[Illah]

So I know politics and whatnot aren't allowed here - I completely understand - however, my Mensan brain needs to get this out of my system once in a while, and I'm far too busy to regularly attend Mensa meetings where such subjects can be discussed in person. Where are some good forums to discuss these subjects intelligently? Do such places even exist?

What I mean by intelligently is:

1. Few, if any, flamewars.

2. Balanced views, i.e. not a hardcore liberal site nor a hardcore conservative one - both sides should have an equal voice.

3. A generally older crowd...no offense teenagers, but your hormones and immaturity prevent quality discussions more often than not

4. As much as possible, and international / diverse crowd.

5. A pay forum? That should scare away nomadic trolls.

PLEASE keep this thread on point so as not to offend the OCForums gods

--Illah

[Hardin]

When you said taboo subjects I thought you meant something else. It must be those hormones. nationstates.net seems to have very heated political debates but it leans a little to the left in my opinion.

[JerkasaurusRex]

Originally Posted by Hardin

When you said taboo subjects I thought you meant something else. It must be those hormones. nationstates.net seems to have very heated political debates but it leans a little to the left in my opinion.

Depends what region you are in. If you are in some socialist region than obviously all the people there will be supporting a socialist system. If you are in a free-market region then most people will be supporting capitalist systems and stuff. You just need to find the region for what you want if you get into NS. I myself am in the region "Capitalist Paradise."

[zexmarquies01]

recently, i have been making youtube video's.

sadly, they don't tend to make the most intelligent discussions, because people who disagree with you, tend to flame and bash you every which way. but if you can get past that, and can build up a small fan-base, as i'm trying to do, then getting into interesting topics becomes easier, and much more fun.

i'm not going to link any of my video's here on the site. as they tend to have crude language in them, and the topics themselfs would tick alot of people off.

maybe once i have more video's, I'll list my youtube name in my sig or something, but untill then, i'm going to keep uploading more video's.

[FudgeNuggets]

I think as like-minded and intelligent human being, we should be allowed to debate such subjects here. I know this could be a potential pain in the ass for the moderators, but aside from the ever persistent and obvious **** GWB post that would appear, I think we are all capable of intelligent discussion.

Your other alternatives will not faire as well as Yahoo answers/answerology will allow unimitagated and otherwise stupid and unrelated responses and forums based on public figures such as Shawn Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Al Franken, Al Gore etc.... Will proved much SKEWED point of views, it is VERY VERY VERY difficult to find apolitcal forum to debate topics without any animoisty, hate, prejudice , idiots or all of the above.

[zexmarquies01]

Fudge is right, and i'd like to add something to that.

Honestly, your not going to get a very intelligent, and CIVIL debate anywhere on the internet, unless its HEAVILY moderated.

in my own personal opinion, and from what i have seen in my life, a good debate can only be done face to face. a person is less likely to comment your well thought out debate with a stupid, racist,slander, or just crazy response that makes you want to hit them.

its too easy for people on the internet to flame and bash without though, because the only consequence to it, is either being kicked, or banned from a forum/chat room. and because of that, the internet is a bad place to find people who want to have a civil discussion.

[Speciale]

www.bikeforums.net

Huge cycling forums, i stick to the road forums but have recently dabbled into the politics and religion forum. There are a few doofs as you would expect but it's usually fairly intelligent...and as one might expect from such a group mostly leftist.

[Malpine Walis]

Well, we used to have quite an active debates community right here. The sad part of that is always going to be the words “used to”. Unfortunately, it imploded after another forum decided to mass ban all of the trouble makers and a few dozen of them decided to make our forums into their forums.

Before that, we used to have such wonderful topics as:

“What motivates atheists?”

“Can homosexuals get into heaven?”

“Should we allow people to carry unregistered guns?”

And other similar stuff. BTW, all of those threads went to nearly a thousand very respectful posts before they tapered off.

