boxer_1 - that was not fair

The original thread was "Use this thread to commemorate and remember 9/11. Pay your respects in your own way, including silence."

Such a mandate implies political discussion.

Pay your respects in your own way ... well my way is to honour and cherish the memories of the dead, while pouring scorn on the US-political agenda which is *directly* responsible for their deaths.

ill admit asking not to go on about poilitcal matters, but as the thread took a wider scope than the WTC/pentagon it was very normal

The intention of that thread was not for political debate. The intent of that thread was to COMMEMORATE the victims and REMEMBER them. It was not there for arguing about who did what and what country or people YOU think caused the situation.

If you reread our forum rules you will see the very first rule which states:

1.1) Always be respectful and polite when posting- There is absolutely no excuse to be rude, confrontational, or hostile when posting on CodingForums.com. This is a place where web programmers come together to solve problems, not create them. Flaming can get you banned.


Those that were initiating a hostile discussion would have violated that rule. You can look at it this way, boxer prevented anyone from getting banned from these forums by not allowing the flaming to escalate.

Boxer handled it correctly, for two reasons:

1) He sensed the general direction of the thread shifting towards potential bickering, and closed it before that could happen. A flame war is anything but paying respects to 9/11

2) 9/11 has passed already, and since the thread was posted as an announcement, it's not inappropriate to close it just for the fact that it has served its purpose. Remember people, this is not the webmaster pit/lounge, where general, loose discussion is accommodated. Threads posted in the announcement forum are here to serve specific, time sensitive issues. Expect them to expire as well.

fair enough

Remember people, this is not the webmaster pit/lounge, where general, loose discussion is accommodated

I'm fairly new here, and probably not the person who should suggest this (and maybe it has been done before). But why not have such a forum.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a place where you can discuss anything. from politics to a new mission to Mars and beyond. I realize this is a place for codeing (otherwise it would be named www.generalchitchat.com) but there is life after codeing and why not here? I also realize that this would require alot from the mods to keep the spam and flameing to a minimal. but I'm also a member of other boards where they have such a forum and I must say, they are nice places to "hang out".

Originally posted by maes
I'm fairly new here, and probably not the person who should suggest this (and maybe it has been done before).

We had a "Webmaster's Pit" for a few years. It was wonderful. Then too many immature people ruined it, and it was removed.

I found the pit detracted greatly from the helpful parts back at WA. I was one of the main culprits too; I and many others ended up using it for random thoughts, often heated discussion drove people from the forum and often people were attracted to the forum simply to get into the negative aspects of the pit.

If you guys had some bad experiance with such a board, I can understand that you've removed it.

In yet another (most likely futile) attempt to bring back the pit, let me offer this thought.

Is it not possible to create user groups in this forum? Could you not create a forum and assign only specific users to it? Then give the moderators the authority to accept / decline users access to that forum? Perhaps this would resolve the "I just found this forum and I'm going to post inappropriate comments" problem. Maybe allow only "Senior Members" an opportunity to apply, and then allow moderators to accept / decline their applications.

Am I making any sense here, or is this just endless babble.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents on the subject.

thats a good idea bcarl, or maybe you could allow everybody to enter the forum at the begging and ban anybody so that the user groes thinner untill it ends up only sensible users have acces?

I would start by allowing only senior members access, that way the casual "script kiddie" who visits once would not be able to post. Then proceed with the removals from there.

GEORGE ARE YOU READING ???

senior member is a bit high but member might turn out to be to low but i thin kthat would be good.

GEORGE DO YOUR DUTY (or at least give us a reply ;))

Selectively allowing access to a "Pit" has been considered, and I still am considering. As an example, someone mentioned only allowing senior members access. Potential problems for this include new comers posting "junk" just to up their post count and quickly graduate to this status. Also, VB currently doesn't have a mechanism for easily allowing category access by user groups (as far as i know), so administrating things can become messy.

