At first I was disturbed to see this thread which calls for more rules and even censorship but I was quickly delighted to see mature replies like that of Tiger who briefly and dircetly stated - If it ain't broke, dont fix it. Well done! Also, Laotou, you eloquently stated how more rules and censorship are not needed. I am glad to see some members still follow the best rule of all - Live and let Live.

At times I find some threads which I dislike for some reason or other but I find that Self censorship is the best - I just move on and continue with my life and not allow a few words on a screen to occupy space in my mind.

The ONLY change I would welcome would be a "Report SPAM" button!

OP here.

I've been participating in online communities for almost 20 years, from the most uncensored, chaotic free-for-alls to the most tightly-controlled moderated mailing lists. It's all too easy for a productive, collegial community to devolve into troll, snark, abuse, and spam, and drive away the most loyal long-time members, whose long-term perspective and institutional memory provide the core of the experience for new and old alike. Similarly, new visitors view the signal-to-noise ratio as so high that they won't bother to participate.

Having some core values established, a mission statement, so to speak, provides a baseline to which the community may refer when performing the kind of self-policing others have described above. Occasionally, in extreme cases, someone with administrative access may have to step in to clean up, but that's not really what I was referring to here.

I hesitated to post this, as I love the rather free-wheeling nature of GK, but over the past month or two I've seen a few posters without the same sense of community crowd out the long-time regulars and the new arrivals. Since no one seemed to be reeling them in, I thought that setting out a few simple sentences of guidance might be useful to help the community steer things back in a productive, fun direction.

—

(As far as "censorship" is concerned, there were a specific few personally abusive posts and wildly-off-topic threads that I saw that were doing no one any good but the posters' egos. In many well-run communities these don't stick around long before being deleted, or are left standing as an example but locked to new posts.)

My two cents... I love our little corner of free speech. Its my own fault for being irresistibly drawn to click on provocative forum posts, only to be sucked into the spiral of inane flaming and trolling. I think the level of moderation used now is perfectly OK. For me, the anonymous nature of this whole business is the biggest problem. Its too easy to just flame and troll without face to face accountability. So I think GK should only allow members to register if they submit copies of their passports and local residency permits. They should publish these documents on their personal profile, so we know exactly where to find them if they irk us with an opposing opinion.

...just joking, of course.

I think we are a pretty mature bunch here (not all English teachers either).GK forums seems to moderate itself quite well.

JMHO

@dtedheshi

I am very much against real name registration.
Especially in this regime.

I use my real name but forcing the issue is another matter, whatever the regime.

What happened to the EDIT button?

What is the purpose of the little thumbs?

And whatever happened to Nicole? I'd like to hear more from her.