I've been out of town and basically offline for a while and was pleasantly surprised to see this new forum. The old one was great for being incredibly active and for the input being intelligent and knowledgeable. However, I must admit I found it disheartening and even depressing. I think that was due to a couple things. One was the outright discord. I don't mind disagreement, but I am very uncomfortable with the antipathy that often goes along with it, and that I felt I saw a lot on the old forum. The other was just the complete lack of accord on the most basic of issues. You've got "materialism is dead--utterly refuted." And you've got "there literally is no evidence for anything paranormal." As a result of those two factors, the more time I spent on the forum, the worse I felt. So I tended to check in and give my thoughts on the latest podcast and on Alex's "tee-up" questions, just because I enjoy the podcast so much, and then not say much more. It was just too draining.
In terms of the new forum, I've got a somewhat radical suggestion. I've just returned home from Arizona, where my organization concluded a teacher training. The group of us had been in a very intense process for 18 months, and now that we were together again in the flesh, the accord between us felt tremendous. We've got a very adult bunch and everyone knows it is completely fair game to disagree with me (as the head teacher). Indeed, much of the broad outline of the training was designed at a group level by a group consisting mostly of the trainees (we all had been involved together before the form training). As a result, the accord felt really healthy. It felt like a joining of free minds who simply have a common perception of the key truths involved. It was a great feeling.
My observation is that Skeptiko has been split between the frank advocacy seen in Alex's podcasts and the fundamental divide present in the forum. Because of that divide, the forum gave the impression that we are, at least in part, there to hash out whether there is any truth at all in the topics that Alex advocates so strongly for in the podcasts. It was a weird divide, one that perhaps in part grew out of the gap between where Alex started and where he's ended up.
My somewhat radical suggestion is that some kind of statement of belief/perspective/purpose be crafted, one that more reflects the orientation of the podcasts. Something like: we are an evidence-based community that, while acknowledging that far more investigation needs to be done and the jury is still out on many topics, the evidence is strongly suggestive of the independence of mind from brain and the reality of paranormal abilities, and our purpose is to.... I'm not putting that forward as even a draft of a statement. But I suggest that something along those lines be crafted.
And then those who join the forum would need to tick a box in which they state that they are in accord with that statement--they agree with that perspective and that purpose. What we would get as a result is a community that is not a bunch of robots, mindlessly agreeing on every detail, but a community that at least has a common starting point. It doesn't mean we think the debunkers and deniers are evil. But they have their forums already. How many do we have?
In the teacher training I was referring to earlier, that wonderful sense of accord would have been easily spoiled by just a couple of vocal people who did not agree on the basics. Such people could have easily stopped the group from really joining. My guess is that on this forum most of want a basic accord, on top of which we are then free to explore the details and undecided issues, as well as have frank discussions about how to spread our point of view in the world.
I don't think we are going to achieve the desired result just through effective moderation. The skeptics could be quite polite and considerate and the forum could be free of interpersonal conflict, yet without that sense of fundamental accord growing up. I don't know if my suggestion would work or if it's even right, but I think it's worth considering.