I'm not oblivious to the potential benefits of reintroducing the Pit, though I also watched from front row how it became anything but. Due to this I must proceed slowly on this issue. Bottom line, I'd like to see it back very much as well, and will should I come up with a formula I think will work. The last thing I want to do is bring it back, then have to shut it down again. A walk down through memory lane should explain why: http://www.codingforums.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/010758.html

for the minute there are only 59 seniors so we they could be added to a user group (tell me that VB has user groups at least!) and any other seinors would be obliged to send a PM to George to ask for membership, which would give George the chance to see what the suer has benn posting (ie checking if it isnt spam or questions that have already been answred) and then add them. no?

thats a good idea... but surely it would give George even more work than he already has?... Just my thoughts.....

devide the task over all the mods. Like: make a sticky in the mod forum (I asume you guys have one) and put all the names off the requesting members in there and whenever a mod has some time he looks up a few names and decides if those get access or not. and then keep a small database with members name who have made a request and were denied. so that you guys don't get flooded with requests from the same person.

It will be alot of work in the beginning because everyone will make a request, but it should go smoothly after a month or so

>>tell me that VB has user groups at least!
If not, then I'm sure there is an add on over at vbulletin.org

anyway my 2€cents

BTW Redhead, nice sig :D

Touche George. But I did, as well as others I'm sure, enjoy some of the political discussions, commentary, and non-web issues discussed in the pit. It was a forum where you could discuss issues with others whom we all share a common interest - web design and programming.

I would like to ammend the proposal. As I said before, you could create a user group and assign access to those members for the "new pit". I think a registration would be in order, but you (George) need not be the only person to reply or administer the applications, just as you are not the one who moderates all the forums. That's what you've got Moderators and Super Moderators for.

I'm not sure on the particulars of this bulletin board application, but I know if I was creating something like this, I would certainly incorperate such features. I'm sure that some of the member here could help out.

Again, just my thoughts.

Missin' the pit.

creating a new bb system just for the pit is missing the point a little cos i thought soemone had already done that, we just need a new forum and i go with maes that after a couple of weeks it should be fine to admin

I think the addition of a general discussion forum would be a good idea somewhere down the road. IMO, such a forum has the potential to bring things full circle and make the forums more of a community; providing a place where members could become more to one another than just a username somewhere else in the world who knows various aspects of web development.

However, achieving the benefits of such a forum is not as simple as it may appear on the surface, as evident in the demise of the former 'Pit'. The positive aspects of a general discussion forum could be easily defeated, thereby defeating the entire purpose of such a forum. The potential for abuse is high and hard to prevent. Moderating such a forum includes a lot situations that fall outside of what can be easily defined, leaving only the judgment of the moderator to make certain calls based on how they perceive a given situation. Since perceptions obviously vary from person to person, this can easily lead to hard feelings and people feeling that they are being singled out or treated unfairly.

IMO, the posting guidelines for a general discussion forum would need to be defined as clearly as possible, enforced uniformly w/o exception, and with the understanding that in order for it to work it will take an effort on behalf of all members, not just the moderators. It would be a pity if longstanding, knowledgeable members to get banned or become seriously offended because of a situation that became out of control in the general discussion forum. By the same token, it would be too bad to have members who currently work / post together perfectly fine in the current forums develop hard feeling toward one another because of a difference of opinion in a non-coding related discussion.

Many will probably disagree with me on this point, but I feel that if such a forum was implemented here political discussions should be limited if not disallowed altogether. I say this because these discussions have the potential to become the most ‘heated’ and there is usually no right or wrong answer to the topic of such threads. We have to remember that the members who constitute this forum come from many different walks of life and geographical locations. Most people feel very strongly about there Country, religion, and their opinions about the events occurring in the world today. Because of this, combined with the fact that there are no right or wrong opinions, these types of threads have the greatest potential for getting out of control and the chance that someone will become seriously offended is nearly 100%. Political discussions could continue for infinity without ever reaching an agreeable state that everyone will feel comfortable with.

