Open Discussion Split Technical/Science forum from "politics"

HeadphonesandLSD

HeadphonesandLSD

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
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Note this isn't a slight towards anyone on the mod team of this particular forum.

I would like to request that threads dealing with computers, technology, and _maybe_ other scientific based topics have their own subforum separate from politics and world events. I'm requesting this because;

  1. I feel most people aren't aware those threads should be in the Current Events/Politics forum
  2. Extending on 1: I think members and lurkers assume a forum for these topics doesn't exist
  3. It will keep political issues away from technical threads which means they're less likely to get derailed
  4. I think we'd see more discussion about computers/tech if it had its own forum
  5. it just seems like an odd combination of topics for that forum
If an entirely new forum isn't doable perhaps combine it with the gaming forum? Gaming is combined with sports right now which again seems odd to me but I can understand why they would be grouped together. Maybe split tech and gaming threads into this new forum?

The reason I ask is I often think about opening a thread related to technology but spend awhile trying to remember what forum it's supposed to go in. The tech related threads in there always get quickly buried by political/current events threads. I know a lot of people here are into things like UNIX, alternative ISAs, video editing, programming, webdev, old computer hardware, old video and gaming hardware and building/repairing cool stuff. It'd be nice to have a place where I could talk to these people on BL without worrying about politics coming into the discussion. Politics has invaded the tech sector these last 4-5 years and there aren't really any places left where you can discuss it without it turning into political shit flinging.

I can't be the only one here that loves to code and solder while the code is waving all over the screen and the soldering iron is melting as much as the solder itself. It'd be cool to see other BLer's projects and maybe being able to work on projects together with them. I'm currently working on a couple of things I'd love to get feedback on. I think about posting them in the existing forum but the last couple of threads I made in there were quickly buried by current events. I feel like more people would see them if this wasn't the case and the forum index had a dedicated forum for this stuff. I don't even care if it's slow and only gets a few posts weekly. I think it would pick up given a chance to grow.
 
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Good idea. Basically the whole join needs a bit of a refresh regarding how and where the right boundaries lie between different categories if we want to keep existing members AND attract new ones to participate.

Weirdly these discussions seem to go round in circles and then peter out without every getting real traction and any change. See the thread(s) on sharpening up the way different categories of drug are defined for example.

Good luck.
 
I would be willing to take on the work of splitting threads into this new forum and helping to moderate it. If the admins are on board I'm game to help out and make FAQs, threads, writing articles, whatever. I know we have a lot of people here that use computers in their day to day work in labs. I'd be interested in hearing about the software they're using and seeing if it can be improved. I don't really know what they're using in labs these days but I'm sure some of it has to be FOSS. I know we also have a lot of artists that might benefit from learning about new software that isn't tied to adobe and the usual suspects that charge an arm and a leg.

As far as my own projects: I'm currently restoring some arcade machines, building custom joysticks, writing some web software, and working on my own GNU/Linux distribution that I hope to release to the public later in the year. Right now I'm writing a package manager for it and working on a standard base system that I want to keep very simple and lightweight. Right now it's just a Gentoo installation that I've heavily modified. I'm looking to drop the requirement for python and incorporate some ideas from NixOS.

Last year I was writing a new forum software but I put it on the back burner because I don't really enjoy webdev anymore. I kinda went down the rabbit hole with my custom distro and never came out. Eventually, if I can secure the funds, I would like to start selling pre-built laptops and PCs running my own distro.
 
double posting because I write novels every post:

I'd also like to get to work finishing the tagging system for the trip report database. I think if that were finished it would really help out. Right now it's hard to search for a lot of stuff especially now that google censors results from BL. I have access to add tags to existing reports and there is a huge backlog but I've gotten lazy about helping. Something always comes up. I think if we got the database done with at least some things tagged it would encourage users to help out with tagging everything. We have a ton of reports going back decades. The only way we're going to get through them is if we make it easier for regular users to help. I know one of the admins has been working on this for a long time and it has become his pet project. I feel like he gets busy himself and can't devote as much time to this as he'd like.

