This is not about opinions, but about constant aggressive behavior that puts off other people. You keep talking about the echo chamber, well, I don’t want this forum to become Patron’s echo chamber because others are fed up and see no point in arguing with someone who is not interested in other’s opinions.
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Just to let you know what is possible for a mod. I can deactivate, suspend, silence or anonymize his account.
I can’t delete the account:
Users can’t be deleted if they have posts. Delete all posts before trying to delete a user. (Posts older than 60 days old can’t be deleted.)
I can’t delete the posts:
Can’t delete all posts because the user has more than 15 posts. (delete_all_posts_max)
This is probably some parameter which can be edited by the admin.
I know about right to privacy and GDPR and all, but it really sucks for the forum if an old user deletes over 1000 of his posts. This leaves the forum gutted, threads hard to follow, and it anyway does not remove all your content. All the quoted text remains, I think. And all the webscrapers which archive the Internet have already copied all the messages ten times over, so you won’t get this fully erased, you can only make it harder to access. I think every solution here is a bad one. I wonder what they do in other, larger forums.
Btw, apart from Patron, there are two other users who have been removing hundreds of their posts in the last days, I guess also per script.
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I would ask people to kindly reconsider deleting inputs from the “helpful advice” threads. Otherwise the input of the other members who took the time to reply after you becomes meaningless. @Patron and @Teacup you both made a lot of helpful and expert contributions on such topics so it would be a shame on multiple levels
I am referring to threads about personal improvement & quality of life as @bojack defined above. (I am not fussed whether or not the politics or coffee threads get corrupted)
Could political discussions where Patron made a high % of the posts be hidden from the forum homepage? These threads won’t make sense if he is deleting his contributions
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I find it strange that the owner of the forum is not chiming in. The forum is one of the reasons he’s making money. I’d be here in a heartbeat if I see things going down.
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How do we close this discussion ?
I think most of us including both mods are of the opinion that in the future we should avoid politics.
If there is any doubt we could have a popular vote, this is Switzerland after all! :
"Comments in the forum should be relevant to personal improvement & quality of life "
Yes / no
(Wording can surely be refined by others )
well that was brought up by @MrCheese a while ago and the community here was not very receptive. it’s a funny situation for sure.
also @TeaCup fair point, one can see it in this thread as well where @bojack doesn’t want to have moderation rules. he phrased it as being because the rules would still have the moderator be subjective instead of seeing it as an opportunity to have some clear guidelines that would avert discussions like this thread.
sometimes this forum feels like if you tick off one of the mods you’re gonna get burned. sorry @bojack for singling you out again on this one, but sometimes you’re writing style is brash and off-putting even when you argue with facts. makes me not really want to engage at all, although the content is valuable.
@bojack & @Julianek i hang out and shitpost quite a big on r/financialindependence and they have a really good set of rules for moderation. that subreddit has 1M users and a handful of mods which mod for free just as you guys do here. so maybe we could get inspired from those rules to some extent if we want to go that way.
now, back to my passive stance in this forum… hopefully the community will find its way and a good resource won’t whither away.
ps.: @bojack i am sure you’d be a lovely person that i’d easily get along with would should i meet you in real life
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I don’t think we should close this discussion, it will die by itself once everybody will think they have said everything they wanted. Moderation is an important topic and it is important that everybody can express themselves about it until they feel they have been able/allowed to contribute everything they wanted on the topic. Keeping things unsaid and/or frustrations can only harm in the future.
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This is weird, I never banned or suspended anyone. I didn’t delete anyone’s post on my own discretion. I only ever react to flags, which anyway come super rarely. How come you mention me in a sentence about getting burned? How can you imply that I’m a mod that should be feared?
I think I’m self-aware of that. Sometimes I write a post, re-read it and think it’s brash, as you said. Sometimes I’ll rewrite, sometimes I say screw that and press send. Because I’m just a human being and I write what I think and how I feel. If I’m agitated, I will write in an agitated way. I will not hide behind a facade of politeness. However that’s not how I act when it comes to modding decisions. There I will think it over 3 times before I do anything.