I believe that the success of such a forum would depend, in large part anyway, on the enforcement of the guidelines and the ability of the members to respect one another. However, there are many other factors which could make or break such a forum. One major one I can think of is people who may stumble across these forum who really have no serious interest in coding, or the other forums for that matter, and start using the general discussion forum exclusively to simply toss around their comments / opinions without regard for other members. To this group of people getting banned is of little or no consequence. The question is, how much damage can they do or how many members can they offend before they get banned. I think there should be very little tolerance for such people. If a member has 10 posts total, all in the gen. discussion forum, and the content of the posts are objectionable, there should be no hesitation to take firm action to protect other members, as well as the integrity of these forums from such members. A general discussion forum should be used as a privilege to the current forums and not treated as a completely separate forum to post nonsense while contributing nothing to the current forums. Even asking a legitimate coding question can be as much of a contribution as providing a solution to one as both benefit the coding aspect of the forums, which is what the forums are here for.

Well, I guess that’s a long winded enough response for know. When I start confusing myself I know it’s time to end my post :D. Anyway, just my 2 cents worth on the issue of a general discussion forum.

PS: I apologize for my recent absence, but some major dental surgery that was sort of botched has left me sidelined for a while :rolleyes: .

>>Moderating such a forum includes a lot situations that fall outside of what can be easily defined, leaving only the judgment of the moderator to make certain calls based on how they perceive a given situation

I don't know how you guys feel about it, but I don't see this as a democracy. If a mod decides that a post is out of line and he deletes it(or closes it). then all the other members will have to live with it. Or post a message in the mod forum and ask the rest of the mods what they would do with it. If they agree, press the delete button. this is how we do it at an other forum. But we don't actualy delete them, we move the posts to a trash board, so we can put them back whenever people start complaining and we realize we made a mistake.
Also, give every mod moderating powers for the General discussion board. Once its popularity kicks in, you'll be needing them


>>political discussions should be limited if not disallowed altogether
I'd say these are the best discussions. I agree that they are also the most "dangerous" ones. but they are great :D


>>One major one I can think of is people who may stumble across these forum who really have no serious interest in coding, or the other forums for that matter, and start using the general discussion forum exclusively to simply toss around their comments / opinions without regard for other members

make it a senior member only thing (but watch out for the spam on other forums in order to raise their postcount)
I'll get there ...
...
in a year or 2 :D


>>I think there should be very little tolerance for such people. If a member has 10 posts total, all in the gen. discussion forum, and the content of the posts are objectionable, there should be no hesitation to take firm action to protect other members, as well as the integrity of these forums from such members.

I totaly agree

IMO this is a "coding" forum. All political discussions will do are start flame wars, something that does not currently exist here. The biggest discussion we ever really get into are browsers and source code. I wouldnt want to see this place turn into a "all in one forum". I am not sure if this topic is up for vote Im just giving my 2 cents.

Originally posted by whackaxe
...which would give George the chance to see what the suer has benn posting (ie checking if it isnt spam or questions that have already been answred) and then add them. no?


or a nicer way would be to allow members to vote for other members whose answers
really helped them, or who asked reallt gr8 questions. that could serve as a decent
criterion. what say ?

I have been silently reading codingforums for a while, any of the regulars from the old pit, starting with WS Abstract, then JSkit will remember me. :cool:

My thoughts:

If a pit is reintroduced, I want in.

When the last pit was closed, a bunch of members, past and present, reorginized and made their own pit at www.the-pit.net which has been functional since.

The problem with open conversation is well, we all have programming/web design in common, but alot of other strongly opposing viewpoints.

As for the 9/11 post, I did my best to answer logically, but truthfully, the post I was answering was completely uncalled for. Those kind of thoughtless random postings of personal emotions is what made the pit digress. I think Mouse's near-spamming about overclocking and Justame's Justamese and all the wombats were cool and fun. The photogallery ( www.brwebdesign.com/picture.html ) let people get to know each other too, and that made it sorta family like (BTW. the original name has never been changed.) The problem was only when heated topics and random flaming took over and made people loose sight of reality. Reality is we all have opinions and would probably be more considerate, behaved and tolerant if we were face to face, without the viel of changing usernames when this one got tarnished... So be it. I have stated the problem and no solutions, lol... Maybe someone else has some... I don't.

But I like the current pit (at 'the-pit') and would just as much like the old one back with everybody from WA/JSK.

