2006: A Proposal for Discussion

LanDroid · Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 10:50 pm Post subject: Re: 2006: 4 books a quarter

I suggest we consider dropping the "Freethinker" emphasis. I didn't realize this was a "freethinker" site when I joined. I figgered it out pretty quick and my thinking is much more along those lines now that I've read Sagan's "Candle in the dark" and "Atheism: A reader". But a casual visitor could easily be put off. Do you want to "proselytise" or discuss? We might send a similar message by emphasizing science and reason. Also we don't need to snap at the slightest whiff of theism.

Another suggestion is to improve the quality of discussion leadership. I can say this because I attempted to lead one of the books and admit I didn't do a very good job. There are established book discussion groups that offer training in leading book discussions or some guidelines. I'm not saying we need to attend seminars, but more attention should be paid to stimulating/leading questions and guiding the dialog a bit. Sometimes we devolve into two people smacking a minor tidbit around. Uncovering broad themes to chew on should help out.

Edited by: LanDroid at: 10/28/05 11:54 pm

GOD defiles Reason

Chris, I like these ideas so far. I think your first "proposal" post was very well thought out. As far as these different homepage designs are concerned, is there any way that you could create mock up home pages that we all can look at and compare? It would help with our visualization.

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Chris: We develop a well-defined Mission Statement. What is our purpose? What do we wish to achieve? Are we trying to contribute something of value to the world, or is this just a place for book lovers to congregate and socialize?

What do you think about sending out a questionnaire to everyone? I realize you have a lot to deal with already, but look, I get the feeling that there may be people with valuable input who don't wish to make their opinions public for whatever reason. I think it's important for the success of BookTalk that as many people as possible feel like they're part of making it successful. Sometimes people come up with decent suggestions and ideas and then get shot down or made fun of by some clever know-it-all because their post fails to mention every conceivable angle. They don't have to be exclusively for helping with the Mission Statement either. I'm sure you can come up with better questions than I. But some that I would suggest are: Aside from the books you read at BookTalk, what nonfiction books do you like to read? What subjects are most important to you? And why? Which of these subjects interests you the most? Science, Nature, & Technology. Politics, Current Events, & History. Religion, Philosophy, & the Arts.What do you like most about BookTalk? What do you like least about BookTalk? Don't limit the questionnaire to just these questions.

Give your members a sense that you care about their opinions and that their opinions matter.

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Chris: It is embarrassing to have 6 people show up for an Author Chat.

I think having these Author Chats will be our greatest draw to new members. So it's my opinion that you continue to have these chats no matter how bad you think the last one might have been. You're going to have to have a "build it and they will come" attitude. Have some rules. People need to start showing up 30 minutes before showtime. Place more responsibility on yourself and your moderators to show up 30 minutes early. But have these damn chats! Each of these authors may have their own websites or blogs that announce they're doing these BookTalk Author Chats. That alone will get more people looking into BookTalk. Get our name on those blogs, man. The more Chats we have, the more people we draw.

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MadArchitect: "...then perhaps part of our mission statement should be that we pick books that challenge our perceptions. I'm thinking of past reads, like "Freethinkers", which fell so far in line with what most of the readers already felt that there wasn't much friction in the reading (save the friction that, ahem, a certain someone introduced."

With 3 nonfiction books in the mix for discussion, there's plenty of room for those that wish to bring, ahem, friction to the community with 3 nonfiction books to choose from. In fact, having more than one book to read and discuss over a 3 month period changes my attitude about a book that you have brought up that's a critique on Humanism. This change in format means that in one quarter we could have a book like "Freethinkers" and another one like what you're talking about. I actually like that idea.

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MadArchitect: But the group chose "Freethinkers" instead.

Church and State issues are quite relevant today, and have been for a long time. Hopefully, BookTalk will be just as tolerant for members who wish to read about those issues as it will be for those who wish to read about Humanism or Science or History or anything else that might be of some value.

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LanDroid: I suggest we consider dropping the "Freethinker" emphasis.

