Suggestion: Serious Discussion Topic?
 

Recently a lot of very interesting topics I have been posting on have had to be closed because of silly spamming and general inconsiderate comments, and sometimes petty arguing. I like having interesting debates with people who can do it in a calm and rational manner, without being personally offensive. I think it's a shame that Japan Forum finds it difficult to hold up controversial topics without them eventually dissapearing into the abyss that is the spams/bans/flames thread.

My proposed idea would be a forum called Serious Discussion, or even a branch off General Discussion in which members are able to talk about more controversial subjects in a more controlled manner. I think that immature members spoil it for others on here and while properly debating with other members I have been broken off by people who cannot control their tempers online, or are not able to post anything relevant.

Therefore I think that the Serious Discussion should be restricted only to veteren members to avoid silly comments and spam, and should be limited only to very dedicated members who are able to debate without causing arguement. For example, a member needs to have 1000 posts [steep, I know], or for example have to answer questions about topics to see if they are able to debate in a concise manner.

Obviously we could face problems with this - places like this need to be heavily moderated and access needs to be granted to those members who want to participate - this is not something that can be implimented here and now. But with ShinjukuEki adding new things to the site and with the messages that people have sent regarding moderators I really think this could be possible sometime in the future.

I also realise that this is Japan Forum - but there are also a lot of controversial topics about Japan that people would also like to discuss too, for example Japan suicide rates and so on - this is something that people want to know about but can be difficult to discuss with newer members. There is a lot of topics about racism in Japan, and people could also ask these too.

I think it would help tidy up the forum a little too, instead of having these random discussions popping up all over the place.

Anyway, I just really wanted to know what you guys thought about this idea. I've seen it on another forum and regulalry participate, and everyone get's along fine. But I must say that the approximate age of those people is higher than here so there is a lot less immaturity and more room for proper debate.

Sorry this is so long, just wanted to throw some ideas out here and explain them properly. Thanks for reading and I really want to hear feedback, good or bad.

That would be awsome to have a section in which civilized forum members could have toned-down discussions about controversial topics. I hate it when a few people screw it up for the entire community, it's so thoughtless of them and really it makes it much less enjoyable to take part in a discussion.

Also, I don't agree with some restrictions on the issues that are allowed to be discussed, like Politics or Religion. I think it should be up to the members to decide on whether or not they're capable of dealing with other people's opinions and points of view. People need to be taught to accept different ways of seeing things, forbidding them to engage in discussions they might get touchy over isn't the way to do it.

It's on most forums but only the creators of this site have the power to do that.
You're not the first person to bring up the suggestion.
Another good section would be one strictly for people to flame each other.
Those are always really entertaining and keep the flames out of the other sections and away from people who don't like to read them.

I think there's so much tension on JF because people are never able to just work something out without the thread just being closed.
Eventually people just stop yelling at each other.
It dissolves, it's over but here it never makes it to that.

JF has been treated WAY to delicately.

I even had to tell someone to lay off insulting because it seems like whoever isn't " nice" or " mature" eventually just gets banned.
It's ridiculous.
That's not how normal forums work.

You have good ideas in the rest of the post except for this part. If it does get implemented, it will immediately separate the active members into "the elite" and "the plebians". Sure, the chosen few established members will have a private area to discuss matters that are important to them, but the rest of the forum will still be subject to the same name-calling and threads going down in flames for the usual reasons in addition to calls of "elitism" annd favoured opinions.

At worst, it will change the forums into a large group of the "lower class" of posters constantly railing against the "higher class" who have access to an exclusive forum area where they can discuss things among themselves to much agreement and derision against those who cannot respond in kind because they are not "favoured" enough to do so.

A forum I used to frequent had a serious discussion area and none of this elite hating thing ever happened. But the restrictions were 100 posts and been a member for more than a week. And even if you didn't meet the criteria you could still read the threads, just not join in.

ETA: I think 1000 is too steep. It would personally take me 6-12 months to reach that high only because I read more than I interact. Took me forever to just make an account here.

The problem with wanting forums like this is utter ignorance and intollerance for the way other people present their opinions. It's asking people, despite having or not having intelligence, to act and convey their thoughts in a certain way.

The only way a forum like this is to have a mod, or mod team for it, that can actually be impartial and deem if someone is debating seriously or not.

Ex of what would generally be considered bad due to ignorance, or refusal to understand:

Improper punctuation
Improper grammar
Poor spelling
A Metaphore, Simile, Hyperbole, or reference that isn't "clean" enough, despite it conveying the point perfectly.

As you can see, little things like that that are often misinterpreted as lack intelligence or maturity that cause problems in this type of forum. Providing there isn't proper moderation.

It is definitely a excellent idea MissMisa.

The thing is, the problem with serious discussion at the moment in other topics is like lack of maturity. I really don't think the whole or JF will be seperated just because of one topic. If people really want to get into the section - it's fine, all they have to do is earn it. I think it could be seen as a reward for the members who take the time to post in a responsible manner and a deterant for people who just like to stir up trouble. It wouldn't be exclusive, anyone would be able to get into it eventually, if they earn the right to, and everybody has the same scope to earn their way into the topic.

Yeah, as I already said, this section would need to be heavily moderated, and while not something that can be put in place immediatly, the site is being redesigned according to Shinjuku and I know that Kanji forwarded peoples concerned about the lack of moderators to him, so hopefully changes to the moderators will come about and perhaps make this possible. For know, I know it isn't.

Oh, and the other forum with Serious Discussion it has a Sticky outlining the rules on grammar and punctuation, and that it will not be tolerated.

I really think JF is being too soft on these kind of issues and probably needs to clamp down harder because I know people want to talk about controversial subjects and being banned from talking about Religion is something that could be changed if we had this thread.

The forum I'm on allows you to post from the get-go. It is modded well, and the whole forum is about 3 times the size of this one - they rarely ever have problems. The people who'd normally post stupid stuff are probably intimidated by the complicated language in that forum. But the reason why I proposed 1000 posts is because the age range of this forum is a lot less than the other forum in which they have serious discussions. We have had serious dicussions before, and they are ruined by immature [and sometimes new,] members, which spoils it for the people who do actually want to discuss things properly.

Not only do I agree, but JF management needs to consider that reading rational and polite debate is how less mature people learn to discuss serious topics. They don't learning by just being silenced.
While I understand the thought behind a posting minimum, it sabotages your intent. It is exactly the minimum required posts concept that causes most serious forums to be cratered with spam. Immature or inconsiderate users spam the boards until they reach whatever minimum is set. Let's strike that requirement and replace it with a formal request explaining why they think they should be allowed to participate being submitted to either a moderator or a group of users with the authority to approve or deny.
Agreed. There are far too many threads that are really not applicable to Japan. And yet there are political, social and artistic topics that are global enough to be suitable.
Now here is where a posting minimum might help a little. No starting a thread till you have been participating for 30 days and have posted # times.

30 days is too excessive.