Seeing as we're at this fork in the road time, I think we should not merely give some thought to how the SZ is going to survive, as I am quite sure it will because Andyh is a 'can do' person, and I've no doubt he already has all the technical bits in hand. A more pressing question should be...what is the point in it? Why are we here?

I don't think we've failed completely for a few reasons. Firstly, I like virtually everyone who posts here and have learnt a lot from many of them, whether here or on the DIF. We've definitely got a pretty good 'brains trust' here. Secondly, the fact that people wanted to save the site should say something about its value. Thirdly, I believe, generally, that people have been pleasant to one another, obviously there have been some issues to which I have not been entirely privy, but I don't think we've seen the sort of bullying or nastiness that had occurred on previous forums that we have frequented.

However, I think we should really decide what we're trying to achieve here, and what we're going to attempt to achieve in the future. Because I think various people have differing ideas of what the forum should be about, and came here for different reasons, which can create schisms.

So I think you had one group of people that left the DIF because they could no longer tolerate the racism in particular, and feel very strongly about this issue. I abhor racism, but this wasn't my reason for being here. Apart from anything else, I'm well beyond the point where I believe it's possible to eradicate racism from society, or even to significantly reduce it. I used to completely ignore the halfwit Nazi supporters and their stupid threads, so it didn't really bother me. But I appreciate it bothered other people.

I think you have another group who just want to be part of a forum with a pleasant atmosphere where people can chat about anything without being condemned. I would be closer to being part of that group. At the risk of stereotyping, I think you would have a large female contingent in that group.

Then I think you have another group who believed that the moderation at the DIF was heavy-handed and dictatorial, and want to be part of a community-driven forum. While I agree with the former, I'm happy to take a practical approach to moderation.

My personal reason for being here was that nothing positive was coming from my being part of the DIF. It wasn't having a positive effect on me, nor was I affecting anything external in a positive way. This is really my primary reason for being here, although it was great that there were so many people here who I liked, some of whom have unfortunately left seemingly.

So I think we need to decide what direction we want to go in the future because while there's no reason we can't accommodate more than one perspective, there can be conflict caused otherwise. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Someone joined this site at one point who was welcomed by some because (s)he was ardently anti-Nazi. Unfortunately, the person in question doesn't even come close to being pleasant and non-aggressive / argumentative, which it is stated in the rules we are supposed to abide by.

Secondly, I can remember the storm in a teacup caused by Mr. Sod. Now, I believe that (s)he is a complete tit, behaved like a complete tit, and couldn't give a toss if I never hear from him / her ever again. Other people (I know dub, who I have both time and respect for was one of them) felt differently.

We're never going to have a perfectly run site with no difficulties; problems are inherently part of life. But if things are going to run as smoothly as possible, then I think we should decide what direction we're going to go in, and people should at least make some effort to fit in with that.

So my primary reason for being here is to try to impart a little knowledge that I have, and post a few informative things from time-to-time. Of course it's nice to do a few light-hearted posts and chat to people, but I haven't really got the time to participate in long debates or back and forth discussions. I would also consider a pleasant atmosphere to be important. I'm not that bothered about community moderation because I don't think it's possible on the Internet. I fully believe in direct democracy and possibly some form of small scale anarchistic, or at least co-operative driven, society in the real world.

Alternatively we could be a site driven by tolerance and pleasantness. I definitely wouldn't be against this but...people would have to be nice to each other ALL THE TIME! People would have to respect each others' views ALL THE TIME! To quote The Simpsons, as I love to do:

"You know what? To be loved, you have to be nice to people. Every day. But to be hated; you don't have to do squat!".

Even if you really, really, really disagreed with someone, you still have to be nice. That doesn't mean you can't disagree, but if you wish to strongly disagree with what someone is saying, it's not enough to dismiss them, you have to back-up what you're saying, and try to do it with a degree of decorum if possible. Otherwise you don't have a pleasant and tolerant site by definition.

The third thing is that you wish to see the site be primarily driven by the idea of a community, for it to be communally moderated and so forth. That isn't that important to me, but I realise it is to other people.

There are other things that I think have been persistent memes and themes here, but I will stick to those three. And if you want to add another reason, please do so, but specify what it is on the thread.

So I think we should all vote and express our preferences on this thread so that we all know where we're coming from. I will be voting for option 1, but I think option 2 is important as well (I fully realise this is a weakness of the poll!).

I don't usually say much about myself because I don't really like talking about myself. I don't really like being the centre of attention. Being interviewed on the radio, even on a small show like Keelan's, is not something I would ever choose to do unless I thought it was important, because it's just not in my personality at all. I'm inclined to delete that paragraph now, but I'll try not to.

But I just want to say something about myself which is...my faith in humanity is akin to the point in a RoadRunner cartoon where Wile E. Coyote is clinging to a cliff face by one finger. The last office job I did, I got a job where we were setting up an office from scratch. It was a fantastic opportunity to create a positive working culture, and I went on the training, and everyone seemed really nice, and I was pretty optimistic about it. Within eighteen months, everyone hated each other. Fucking hated each other (sorry, I had to swear, there was no other suitable adjective). Of course, there are always nefarious influences within such hierarchical organisation that divide people and set them against each other, but I cannot pretend this was the only reason. The main reason was...it was too much trouble for people to get on with each other. It was easier to be snide, and backbite, and stab each other in the back, and all the other crap that we've all seen a million times before.

So I hope we can do better than that!