I think Chris has already considered and come up with a well thought out, near perfect solution. Keep the Freethinker slogan, and get rid of the hostile wording toward theists. We are freethinkers. Atheists and theists alike. You don't have to be a hardheaded, Christian bashing Atheist to be a freethinking person. Just as many people voted to keep the old format as did to change it. I don't think it would be any wiser to completely snuff out that group than it is to not welcome theists. We're not trying to not welcome atheists after all, we're trying to be more inclusive. That should include making the current group feel welcome also.

Chris OConnor

Yesterday was spent visiting some family members who were in town, and now today I am about to leave for most of the day. Tonight I have a Halloween party I am NOT looking forward to. So sorry for not responding in detail, but I promise I will very soon. Maybe late tonight.

Chris OConnor

Mad

I do want to add a sidebar, but I am more interested in getting a few other things done first. Would you like me to email you the code from all the various boxes in the "General Settings" and "Custom HTML" boxes? I can save it in Notepad and email each box of code to you. If so please shoot me an email that I can respond to. Thanks.

The sidebar sure will clean things up. We've got plenty of links that should be in the sidebar. Right now they're all on our home page. Also, we need the images of the various books in the sidebar. We'll talk after you get the code from me.

I like your ideas of the 4-column table up top for the books and one thread per chapter. I agree that we might have some confusion by grouping them together.

In the 4-column table we are restricted to a total of 5000 characters, as you probably know. This is the "Introduction" found in the General Settings of each individual forum. (This won't make sense to anyone that doesn't run an ezboard community so ignore all this behind-the-scenes talk please). With only 5000 characters I might have to limit what I have in this table. Think about the code. Each chapter would have the URL linking it to the thread. Threads have pretty long URL's. I'll have to play around and see if there is enough room.

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I think that's likely to discourage some people. If this is a labor of love, I'd keep it that way.

Probably a smart move.

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Keep all of this in mind, Chris. These are things we can look at putting into the proposed sidebar.

The part that gets me is that most of those links are up in the top orange link bar. But most members don't seem to explore them. A sidebar is indeed needed.

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No, not at all. I think the best guideline I've heard so far is simply that the fiction book should be thematically related to the non-fiction books, or as many of them as possible. That will allow us to consider both serious books as well as fun books.

I've heard this suggestion, but am worried that it isn't in our best interest. To me adding the fiction book has a different purpose. I'm not sure if we want to link it to the nonfiction books at all.

Shouldn't we have this part the purely for enjoyment aspect of BookTalk? Several people have commented that we come across as very academic and cold. Well, this seems almost necessary on the nonfiction side of the coin, but when we get into fiction we might want to lighten up a bit.

I guess I'd like to see an example or three if fiction books that we might read concurrently with "Ethical Brain." What fiction book would you consider thematically related to our current selection? This idea seems so restricting. Our goal is to add hundreds of new members, and something tells me that we ought to let the fiction fans have some freedom. We can veto books that are bad for our image, but we're overcomplicating the book selection process with such rules.

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Maybe putting a calendar somewhere on the site would help.

You mean like this one www.booktalk.org/calendar.php?

You've made some great suggestions, but this one doesn't sit well with me at all. Staggered discussions looks chaotic to members and vistors. Think about it. Even with a calendar showing people what we're doing at any specific time, staggering the discussions means none of us have a clue without that calendar right in front of us.

Question: What book are you reading right now?

Answer: Oh, we're reading Book X right now, voting on Book Y, and discussing Book Z.

Way too complicated, Mad.

I much prefer saying:

We read and discuss 4 different books every quarter. 3 of the books are nonfiction and 1 is fiction.

Well, it is December 27th. Does this mean you're about to start a new reading periodon January 1st?

Yep, every quarter we start a new reading period.

Think about how we will be perceived with staggered book discussions. Nobody will have a clue what is going on without looking directly at a calendar. And do you walk around with a BookTalk calendar in your back pocket?

Besides the complication stated above, your idea would make my life a living hell. I'd be constantly trying to juggle all sorts of activities.

Chris OConnor

LanDroid

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I suggest we consider dropping the "Freethinker" emphasis.

