forum as the low end think tank. Many ideas (some good, most bad) are presented here and can serve as a kind of pool to look at for intellectuals who want to discuss these problems in a much more researched and serious fashion.
A site for intellectuals should be created. This site should only accept participants on invite, this way it wouldn't be filled with spammers and crackpot conspiracy theorists. We would look for good posters here like epa1nter and send them an invite.
On the new site, we would kick out anybody who uses any type of ad hominem tactics. If a person calls another a troll, he is automatically booted. There would be no karma points. Ideas would have their own threads, and before posting users would have to make sure another thread doesn't already cover that idea. This would keep the discussions organized. When a thread becomes extremely long, a team of reviewers would look at it to take out all the main ideas. These main ideas would be presented as a start for a new thread. This is a way of filtering out the garbage from the ideas. Once in awhile, after an idea has been talked about at length, the users would vote on the best course of action that was presented, and the ideas that didn't make it would be eliminated. Think of it as a sort of council of the wise.
To be part of the council of the wise, a user needs to be smart, needs to be able to accept it when he's wrong, needs to promote logic instead of pseudoscience and religion, needs to be well versed in proper discourse methods (no ad hominem, no DKAtoday style "You're a troll!") and needs to have used this low end forum for at least 2 months.
It looks like trolls are outnumbering legitimate posters by a good margin. Too many valid non-troll comments are getting censored with -4 and below scores. Looks like nothing has changed.
I'll be PMing a few of you soon. Peace.
If you get something going I'll contribute when I'm able.
I find myself mostly stuck engaging with bullys and people who I think mainly want to tear down OWS. It seems to be a full time job just responding to offensive unproductive posts. Good luck. I hope I can be a part of a better forum if you succeed.
You're also getting auto voted to -4 or worse whenever you post. That is exactly the kind of thing that the mods need to look into stopping.
I have accumulated a lot of enemies I guess.
No you've just been noticed by the attackers as someone who is not going away - who also does not accept and will confront their BS.
You have arrived.
well thank you. Then there action is flattering. I think I am in good company and I am honored if you consider me one of you. Power to the people. Right on!
Keep-on Keeping-on as you have and you need no ones approval.
Your activity speaks for itself.
Forward - The People.
Is there anything I can do to stop the downvote thing.
If you want to keep information you post not to be collapsed - you have to make a post. The body of information in a post can only be altered by you.
As for stopping good comments from collapsing?
Only the Forum can do that.
They have not seen fit to do anything about it and that is part of the reason people get frustrated and leave.
I am on the edge of giving up on this forum.
The only thing stopping me at the moment is having a good forum to go to and having all of the "GOOD" people here go there as well.
I love the good contributors here and the interaction with them.
The forum is just a wheelbarrow if there are no potatoes in it what's the point?
Exactly - stop enabling the attackers of this site the blind marchers of the greedy corrupt criminal assholes that caused the economic meltdown.
Turn OFF the stupid comment collapse feature - put it in the hands of the moderators but take it away from everyone else.
This forum is getting trashed by attackers and you do not seem to care.
Whats up with that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
content is king.....remember or die...
Well at the moment all good content on this forum is dying.
Forum? Hey!!!!!!!!! Forum!!!!!!!!!!
Don't you care??????????????????
Turn off the asinine corrupt attacker supporting - collapse comment feature.
it's like I can feel the life draining from it....
NO Shit!!!!!!!!!!!
Turn off the BLOODY collapse comment feature.
What exactly is your problem?????????
Forum?????????????????????????????????
Thanx.
Any time.
we have local site for calender/events, the forum could be place for organic ideal growth, hard to let our childeren grow up sometimes though