Recently, I have been in quite a bit of discussion on how I think there should be a change in direction of this forum to support the mission of the CFI. That is to promote relational thought and critical thinking.
How to do sound rational thought is not something natural to humans. Rather, it is something that is learned. So I believe that the key is for the forum to adopt a culture of educating people on critical thinking skills while providing a forum for fun discussions.
I would like to make the following suggestions:
- Adopt a mission statement for the forum to support CFIs mission through education and promotion of reason and critical thinking.
-Provide a section that lists links to educational material on reason and critical thinking.
-All volunteers and leaders of the forum should commit to learning critical thinking skills.
-Any correction of a post regarding fallacious or problematic content should be done in a kind and educational manor
Besides the section on critical thinking material, I suggest the following sections.
- A section where people can discuss reason and critical thinking
-A section where people can post funny and fun items that illustrate fallacious, bias or otherwise problematic critical thinking.
This is just some ideas that I came up with. Please add to this.
I’m with you in spirit, but I don’t have all the rights of administering this forum, so I’m limited on what I can implement. Others will need to make those decisions. Personally, I think those topics can be opened in the existing sections, and if you look around, we often do refer to those ideas.
Kindness is a bit fuzzy, although I know what you mean. I think the FAQ rules set the boundaries. Again, thanks for your input.
I feel I must tell you that even two previous mods, who I worked with prior to the newest two, have said this: The forum is pretty much at the bottom of the list of concerns and priorities for the higher ups of CFI. This forum isn’t their biggest concern. It’s just here for members, both free and paying, to converse as stated in the FAQ and About pages. There have been times even I have thought about leaving like Doug and Mackenzie, the prior two I worked with did, but I don’t want CFI to end up closing the forum down, especially if all the mods left. I appreciate the forum too much for it to be shut down because they have no volunteers to moderate it.
That said, given how this seems very important to you, I suggest you contact mpowell and or or mkreidler (webmaster). You can message them from the forum via their member page, which links to their member page can be found on the “About” page. Just hit their handle on the About page, found above in the list that appears after hitting the three lines button, and this will lead you to their page, which has a button that says “message”, hit that and it will take to the PM section to message them. I wish you luck with getting your wish list for the forum fulfilled, but don’t get your hopes up too high, because you could end up disappointed. If you don’t get your wish list fulfilled, I hope you still stick around and just enjoy the conversations, even if you do not see this forum fulfilling the mission of CFI. On the other hand, you might get a new section in which you could start topics on this subject, which would be better than nothing on your wish list.
I’ve also notice that. It’s really a shame they (higher ups) don’t try to get the word out, or encourage this discussion board. This is fundamentally such a well structured forum, welcoming for a particular curious mind. CFI Forum is bursting with potential, but it can’t happen without the right people becoming aware of our existence.
They have such a huge rolodex, they could encourage a bit of engagement.
… and if you have communication with them, please share this message.
Furthermore,
Thanks for doing what you do, Mriana, Lausten, Write4u.