Originally posted by jkd


We had a "Webmaster's Pit" for a few years


i remember the pit, i had a diff. name, i think it was when it was hosted on freewarejava?

could we get an update about what you mods/admin think about this or have your positions not changed?

Originally posted by cg9com



i remember the pit, i had a diff. name, i think it was when it was hosted on freewarejava?

mmm hmm. Question is, how many people remember when the forum was hosted on the wsabstract domain instead of freewarejava? :)

*shrug*

I do, I do!!! :thumbsup:

...


i for one, am not sure i would like to see the return of the pit. call me a cynic ( i am, so i wouldn't mind ), but i think that any general forum is going to eventually fall into disarray. we're going to more strictly enforce the rules in the new pit? well, i wasn't there to verify this, but in the "demise of the pit" thread, some of the older members mentioned that the old pit used to be pretty strict about what was and was not allowed. there's just always going to be a natrual tendency towards chaos, and sooner or later, we'll run into the same problem we had the last time.

don't get me wrong; i liked the pit, and miss it, as much as anyone. i love a good opportunity to be obscure and bizarre. but in the long run, i think it's really detrimental to the community.

just my opinion

I'm currently awaiting the release of vBulletin 3.0 before deciding if and how to bring back the Pit. VB 3.0 has a lot of new features in the area of member access to certain areas of the forum. For example, VB supports a concept called "Karma." One idea would be to make the pit only accessible to people with high Karma points.

It's all very fuzzy at this point as far as the fate of the pit. My motto when I shut it down is still valid "hope for the best, expect the worst" :)

how do you get karma points?

are the karma points like the antipoints on www.antionline.com?

I would love to see the pit rise from the ashes and hope that happens sooner rather than later....

but I dont think senior member status is a good pointer since all that means is someone posts a lot which means little ... look at that Spookster chappie for instance ;) , but you know what I mean.

George I recall Sitepoint stopped using the karma system for reasons I dont recall, but there was a lot of hassle over it one way or another , same happened when hotscripts had a forum (though they had some real dodgy moderaters)

I think it all comes down to common-sense and trying not to over-moderate a forum which is essentially supposed to be a free for all !!with the obvious exceptions!!

I felt that the old pit ended up being over-moderated and could have done perhaps with some anonymous moderation to avoid claims of 'he/she does not like me' and a collaberative moderative effort at that (I think I just made up a new phrase!) , i.e. I think the personal feeleings/beliefs of moderators crept into pit descisions which obviously upset others... collaberative moderation (there we go again) could perhaps resolve that, some posts have to be modded instantly of course but generally that is not the case.

ug - felt like I was talking myself out of it for a bit then :) - but I am not , I cant quite say what the old pit did for me but it was a good thing, and I miss it very much , I hang/mod at a couple of other forums but have yet to experience anything with such a sense of community as the old pit (despite the very best efforts and intentions of the forum leaders).

So bring it on ....& errr now would be a good time :D

I agree with John6's point, but think it is worth a shot NEwayz. I also agree with FireDude, posts are a lousy way to determine access. I got what, like 8 posts now? Although I have discussed some touchy topics that got heated, I don't recall ever having a post of mine modded. Why shouldn't I be in? Besides, I think I had some 2000 posts (athough its been a while, can't remember exactly) at WA...

A recommendation is a private moderator pit to discuss situations like at the-pit.net, this way you get a group discussion among mods on how to deal with people diplomatically without favoritism.

the collaborative moderation idea might be the effective solution. there a multiple moderators for the other forums, and generally speaking, because the issues are usually of a technical nature, the moderation decisions are usually of a cut&dry, black&white nature ( usually, not always ). however, in a general forum, mod decisions are not going to be black&white as often as they are in the other forums. establishing a policy of getting the opinion of another mod whenever feasibly possible, before acting on a decision, seems like a good way tho cut down on the number of possible problems. note that i said "feasibly possible." i realize that there are times when a moderator may need to act immediately ( some of you may remember an incident involving the uncomfortable placement of a potato... 'nough said ).

unfortunately, that may not be enough to counter-act the natural entropy of an open system. it's obvious, but i'll say it anyway: any new implementation of the pit should be conducted with extreme caution. George's motto is one of my favourites; people who know me, know that i always expect the worst.

