SITE ANNOUNCEMENT: Debate and Decorum in this Forum

[SCOUTER-Terry]

SCOUTER.com is an independent community of Scout leaders, not affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America or the World Scout Movement. This site has been the largest community and portal for Scouting since November of 1995 -- the dark ages of the Internet :-) The staff of SCOUTER.com periodically monitors and rarely intervenes in the discussion forums.

 

The Politics and Issues forum was established specifically to provide an area for debate separate from the important matters of Scouting, namely how to have the best impact on a young boy growing into a great citizen - of his family, community, nation and world. By providing a separate area, only people interested in participating in these discussions had to read them.

 

Without comment on the subject matters being debated, the level of rhetoric recently in the Politics and Issues forum has lowered to personal insults, which is conduct unbecoming of Scout leaders and participants of this forum.

 

Obviously, controversial topics abound in Scouting and society, and the Politics and Issues forum is an appropriate place to discuss those topics. If someone's point of view is contrary to your own, or contrary to Scouting policy, there is room for debate. Certainly there are issues in which all of us as Scout leaders are in nearly unanimous agreement. There are also issues in which good, honest Scout leaders disagree with each other and with the organization.

 

While SCOUTER.com maintains this is a private website and set of discussion forums, and reserves the right to edit or remove any posts at our sole discretion, the Politics and Issues area does not warrant or receive the same level of scrutiny as the rest of the site.

 

If a poster is nothing more than a nuisance (and we've had that happen a few times in the past), we'll block them from participation. However, in the Politics and Issues area of these forums, if a poster is contributing to debate in an intelligible way, regardless of their point of view, their participation will not be blocked.

 

I would suggest that you could simply not read (or at least not respond) to posts that agitate you or are inflammatory. Alternatively, I suggest you spend your time contributing to the discussions that take place outside the Politics and Issues forum (encouraged).

 

TERRY HOWERTON

SCOUTER.com Publisher

 

[dan]

I just wanted to say thank you for providing this site and the forums.

And now a qestion, is the active user counter correct? Wow this site is a happening place, I have only seen it as low as 85 and as high 2000! you should give your self a pat on the back for having a site that receive that much traffic!

[SCOUTER-Terry]

Good question! Yes, it's accurate, at least usually. The counter displays unique visitors to the SCOUTER.com site within the previous 10 minutes. The average number of visitors on the site is usually around 250, sometimes more or less. Those times that you see the Active User Count spike up to 2000 or 3000 or more is usually inaccurate, and often the result of a visiting search engine or web spider that is cataloging the site. There are nearly 100,000 pages on SCOUTER.com, so it takes a search engine a lot of time to catalog it.

 

 

 

People using the SCOUTER Net Compass and Search Engine, which contains about 12,000 hand picked links of web sites of interest to Scouting, drive the active user count.

 

 

 

TERRY HOWERTON

 

Publisher, SCOUTER.com

(This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[evmori]

SCOUTER-Terry,

Thanks for your comments & a great site. I know we tend to get a little out of hand at times. Sometimes we need to bite our tongues before we type. With some of the issues we are debating, it can be hard at times.

 

Ed Mori

Scoutmaster

Troop 1

[cjmiam]

SCOUTER-Terry:

 

I too want to thank you for providing this service to Scouting. I can't imagine the time you spend keeping this site working and looking good. I think "most" of my posts have been in good taste, but thank you for reminding us of the purpose.

 

Keep up the great work!

[FScouter]

SCOUTER-Terry:

Could you please again clarify a bit about the proper content for the Issues & Politics forum? Is it intended for political and other issues only related to Scouting? Or is it intended more for issues not necessarily directly related to Scouting? Or is it

'any topic' as long as we don't stoop to insults?

[SCOUTER-Terry]

What you discuss is irrelevant... this is an open forum and the policy is that no poster will be squelched due to their point of view. How you discuss it is all that's relevant. As I have said before:

Keep the debate honest - don't state your opinion as fact; don't fabricate data to support your positions; don't claim to speak for "the organization" or the "majority", unless based on fact; don't register as multiple user names and post in support of yourselfTreat each other with respect - don't call each other names, limit the demagoguery, acknowledge that this is just a forum of debate, not the last stand in defense of your point of view

 

While I don't join this forum often, I love a great debate as much as anyone. Years of classical debate training taught me there has to be some rules of discussion, some basic parameters that frame not what you debate but how you debate, otherwise the discussion degenerates quickly. I'm establishing some of those rules above, to encourage more healthy debate.

 

There are thousands of positive resources for Scouting on SCOUTER.com, and tens of thousands of people visit this site each month in search of those resources. And while the majority of people rarely venture into the Politics and Issues forum, it's still a public place. I'd suggest you act as if you are standing around a campfire late at night at some Camporeee with a group of other adult leaders, or sitting at a troop committee meeting with a room full of parents. Don't say anything (or act in any way) that you would not if you were around that campfire and not concealed by the relative anonymity of these discussions forums.

 

TERRY HOWERTON

SCOUTER.com Publisher