For those who aren’t aware, the forum software we use here (Discourse) allows most users to create direct message (DM) threads to have quasi-private discussions.
Lots of folks feel a sense of community here and it is indeed a unique group of people that could have very specific discussions not possible in other places on the internet.
Although non-EBT posts are not banned here, at the moment there is a lot going on in the world that people may want to discuss without having to simultaneously defend their right to have that discussion. And they may want to discuss it with the types of folks who hang out here.
So for instance, someone could create a public post with the title “How can we develop loving kindness for our fascist leaders and oligarchs? Join us for a private conversation”. Then the person who starts the thread can receive DMs from interested parties requesting to be added to a quasi-private discussion. That way if someone tried to participate with posts like “You all are a bunch of fascists for even wanting to discuss that,” the original thread creator could just remove them from the thread.
Or if someone wanted to do “How can we protect ourselves in a time of growing fascism? Join us for a private conversation”. then if people joined the DM and started going all “we are becoming an echo chamber and I’m afraid we too are becoming fascists” then they could be removed from the DM. Easy peasy.
This lets people have the discussions they want without people not involved in the conversation creation flagging their posts. And it cuts down on the work for the moderators because they can’t moderate private discussions. It also makes it much easier to ignore those conversations since they are exclusively opt-in.
This suggestion is already written into the guidelines. I’m just posting here to remind folks and perhaps popularize the practice.
Snowbird, as a user, I have significant concerns with your proposal.
At a high level, it presupposes there may not be a viable discussion about the intersection of EBT studies and the social sphere. Or, if it’s viable, it’s saying to the community “We don’t feel you have the capacity to navigate this intersection. So we’ll relegate it to private email groups where people opt in."
Does discussion of political and societal issues activate people’s tendencies to react rather than reflect? Yes, absolutely. Does for me.
At the same time, by effectively sidelining such discussions to private email groups, I feel the community loses the opportunity to listen to and negotiate with itself where the intersection of EBT studies and the social sphere is in scope. Ideally the community would shape its own norms for these discussions while deferring to moderators for occasional intervention IMHO.
So, this is how I feel about the proposal. Thanks.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you. However what I propose is actually part of the guidelines, i.e. taking conversations to DMs.
The thing about Discourse is that it allows people to flag posts and without mod intervention if the right people do the flagging, then they get hidden automatically.
So where useful conversations fall on the line of acceptable or not is just up to the mods. Which is fine and as it should be for public posts. I’m just suggesting that if people want to talk about things not directly related to the EBTs in a way not suitable for public discussion, that they should consider taking them private to start off.
For me personally I feel like there is much more non-EBT stuff on the forum that their should be, not that I haven’t engaged with it.
I hate to say it, as it goes against a lot of expectations I have as a westerner, but I think that is true. I separate Buddhism from politics in my life aside keeping the 5 precepts and struggling with Right Speech.
I think that is true and nothing on any social media has convinced me it is better anywhere else.
For what it is worth I believe these things to be true, while also feeling lately like this forum has been drifting into over-moderation.
