The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!
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From Welcome to the the Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop!:
The first Civilized Salon was created as a place for moderated discussions about politics, current events, and other fun topics, but was closed earlier this year.
The Pop-up Salon will only be around for a short while, but the aim is to create the second Civilized Salon with some new guidelines. The general concept is that the Civilized Salon is not about debate, but about rationalizing your own viewpoints and understanding the viewpoints of others.
Here's the rough ideas, so far.
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Limited-access; similar to the Garage and the Lounge, participation will be restricted to vetted members who undergo training, and leaking is not permitted
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Learning/understanding; the goal of the discussion is, first and foremost, education of the participants - it may feel like a "debate" (Socratic discussion often does), but there' no points to score or audiences to persuade - you should only seek your own edification
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Communication improvement; another goal should be improving your communication, in particular with sensitive topics. No one is a perfect communicator, which means there's always room for improvement, and participants will need to recognize tense situations and how to handle them
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Ignorance is encouraged; you don't need to have well-informed opinions or viewpoints, and believing you know everything is worse than knowing nothing
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Honest discussion; this means that the viewpoints/opinions you share should be your own. It doesn't matter how well-informed your viewpoints
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No one is right; this is not a place for science, theorems, or proofs, it's for education
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Open-minded; no one here is to change your mind, and you shouldn't try to change anyone else's mind; but you should be comfortable with your viewpoint changing as a result of
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Trust and respect; all participants are here for the same reason and have agreed to abide by the same guidelines. No one is perfect, and there will be miscommunication. But
For now, all registered members can view the Pop-up Salon, but only a very select few can participate. That's mostly out of my laziness to not create two groups (readers and participants).
To join the Pop-up Salon, submit an application (private message) to the sole moderator/administrator/dictator with topics you wish to discuss in the pop-up. I will not participate in the actual discussions here, but I will help guide it from a communications standpoint. I may reply with what you should have written to be a better communicator, etc. This will hopefully be the basis of the training we develop.
The second Civilized Salon will be restricted only to members of the group (what name should we use?), but with less stringent requirements to join (just go through the training).
In addition to making this new category, I also moved the categories into a section called Limited Access. Eventually, I'll link that section heading to a FAQ item that describes the three-limited access places. In theory, that shouldn't cause problems. But it's
so who knows.
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@apapadimoulis It's probably worth pointing out that neither upvotes nor downvotes are allowed in the Salon.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear by design, because I wasn't sure what they would communicate
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@apapadimoulis said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
No one is right; this is not a place for science, theorems, or proofs, it's for education
Not sure about that. Education doesn't just mean sharing opinions, it means those opinions being tested against reality. If there are objective facts that illustrate a topic then they should be made available in the thread.
Taken literally this point means that if someone states that they think the sky is green, we have to say 'that's an interesting perspective you have there'.
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@bobjanova said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
'that's an interesting perspective you have there'.
Strictly speaking, this is true.
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@bobjanova
I agree, it sounds a bit weird. "Discussions in the Salon are not supposed to have a winner" might be a better way to phrase the idea.
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@apapadimoulis said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
@GuyWhoKilledBear by design, because I wasn't sure what they would communicate
I just meant that the write up should include it.
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@apapadimoulis said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
by design, because I wasn't sure what they would communicate
Looking at the current discussion, there are a few posts that seem well-written and represented an interesting point of view (regardless of whether or not one agrees with those points of view). It would be nice to have a way to say "thanks for taking the time to write this, this was interesting".
Then again, not sure if upvotes would be a good tool, as they might be overloaded to indicate agreement.
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At that point, wouldn't it be simpler to pre-moderate all posts in the category? Or am I missing the point?
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@PleegWat that would require a moderator. And not the
kind.*slowly raises hand*
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@bobjanova said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
Taken literally this point means that if someone states that they think the sky is green, we have to say 'that's an interesting perspective you have there'.
not only are the bands in the color spectrum subject to cultural differences (eg Japanese people really see a different green than you do), but local weather will change the Hue of the sky. some people also have a genetic defect that causes them to see colors differently.
I know that you picked a hyperbolic example, but this is a good case where two people can be looking at the same thing, and literally see different things. You may not have considered, or even been aware of the three factors I mentioned that cause someone to think that the sky is green.
instead of defaulting to distrust or condescension, honestly inquire. Trust that whoever you're talking to is as honest as you.
. After hearing, "the sky is as green as the ocean", you both might get a new perspective on why you disagree on such a basic fact.
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@cvi said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
It would be nice to have a way to say "thanks for taking the time to write this, this was interesting".
So there's this button that says "reply"...
But anyways, the motivation for writing messages should come from learning by explaining, or learning from an equally thoughtful response.
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@apapadimoulis said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
I know that you picked a hyperbolic example, but this is a good case where two people can be looking at the same thing, and literally see different things. You may not have considered, or even been aware of the three factors I mentioned that cause someone to think that the sky is green.
Then there's the age old philosophical argument that the actual phenomenon (qualia) you experience when looking at something green might not be the same experience another human being has when seeing the color green. Even if you have both assigned the symbol green to your respective experiences, you can't directly compare the sensation to see if you are actually describing the same experience.
Or, in an RGB color space, most colors have at least some value in the green channel!
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@apapadimoulis said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
@cvi said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
It would be nice to have a way to say "thanks for taking the time to write this, this was interesting".
So there's this button that says "reply"...
But anyways, the motivation for writing messages should come from learning by explaining, or learning from an equally thoughtful response.
Sometimes though you're just reading a discussion and not taking part, and I'm not sure what lots of replies saying "thanks for this post..." etc from people otherwise not involved would add to the discussion.
Maybe readers can have upvote privileges but not writers?
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@loopback0 said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
Maybe readers can have upvote privileges but not writers?
Slashdot style voting? Um, maybe not.
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Who the hell gave @Gribnit access to Salon?
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@Gąska said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
Who the hell gave @Gribnit access to Salon?
I'm as shocked as you are.
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@Gąska Paging @apapadimoulis . If he didn't, then he's the most likely to know who did. And why.
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The original Civilzed Salon doesn't even show on the category list for me even though I can access it, just the Pop-Up Shop mentioned here.
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It's been a while, and I can barely remember what I had for lunch today.... but I thought no one had access to the "Civilized Salon", and the "Civilized Salon Pop-up" was a sort of re-launch to see if anyone was interested in participating.
https://what.thedailywtf.com/groups/socratist
There wasn't any interest , so it didn't go anywhere. And then it seems someone replied to an old "Civilized Salon" thread or something.
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@apapadimoulis said in The Civilized Salon Pop-up Shop is Open!:
but I thought no one had access to the "Civilized Salon"
It doesn't show in the category list for me but I can still find topics in it and reply to them.
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I do what I can to promote software quality. But the word "hero" is used too lightly today - save your accolades.
