Heavy moderation of the blog's comment section is both unnecessary and counter productive. Free reign allows for greater clarity in reflecting on responses to articles and most likely ultimately leads to a lessening of shit bricking, as they say. Also, the trolling forces people to think about these pieces in a broader context than if they were just discussed on the forum.
I am totally in agreement here. People also just need a place to blow off some steam. If they want to raise hell there, good; let it be expressed in raw form, and people will reflect on it and post a more reasoned approach there.
There's more energy there than on this forum.
The problem with this forum is broken self-image. People are behaving like they're ashamed to be here, or have to hate it to enjoy it. WTF princess BDSM? Let's just use it like the resource it is, a meeting place where you can check in for five-ten minutes a day and learn something.
I think you may be overstating the problems here, but your proposal is sound, nonetheless.
You're right; I should have been clearer. I don't view this as a problem to this forum that needs solving. I think that if this forum has a weakness, it is that people here are tentative and somewhat beaten down and of low self-esteem. This is because most of us are nerds and are accustomed to Cassandra syndrome: people don't hear us, and they're caught up in this world of socialization that we don't understand because (if we search our souls) we think it's trivial.
If I had a wishlist for this forum:
(1) Less pretense
(2) Less false humility
(3) More honesty
(4) People being more active
(5) Less snark
#1, 2 and 5 are endemic to internet forums: people behave like "badasses" because they're acting out what they don't get in real life (RL).
That's just pointless posturing...
So here, we don't need to prove anything. We're just people here to discuss something. If your contributions are useful, which implies intelligent and all that good shit, people aren't going to care if you don't have that rare Archgoat 7" or know how to spell "publicly" or whatever. Just go for it.
It would be great if the community came down harder on snarky contentless replies, and less hard on content-laden but slightly incoherent ones.
I find errors in my posts all the time, if I re-read them. Doesn't matter. If the post said something important, even in a small sense, it's worth having.
The crap we don't need is the typical internet drama. "I found something you don't have! I'm ironic and unique! Look at me, I know something you don't know!"