Honestly, I’m probably under-qualified to be a mod. I do not use reddit and I’m not active on any other forum than this (only one other discord server). I do not use the Internet to the extent that I used to when I was a student. So I don’t know what is best practice and what can be applied. I don’t run this place, a moderator is not a manager, I’m just reviewing flags from time to time, and I split offtopic discussions, that’s all. Any kind of expectation towards me regarding keeping order in the forum is misguided.
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I hoped we were coming to a consensus and might be ready to agree a way forward but apologies if I was too presumptuous.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
I had been on other investments forum and this behaviour happened as well.
Doing nothing will push people from this community.
Hey there,
Just so you don’t think I’m silently ignoring the discussion going on here: I got some private issues that keep me busy these days.
The forum did grow since @Bojack and @Julianek joined as mods. It seems it’s time to bring some updates on how we self-org it.
I will check in the upcoming weeks how to best bring more clarity on what is ok and what not. Thanks for the hint to the Reddit moderation rules, too.
Until then, my hope with this community is that we remain helpful and supportive with each other, and respecting different opinions (as long as they are brought in a non-imposing manner).
Take care,
MP
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never said you banned or suspended anyone. it’s probably because of the text communication that goes on the forum. i do genuinely believe you’d be very cool in person. we all have our ups and down, you just let them through in your writing more than others. and as you mention, as a human we all have emotions and passions, but still politeness is a good quality to have, independent of your state in the moment.
in any case, no beef with you, you’re definitely not the hallmark of such behavior on here. and again, sorry to have singled you out as an example, didn’t want to go dig for everyone though. i generally stay away from the discussion when it gets heated or emotions seep in.
last, but not least, you actually do a great job modding. keep up the good (free 
) work!
Dear All,
I didn’t want to create a storm but it seems one was on the horizon anyway… 
I think:
- we should craft a vision: what do we want the forum to be about it? (only CH FIRE, FIRE+lifestyle, broader) and vote on it
- we should have a set of rules (MP can start from Reddit and if we want we can vote on which rules we want vs not as a community)
- moderators can’t be everywhere like not all crimes are caught or prosecuted
- therefore other users can flag to moderators where a breach may have occurred
- some breaches will escape but what is important is that any breaches that was reported will be treated consistently (@Bojack and any other future moderators, this may help to keep workload low while being fair in the eyes of everyone else
- no abuse is accepted
- repeated offenders must be banned (temporarily and eventually forever)
I apologize if my post created this storm but I hope it was bad for good 
I really love the inputs of everyone here. I love the acccurate details that @Daniel deliver on a constant basis, the details and reflection from @Julianek, the passion of @Wolverine, the effort day-in and day-out of @Bojack. The good and math backed comments from @Dr.PI, the adventures of @Cortana, the valuable inputs and inspiration from @thepoorswiss FiRE movement. And many others @San_Francisco @Giff and many many others that Are contributing daily and can’t tag (no more than 10! I didn’t know )
Love you all!
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This topic has been up for 3 days, some of us haven’t even logged in in that time. 
One thing I really dislike on the bogleads.org boards is how, on some topics requesting help, some people already post messages like “the OP is not responding, this is a lack of respect for my time” less than 24h after the last message from the OP, all that because in that time, 5 pages of content have been posted by the other users.
I genuinely think some topics don’t need to be rushed, and even if we have reached consensus, we loose nothing by letting things cool down on their own. If we have already reached it, we’ll stay at the consensus (or talk of completely other things at which point, indeed, moderation action may be required).
Edit: unless what you are suggesting is that we are ready to craft our way forward and, as such, should craft it, as for example suggested by @SteveDB , in which case, I am in agreement that designing solutions is a good thing to do. Since I’m mostly neutral on the topic, I’ll let y’all lead on on that front.
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Alright, so i discussed new guidelines with @Bojack. Following everybody’s feedback, here is what we agreed on. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that a lot of it comes directly from the financial independance subreddit. Similar communities have similar issues, and I believe in this case there is no need to reinvent the wheel in this case. Thanks @lv24 for the idea!
New forum moderation policy:
-
Be civil. All conversation on this forum is expected to be civil. Rudeness, personal attacks, condescension, shaming, and provoking are just some of the multitude of examples of behaviors that are not acceptable. Any behavior, comment or post that does not meet the requirement of being civil will be removed. Repeated failure to follow this rule will result in a ban.
