How do we make these boards more positive?

stop asian hate! wrote:

One of the consequences of free speech is that you have to risk being offended in order to engage in free discourse.

If you start tone policing, you are no longer participating in free discourse.

First, this is a private entity and can limit speech.

Second, one can challenge one's ideas or stands without being a pr!ck or name calling (like I just did!).

Free discourse should not involve "Jane, you ignorant slut".

how would this work? wrote:

Jedsdead wrote:

completely agree - stop with the anonymous posts

Not sure that's really feasible. Even registered posters are anonymous.

There are ways to minimize it, if not completely eliminate it, if the owners want to do so. It is clear they have no interest in doing it.

RyecorDone wrote:

Anonymous posting turns a forum into something like an autistic person with hypersensitivities. No matter what you say, someone can take offense and strike out, or just avoid you. It is impossible to have a productive discussion when everybody is so reactive. The forum IS autistic. And it isn't high functioning. It is the opposity of a freely communicating community of like-minded citizens just trying to iron out common ground. So, don't get your hopes up for much civility.

Did you just tell him on yourself?

why are you so controlling?

that's not good

Luv2Run wrote:

stop asian hate! wrote:

One of the consequences of free speech is that you have to risk being offended in order to engage in free discourse.

If you start tone policing, you are no longer participating in free discourse.

First, this is a private entity and can limit speech.

Second, one can challenge one's ideas or stands without being a pr!ck or name calling (like I just did!).

Free discourse should not involve "Jane, you ignorant slut".

LR can censor people, but it should not

You don't get to decide what is acceptable

Luv2Run wrote:

how would this work? wrote:

Not sure that's really feasible. Even registered posters are anonymous.

There are ways to minimize it, if not completely eliminate it, if the owners want to do so. It is clear they have no interest in doing it.

Maybe we're talking about different things, here. "Anonymous" means that you don't know the identity of the person who is posting. Even registered handles are anonymous because you don't have to share and prove your identity when setting up an account. Even if registration was required on LR, posting would still be anonymous unless they added an identity verification step to the registration process.

Do you really want to end anonymous posting, or do you just want to require registration?

be positive

randomist wrote:

We should collectively advocate motherhood, apple pie, world peace, message board utopia, and elimination of hunger, disease, and poverty.

and save the f#king whales too.

Please don't force any positivity into this board. It's one of the last few places where people can tell it like it is.

If you want to be congratulated for your 40min 5k go to /r/running on reddit or go make comments on SJD's videos.

Why does every feking thing need to be sugar coated. I've gotten some great advice on here over the years that may have seemed harsh af but IT WORKED.

I do wish there were fewer non-running posts but I'll gladly take them if it means not changing this site.

Best to just not click on, or participate in, non-running (troll) posts. The site has to make money to continue, so there’s little chance that the boards will change. I’m trying really hard to stay away from whatever bothers me. Mostly succeeding. Haha.

3680 wrote:

Best to just not click on, or participate in, non-running (troll) posts. The site has to make money to continue, so there’s little chance that the boards will change. I’m trying really hard to stay away from whatever bothers me. Mostly succeeding. Haha.

Honestly I don't even mind the semi-informative non-running posts. I've gotten some decent nuggets of info about mortgages, buying cars, general health, raising kids, etc. that I didn't see anywhere else. It's the "why isn't Japan embracing brown immigration to survive" or "Kim Potter should be acquitted" types of posts that I can do without, which I end up ignoring.

Yesterday, rojo posted this.

rojo wrote:

We are about to announce some major new messageboard stuff real soon.

To the person who doesnt like the site, we are constantly trying to make it better. We redesigned the front page last year and now are working on the messageboard. Please let me know what we can do to make it better

robert@letsrun.com

.

We believe in free expression. Yes there are some downsides to it but also many upsides.

Yesterday, I wrote a two-page email to Robert outlining steps that I believed would make this a better forum without sacrificing the ability to post anonymously.

While I agree with Robert on freedom of expression, I also believe that hate speech should not be tolerated, period.

In my email, I suggested three changes to Terms of Service (ToS)/Forum Rules. I suggested that 1) these rules be made much more prominent, 2) be updated to include harsher consequences for hate speech, and 3) require agreeing to ToS before posting. Specifically, prior to posting under a new user name, posters would have to check that they had read and agreed to the following.

I have read the Terms of Service [underlined text is a link to Terms of Service]. I agree that violating terms of service expressly voids any privilege of anonymity and I expressly authorize the publication of my identity and the offending posts to employers, schools, internet service providers, parents, and/or any other entity.

If you don't like the rule, don't use hate speech in a user name or make comments that fall under hate speech. Simple.

Or leave. Simpler.

rojo wrote:

We are about to announce some major new messageboard stuff real soon.

“Real soon”? Did you mean to say “really soon”? “Real soon” makes zero sense

“real soon” made enough sense to people who can make the jump.

we are now presented with an easy way to express our suggestions and complaints; I think this matters more than a basic syntactical error.

No non-running related content.

Swedish made wrote:

it is time wrote:

We at the very least need to balance out the positivity with the negativity here. There's a lot of miserable people that post on these boards and pretend that "telling it how it is" isn't being negative. I feel really bad for the mental state of some people on here who can't seem to enjoy the sport of running for the great entity that it is..

F*ck off

^ This. This is what I was going to say.