Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

Grypd · 2011-11-23 16:28:35

JoshNH4H I agree that the republican/democrat catfight etc has no place here but the no politics rule was an attempt to be black and white and that just could not work. We are in a situation where certainly the western world appears to be retrenching from space and discussing that will drop us into politics and talks about the recession and of course people blaming one party or another. We have to have a discussion about how to get the entrenching stopped without getting stuck in a useless blame game.

A further example is for us space advocates is that we could not really talk about how to get elected officials to support space more and just who to write to get that support as it would have been a breach of the rule even though we had a section for this. It never happened as common sense applied but it is an example of what the rules should allow us to do.

clark wrote:

Today 21:01:18 The forum managed for a very long time without any such rule.

True but we also started to lose a lot of those who where here only for space and we do have a broad kirk and that means the political spectrum was very wide. In the lead up to the elections in the USA it did become a bit daft.

Last edited by Grypd (2011-11-23 16:43:07)

James Burk · 2011-11-23 17:06:21

This discussion is a good example of the types of issues the moderators (as a part of the Editorial Board) will be able to come to a consensus on and implement. I agree that political discussions can get out of hand, and there is not really any place for that in a mars exploration-specific forum such as this one. Just my humble opinion though and I will ultimately be one voice out of many, who don't necessarily agree on everything.
-James

louis · 2011-11-23 17:06:32

jburk wrote:

Hello all,
We are pleased to announce that the New Mars Forums have been re-opened, following the work of several volunteers to restore the previous discussions and set up a new forums system. The Mars Society extends its thanks to the following individuals for their assistance in this effort:
James Burk
Josh Cryer
Lucinda Land
Susan Martin
Richard Offer
After the crippling server crash that occurred in early 2011, we are still working to restore the discussions from the period June 2008 until the crash. We hope to integrate those discussions as soon as possible. We are also restoring and building out the rest of the New Mars Journal blog & website, and eventually hope to re-publish all previous content that was available on NewMars.com so it can become part of the Mars Society's historical record.
As part of the forums relaunch, we are establishing an Editorial Board for the New Mars Journal. Initially the editorial board will be comprised of a few key individuals (including some of the folks above, and some of our past volunteers and forum moderators.) Every active member of the Mars Society will be invited to apply to become a moderator in the New Mars Forums and to join our Editorial Board. We will be publishing more details on this soon.
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback on the new Forums system, please feel free to send us an email using the address feedback@newmars.com
Thanks,
The Mars Society Staff
feedback@newmars.com

Well done to one and all!

Josh Cryer · 2011-11-23 18:25:13

Grypd wrote:

Politics especially with the way the Spacerace is at the moment is a fundamental part. Just talking about international cooperation is politics and of course politics controls the purse strings. And No Bucks no Buck Rogers. It needs to be seriously moderated but we cannot get rid of it completely.

That's why we have Space Policy. Go to Not So Free Chat and look at the discussions that were taking place, imho, they were unacceptable. I was getting several PMs a week about misbehavior, it was really time consuming. I'm all for space related politics, I have no problem with it, but once you veer out of space policy and into general politics the whole thing falls into a mess. Go compare discussions on political forums and on the space politics blog and compare their relative civility.

JoshNH4H · 2011-11-23 20:14:34

Grypd- I can only say what I have said before. The rule does not disallow politics that have a legitimate relation to space; that is the fundamental underlying principle behind the general rules for enforcement. We have to keep in mind also that our moderators at Newmars are human and not computers. That is to say, we (I hope I can still use that pronoun?) can tell when a discussion is wandering off away from topics that have a legitimate bearing on space. The No-Politics rule is only intended to eliminate the discussion of politics for politics' sake.

This may be a bit unfair given that it's been a long time since the forums have been operational, but do you remember there ever being a mod action/suggestion that you felt was unreasonable?

clark · 2011-11-23 21:20:47

I for one don't care and feel that the point is already belabored.

Those that have a relevant point to make will easily make it, and likely want to make it, in the context of general space policy if politics are involved. Those that wish to banter politics for politics sake, while personally I see no issue with it here or anywhere for that matter, will need to find some other venue.

My preference is to allow others to speak freely on any subject they want. The issue in my mind is merely when the less well mannered decide to inject political discussion into any given ongoing discussion, even if such comments are out of context or character with the point of a particular message thread or message area.

The moderators have lives- go live them. Declare a rule. Forbid ideas, or to be fair, the expression of certain ones as out of character with the intent of this general board. Let's move on

SpaceNut · 2011-11-23 21:34:57

Space has not a single republican/democrat as those are politicians, Space does have astronauts, cosmonauts, ect with no party lines. Grypd example of garnering space advocates lobbying to elected officials to support space more did not really cross the line of no politics unless it became party derogatory. I do remember the Space policy Josh in the Go to Not So Free Chat discussions getting nasty and being closed a couple of times.

