Irish Skeptics

ecksor

Community forums are set up for groups who need a place to discuss their business and activities or something that specifically interests them. This forum was set up for discussion of matters relating to the Irish Skeptics Society. A non-community forum (which is for general discussion on a given topic). A non-community forum is generally required, in my view at least, to have more even-handed moderation. There are different requirements too around what is required before we will set up a general forum as opposed to a community forum.

I believe that the forums you mention were set up to the specific communities which they serve. If you wish to discuss the idea of moving forums such as Buddhism, Christianity, Couriers, Irish Jedis and Paganism under a Religions category or sub-category, then you could open that on the Feedback / Suggestions board.

Being quite honest, although the discussion that would occur on this forum was interesting to me, I didn't have enough to go on to justify setting up a non-community forum, whereas now I do (another factor in the community vs non-community division). The existing science forums seemed to cover what was being suggested (I didn't actually predict philosophical threads debating what it means to be a sceptic, for example). Also, the way it was put suggested that it was for the society, rather than the viewpoint (although it has turned out to be for both).

As for the spelling, I agree, however the movement appears to have some historical attachment to the spelling with the 'k', hence the current name, and I'd be willing to hear both sides around the spelling of the new forum if it is to remain linked to the movement.

Yoda

Ecksor said
Community forums are set up for groups who need a place to discuss their business and activities or something that specifically interests them.

I don't think the Christianity, Paganism, or Buddhism forums represent any particular groups or their activities. All of them have general discussion about the philosophies and practices of people who follow those paths, but there aren't any "communities" with "business and activities" in any of them.

A non-community forum (which is for general discussion on a given topic). [...] is generally required, in my view at least, to have more even-handed moderation. There are different requirements too around what is required before we will set up a general forum as opposed to a community forum.

I don't know what those requirements are, I guess, but all of these and Scepticism (as opposed to Irish Skeptics) seem to be pretty general.

I believe that the forums you mention were set up to the specific communities which they serve.

There's a difference between a community i.e. a bunch of people who want to discuss something, and a community or society which has business and activities.

As for the spelling, it's true that the organization XYZ Skeptics Society keeps the sk- spelling worldwide, because that's a set of affiliated organizations. A general discussion forum here (an ism) should use the sc- spelling though.

ecksor

As I said, you can open that discussion on Feedback / Suggestions if you wish to try to get things changed on the forums that you mention. I honestly don't think that the status quo wrt those forums will change though, the implications of having those as non-community forums have been discussed before iirc.

GuanYin

Originally posted by ecksor
Syke just wants me to move it under Science so he can impose his evil non-sciency viewpoint on the rest of us.

As things stand, it's a community forum that's quite busy and could certainly justify being moved to the Society hierarchy (which is where I would personally think it fits best). But that wouldn't be a community forum any longer and society business is surely a good thing to discuss here. So, I think it's working fine as things stand, but I wouldn't be averse to having it elsewhere. It'd also need a slight name change (when I moved Irish Athletics under the sports hierarchy I changed it to just Athletics, for example). I'd probably rename the new forum Skepticism or Scepticism.

Whooooo Nelly!

Inititially I suggested ading it under science as I fgured there would be alot of cross over. I still think thats the case but I have never since suggestd moving anything anywhere. As its stands I'm happy with IS where it is, I wouldn't feel free to argue as much if it was under science.

Yoda

Sure, maybe a Society > Religion and Philosophy subgroup could contain these four. I don't know if it's worth mentioning on Admin at this stage. Actuall it has been mentioned there before.

Originally posted by Ecksor earlier
A non-community forum is generally required, in my view at least, to have more even-handed moderation. There are different requirements too around what is required before we will set up a general forum as opposed to a community forum.

I guess I still don't see much difference between the way that Buddhism works and the way that some of the "Society" boards work, except that some of them have very many and sometimes unruly participants.

Sparks

I must admit curiosity as to why the ISS are carving out a forum while the AIH aren't. Is the ISS's activity level much higher than the AIH's ?

ecksor

Who are the AIH? Have they requested a forum?

Sparks

The Association of Irish Humanists. And I don't know, I'm just asking.