selden wrote:The only way to improve the quality of a discussion is if you help improve it. Things that are obvious to you obviously aren't obvious to others.
Sure, and that's why I intend to stay on the P&A board. But at the same time, I'm not obliged to answer every single question there - I was kinda hoping that everybody would just ignore that thread but unfortunately someone responded to it and it looked like it would just turn into a random guessing game.
The stickied post isn't much use though - it just says "here's a forum for discussing physics and astronomy", and we need something more concrete than that. Here's something like what I would like to see myself:
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Purpose: This board is intended for the discussion of Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Related Sciences. The emphasis should be on astronomical matters however, rather than general physics - though discussion of crossover fields such as astrobiology or planetary science are encouraged. While not explicitly stated, the following rules apply in reference to these subjects - other topics are not acceptable here.
Enforcement:
The Moderator's word is final, and his opinions and decisions on a questionable thread will be based solely on interpretation of these rules, which apply equally to everyone on this board, regardless of who they are. Penalties for breaking these rules range from a warning to thread locking and temporary or permanent bannings, depending on the severity of the rule violation. Above all, the Moderator is not to be argued with.
ACCEPTABLE TOPICS
Links/Articles: Links to interesting news articles or images are encouraged. However, copying the contents of those links is not permitted due to copyright reasons.
Questions: All scientific questions about the universe are encouraged, whether they are basic or advanced in nature. However, remember that people who answer any questions are voluntarily giving their time to answer them, so to increase the likelihood of an answer questions should be phrased in a mature, respectable manner - at the very least, as if you were asking a teacher in a classroom. All posters are encouraged to cite legitimate scientific references (books, papers, science websites, wikipedia articles, press releases etc) wherever possible when responding to questions.
Worldbuilding: Discussion about various aspects of 'world-building' is encouraged so long as it is clearly based on the application of real science (i.e. 'hard science fiction"). Questions about the environments of certain types of world, lifespans of stars, composition of atmospheres, what a ten-billion year old planet would be like, appearance of planets etc are all examples of acceptable topics of this kind, so long as the explanations are based on real physics and scientific analysis and not pure conjecture.
UNACCEPTABLE TOPICS
Besides the topics that are generally not acceptable on the Celestia forums (i.e. spam, politics, religion, sexual content, profanity etc), other topics that are not acceptable on the P&A board are:
Metaphysics: Metaphysical or philosophical discussions - i.e. discussion for which there is (or can be, in some cases) no scientific proof or evidence to support any stance are not appropriate. "Why are we here", "Are we alone", "Is there life anywhere else" and so on are not acceptable topics, because they are either religious in nature or we have no evidence to support any conclusions yet. Basically, subjects that are based on conjucture, or people's opinions and beliefs have no place on this discussion board where the emphasis is on rational thought, physical proof and scientific data.
Science Fiction: While scientific discussion about aspects of the physical realism of fictional settings is acceptable, discussion of the actual settings themselves is not. If you want to talk about Star Trek, find a Star Trek forum
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Pseudoscience: Pseudoscience or 'personal theories' are unacceptable. There will be no discussions of Faces on Mars, alien visitations, hyperdimensional space stations around Saturn etc. Discussion of fictional technologies (e.g. warp drives, jump gates etc) is also not acceptable, unless the discussion concerns the scientific analysis of such things - e.g. Alcubierre drive, exotic matter wormholes etc. Also, don't argue with people if reality turns out to work in a different way to what you expected - for example, if you thought that stars were burning coals in the sky then don't protest when people tell you that the established scientific evidence is that they aren't - particularly if they cite papers to show that they are correct.
Games: This is a board for serious discussion of scientific topics - not for games, quizzes, riddles or other "challenges". If you feel the need to post such things, do so either elsewhere or in Purgatory.
Space Politics: To make it clear, discussion of space science policies is not acceptable here. These discussions often tend to get too political and heated.
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Something along these lines (obviously this is just my opinion of what is and isn't acceptable here) would make things pretty clear, I think. As it stands it doesn't really rule out anything currently being posted to the P&A board (quizzes notwithstanding). What would people think of this?