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The average forum member

Jayhawker Soule

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
On a scale of one to ten, how aparently intelligent is the average forum participant?
If you've been here for more than a couple of years, is tis average inching up or declining.

My view:

6 | declining​
 
PoetPhilosopher

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
7 | inching up

I see more religious and intellectual topics these days.

In regards to how I personally see the quality of the forum....

I see an increase when you've got a variety of topics - some of them intellectual, some of them not. I see a decrease when the whole first and second page is filled with topics on one or two subjects and with little variety, and that trend lingers for weeks or months rather than days.

Edit: I see now you're talking about members. In my post, I guess I was focusing more on overall quality of discussions - detached from commenting on individuals or groups.
 
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an anarchist

an anarchist

Your local anarchist.
Gosh, this is such a fine and clever way to be condescending to the community at large!!! Didn't have your fill by adding your "smart" remarks to individual comments, eh?

I suppose you rank yourself above a 6? How else would you be qualified to grade the community at large?

Well, I myself am a 10 when it comes to intelligence so I guess I'm qualified to make a judgement on the entire community.

You guys are a solid 9. We are all here because we are interested in discussion on topics that are often considered taboo to talk about socially yet are so important (religion and politics). And to gauge someone's intelligence through text on computer screen is so silly! Yet, let's do it at large. So by default, you are all a 10, simply because you are here, but then, you lose a point because you don't have the exact same views as me.
 
an anarchist

an anarchist

Your local anarchist.
PoetPhilosopher said:
In regards to how I personally see the quality of the forum....

I see an increase when you've got a variety of topics - some of them intellectual, some of them not. I see a decrease when the whole first and second page is filled with topics on one or two subjects and with little variety, and that trend lingers for weeks or months rather than days.
Click to expand...
I can't comment on the site itself, cuz "your not allowed" or whatever to be publicly critical of things really. But I blame the "upgrades" the site has received through updates in affecting the threads that stay trending. Once upon a time, we were able to organize threads by "new" and "trending" and even "featured" as well. I think that did a lot in nurturing good discussion. Now all we see is the threads with the most recent comment.

Oh I guess I commented about the site publicly. Don't moderate me pls mods.
 
Secret Chief

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
an anarchist said:
I can't comment on the site itself, cuz "your not allowed" or whatever to be publicly critical of things really. But I blame the "upgrades" the site has received through updates in affecting the threads that stay trending. Once upon a time, we were able to organize threads by "new" and "trending" and even "featured" as well. I think that did a lot in nurturing good discussion. Now all we see is the threads with the most recent comment.

Oh I guess I commented about the site publicly. Don't moderate me pls mods.
Click to expand...
I don't think there's a rule against commenting on the site.

Testing testing.

This site is poop.
 
Secret Chief

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
an anarchist said:
Hmm I'll have to review my infractions if I can. I got barked at once for doing something like that if I recall correctly.
Click to expand...
1. Personal comments about Members and Staff
2. Discussion/Dispute of Moderation
3. Trolling and Bullying
4. Soliciting/Advertising and Off-Topic Spam
5. Obscene Language and Adult/Violent Content
6. Illegal Activities
7. Quotations and Citations/References
8. Preaching/Proselytizing
9. Subverting/Undermining the Forum Mission
10. Debating in Non-debate Forums or Posting in DIR/ONLY Forums
 
Eddi

Eddi

Agnostic
Premium Member
I have no idea

I don't rate people's apparant intelligence on a scale of one to ten

Doing that is not in my nature

I don't judge people like that

And it's not as if I'm so super intelligent that I can make doing so my business!

No person here is so brilliantly intelligent that they can meaningfully judge the intelligence of others based only on forum posts, that would be ludicrous and supercilious to the extreme
 
Evangelicalhumanist

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
My personal favourite definition of "intelligence," as I think the OP is using it, is "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills." This presents me with a problem in averaging out the members I typically read. Some are very well-informed on many topics, others not so much so (the "acquire" part). On the other hand, some are fixated on one or more held (rather than acquired) "truths" that hamper their ability to truly apply newly acquired knowledge or skill.

You can see this mose clearly in the threads about evolution, where some members make an effort to learn the science, but fall back on "since I know God created us all, that knowledge has no meaning for me."

You see it equally clearly when a politician is quoted correctly and in context saying something that is clearly either a lie, a misdirection, or just plain evil, that is then rationlized away by those who are slavishly leashed to their own party.

And in my over 20 years here, I don't see that as improving.
 
anna.

anna.

but mostly it's the same
Jayhawker Soule said:
On a scale of one to ten, how aparently intelligent is the average forum participant?
If you've been here for more than a couple of years, is tis average inching up or declining.

My view:

6 | declining​
Click to expand...

I see a lot of intelligent members here. What I also see (and not just here) is burnout, which affects the quality of conversations. I've seen it said numerous times, some variation of "I have a good argument but just don't feel like going over the same ground over and over again..." Take for example the free will/determinism or evolution/creationism discussions. What hasn't been said a million times before? What point hasn't been repeated - and ignored - ad nauseam? At what point do intelligent people just throw up their hands and stick to the joke threads, because they like being part of a community but their argument well has run dry?
 
Secret Chief

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
anna. said:
I see a lot of intelligent members here. What I also see (and not just here) is burnout, which affects the quality of conversations. I've seen it said numerous times, some variation of "I have a good argument but just don't feel like going over the same ground over and over again..." Take for example the free will/determinism or evolution/creationism discussions. What hasn't been said a million times before? What point hasn't been repeated - and ignored - ad nauseam? At what point do intelligent people just throw up their hands and stick to the joke threads, because they like being part of a community but their argument well has run dry?
Click to expand...
The more ridiculous the less point in responding at all. The Earth is flat. Really? You want an adult conversation on that? What next - the moon is made of cheese?
 
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