It's all about quality, not quantity :), to speak in the terms of the old Pit.

I'd surely like to go back to the times when I had an F5-finger..

I duno George man,
yeh I was sorta bummed out when you got rid of the pit.. but then after a while i grew to liek it this way.
i use other sites for genreal chat, I still talk to everyone from the pit that I did befor...
now i dont post as much i justs orta surf the computer and perl forum here posting hardly ever but coming here nearlly every day.. I duno it just seems more professional and nerdy with no rants section... i duno
anyway whatever you say goes man
Later days
P :thumbsup:

The "other" pit has no relevance to this forum, it's a competitor infact, with many of the same categories. I don't think using the issue of reopening a pit here should be an excuse for its advertisment.

I think I'll backtrack and request the pit's return, a bit of intelligent conversation on computing issues and general affairs would be good. :thumbsup:

Originally posted by joh6nn
that may not be enough to counter-act the natural entropy of an open system

Not to be a pedant ... but I thought entropy only occurs in a *closed* system ...

Originally posted by brothercake
I thought entropy only occurs in a *closed* system ...

i wouldn't know for sure, but gimme 5 minutes w/ any system, open or closed, and i'll show you some entropy like you wouldn't believe.

Just lookin'.....

Oh, good, I'm a Senior, too.
I'd hate to be left out just because I don't talk too much. :rolleyes:

This may seem a little odd comming from me, seeing as I proablly (ab)used the pit as much or more than anyone else, but I really wouldn't want to see it come back. While there are valid reasons for it comming back, but really I think it is better left where it is now. I had some great times, and met some great people, but really the forums are better without it. But really, forums for chatting are best done by people that just want to chat, not information sites...

I agree, Javaman.

Besides, I already found a new home.

errrr, with all respects to those who dont want the pit back...

just don't go ! no one will be forcing you to post there or even read the posts (but you know you want to :))

If you were saying, "hey the world would blow up with the resurrection of the pit" then I would agree, but it won't and just because you may have individually found alternatives is no reason to deprive others of the opportunity to enjoy.

Thanks for all the feedback. I do read each one.

As eluded to, for now I'm waiting for VB3 to come out before making a decision if and how to bring back the pit.

Honestly I'm against a "free for all" Pit, at least initially. This forum attracts a large cross section of people, with varying skill levels and goals when coming here. With such a crowd, it's easy for conversations to diverge and spiral out of control. Another idea I have (apart from the Karma system) is a Pit where access is based on member initiation and admin invitation. This means apart from the mods, a member who wishes to participate in the Pit would have to contact me, and I'd manually review/approve them based on a number of criteria, most importantly past post pattern. Also, the total # of allowed members will be limited, such as 200. Of course, such an idea requires a lot of manual interaction on my part, which could make it hard to implement realistically.

all your forums are for specific topics, which is good for control and whatnot, but i think there needs to be one *broad* subject forum. like a pit :)

but i agree, if there is a pit type forum, there does need to be alot of extra energy put into it for moderation.

a 200 member limit is very harsh i think because there are a lot of people here and i think that there wil be no room for growth. the idea of manual activation is good though

I like the manual activation idea, ummm, assuming I am allowed in, lol... :cool:

ditto ;)

Hi everybody. I've finally returned to the forums after a long season of Cross Country. "The Pit" sounded like a very nice place to just hang out, and I'm sorry that it had to be closed down. I haven't been a member long enough to see it in the old forum. I think it would be a great idea to reopen it, but people posting nonsense ruins it. It would be a great place to talk about what people do on their free time (we don't all live on the computer now do we?? :D )

Anyway, it's good to be back. Hope I didn't miss too much. Learned a lot on the weekends and majorly improved my coding on pages, but wasn't spending too much time on the internet.

Well, this "Pit" idea sounds really good. I hope things work out.

Have A Nice Day!

Well I'm sure that nothing I can say will influence your position on this George. And there shouldn't be, you have to see where he's coming from I think waiting a little longer for vb3 is a good idea but I think maybe not actually telling peeps about a pit is better rather just notifying when they are eligable.