An alternative forum for tech discussion?

Well, after being banned from the Guardian’s commenting system on Friday I decided to write a blog explaining some of the background to what had happened and linking to it in the Boot Up column. You can find it here:

http://beardyweirdy666.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/being-banned/

 This was only really intended as an explanation for my disappearance to the regular community on the daily column and I’d fully intended it to be a one off farewell message.

However, I was both surprised and touched by the number of messages of both support and shared frustration from other regular members. A conversation of sorts started in the comments thread, which led to the idea of hosting a parallel discussion forum.

I have no experience of doing anything similar, and in fact the blog above is the first one I’d ever written, but it sounds like it’s an idea worth trying out.

I’ve set up a different blog site under the name “Booted Out” (a great suggestion from @TehGreatGonzo). Although, you’ve probably already realised this as if you’re reading this post!

I’m going to propose the following as a starting point, but would welcome suggestions in the comments on the following points:

1. I don’t have much time free to do lots of site management, nor would I want it to turn into ‘my’ site (power corrupts and all that). I’d like to give shared admin rights to a handful of people who can share the management of the blog and ensure it doesn’t turn into a fiefdom. I’ve had offers of help from @TehGreatGonzo; @MrBeardy and @StephenJPC, all of whom I feel I know well enough from BootUp to trust. Are you happy to take shared admin responsibilities? Anybody else care to volunteer too? Or is there a better way of managing multiple posters and shared administration (approving new accounts, moderating etc). @ClarkeViper indicated that he’d done something similar with some football commenters. If you’re reading this Clarke/Micky, then any advice would be much appreciated.

2. For this to be a viable place of discussion, I’d suggest that we probably need at least 8-10  people commenting reasonably regularly, preferably a few more. I’d suggest keeping things very simple for a period of a few weeks to see if we can both build and sustain enough regulars to make it worthwhile. If we don’t have many regulars after a month, then we should probably bow out gracefully, knowing that we at least tried.

3. What do we post? A daily link to Boot Up and a simple parallel discussion column, with extra links etc? Or wider blogs from individuals (ie generating new content)? 

4. Moderation policy. If it works, I anticipate this being a primarily a place for the usual bunch of regulars from Boot Up which is generally intelligent, grown up discussion. Should we restrict it only to those posters we recognise? Perhaps keep it open for a period, and if it works (ie we get enough members), turn it into a closed/private blog. I don’t want to read flame wars, personal attacks, spam or anything libellous. However, nor do I want to see a heavy handed moderation approach. I’d rather flamers and trolls were just ignored, but left to write what they want. But I’d prefer to moderate anything that tends towards a personal attack or anything libellous.

5. Promoting the blog. How do we draw attention to this blog and encourage participation from other Boot Up regulars without risking people being put onto pre-mod or being banned? A few of you kindly employed some great guerilla advertising on Friday, but I don’t know how long you’ll get away with that for and don’t want to cause problems for anybody.

6. Design, improvements etc – I think there’s plenty more that could be done to improve this blog if it takes off and I’d welcome support from people to help with this eventually. However, I’d suggest that we see how things pan out for a while first as it may all amount to nothing.

Finally, I’d just like to say thankyou to all of you who commented on the original blog post. Whether or not you choose to engage with this parallel discussion forum in whatever form, your words of support helped restore my faith in people. If this works then I’ll be very happy, but even if it doesn’t, the comments I received on Friday are enough for me.

I’m going to email everybody who commented on the original post to draw their attention to this one. Don’t worry, I won’t start to spam you – it will just be a one off and I’ll leave you alone after that.

So, comment away. Please!

 

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Update 20:30 GMT, Mon 23rd Sept 2013:

Thanks for all the comments so far. Sorry, I’ve been v.busy at work today, and am likely to be similarly encumbered all week so haven’t had the chance to join in the discussion. Not the ideal timing to start an exercise like this, but it all came about very suddenly and a lot’s happened since last Friday.

Taking the comments and suggestions received so far on board I’ve made a couple of changes:

•  Added a visible email address on the ‘About’ page (thanks StephenJPC)
•  Enabled ‘Like’ and ‘Dislike’ buttons for comments (thumbs up/thumbs down)
•  Invited Gonzo to be a co-admin (as per his kind offer in the comments). If anybody else would like to join us please let me know.
•  Added ‘Don’t worry, it’s very good!’ to the tagline (thanks TehGreatGonzo)
•  Increased the levels of nesting for comments (something weird was happening beyond 3 levels – not sure if this only applies to future posts though)

It sounds like the consensus is to aim towards original content, longer posts, reviews etc from us (there are a few different ‘roles’ available on the blog, so we could choose to set everybody up as a contributor (able to add new posts), whilst keeping admin to a manageable handful?

To get us started, I think it probably makes sense to continue along the lines of today – a daily link to BootUp with additional links (aiming to be broader in focus than on BootUp – ie not just concentrating on phones; market share and favoured ‘analysts’) taken from the previous day’s comments and others harvested from elsewhere.

If anybody would like to write additional longer posts/blogs/reviews etc on here, then let me know and I’ll add you as a contributor. Or should we just do this for everybody who’s commented so far?

The suggestion from KPerson to do this via a forum/messageboard is an interesting one, and one that I’d pondered myself. For simplicity’s sake, and as we’ve managed to get a few people visiting here already, I’m going to suggest that we stick with this format for the time being, and if it starts to take off and we have some regulars, then we could consider moving across at a later point.

We’ll keep moderation light of touch and encourage self policing. Let’s all try to remain calm, and just not feed trolls if they arrive. We’ll reserve censoring/banning for real flamers, libellous or personal attacks.

Let’s hope this works out!