-
This forum is about personal finances, early retirement, financial independance and quality of life improvement (“life hacks”). Topics should drive discussion. All top level posts are expected to be about these topics, with discussion being the main goal of this forum. Posts that do not help drive discussion will be removed. If you are wondering what kind of discussion fits in the “quality of life” category, threads like this one are actively encouraged.
-
No gender or politics. This is not the place to discuss or debate anything regarding gender or politics. There is a distinction between politics and policy. Any discussion that is, turns, or becomes partisan or political will be removed. Discussion of serious legislation or proposals is allowed if the topic stays on policy, not politics. For example - “Ramifications of this new tax plan and new brackets on FIRE” is ok (mainly because it should result in actionnable advices). “Why my candidate and/or my political views are the best” is not. These topics are all off limits due to the forum as a whole not being able to discuss them in a civil way. Repeated violations will result in a ban.
Going forward:
- I will update the moderation policy thread with these new guidelines
- Coffee threads will be closed in the next few days
- We are only two moderators, so we can not review every single post on the forum. If you find a post in blatant breach of the new guidelines, please flag it to moderation.
- As a final note, many complained that ChRad’s suspension was unfair because there was no official “rule” that he had broken. Well, there are now, and I have unsuspended him.
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Thanks for your quick reaction and commendable new moderation policy.
If I may make a suggestion:
I would add religion and potentially race. Politics and gender are the two kinds we’ve seen lately but others are around the corner. As a potentially better alternative, I’d even suggest only “no politics” being singled out, and a more general “no discrimination” or some such thing.
It’s the singling out of gender that seems odd to me.
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And possibly also no COVID / vaccines y/n and the like !
I think this very old blog post has a lot to say about why more moderation might be a good thing for this forum.
Good online communities die primarily by refusing to defend themselves.
Somewhere in the vastness of the Internet, it is happening even now. It was once a well-kept garden of intelligent discussion, where knowledgeable and interested folk came, attracted by the high quality of speech they saw ongoing. But into this garden comes a fool, and the level of discussion drops a little—or more than a little, if the fool is very prolific in their posting. (It is worse if the fool is just articulate enough that the former inhabitants of the garden feel obliged to respond, and correct misapprehensions—for then the fool dominates conversations.)
So the garden is tainted now, and it is less fun to play in; the old inhabitants, already invested there, will stay, but they are that much less likely to attract new blood. Or if there are new members, their quality also has gone down.
Then another fool joins, and the two fools begin talking to each other, and at that point some of the old members, those with the highest standards and the best opportunities elsewhere, leave…
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-gardens-die-by-pacifism
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I like the new policy. I’ve written one emotionally loaded message around the climate stuff (the only and first one in many years) that had ramifications I had no expected.
I got a warning and deescalated. I learned a lesson as well.
I’ve been around on financial independence for Switzerland since 8+ years, back in the day of mr money moustache forum (see thread here when back then there was only Swisscanto for 3a ):
I like it to discuss around FIRE, and I like the new proposal!
I just have doubts on the regard of science; it is unfortunately again a heavily politicised topic, even when it should not be. I do hope we will not start delete or blocking conversation because people are misinterpreting science and modeling results and transforming it in a politics debate. I do hope we will manage to keep a foundation on science without escalating it in politics, and not ban scientific takes completely from our discussions.
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In my understanding, the purpose of this forum is very clear: To provide a platform for sharing information related to becoming financially independent in order to help other people who share this goal. That is a pretty wide net, but I think it is pretty obvious whether or not an opinion or information shared could possibly benefit other people on their FIRE journey.
I don’t see banning entire topics as beneficial. Politics? This has a direct impact on investments, social security, taxes, and numerous other basic pillars of finance, not to mention other factors like travel, child rearing, etc. Financial independence in itself is a highly political issue (and arguably a worldview). Religion? If someone states their goal of becoming a monk or Zen priest after they FIRE, why would that be an issue? Personally, I would find it interesting. On the other hand, arguments over worldviews are a waste of space. I generally skip right over that kind of thing and look for useful information or questions I can answer.
(Re)highlighting the focus of the forum (sharing useful information) would be more beneficial in my opinion.
More user participation in keeping forums on-topic could also help (e.g. “How does that answer the question?”)
Anyway, that’s my two cents.
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