One of the problems is that a debates forum, once started needs a debates policy and just what should that look like? If you allow too much, chaos will reign supreme. If you clamp down too hard, then there is nothing to discuss. And add to that that the line moves every time there is a really hard topic in the news (Terry Schiavo comes to mind as a topic which would challenge the wisdom of Solomon).

Originally Posted by Illah

So I know politics and whatnot aren't allowed here - I completely understand - however, my Mensan brain needs to get this out of my system once in a while, and I'm far too busy to regularly attend Mensa meetings where such subjects can be discussed in person. Where are some good forums to discuss these subjects intelligently? Do such places even exist?

--Illah

First, off, I do know of a few places where I go to get my fix. However, I can tell you that if you want a certain formula, that is not going to happen. One of the sticking points to bringing debates back here is the fact that while there are lots of places where debates happen, they tend to have somewhat different policies.

Fact of the matter is that the mods do not want to bring in something looser than what wee have now because that could end up having a poor effect on the rest of the forums. Also, there is little point in having a more restrictive debates section because as it stands, we don't have much to claim as the feather in our cap in that regard.

Regarding your specific concerns Illah:

Originally Posted by Illah

What I mean by intelligently is:

1. Few, if any, flamewars.

2. Balanced views, i.e. not a hardcore liberal site nor a hardcore conservative one - both sides should have an equal voice.

3. A generally older crowd...no offense teenagers, but your hormones and immaturity prevent quality discussions more often than not

4. As much as possible, and international / diverse crowd.

5. A pay forum? That should scare away nomadic trolls.

PLEASE keep this thread on point so as not to offend the OCForums gods

--Illah

Few flame wars? Sometimes those can be educational as well. Whatever. See below.

Balanced views? Gotta have that. I remember in the old debates forum that we used to have, we would occasionally have a thread that did not attract anyone who wanted to play as opposition. Then the threads just looked like most of what we have in GD. A fire arms discussion would look like the thread we have for gun owners to post pics. A thread on tobacco would turn into discussiopn about great cigars. And so on...

An older crowd? Nice if you can find it. There are of course no controls for that but for what it is worth, if you find a generally mature crowd, the worst offenders will not be taken seriously and they will skulk off to find a better place to troll eventually.

A diverse/international crowd? Well this is the internet. The controlling factor might be that you are looking for a forum that can handle English. Although I remember in our old forum, we had a few members who claimed to be from other countries and had some trouble with English. Oddly enough, most of them did fine, at least when discussing stuff with someone like us who paid attention on grammar classes. What tripped them up most often was the stuff that just never gets caught up in school. Probably because so many people use it that I could see them thinking that that is how English speakers really talk.

A pay forum? As a continuation of my comments on flame wars, the one pay forum that I do know of still has itinerant trolls. The get weeded out fairly soon but they do get in. And just because you pay for a forum does not keep you safe from that stuff. In fact, there is more flaming going on over at SA just because people have paid to get in.

Of the ones that I have been to and speaking only for myself, I will say that on balance, the ones where the mods tend to back off and let the community deal with stuff tend to be the most mature. Of course, that does not mean that they should never moderate. There will always be people who think that we sites like Alex Jones, Art Bell and infowars are legitimate journalism and that nonsense needs to be squashed the instant it appears.

[Elif Tymes]

ell, this is all fine and dandy, but what really needs to be discussed as a significantly difficult discussion is this:


How do men answer the question "Does this dress/skirt/pants make me look fat?"

Seriously, if someone could have a rational debate about that, then we'd be getting somewhere!

[SeasonalEclipse]

Originally Posted by Elif Tymes

ell, this is all fine and dandy, but what really needs to be discussed as a significantly difficult discussion is this:


How do men answer the question "Does this dress/skirt/pants make me look fat?"

Seriously, if someone could have a rational debate about that, then we'd be getting somewhere!

