It never ends, does it?

To paraphrase Good ole Will, there is something rotten in the Kingdom of All empires.

Would you agree?

Symptoms:

- almost each and every serious topic, devolves into flame wars, namecalling fests, nationalistic propaganda, ill-manners showcase

- Mods have to close down topic after topic because of the above symptoms

- Each and every anthropological and linguist topic is filled with nationalism, bigotry, "racial" hate, plain hate, historical rivalries and superiority syndromes, complexes, theories. Not even one single serious discussion has survived unscathed the barbarian invasion of the panturkists, panslavists, paniranists, panwhatevers

- Bad manners is not the exception or confined to a few rotten apples, it's the norm. People behave very, very badly to other people. I understand that we come from different cultures and what is perceived as highly respectfull attitude in Azerbaijan might be considered extremely bad manners in my neighbourhood... shouldn't people, especially the younger ones who got the hottest blood, at least try to behave?

- There are several topics most forumeers seem completely unable to even touch without resorting to cheap shots, hate-filled diatribes, namecalling and similar disorderly stuff. Why is that? Why can't we discuss, debate and keep it bloody formal?

Just some thoughts... A question: is it always like that here, or did I come at a bad time?

I think that you should qualify your statements. There are many threads that go through their life-cycle running into a few or no problems.

Most problems stems from a minority of trouble-makers whose main intentions coming here is to pick up fights.

Another source of problem is that people from conflict areas will bring their national fights with them to the forum. So the completely rational and cool-headed member in one forum will turn into a rage-aholic flamer in another, when provoked.

In reality, this occurs in real life. I noticed the same behavior with students at Berkeley. The most easy going Palestinians and Isrealis would almost get into fist fights when discussing some issue on the schools public square.

Something that people here will find amusing: the same happened with Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Albanians, and Serbs when they interacted in the public square as well.

These problems are cyclical, and they hit specific forums at a time.

The good thing is that you all can make help bringing the level of discussions up. Demand respectful interactions, rational arguments, and sources.

And refuse to be baited by trolls. If someone makes an outrageous statement with little supporting evidence, it is most likely a provocation.

Of course, if you all want to avoid these people, you can always focus your participation on helping building the site. This will keep you away from the flame wars and closer to the true lovers of history.


Edited by hugoestr

Originally posted by hugoestr Of course, if you all want to avoid these people, you can always focus your participation on helping building the site. This will keep you away from the flame wars and closer to the true lovers of history.

Working on it lad, working on it. Soon you'll hear from me.

 

Hmm...I think giani is trolling...

Originally posted by Alkiviades Hmm...I think giani is trolling...

You got me!

Well, it's a part of me, I hope sometime the medicine is advances enough to amputate this itch.

I couldn�t agree more with Alkiviades, who identified AE�s main problem so eloquently, or with hugoestr., who offered a solution for it.

The preliminary findings of the feedback poll that�s running at the moment, makes clear on what a tight rope a forum as AE is walking.
On one side, many people regard it as AE�s strongest point that we have a truly international membership, on the other it is seen as AE�s weakest point, that such a diverse background brings also members with a nationalist agenda , who abuse AE as a platform for nationalist propaganda.
On the one hand, AE should facilitate as free and unrestricted a discussion as possible, on the other hand AE must avoid that nationalist flame wars scare and drive away, as it certainly has happened, members who come to AE to exactly do that, what it was originally was conceived for, namely the discussion of history.
It�s not that easy to find the middle way here. I�m not pretending that there will ever be solution for this particular problem, the very nature of the net will make sure that nationalist flame wars will break out with the same regularity as annual flu epidemics, but as hugoestr. has rightly pointed out, there are some simple measures with which we can try to contain those outbreaks.
If you look in the �Warning and Ban Announcement� forum, you will see that the number of warnings and bans issued has risen over the last months, demonstrating the effort that is undertaken by AE�s moderators to restrict flame wars. But all this will only have a limited effect, if AE�s members don�t contribute as well, in as much as hugo has outlined, by not responding to open provocations,by ignoring and avoiding them,... and by initiating debates that are concerned with AE�s core matter, namely history.
At the moments efforts are made, to enlarge and improve AE�s main site, amongst other reasons in order to attract people who actually interested in history, and not in spreading nationalist drivel on audience that is forced, but not really willing, to listen.
AE is a community that stands and falls with its membership, with the quality of its members� contributions to both, its debates� intellectual standards and the manner in which these debates are conducted.
If you are annoyed with how AE is going, don�t just rely on its Moderators, do also something yourselves about it.

Maybe it is because I am very young, but personally speaking, I enjoy flame wars.  At least I used to.  Nowadays, I still do like watching flame wars, but I feel rather depressing to go after a flame war involving me in the front line.

The point is that people do learn from flame wars.  It just takes time for people to realize the pointlessness of insulting somebody else.  Take out the extremes who would never learn, and yeah, soon or later, those immature forummers will assimilate into a more civilized etiquette.

The only certain way to avoid flame wars in AE would be to ensure all our members were totally homogenous in every aspect, the elimination of all personal differences will lead to the elimination of all arguments. Clearly this is not desireable. We are lucky to have very diverse membership, the result of which is a wide variety of perspectives and explanations of history. The problem arises when a disagreement is not processed in a civil fashion using logic, reason and evidence and people start getting childish. As a mod I don't mind people disagreeing and arguing, it will mean I may encounter some new view points. But when it gets uncivilized we must take the punitive measures that you have cited and hope in good faith that people will eventually learn how futile being childish is. Argue and debate my fellow AE members, just do it properly.

Moderators do really have a hard job in keeping things smooth on this forum. It is really hard to imagine the forum going with no flamable wars, especially that we are all from different parts of the world and it is just a great opportunity we can face those we call "the other" even in an internet forum.

I just have to applaude those moderators who are on top of their forum section. We just had an example last night (in my time lol) of a very contraversial nationalistic and hating topic that appeared and even before I post my response to it, the thread was deleted and a warning has been issued and posted. putting out little sparkles of fire in their begining is the correct way to avoid a messy bigotted thread that will end up being closed too.