Marsman · 2011-11-24 01:28:08

Good to see the forums back up guys

I just want to clarify a couple of things too. First, the Newmars forums have a depth of discussion and detail and a large list of members they have built up over the last 10 years. But beyond the discussions I am sure there are many members here who hope the Mars Society might adopt some of the ideas here. I wonder if this has ever happened or what role the Mars Society views this forum as useful for? Many here are not paying members of the Mars Society, but just consider the time they have devoted here. If we translated that into monetry terms, this would far outweigh any cash donation.

My hope us that this forum does find a useful purpose beyond discussions but I guess we will wait and see on that. In regards to the MarsDrive site and forum, we did serve as a temporary home for many lost members here for the last year so I hope you guys don't forget about us

We currently have about 320 active members and a couple dozen more regular posters so we have built up over the last few years. We do allow political discussions, and I think that is due to where we are at right now. If we were larger and found it a big problem we might make the same choice as New Mars. But discussions are open and there are no membership fees are needed. Our focus is also slightly different, more on searching for private sector alternative plans for Mars. So don't forget us guys, and I'll keep an eye on how things go here. Overall I think the rebirth of this forum is a good thing for the cause.

Last edited by Marsman (2011-11-24 01:31:27)

Grypd · 2011-11-24 04:08:31

Hi Folks.

What in my very poor way is trying to have in place a set of groundrules or guides to people to know what is and is not acceptable. It is though I know a difficult and rather thankless task to perform.

In this I think the basis should be that we can discuss current space policies / NASA leaders, Spaceport USA etc which also tends to lead us into defence and fiscal policies but that we keep this tight. We can discuss treaties and proposed treaties as to how they effect space and any space related announcements by political leaders. We do have to be careful that with certain countries were we do not actually know there full intentions in space and even here on Earth.

We probably should have a rule that come election time especially in the USA that no discussion about Democrat/Republican who would make the best president etc be allowed it is not as if many of the people who could vote on this will decide purely on a candidates Space policy.

Whatever happens I agree with Clark I dont want the point belabored so I dont intend to address it after this posting.

JoshNH4H · 2011-11-24 10:58:01

Grypd, that sounds very similar to the rule as it exists now. It sounds like the biggest problem with it was that we were overzealous when taking about the "no politics" portion and not clear enough about was constitutes legitimate discussion.

James Burk · 2011-11-25 03:08:53

Marsman wrote:

Good to see the forums back up guys
I just want to clarify a couple of things too. First, the Newmars forums have a depth of discussion and detail and a large list of members they have built up over the last 10 years. But beyond the discussions I am sure there are many members here who hope the Mars Society might adopt some of the ideas here. I wonder if this has ever happened or what role the Mars Society views this forum as useful for? Many here are not paying members of the Mars Society, but just consider the time they have devoted here. If we translated that into monetry terms, this would far outweigh any cash donation.
My hope us that this forum does find a useful purpose beyond discussions but I guess we will wait and see on that. In regards to the MarsDrive site and forum, we did serve as a temporary home for many lost members here for the last year so I hope you guys don't forget about us
We currently have about 320 active members and a couple dozen more regular posters so we have built up over the last few years. We do allow political discussions, and I think that is due to where we are at right now. If we were larger and found it a big problem we might make the same choice as New Mars. But discussions are open and there are no membership fees are needed. Our focus is also slightly different, more on searching for private sector alternative plans for Mars. So don't forget us guys, and I'll keep an eye on how things go here. Overall I think the rebirth of this forum is a good thing for the cause.

Hi Marsman, and welcome [back] to the New Mars Forums!!! Certainly, I have personally been a fan of MarsDrive since it started. Thanks for all your comments, and I completely agree that the more Mars-related sites & discussion forums that are out there, the better.

I think what the Mars Society can bring to the table in sponsoring these forums is the engagement of our thousands of members, and (what I'm excited about) all the very active members of the Mars Society, some of which are science-based folks, or folks that are helping with MDRS and FMARS; folks that have lots of experience with cross-team and cross-group collaboration. As we all (together) get the Editorial Board established for these forums, it will be able to set policies that foster open discussions about all the aspects of Humans to Mars, as well as the overall picture of space exploration our fledgling 21st century. There have been some interesting thoughts here on how to handle political discussions and I know that we all benefit from these discussions, and the ultimate policies and environment in these forums will benefit from all these perspectives now.

Best and happy thanksgiving to all 1:07am where I am and it's been a LONG day
-James

Rune · 2011-11-25 08:50:42

Holy boop in the boop, I was missing these forums! What has it been, the better part of a year? I was seriously considering finding new friends to talk rockets with...

Hello everybody again!

Rune... Had almost forgotten to "sign" this post, that's how long has passed.