Heres how I answer that question...
If the woman is some what tubby I will say it will make her look cuddly! i have nothing against cuddly girls.. if its a big woman though.. (hard to describe where cuddly ends and big starts..) then I would tell her that I dunno really since im a guy and I have no fashion sense. and thats how I do that!

[Malpine Walis]

The correct answer is the opposite of "Do you want any this month?"

Please do not jack serious threads.

[>HyperlogiK<]

The lyceum forum is reasonable for political and philosophical discussion:

http://forums.lycaeum.org/perl/wwwthreads.pl

There are a few hoplessly naive flower children, but for the most part everything is intelligent and restrained.

[David]

Originally Posted by FudgeNuggets

I think as like-minded and intelligent human being, we should be allowed to debate such subjects here. I know this could be a potential pain in the ass for the moderators, but aside from the ever persistent and obvious **** GWB post that would appear, I think we are all capable of intelligent discussion.

The topic comes up every so often, and every time it's put to rest for the same reasons. It just isn't worth the hassle to support a forum section that has tanked before.

Originally Posted by David

The topic comes up every so often, and every time it's put to rest for the same reasons. It just isn't worth the hassle to support a forum section that has tanked before.

I remember the debate forums. Wow... that was a headache.

[Roofles]

Luckily I joined a fraternity filled with engineers all of which have mensa level IQ's. So by walking around the house you can throw pretty much any topic out there and someone has a view on it, as well as quite a bit of knowledge, (or wikipedia is close by).

We've had conversations that started with someone changing their major move on to HID lighting and LED lights to nuclear power and how to dispose of it.

[Malpine Walis]

Originally Posted by nerdlogic

I remember the debate forums. Wow... that was a headache.

Ah, well the fact is that the old forum was closed on 5/6/03. So you saw the final eleven weeks of the debates forum and I can say that that was the worst possible sample of what we had.

As I noted above, we were besieged at that point by the worst trolls that the other forum could launch on other unsuspecting tech forums. Add to that that we were on our way into a war and you might understand that while it was a nightmare, it was anything but the couple of years of really great discussions that we used to have.

Now, please do not get me wrong here. I am not saying that we need to bring that crap back. Anything but that. In fact, after a few years of not having that type of discussion, I suspect that we are not in a position to even consider that at this time.

However, I do happen to know that when the old forum was closed, several threads were moved and are still accessible. Really, it would be no problem for me to link to them if people want to see some samples of what we had back when it was good.

Originally Posted by Malpine Walis

Ah, well the fact is that the old forum was closed on 5/6/03. So you saw the final eleven weeks of the debates forum and I can say that that was the worst possible sample of what we had.

As I noted above, we were besieged at that point by the worst trolls that the other forum could launch on other unsuspecting tech forums. Add to that that we were on our way into a war and you might understand that while it was a nightmare, it was anything but the couple of years of really great discussions that we used to have.

Now, please do not get me wrong here. I am not saying that we need to bring that crap back. Anything but that. In fact, after a few years of not having that type of discussion, I suspect that we are not in a position to even consider that at this time.

However, I do happen to know that when the old forum was closed, several threads were moved and are still accessible. Really, it would be no problem for me to link to them if people want to see some samples of what we had back when it was good.

I don't care how long I've been on the forums. I saw what I saw and that's more than enough for me. You also assume I didn't lurk before I joined.

I don't think this forum has the maturity level to handle it. There are plenty of other forums for those discussions and this one isn't it. Anyone is free to make one if they want to debate so badly.

[wa77ss]

Why not just make it a section for VIP members only?

The guys in the blue, white, green stars or something.

Just a thought

[Tay]

CPU Forums Has always been my home. It's a small forum, with pretty good diversity, and some smart people .

[Surfrider77]

I always wondered why "touchy" subjects like religion and politics are not tolerated on this forum. I find there is quite a diverse and intelligent group of members on the forum as a whole and wish there was a way to discuss many of the current political subjects thats been in the news over the last year(s).

It would be nice to discuss things and hear other intelligent responses / opinions.