Highside
Lord of the Flies
This site has a ban on discussion on religion and politics (and by extension, philosophy as well) and undertandably so. Those topics result in flame wars erupting all over the site and it creates alot of work for the moderators.
However, there's a solution that I've seen work very well on other sites. You create a request only board for open discussion of all topics. This does 2 things to make it easy on the moderators. 1) it confines all potentially heated discussions to one place and 2) if there's members who habitually break the rules (make personal attacks and threats) that person can be barred from the board without being banned outright.
I've seen this used on other sites with good results (civil discussion for the most part) and with little intervention necessary on the part of the moderators. I know the main objection site operators have with these topics is the workload it imposes on the moderators, but from what I've seen, the increased work is minimal.
I think it would make this site a lot more fun, and it would allow people to get to know eachother better if such a board existed.
However, there's a solution that I've seen work very well on other sites. You create a request only board for open discussion of all topics. This does 2 things to make it easy on the moderators. 1) it confines all potentially heated discussions to one place and 2) if there's members who habitually break the rules (make personal attacks and threats) that person can be barred from the board without being banned outright.
I've seen this used on other sites with good results (civil discussion for the most part) and with little intervention necessary on the part of the moderators. I know the main objection site operators have with these topics is the workload it imposes on the moderators, but from what I've seen, the increased work is minimal.
I think it would make this site a lot more fun, and it would allow people to get to know eachother better if such a board existed.