We really need a way to combine our efforts so the few people doing it don't get burned out so quickly.
 
HeadphonesandLSD said:
Note this isn't a slight towards anyone on the mod team of this particular forum.
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We typically don't take constructive suggestions as slights ;) They are always appreciated.

It's a valid proposal, though as CD outlined a bit, the 'Science' topics used to be in a diff forum with a mix of topics, but that was killed off and the content split up among surviving forums. 'Science' was merged into CEP for lack of a better home. The only alternative at the time was here in STH, given there simply wasn't that much content to have it's own dedicated forum.

One of the features of XF we've used to some success, but not completely, is prefixes. The thought was to prefix 'Science' threads in CEPS so we could monitor when the content reached a point of supporting a dedicated forum. To date, there still isn't enough content. I say that subjectively, because we are LONG overdue for running some stats on the site to re-evaluate any merge-kill-create considerations on the forums. Let me get back to you via PM on some opportunities given your skill set and our needs to see if we can put some idle hands to work ;)
 
For what it's worth:

I think @HeadphonesandLSD is onto something. A "Science and Technology" forum may go down well. Matter of fact: on the stocks forum there's some recent posts that are off topic but are good stuff re: technology and systems. But there's nowhere else to put them. But for darn sure they'd be of interest to a wider and technically inclined group. And I think it'd snowball from there. Loads of people are now getting in on the action when it comes to apps. and coding and the likes too not to mention electronic innovation and sharing of expertise. And let's face it: thanks to this virus everything is online (more than before) and it may be the only hope that some people have to keep going. Could even have some commercial value to some and the forums maybe (if policed properly that is). And let's face it: everybody around the world needs as much help as they can get and a leg up and support to be able to become self sufficient. That's a worthwhile community service right there. And put bluntly (as unpopular as this will probably make me but I'm used to it): I'll bet there's more than a few with drug issues here that would be able to get over their issues if they had another interest and a way out from what may have become untenable or overwhelming financial situations thus leaving them with nothing else but to try but blot it all out.

The above an unselfish or objective bit of input by the way i.e. been out of IT and the like for a very long time and no intention of getting back into it either (point is I have no vested interest in backing the OP up).
 
Another solution would be to add someone to the CEP&S staff specifically to field tech questions. I mention this because tbh we don’t need more forums, even though CEP&S is a bit of a Frankenstein forum.

I feel like science and health aren’t separate from current events, particularly with COVID. Our thread about it covers both current events and to some degree science.

Also, I feel like tech questions are completely different from health and science, probably because my knowledge of tech is much narrower in scope.
 
Seems to me the only good thing to come from adding science and tech to CEP was that the name CEPS is cooler than CEP. :P

No offense intended to anyone, I understand there were reasons for the decision... It's just that science and tech in no way fit with the rest of current events and politics.

I would actually say it would make more sense to have merged it into sports and gaming.

Since gaming has a degree of overlap with tech anyway. It's still a bit of a weird combination, but less so than mixing it with current events. Also sports and gaming is one of the smaller subforums and could use the added traffic much more than ceps.

Alas CEPS would become CEP again. I can live with that though.

Just some thoughts on the subject while we are going over it again. <3
 
Apologies.

After reading your's truly's post above it just occurred to me what "CEPS" stands for (didn't even take note of what the "S" is for up until now). :ROFLMAO: Sorry. That's what happens when you get your head caught up too far in POLITICS! 😭

Oh well. Carry on the way you were then.

Ya'll know what forum I need/want. But I'm guessing there'd be no point in asking. "Neuroscience and Pharmacology" doesn't quite cut it (put it that way) i.e. not the same thing as "Chemistry". Just think: if there was a hidden forum that only vetted members could access then you'd not have to put up with my occasional shit!

