Weighty Matters - rules of engagement

[Stephanie]

In addition to following the general Forum Rules, this forum is for discussions about serious topics, for serious people. Avoid derailing. Stick to the subject. Avoid abuse. Be sensitive. Lengthy derails (more than 5 posts) will usually be split off. Shorter derails are subject to the whims of the mods. This forum is visible to and indexed by the outside world, so bear that in mind.

[Woodchopper]

People, here’s a reminder that this sub-forum is for discussions about serious topics, for serious people.

So please could you stick to the topic in a thread and avoid personal abuse directed at forum members.

You can just ignore someone,* or alternatively fling insults in The Pit. But let’s keep this area on topic.



*Change your forum settings and you need never see their posts again.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Hiya, just to add to woodchopper's excellent message:

We are trying to find the right balance between keeping things tidy and letting things crack on. Hence why there are three main discussion forums now. We're also trying to find the right balance of intervening on posts which are more problematic and letting people sort things out themselves.

But. Any balance we find will apply to everybody. We're not going to mod some people differently to others, or at least we're going to try very hard not to. So, where leeway exists, that leeway applies to everybody, even people we disagree with, or people we don't like that much.

If you'd like to make the forum a good place to be, please engage in good faith. That means believing that others - however deluded you think they might be - are arguing from a position of belief rather than trolling. Maybe you can't handle that. That's fine. Add them as a foe, so you won't be tempted to slag them off. But please do try to respond to the things that people have actually written, rather than the things you imagine them to have written.

There will, obviously, be trolls from time to time. If that seems apparent, we'll figure out a response. You don't need to worry about that. But note that this isn't a remain forum or a leave forum or a labour forum or a tory forum or anything other than a forum where sciencey nerds hang out. We might have a predominance of certain types of people, but all others are welcome too. If you disagree with people, please do it with calm. And if someone disagrees with you, do please engage with the idea that they might have a point.

We very much don't want to make the forum a place where we intervene to force people to be kind and polite and patient and listening to each other. But if we do that, we'll do it for everybody, regardless of whether we like you or not.