In an attempt to focus our forum discussions on more practical information related to energy depletion, more emphasis will be given to threads which attempt to support educational opportunities for our global community. The following changes are now the SOP for this site and are implemented immediately:

Our Code of Conduct, will be more strictly enforced.
-Inappropriate (foul) language can be deleted on sight at Moderator discretion.
-Replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim is discouraged & may be deleted.
-Posters who refuse to exhibit basic courtesy are not allowed.
-All Staff will be more assertive in enforcing the COC. Furthermore, they may make editing/moderation changes and are no longer required to notify the poster by PM. Posters may still discuss moderation with the Staff member who issued the moderation notation—by PM—but, be forewarned: whining will get you nowhere.
-Accumulation of COC violations will result in quicker, sterner punishment actions, including, but not limited to, permanent banning, by the Administration.

We recognize these are all judgment calls.

“But, but, but… we’ve had these rules all along! What has changed?”

Nothing has changed... we are just tightening up our procedures in an effort to improve the experience of visiting peakoil.com.

In short, we seek to provide a place for intelligent discussion and debate for our posters. Off-Topic posts are difficult to manage; please attempt to stay on topic. Marginal topics may experience additional moderation. Those who choose to be disruptive will be forcibly ejected. Those who continue to attempt to damage our site will also face external pressures from their Internet Provider, and possibly the legal system.

We are sorry that there was a need for these actions, but, we feel it is in the best interests of all.

Thank you for your interest in PeakOil.com.
The Staff

I am pleased that 'peakoil.com' is making the changes necessary to restore the confidence in the site. While I myself have had posts removed, recently and in the past, I respect the authority of the site administrators.

I would appreciate a detailed summary however whenever a post is deleted, merged, or censored so the number of posting offences can be kept to a minimum.

I have been an active member of peakoil.com since 2004 and I would like to remain in this position. If there can be a further detailed host list of unacceptable comments or posts, I will strive to make sure my future posts comply with your code of conduct from the examples provided.

Thank you,

Repent

I would never insult a moderator i know how much time you spend in these kind of sites. on a sidenote you should ban people who deny that peakoil will peak or ridicule the subject.

Text deleted

I would be long broke if i was microsoft and i would announce windows A.I. that would give the computer an artifical brain Soon while no technology exists to create a program like that that is fully capable of making it's own decisions.

so that's why i will never quit insulting them whenever they post something Text deleted.

Actually cogent rebuttal to such disinformation is precisely what is needed, much moreso than ridicule or insult. It's important to educate people as to why such 'solutions' in fact aren't, or why particular isolated data points are irrelevant to the larger picture. Never mind trying to pry open closed minds (or filling empty ones); that's not the point. The point is that such postings offer an opportunity to teach people who have the desire for real answers to questions of the form 'What about [fill in the blank] as a possible solution?'

Ferretlover, I remember when your quivering whiskers appeared for the first time at PO. com.
We've lost some dear folks since I joined four + years ago and any improvements that keeps the site focused on meaningful, on-topic discussions regarding energy depletion (and the supporting forums to cope with that focus) are welcome.
You represent PO well and I thank you for that.
cynthia

Thank you for your kind words, and I am proud to be a member of the fine staff we have here.
Let's keep our fingers crossed that those who have gone can find their way back to us.

The hammer is slowly falling.

Why do I get this now in the 'open forum'?

+1



Traffic here tracks with gas prices at the pump.

Even with demand destroyed for oil around the globe from crumbling economies, we still see oil hovering around $70/bbl.
Imagine where it would be with healthy demand...

As an individual, I hope our traffic on peakoil.com remains light... this would mean oil is still reasonably priced. But instead I predict a massive & sustained surge in traffic eventually.

When the global economy begins to recover... look out.

I get the same thing VM on open forums if I try to
go there...

I will miss your flying alien vehicles my friend
and I imagine you will not miss my opines with
regard to them.

I have a fondness for this site, would never wish to
hurt it, and I have found that my wife's dog just loves
my sense of humor, and therefore I really don't need
the HOF or the Open forum any longer really. Now if
I can outwit the dog, I am a happy camper until our
next mental joust.

I suppose it is like school, when you get the concepts
and move on, you don't go back and goof on the new
students.

So whilst we wait to see which scenarios and theories and
time lines are going to be the most true, let's work with the
mods and our beloved 800 pound gorilla.

I've lurked every now and then as I continue to use the PM system here to stay in touch with a couple people and I have noticed the quality of the discussions improving.

I can only speak for myself that in the last year I've kind of "outgrown" anonymous forums. I really want a local support group of doomers more than forums. Over the course of the summer I've taken a Transition Training course in Montpelier and was in a room with more doomers than probably most of you have ever met in your lives. Strangely enough, NONE of them are regular readers or posters of peakoil.com. So there is a world of doomers that is completely separate from internet forums like PO.COM or LATOC. I have a friend a couple towns over from me who is just as arch doomer as I am that is working with me to TRY to get some kind of metro Boston transition initiative going. I have someone else north of Worcester who was at Montpelier who I correspond with on a regular basis. I just visited her house recently and she gave me some kale from her raised bed garden. The real human contact is what really matters to me right now, not so much arguing over Alex Jones and Planet X.

At the other site, most of the people I'm interfacing with are old souls from peakoil.com like Ludi and Pops. I've practically read their life stories and they've read mine so it's about as personal as it's going to be on a forum. Sometimes that can be bad because when we argue, it feels like a knife in the ribs because they know so much personal stuff. But it's better than having complete strangers hurling insults at one another, kind of like the dynamic I had with Planty, who was as much of a faceless cypher as you're going to find online.

So the old days of me engaging in flamewars with Planty and MonteQuest and ReverseEngineer, it's over, permanently.

I see this as simply us moving closer to TOD and away from LATOC...


Hurrah!!!

No more Open Discussion, but still plenty of Aryan brotherhood types haunting the hood. Why on earth haven't some of the more racist jerks been banned? Is it because some on the staff share some of the same sentiments? If this is the case, the credibility Peak Oil seeks is going to evade it. I'm all for free speech, but Lord, comes a time....

The Open is still there, it's just having a few technical problems at the moment.

The volunteers here actually have lives in the real world and we aren't going to pre-screen every post. You'll all notice a button with an exclamation point at the bottom right of each post, if something violates the rules and really sets your hair on fire click on it to report the post to a moderator.

Use this button to improve the quality of PO.com, Do Not abuse it.