Chile Forum

I really have nothing against the posters with a different world view. It is when Chile specific topics become battlegrounds for US-centric politico-socio arguments that I have a problem with. Nothing wrong with each poster stating their politico-socio-philosophical position in a Chile post and leaving at at that, it's when others tenaciously respond and refuse to take it to the Lobby where it belongs when I do.

You spoke of genteel manners, the activity above is not genteel in manner especially for a relatively new poster. My modus operandi when joining a new forum is to lurk, search and see what the general POV of the majority posters before posting carefully tiptoeing around the hot button words and topics till I seem to be more accepted.

YMMV.

What is an Admin on the forum?
First, let me clarify what an "admin" does around here: AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. On other forums admins run around beating people, banning people, and reorganizing threads. Not here.

Here, anyone I designating an "admin" is basically acting as a second set of eyeballs, and that is pretty much it. Everything that is not obvious spam gets kicked upstairs to me to sort out. EE is currently the only other active admin (some are around sporadically, but don't post a lot). I only elevated EE's user privileges to help deal with the occasional spam attacks on the forum, and help me keep an eye on the general flow of things as the forum was growing too much for me to track it all by myself.

Anyone that can find the PM button, has basically the same privileges. Anyone with normal user privileges can also use the report a post button to bring something to my attention, or PM me. I don't always have time to read each and every thread, or to even give each topic its proper thought or response. So, I need help tracking through the depth of the forum, especially because our post wonder all over the place. That is all admins do around here, besides the cool colors on their names.

RATING SYSTEM
I had seriously kicked around the idea of user rating system, and even examined several other forums systems to see how it worked. I simply did not like the way they censored or ignored insightful posts. I believe with this system of semi-enforced topic splits, we will let the members decide on a case by case basis if the new topic is sufficiently interesting to keep alive and continue. Some will thrive, and some will die; but the new topic will not become a hindrance to the originating thread continuing. Sort of Darwinian approach to topic administration.

My goal is encourage as much discussion as possible, on as many topics as possible within the bounds of the forum charter which is to generate useful exchange of information about Chile.

The pack mentality
Yes, that does lead to certain group bends in political views. That is natural among any group or even discussions within a group, but we do our best to encourage the inclusion of other views. We need anchors on both sides of the spectrum.

There are limits. For example, I doubt the community would tolerate for very long say some Nazi joining the forum spewing all kinds of crap about superior races and such. I hate to tell you, but as the internet goes you are all are kind of fairly main stream and tame.

Former members:
Yes, some of our former contributing members however had pushed the bounds of what a group would tolerate as a qualification to be a member of the forum. We are talking about people trolling the forum with flame bait that they personally show no interest in Chile, never been to Chile, likely could not find it on a map, and are around simply to push political agendas. They could have randomly selected just about any forum on the internet for the same reason. It was little more than intellectual spam.

This has happened both on the left and right of the political spectrum. We have had a few people quit in protest over things going too much towards American topics or whatever. The people that have gotten upset and left, have either directly or indirectly insisted that I should be in censoring peoples thoughts or editing their posts. I won't do it (except in extreme situations).

In the years the forum has been up and running, we have only had a few of these cases. They where much more extrema disruption than present issue by a long shot. Even then, I have never hit the ban button on any of them. I left it to the group to decide how the minority views fit in to the overall flow of the forum.

At the end of the day, remember this is JUST a forum on the internet. It is about entertainment, communication, and hopefully somewhere in between some useful information about Chile will be shared and Chile will get promoted.

If I was going to take a strict line on this, I would just delete any post that did not have anything to do directly with the nuts and bolts of living or moving to Chile; but, what fun would that be?

admin wrote:... At the end of the day, remember this is JUST a forum on the internet. It is about entertainment, communication, and hopefully somewhere in between some useful information about Chile will be shared and Chile will get promoted. ...

