I hope this will be a robust conversation in which people feel free to share their needs in regards to how such procedures take shape. I'm glad you are opening this conversation up. I'm going to really think about it before I throw in my two cents and I hope that others will share what their needs might be in regards to this very important modern issue. Personally, i don't think there are yet clear forms for this type of situation, but I believe firmly that there can be clear communication about our needs and wishes in this context.

I hope everybody who participates in this conversation can do so with the assumption that a "solution" will requre taking into account multipole viewpoints. Viewpoints can't be taken into account if they aren't voiced. As we voice our viewpoints, I hope we can do so in a manner that ties our view to our personal wishes/needs; this way Tom (who I think would ultimately be in charage of enacting any procedures that might come out of this; this might not be completely accurate) won't have to feel like he is being asked to figure out THE solution; instead, it could be A solution that comes about by a creative response informed by taking into account multiple points of view. Thanks.

gulp

Yo Tom,

I don't think that works for the basic reasons we've been rehearsing. The process here needs to be transparent. Anything less will undermine the cleanliness we need for confidence in one another. You don't want to install a general sense of mistrust and resentment by a series of authoritarian measures.

What we need to resolve the current problem, if that's what it is, is a real social judgment. The only way to do this, I think, is to let things play out according to their natural proclivities. It's not unreasonable to suppose that the people here have it within themselves actually to figure out how to transcend the State of Nature and establish peace and harmony.

We could start by acknowledging that we actually have landed in a kind of subhuman social state, that it's both a serious problem and an accurate model for what's going on in anthroposophy always and everywhere, and that we need to lift ourselves out of it.

I think I know what the basic problem is, and I wonder if others do also.

I recognise that I have not fully understood all the issues that folk have contributed to the empowering of super-editors. It may appear that I am succumbing to using computational-think to represent real life here. That is a risk I accept, but do not intend. Rather the other way around, but I cannot seem to escape the backwash.

I have full rights to do anything that Bill Gates' software creators allow on my PC at home. I choose not to exercise my powers in a way that would be inappropriate for so-called 'safe' computing. Just as the Great Creator put options for evil in the Earthly software, so are there powers for destruction and deletion etc. in the software options for this site. The point is that I will not learn to fly until I get up in the sky, as I am a fallen being. I will not learn to exercise ethical editorship unless I practice it with some element of self-determinism. Flying is a learning environment and there are risks.

The potential for growth through this site outweighs the potential for disaster in my view. I have no option but to learn in the available (given) environment. I hope that my actions generally speak for their author. I trust beyond my ability to perceive. That defines trust for me. All trust is a test and sometimes it goes astray. Transparency offers slight advantages over watching what happens and inquiring about it. That seems to be justification enough for transparency. It seems that we are in a social environment where agreements are needed by participants. OK, so that is where we are. We hope for respectful converse, and sometimes the inner flames escape. So we have to spent time on fire fighting rather than fire self-control.

I am willing to go along with any experiments and reflect on what is experienced. There are no risk free environments for learning human freedom, only more and less healthy options.

Flame Wars? Flame doors!
Fire burns? Fire turns!
Fire destroys? Fire employs!
Attention, attention, attention
For fire-wrought freedom...

Moderator

1. someone who mediates disputes
2. someone who presides over a forum or debate

POF 12-4 Moral imagination and the faculty of having moral ideas can become objects of knowledge only after they have been produced by the individual. By then, however, they no longer regulate life, for they have already regulated it. They must now be regarded as effective causes, like all others (they are purposes only for the subject). We therefore deal with them as with a natural history of moral ideas.
Ethics as a science that sets standards, in addition to this, cannot exist.

I would like to designate some website moderators and enable them to remove inappropriate (according to a moderator) posts from public view. The moderator policy will be a history of past action but not necessarily an indicator of future action. Each moderator can act independently but can be overruled by any other moderator. The moderators will likely weigh the balance between personal expression and the websites role to serve the public.

Moderator Permissions

• Make a post in-visible to the public but visible to the moderators. (send a copy of the post to the poster)
• Temporarily Suspend user's posting privilege (issue a "time out" to cool things off)
• Permanently Suspend user (moderator consensus required)

Off Site Mediation
Moderators can continue the conversation with the poster off site to resolve any posting issues.

Appeal Process
Any moderator can overrule another moderator. Anyone can appeal to any moderator to overrule another moderators action.

Proposed Moderators
These people have not been asked yet but I have selected them based upon expressed concern and site participation, not necessarily on wisdom. The wise ones will likely not want to have this role.

John
Patri
Sebastian
Tom
and Tim

This is OK with me, I am not easily offended by words on a webpage thus far so if I used this power it would probably be out of consideration for their effect on others visiting the site. 

To put it more simply, I haven't seen much on this website that I personally would choose to make invisible, however I note that there is a selection process that goes on through what journals get promoted to the front page, what happens there seems reasonable to me.

I'll take the badge but not that primeval weapon. It could be replaced by a thorny rose!

I am with Tim - I see that I may have to act on behalf of others. That may involve educated guesswork, so further discussion of what folk find unacceptable is welcome.

Should I choose to act in my role as a moderator, I would appreciate all and any reflection from others.

Thanks for your trust, Tom.

=

 ['in my role' added later as it read ambiguously as if I have not yet agreed to accept that responsibility. I have.]

Thanks, Tom. I find this helpful.

For the record: I hope each of those people you are going to ask will accept as I think they are capable of the kind of conversations that such a role will ask for.

It sounds like you are moving fast and so I want to get in a couple questions:

My wish is that except in extreme cases (if somebody leaves threatening or personally aimed derogatory remarks) the moderator that comes across questionable material will at least try to contact the individual AND one more moderator; I understand that there might be cases where this is not possible.

I also hope that there can be enough of a shared criteria between moderators that we avoid as much serious disagreements as possible between them. One moderator may see a very passionate conversation between two people as bordering on a Flame, whereas another moderator might see it as immature but nowhere close needing editing. No matter how annoyed the folks arguing are, I think it can increase 100 fold if they are silenced without knowing why and then 1000 fold if the moderators end up not agreeing about the silencing. In my opinion this is the stage in which it can be very positive to think of a wide range of possible situations and creatively share impressions. (I don't necessarily mean this should happen with the wider community at this point). it can be fun and interesting to imagine the kinds of situations that might be faced, not to create hard and inflexible rules but to increase the flexibility and capacityt to meet them.

It seems to me that moderators can share their own ideas about what it actually means for a conversation to be "innappropriate" in this context. I hope that moderators will share the results of these conversations with the website (I can understand that there might be reasons that these conversations begin, at least, strictly amongst the moderators.

I highly value transparency in the regulatory contexts, provided that it is managed in a conscious manner. That's where these wishes of mine come from. Thanks.

gulp

I'm with Tim and John and understand and agree with Tom's comments too.

It's been a journey to get to this point.

I hope it will work.  I feel good will towards the purpose.

S.

Flame Wars? Flame doors!
Fire burns? Fire turns!
Fire destroys? Fire employs!
Attention, attention, attention
For fire-wrought freedom...