JoshNH4H · 2011-11-25 14:56:10

Hey Rune, glad to see you back!

Rune · 2011-11-26 09:40:53

Glad to be back! It'll take me a while to get my posting groove back on, and maybe I'll wait a while for those couple of years of posts, but newmars is back in my browser tab collection... now at 20+ tabs open and counting.

Rune. In the right spirit, since I'm watching the launch of Curiosity.

JonClarke · 2011-11-28 02:22:02

Well done everyone in getting this back up - and some archives as well!

Some thoughts.

I agree in the general no politics rule, except where it impacts on space policy. And even there it should be discussed in a non-partisan, non-nationalistic way. This will need to be enforced very strictly, IMHO.

General moderation should be strict too. Space discussions seem to be beset but extreme fragmentation, unpleasantness and dissention. It would be good to see this board help develop common grounds rather than being another breeding ground for disunity.

I don't like an intelligent aliens forum. That is just asking for trouble. We don't want the woo-woos coming here.

Last edited by JonClarke (2011-11-28 02:27:46)

Rxke · 2011-11-28 03:16:42

JonClarke wrote:

I don't like an intelligent aliens forum. That is just asking for trouble. We don't want the woo-woos coming here.

Past experience confirms this. We got maybe one in 1000 posts that was sane in that subforum. If that.

JoshNH4H · 2011-11-28 09:03:29

I believe that IAL is in the archive section right now, which I'm pretty sure means that only admins can post in it.

With regards to strict moderation, I think it is not necessary to be extremely tight about enforcing the rules. I find that the users at newmars are very good about being civil and polite, which makes right rule enforcement more of an annoyance than a necessity.

JoshNH4H · 2011-11-28 11:48:22

I was talking to the user louis via email, and he told me that he was not able to post under his account. His account does exist in the 2008 rendition of the forums, so this seems quite odd. I don't know if this affects a certain proportion of users or if he is the only one, but it would be quite a shame if we were to lose louis seeing that (though it was a rare day when I was in complete agreement with him), he was a very valuable contributor.

Rxke · 2011-11-28 11:54:53

JoshNH4H wrote:

though it was a rare day when I was in complete agreement with him, he was a very valuable contributor.

You're a wise man, Josh. Being able to see the value of someone who you don't agree with. My hat off to you.

JoshNH4H · 2011-11-28 12:17:37

Either that or I'm just an argumentative boor. I'll leave it to the other users to decide which

Josh Cryer · 2011-11-28 18:12:26

JoshNH4H, forward that email to me and I'll get him back.

SpaceNut · 2011-11-28 18:54:05

I recall louis discusions from the past as well as from Red colony where I first met louis....

Another member that has not posted yet is cIclops any one been able to contact cIclops about the board reopening....

JoshNH4H · 2011-11-29 15:54:50

Well, given that he's had an account at Newmars since ~forever, we could just shoot him a pm if we don't see him in the next few days.

JoshNH4H · 2011-12-01 13:58:34

I was making a post, and I noticed that this forum is missing something that was quite useful on the old one: buttons above the post for the bbcode. Those made it a lot easier to format nice posts. They weren't necessarily all necessary, but if there were simple buttons that could be added for things like bold, italics, underline, links, pictures, and text size (those are the ones that I've used since newmars came back, oh, and the spoiler tags, which don't even seem to work in fluxBB).

Much appreciated.

louis · 2011-12-10 07:53:36

I can post to threads (obviously) but I can't see any way to start a new thread (which we used to be able to do on the old forums). Can someone advise me if it is possible to start a new thread and how you do that. Thanks.

As before by the way I think the site could benefit from a forum on Mars Economy.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#26 2011-11-23 16:28:35

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#27 2011-11-23 17:06:21

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#28 2011-11-23 17:06:32

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#29 2011-11-23 18:25:13

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#30 2011-11-23 20:14:34

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#31 2011-11-23 21:20:47

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#32 2011-11-23 21:34:57

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#33 2011-11-24 01:28:08

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#34 2011-11-24 04:08:31

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#35 2011-11-24 10:58:01

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#36 2011-11-25 03:08:53

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#37 2011-11-25 08:50:42

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#38 2011-11-25 14:56:10

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#39 2011-11-26 09:40:53

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#40 2011-11-28 02:22:02

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#41 2011-11-28 03:16:42

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#42 2011-11-28 09:03:29

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#43 2011-11-28 11:48:22

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#44 2011-11-28 11:54:53

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#45 2011-11-28 12:17:37

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#46 2011-11-28 18:12:26

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#47 2011-11-28 18:54:05

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#48 2011-11-29 15:54:50

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#49 2011-12-01 13:58:34

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

#50 2011-12-10 07:53:36

Re: Rebirth of New Mars; Establishment of New Mars Editorial Board

Board footer