Good BIG PICTURE view. Yes, I'm off to enjoy my coffee and do some chore around the dpto on this relatively sunny day here on the coast as I have visitors coming next week

SALUD (with coffee, or maybe a little aguardiente can find a home here, hmmmm)

Whatever you say ADMIN MARKF.

Again, anyone truly interested in our tiff go read the three threads mentioned above.

One thing I learned early on in our line of buisness is don't try to categorize why foreigners come to Chile, based on their beliefs. No two of our clients have ever come to Chile for the same reasons or motivations. I have really really tried to categorize them so I could focus resources on a target market for advertising and such. I as yet to figure it out.

Even among those that come with "I have had it with US" declarations, once you scratch the surface you will find no two have had it with U.S. for the same reasons. That is about typically where common ground exist, and the rest of the categories break down rather rapidly after that.

In our buisness we forbid employees from speaking about politics or religion with clients. We recently added environmentalism to that list. Turns out there are as many views on how best to save the environment, as there are religious beliefs and sometimes it is even more controversial among our clients.

Our employees talking about those topics for us is right up there with taking unauthorized money or entering in to unauthorized buisness relationships with clients. They are told if a client engages them in a conversation on those topics to politely listen, but as soon as possible to back out of the topic and move on to something else. This is not about censoring thoughts or freedom of speech and religion among our employees or our clients, just that they are no win mine fields for us and our employees. Many are at a disadvantage of language, accent, cultural exposure, and back themselves in to a corner without even knowing it happened.

On the forum I might dive in to those topics in a more open manner, but I still have self-imposed restrictions on how far I can go. That also includes how far I can go in limiting or directing other peoples discussion of it on the forum. For the most part the best policy I have found so far is to just let it happen among the members.

DELETED

I wish there were a way to curtail one-upmanship, me-too-ism, nit-picking and/or hair-splitting on topics, but that is merely wishful thinking. Boys will be boys, sort of speak, and everything will continue more or less the way it has been before regardless of the rules, in the tradition of Forum Darwinism unless, of course, somebody goes out of his way to prove me wrong and contribute to the forum’s journey into oblivion.

Ironically, this thread itself is already exhibiting the very symptoms it is supposed to alleviate.

Z

El Zorro wrote:I wish there were a way to curtail one-upmanship, me-too-ism, nit-picking and/or hair-splitting on topics, but that is merely wishful thinking. Boys will be boys, sort of speak, and everything will continue more or less the way it has been before regardless of the rules, in the tradition of Forum Darwinism unless, of course, somebody goes out of his way to prove me wrong and contribute to the forum’s journey into oblivion.

Ironically, this thread itself is already exhibiting the very symptoms it is supposed to alleviate.

Z

But we all love it... dont we?.. makes for an entertaining read

El Zorro wrote:. . . . in the tradition of Forum Darwinism . . . .

Great term, Z. Shall we call you E-Herbert [Spencer] in future?

RWS, I was just being facetious, as the last time I mentioned Darwinism, the thread started to spin out of control. Let’s keep at least this one on track, or we’ll be called on the carpet by the Admin.

With "Z" and RWS, I guess that makes four posters now who can be accused of baiting.

How about another baiter: Isn't it strange that all these blowups seem to involve posters that aren't even in Chile? JMO(bservation).

MarkF wrote:

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:Expats from the USA 8, 9 out of 10 times tend to lean a certain way.

Doesn't it depend on whether the expat is someone who left the US out of unhappiness (even contempt) for the country...

Mark

I'd be willing to bet that most people leaving the US out of unhappiness, don't have contempt for the country, just a contempt for the Federal Government that has taken over and destroyed our country. You know, the gov. that is supposed to govern by the consent of the governed? They're supposed to work for us, not rule over us.

As I'm joining in taking this thread off topic, I won't make an additional comment unless it's taken to a new thread...so if you'd like to reply, you can do so from said new thread.

El Zorro wrote:RWS, I was just being facetious, as the last time I mentioned Darwinism, the thread started to spin out of control. . . .

And I was just joking . . . more or less. (Should I plead "no contest" to a bit of chusmear in the mix?)