Off the topic and I'm not sure if it means anything here but it just came to my attention this morning, oddly enough, that there's a drive to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (apparently this shit started in October last year and which I was not aware of until being notified this morning). Doesn't look like it'd affect these forums but could affect service providers or hosting companies (and it follows, to me, that if you're hosting your own forums on your own server then you are the service provider or host). Just a little nugget of information that came to my attention just this day and figured I'd mention this. But I assume the powers that be are way ahead of the times (and certainly more than I am).
 
I have noticed that there are a lot of techy people like programmers here that would be heavily vested in a forum like that. Everyone uses this tech too so any questions around that from a basic to advanced level could be asked there. I love the idea.
 
I can see how tech and gaming go together quite well. It’s a good idea to merge them.
Science and health, though I just don’t see going at all with sports and gaming.
I’d rather see science and health be its own forum, but the last thing we need are more forums.
 
Tech and gaming I generally agree could be a forum. It's definitely a particular subculture of its own.

Rolling science into that doesn't make sense. Science on bluelight can generally be divided into topics we focus on, usually drug-related, which go in the focus forums, and topics we don't, which are basically news articles. People with a "deep" amateur interest in math and the natural sciences are not very common and usually have their own forums; professionals usually have various reasons for not talking about work (NDAs, privacy, simple exhaustion).

Health fits okay in LAVA. If it were to be its own forum, it should be grouped with the drug forums somehow (and not the offtopic/discussion forums) because it's important to harm reduction. Maybe "Health & Lifestyle" could be next to Drug Culture.
 
atara said:
Science on bluelight can generally be divided into topics we focus on, usually drug-related, which go in the focus forums, and topics we don't, which are basically news articles. People with a "deep" amateur interest in math and the natural sciences are not very common and usually have their own forums; professionals usually have various reasons for not talking about work (NDAs, privacy, simple exhaustion).
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I find this to be very true.
For example, I don’t discuss my work (in health/science) because I come to BL to unwind, I discuss it elsewhere, and for reasons of privacy. And I mainly post articles that catch my eye through my newsfeed, not journals I’m reading.
So I agree with what @atara has stated.
 
Regardless of where we put it, and I'm still of a belief that science and tech would be best merged with sport and gaming, at the very least I think the tech side would be better there.

But regardless, I don't think science and tech works in ceps. Because we essentially think of ceps as the political forum. And any time science and tech comes up it really feels like it doesn't fit at all.

We've seen before regular users confused by science and tech being a part of the subforum that is nearly always politics, and it's hard to blame them.

I would put tech in sports and gaming, since tech and gaming already share some overlap.

Science doesn't perfectly fit there either, but I'd argue that it's a better fit than ceps.

On a related topic, has anyone else noticed that we actually seem to have 2 subforums covering sports? S&g and SIED.

There's some strangeness in how we have the drug forums laid out too,but that's an issue for another day. I do think it's very strange though that we have a steroid forum but not an opiate or a stimulant or a hard drug subforum.
 
JessFR said:
Regardless of where we put it, and I'm still of a belief that science and tech would be best merged with sport and gaming, at the very least I think the tech side would be better there.

But regardless, I don't think science and tech works in ceps. Because we essentially think of ceps as the political forum. And any time science and tech comes up it really feels like it doesn't fit at all.

We've seen before regular users confused by science and tech being a part of the subforum that is nearly always politics, and it's hard to blame them.

I would put tech in sports and gaming, since tech and gaming already share some overlap.

Science doesn't perfectly fit there either, but I'd argue that it's a better fit than ceps.

On a related topic, has anyone else noticed that we actually seem to have 2 subforums covering sports? S&g and SIED.

There's some strangeness in how we have the drug forums laid out too,but that's an issue for another day. I do think it's very strange though that we have a steroid forum but not an opiate or a stimulant or a hard drug subforum.
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Agreed.

This has been a topic mentioned in casual chats with other members and staff not very long ago.

I like it..
 
I think this thread is worthy of discussion and a decision. I support moving tech to S&G, but I think science should stay with CEP&S as a case for relevance is much stronger. That’s my final opinion.
 
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