If the changes we're about to make don't seem to do the trick we might explore getting rid of the freethinker aspect, but it seems most people want to stay on track with our original mission.

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We might send a similar message by emphasizing science and reason.

You're very right. This will be our new approach.

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Also we don't need to snap at the slightest whiff of theism.

Again, I agree completely. Those of us that lose our minds when we hear an irrational argument need to learn to breathe and approach the discussion with civility. This is a weakness of mine that I will have to really work on immediately. To be honest I would like to focus primarily on the book discussions in 2006.

Thank you for those links to book discussion hints. I'll save them and bring them up to the community soon.

Chris OConnor

GOD defiles Reason

First of all, thank you for adding your thoughts and helping us work towards a better BookTalk. I wish more people would get involved in this process, but I suppose that is our problem. We're in need of more members and more ACTIVE members. In time we'll reach our goals.

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As far as these different homepage designs are concerned, is there any way that you could create mock up home pages that we all can look at and compare? It would help with our visualization.

Yes, and I'll work on this soon. Good idea. Give me a day or two and I'll post the URL of the practice home page.

Your suggestion of doing a questionnaire is a good one. I didn't think that some members might be silent because they feel nervous about having their ideas shot down. But this seems to be a valid point and I'll have to draw up a questionnaire. Your question wording was fine. I'll work on this and then send out the questions via email. I'll promise everyone that their identities will be secret.

You're also right about Author Chats. We need people to be in the chat room 30 minutes early. Or we need to ask the Author to arrive at 9:15. Something needs to change.

Jeremy1952

Let's read "American Gods". A friend of mine has been telling me about it and it sounds like a hoot, with a popular theme around here. The premise is that immigrants all brought their gods with them... kind of like Stranger in a Strange Land. The old Hungarian gods, for instance, sit around in a rented flat smoking and eating hungarian food all day while the only one of them with any 21 century marketable skills goes to work.

If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

Chris OConnor

I think we ought to start our first fiction book in November and December so that we're into this new program during the holiday season. This is when people might start to have extra time for reading.

Does anyone else like this idea? We could do one fiction book discussion lasting all of November and December. We would need to decide on a book within the next day or two and then I can throw up a link on the Home page and Forums page.

We could add the chapter threads right into the Ethical Brain forum and change the name of that forum to, "4th Quarter 2005 Book Discussions." How does this sound?

Jeremy1952

Works for me

Chris OConnor

Howz about 2 nonfiction and 2 fiction each quarter? ...just to keep things easy to understand.

Rolf Venema

Marti
Thanks for your comment.
I understand your position. It is only that I am not used to think in 'they and us'. When people really want to find out my email address, they will find it anyway. It is a bit like terrorists: when they want to strike, they strike without anybody preventing it. Not even a whole army can prevent terrorists going on as they do. So against madmen and hackers you cannot shelter.
Well this is the last thing I said about it. And sign with
Rolf Venema from Holland, Europe

pctacitus

2 nonfic and 2 fic a quarter works.

“…the great events in life come from the books, rather than the people, one comes across.” - Robert D. Kaplan, Mediterranean Winter: the Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia, and Greece

tarav

I think I've already expressed my reluctant acceptance of fiction books at booktalk. I guess I could deal with two nonfiction and two fiction books. However, I'd prefer one fiction and three nonfiction books, personally. I also think that Mad's idea about sticking with a theme is a good one. Marti and some others in the chat room the other day may remember my making a similar suggestion. I am glad that someone else independently arrived at the same idea and put it in writing!

pctacitus

I can go with 3:1 or 2:2. I am a believer in choices and would like a variety to be available.

“…the great events in life come from the books, rather than the people, one comes across.” - Robert D. Kaplan, Mediterranean Winter: the Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia, and Greece

GOD defiles Reason

Chris, I see you have two books on this forum: p090.ezboard.com/fbooktalkfrm91 Can the peach colored background of each chapter for the fiction book be changed to a slightly different tone? Nothing drastic, just enough to set the two books' threads apart.


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