I think the answer is to not put [serious] or moderated anything. Most people can tell from the tone you're looking for serious discussion, and saying "ONLY SERIOUS DISCUSSION ONLY GUYS" is just going to invite trolling. This is the internet, and it's also human nature. Telling people not to do something, particularly from a position without any real authority, just invites dissent. Just start your discussion, reply earnestly, and don't give in to trolling. Posting things like "can we please stay on topic" only irks people more. So, just, I dunno, relax?
I gotta be honest with you, man. I'd rather not post here at all than whatever you're suggesting. Whatever change I would need to make is not clear to me by your post. You can even point to other threads that you think have been successful in this regard and I still wouldn't know how I need to change what I say or how I say it to make my posts more like theirs. And even if I knew exactly what to do, I don't want to filter myself so people troll me less. F.DS used to be above that kind of crap and it isn't anymore.
I'm not suggesting that the internet change so that I can talk on it better. I'm not trying to defend the way I've gone about starting or trying to maintain the threads I'm butthurt about being derailed -- you're right about this being the internet and that is to be expected, I just didn't realize how much F.DS had recently become like the rest of the internet.
There seems to be this idea that 100% unmoderated forums with total "freedom of speech" is philosophically best and we should embrace that and anything else is just less good. I don't agree with that. I think someone should have authority in a separate place on F.DS -- I think this would be OK with you judging the the way you worded your post, but I'm not positive and I don't want to put words in your mouth.
not sure how i feel about all this
not wanting to hear disagreement is such a wild concept for me tbh
i come from the school of valuing negative opinions more than positive ones, and it's awfully hard for me to see how believing otherwise doesn't limit your growth as a person.
that being said, i'm also a big believer in the concept of safe spaces for marginalized groups, but this doesn't seem like any kind of parallel to me?
I totally agree with you, funkdoc. I don't know where you're getting the idea that I don't want to hear people who disagree with me.
I mean, disagreement should be constructive: a response of "Why did you rank Coin of the Realm over Peasant? I think Peasant is better because of XYZ" is much better than "Peasant rulz ur n idiot coin sux lolol" and even that is much better than "Beggar is best card CotR is bad! Scout is better than all of these!" which is better than "Otters are cute!"
For me, the first one is really good, the second one should be asked for further clarification, and the third and fourth should just be deleted because they aren't on topic or serious comments.
dunno, not really feelin this and not sure how many others here besides adam would really go for it...
If I'm the only person interested in this, then the solution is clearly to not do it and I'll just leave. This is fine. I mean it's not fine, I'll be really sad but it would be the only thing to do.
I'd really like to gauge interest in this -- I'd be really surprised if there wasn't interest but of course that's possible. If done properly (would have to be a separate sub-board that is easy to ignore) there should be no cost to people who aren't interested. I just don't know what that looks like and I don't feel comfortable making a poll to gauge interest when I don't know what we're gauging interest of yet.
Let me be clear, even though I already said this: I want to find out how much interest there is in this and if there isn't enough interest, then we shouldn't do it. That's going to happen.
It seems to be difficult to get any feedback on exactly how this should work or what it should look like because people are so far just saying "this won't work I don't like it and nobody will" as opposed to actual suggestions for something that would work. If I don't get any such suggestions, I'll put together my best guess and make a poll on it and we'll see. You are welcome to vote however you want on that poll.