I hesitate to even raise the issue, given some of the hardcore attitudes, but I thought it might be worth exploring some of the ideas raised in O2C's thread. Dinner mentioned an interesting idea IMO: http://www.wordforge.net/index.php?threads/well-kept-gardens-die-by-pacifism.108271/#post-2782319 So, two questions. Is it technically feasible to tag a thread in a noticeable way? Do we want to add a moderated thread option to the Red Room? I want the Red Room to always be a place that allows minimally moderated discussion that goes in whatever direction it happens to flow, with plenty of room for trolling and flaming. But at the same time, some threads really get ruined by what is a virtue in other threads. We've tried over and over to use the Green Room as the safe discussion place, but nobody goes there. Would a tweaked Red Room do the trick? I can certainly think of a few threads that have suffered for the minimal moderation (ie T.R.'s 2016 election thread). Anyway, this might be a viable approach. Thoughts?
1 - Yes, probably possible. Not desirable. Wordforge, as O2C observed, is simply too small for such things. We have a Red and Green room and that should be enough. 2 - No way in hell. You want to drive off the remaining users? Start moderating the Red Room and it'll be the Trek Exodus all over again.
In gul's defense, this idea looks like what the old Red Room tag was for the Blue Room, only in reverse. It's not something we'd be in control of doing ourselves or picking and choosing which threads got such tags. That being said, I'm with Lanz on this on. The RR is what it is, and has worked because of self moderation. I wish certain posters who shall remain nameless would look inside themselves to see how they contribute to the shit show, but other than that? Naw.
If the board were just starting out, I'd say let's try it. But after more than a dozen years of the Red Room being the Red Room, I think it it's ingrained here and would be tedious and cumbersome to try to moderate only "part" of an individual room. Like others have said, the Green Room could be used as a flame-free zone for "serious" topics. Forbin started his high school reunion thread there for that purpose and it worked pretty well. I had to warn ed for a flame in that thread (and probably should've warned Chup) but that's it. ed apologized and said he forgot that it wasn't the Red Room.
We tried having serious conversations in the green room at one point, I think, but they got significantly less traffic. That being said I'm against this kind of moderation in the Red Room.
Sounds a bit like TrekBBS's "The Think Tank" / "The Briar Patch" split, except with tags instead of rooms, and that basically failed. If somebody wants a more moderated thread, there's nothing stopping them from starting it in the Green Room. The fact that people generally don't do that suggests that it isn't really what most people want.
Personally, I think it suggests there isn't enough traffic to the green room to create meaningful discussion. I don't think that's going to change.
Except we've allowed that since '08 when we had far more activity and it was still a bust. As for membership, I've taken upon myself to invite back some of the folks online or leave messages through PM here that I hope will get read. I mean, I was able to get Chad and Beck back in the fold that way. I honestly think some good ol' fashioned word of mouth invites will help get some numbers up.