There needs to be some way to impel and encourage commenters to focus on the discussion topic at hand.

Mods can- and often- split discussions into two separate threads when one avenue of thought seems to warrant (or would otherwise encapsulate an existing OP without) an independent discussion. Kind of like a thread baby. They don't happen too often. But when they do, it's always fun to be a part of.

There's sort of a way to do that. Go to Search, enter the "Posted by" username, enter the "Discussion Title", and enter a full stop (or some other character you think will almost always be used) in the "Search" box.

If a dedicated category cannot be made, under which category should I put discussions about philosophy of technology?

Maybe general philosophy?

I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this before, but it would be helpful if every post were accompanied by the date of its occurrence.

Oh, my bad: I see it kind of is at the bottom.

And if you hover over the "an hour ago", "a day ago" or whatever, it displays the date and time in a tooltip.

@jamalrob what does “hover over” mean, and how do you do it? and what is a “tooltip”? (Sorry; I’m old, and not very familiar with things digital and virtual).

No problem Todd. Assuming you're on a desktop computer or laptop rather than a mobile device, to "hover over" is to position your on-screen mouse pointer over something, without clicking. I've indicated this in the image below:



The date and time isn't shown in this image, but if you position your pointer as shown, over the grey text that says "14 minutes ago" (or whatever), you'll see it.

It would help if the flag/report function would allow for some explanation for why the post is being flagged, in order to make moderation easier (such as a number of preset options to choose from).


For example, a while back, I flagged an OP post because a significant portion of it was a direct copy-paste from Wikipedia, but the post contains no reference to it, no link. It's plagiarism.
Nothing happened.

So you'll have an interesting enough topic, one that's essentially answered several times over in the first page or two- then someone finds an off-example that just ever so barely meets the standard of technically being on topic (I've done this many times myself), and two or more (usually just two) people will debate on that point endlessly, leading to an 800+ post nearly 30 page topic, which isn't bad in and of itself. But eventually.. the OP is just ignored and people reading it for the first time are just bamboozled, if not from simply the offshoot argument (that is still technically on topic mind you) being nowhere to be found.

There should be a "linear" or "simplified" view of topics that link ONLY to A.) answers to the original OP and B.) off-shoot arguments brought up that cast doubt on the majority of answers that seem sufficient and C.) reasonable arguments to those resulting off-shoot answers/sub-questions/resulting topics..... that would be great :grin:

Yeah, people ought to tag their responses with tags like "derail," "derail, but worth reading," "crap post in every respect, don't bother reading," etc. so that we can quickly filter out what we don't want to read :D

Lol. No not like that just perhaps a small consensus vote of "key argument" etc. perhaps including counter-arguments and sub-arguments, etc... basically where the posts (ideas or assertions rather) that the as I claimed "endless posts" come from are derived from in the thread, is all.

Sounds complex. A default view based on up and down votes works well for the question and answer format, as implemented on Stack Exchange, but here I can't see how it would work, even without the added difficulty of subtle judgments on relevance, "key argument", etc. Unless I'm missing something.

In any case, nothing like that can happen with the software we're currently using. I'm thinking of moving to Discourse, which will give us a lot of flexibility. As it happens, Discourse was developed by the guy who made Stack Exchange, so maybe it'll have some of that functionality too.

I'm thinking of moving to Discourse — jamalrob

Ew, no. I revoke my suggestion. Wholeheartedly.

Comment section in reports for when a report needs detail/ context.

Dark mode

Users should be required to show their age in their 'About' section, not wasting my time arguing with someone if they are under 23 years old, which I think is the case half the time.

Let's just ban anyone under 30... reserve the forum for those who have graduated from the agōgē.

reserve the forum for those who have graduated from the agōgē. — Banno

My goodness, don’t you flatter yourself.

wasting my time arguing with someone if they are under 23 years old — Maw

Ha! So, It’s OK wasting your time arguing with someone if they’re over 23 years old. You are so cute, I just want to pinch your cheek.

So, It’s OK wasting your time arguing with someone if they’re over 23 years old — T Clark

That's right

Age has no meaning in creating philosophy/debate.
If the argument/philosophy is valid then its just that. valid.

Sounds like a you problem if you can't find logical/biased flaws in a under 23 year olds argument. . .
If you have stated the flaws and they fail to acknowledge it, quote the fallacies and move on.
Because its illogiocal to continue a debate with someone who is illogical.

Banning someone because of their age is an elitist ideology with a "argument from age" and/or "appeal to tradition" fallacy.
If you want to debate, do so with a cool head otherwise your post is an "appeal to authority" fallacy.

If I were you guys and I reinterpreted someone talking about age verification, which couldn't even be accurately enforced, to "we should ban anyone under 23 years old", I'd be very embarrassed.

No, in practice I could look at an insane post like this, look at their bio, and if they were, say, 17 years old I could happily move on and ignore them entirely.

My reply was to add on top of what is said so far.
There was mention of:

Let's just ban anyone under 30... reserve the forum for those who have graduated from the agōgē. — Banno

and:

not wasting my time arguing with someone if they are under 23 years old — Maw

Sorry if you came to the conclusion of:

If I were you guys and I reinterpreted someone talking about age verification, which couldn't even be accurately enforced, to "we should ban anyone under 23 years old", I'd be very embarrassed. — Maw

But thats not what was interpreted.

No, in practice I could look at an insane post like this, look at their bio, and if they were, say, 17 years old I could happily move on and ignore them entirely. — Maw

You wish to remove or rather have ignorant youth excluded from your experience here, yet, what does a simple selection or option in choice do for anything? Perhaps what you wish to avoid is in fact closer and more part of you than you wish to accept. Young one.

Actually this is a great alternative example. Rather than showing his age in his bio, he says Roger Scruton is his favorite philosopher. Can easily ignore him :up:

Actually, it says favorite philosopher(s), in the plural sense. Simply one of my favorite that I chose to mention, perhaps considering his passing. You can ignore who you wish whenever you wish, but the actions and ripples they create in the lives of others will assuredly continue to define a life as malleable as yours, it need not restrict, this is your own choice.

You and @ssu could have the world's longest-standing political debate, but why should this entire forum be suited for only that purpose?

Personally, I think that this place could use some more young people.

Personally, I think that this place could use some more young people. — thewonder

I don't mind young people on the forum; I was I think either 19 or 20 when I first joined the original PF. What I mind is wasting time with a moronic interlocutor who turns out to be in college or a Roger Scruton fan. Easy heuristic to signal that they are not worth pressing keyboard buttons over, and I value my time very much.