I'm not going to be joining a third forum and hoping it turns out differently to the last forum, because I've run out of fingers to cling to the cliff face. I appreciate what DG, Novum and Frog did here, and I hope they completely prove me wrong and the Truth Zone is hugely successful and achieves everything that they want it to do.

But if we can't all get on, and engage in a bit of give and take, and move forward in a mutually acceptable direction, then I can't really see the point in the SZ existing. I will certainly leave because I've given Internet forums a good go, and seen the same sort of things happening over and over again, and if a group of intelligent people can't do better than that, then...well, we ought to be able to do better.

And I'm not merely saying this for my benefit,it's also for Andy's benefit. Because if I was putting my hand in my pocket to meet the costs, I would want to be absolutely ...... (I won't swear in accordance with point two...) certain that I wasn't wasting my time and money.

I took a bit of time and thought to write this, so I hope you give it some thought too.

Great thread WUB.

This is incredibly important to me, and I also happen to be female, so no offence taken.

Aside from the racism, bible bashing and homophobia on the DIF, the vindictiveness of certain posters was just abhorrent. Plus, some of the threads were just plain woo-woo, remember the 'Reptilians programmed a vagina into the male anus' thread?

The health section turned into a mud-slinging fest between evangelical vegans and hardcore carnivores. At some point pretty much any thread in that sub forum would degenerate into a fight about whether one should be vegan or not.

To put it bluntly, too many total bell-ends

One of the potential problems I see with community driven sites is that debates on decisions could go on for ages, with no real conclusion being reached. I do like the idea of it in many ways though. Personally, I'd like to see a balance between serious threads and social threads. I used to get pissed off on the DIF when you had nice threads where people were having a bit of friendly banter and some humourless git would chime in with 'you should be discussing the truth' etc. Part of having a community is talking to people and building relationships. Could we have the best of both worlds?

I think it's a good place to learn about stuff and we should use our freedom here to explore and raise criticisms of certain ideologies growing out of the conspiracy sub-culture.

I vote something else, all of the above really, I like Lesley's post, it should just be a forum for being human, there should be as few regulations, rules or agendas as possible to encourage free expression

Nice post wub

I would like to see this place as somewhere where there is room for all kinds of discussions - that is community led on the big stuff and where moderators are free to act within the community rules. The ideal would be a place where everyone took responsibility for themselves and the place is built on respect. I am well aware that the ideal is unlikely to be reached particularly as a site expands. But I do think it is a good benchmark to keep in mind.

A bit of A,B,C & D?

Great thread.

I am longing to get back to business as usual.

If I am "a big part of the problem" for DG, Novum and Frog, then I think it best, if I avoid posting on TZ.

I would like to contimue posting here, but if it increasingly seems members would prefer me to remove the problem (i.e. me) then I will set up a poll asking whether or not I should go inactive here.

I don't think I have the ability to determine the fate of this place, but evidently they do. They may not be the only ones.

So better "bye bye mikey mikey" than "so long Sanctum".

stop being a martyr mikey

Guevarista wrote:
not martyr

"big part of the problem"

fuck me, I can't even offer to leave without taking shit

mikey mikey wrote:
In one way or another we are all part of the problem, but you appear to be milking for all it's worth and it's not nice to see.

The forum is going to change hands, so what's the problem ? Isn't it time to look to the future and stop digging up the past.

However you and others might feel, please remember that if it hadn't been for DG, Novum and Frog this forum would not have existed in the first place.They put in hours of work, to literally hand it over to the community
They have created a new forum, where everyone is welcome and they should be allowed to do so without some of the disrespectful remarks that I have seen of late.

As far as I can see, they still have this forums best interests at heart as regards passing it over to new hands. So please, lets see a bit of respect where respect is due. If it hadn't been for them, you/me/others, wouldn't have a forum to argue about how it should or should not be run in the first place.

All of the above and more...

pheony wrote:
I really can't be bothered to even respond to this now.

The rest of your post I agree with.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:

thoreau wrote: That is pretty much what I want to see. In order to achieve this, as I said previously, I think we all have to resolve to be tolerant and engage in a bit of give and take regarding our ideals.

pheony wrote: Thank you for posting this, Pheony, it echoes my sentiments and feelings precisely.

I think that SZ is generally a nice place to be and there's nobody here that I particularly dislike. Missed the Sod fiasco so can't comment (although he sounds like a tool). Also missed the recent goings on, so again, can't really comment. I think SZ has done alright though and I'd be happy to pay a subscription if it meant discouraging undesirables.

Most of us who ended up here from the DIF actually liked each other over there, so I don't think that's a bad place to start building from.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
If you ask me, this is true.

Some people may have over-estimated the "split" of late.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote: Yes, this was one of my primary reasons for signing up.

mikey mikey wrote:
Definitely NOT having a go at you, Mikey, but I just wanted to say, there's no need for anyone necessarily to make a choice between the 2 sites. I intend to try contributing to both. I don't want anyone getting it in their heads that it's an 'us' and 'them', 'split' situation.

I often read other sites, as I'm sure lots of people here do. I just haven't spotted another one up till now that I could be bothered posting on, due to the quantity of trolls and maniacs elsewhere.

Gilly wrote:
I couldn't agree more.

It was my intention to say that the split has been overstated.

I originally intended to post at both too: I have an account, have posted 20 times already and have started a few threads including the first News story.

I do think now that continuing to post there would be inappropriate in my case only because i was the only member named by the guys. (Ii.e. long time "big part of the problem", "sneaky" "cunt" etc)

I don't think I should follow them there if I am the "big part" of why they left.

Everybody else I believe is welcome.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
This is an excellent idea.