What Would WP Be Like If...

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What would this website be like if there were no conflict?

That is, what would it be like if either (1) no one ever posted a message that disagreed with any other message, or (2) everyone agreed with everybody else?

Last edited by Fnord on 08 Sep 2011, 7:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Wow, this is almost as much of a challenge as 'Explain the differences in geopolitical realities that we would likely see today if Charlie Chaplin had been president of Germany from the Weimar period up through 1950'.

Needing to trace a cause to such a condition I'd have to argue that one of two things happened. Either no one's on WP anymore or WP has become a community exclusively for jellyfish and manowar to share their beliefs, concerns, and struggles..

I am not sure that this is the correct forum in which to ask this question and get a meaningful reply. After all, we are the WrongPlaneteers who thrive on conflict.

It would be Facebook- and in fact Wrongplanet has a Facebook page.

Facebook is an example of social media where nobody ever (or rarely) posts a message that disagrees with other peoples' messages. This means that it is used primarily as a way to keep in touch or as a contact point and not as a place to discuss any ideas. The Wrongplanet Facebook page can be visited only by those who have joined it (and I have not) but I strongly suspect that it follows the format of other Facebook pages which discourages conflict.

So how could you have a forum with no conflict? It's impossible to discuss ideas (or even interests) in any depth without banging up against somebody else's opposing opinions. So in the forum format, all you are left with is The Haven. And that isn't enough to sustain peoples' interest. There are only so many times you can post "me too" or "that sucks" before going elsewhere.

I voted "boring".

I didn't vote "awful: if everyone's thoughts are the same, no one is thinking" because even in a conflict-free venue, not everyone's thoughts are the same. It's just that they don't express those thoughts in that venue- which is boring.

Planet of the Stepford wives, and the like.

The uncanny valley planet.

I voted for the Einstein answer.

I posted this in PPR because it presents a "What if..." question, which seems be more appropriate in a philosophical context than any other.

The general consensus so far seems to favor "Boring" or "Awful", with the poll responses being strongly skewed toward "Awful".

It looks as if conflict is one of the prerequisites for having an interesting website.

I doubt everyone would ever agree perfectly with everyone else, so 2 is not really a possibility as far as I can see. Option 1 could either be done via individual courtesy, which is unlikely in this day and age of solipsistic lunacy, or through hyper-moderation whereby any conflict is immediately punished.... yeah, let's not go there. I rather WP, and especially PPR, remained an arena of differing opinions and thoughts than have a thought-police state.

Oh, that's just because most people aren't facebook friends with me. I disagree with people on facebook ALL THE TIME. Even discuss too.

Arguing with friends on facebook can lead to a reduction in the number of "facebook friends" though. Groups do have a fair bit of conflict and flaming even, depending on the subject, and depending on how lighthearted the people on your friend's list are they may or may not remove you. It's one of the more annoying aspects of facebook and one thing I like about WP's type of forum. When people get upset with you on facebook, they go "delete! delete! exterminate!" because it's a way of silent punishment that they can do, but here, if someone gets angry, the most they can really do is ignore or go whining to a mod. After a while though, emotions eventually do die down and communications can resume. Facebook sucks.

I don't have that problem, even when I see people do that, I still don't care. Hell, I'll tell them off and have them decide what to do with it.

Please see Enya's Website. Try not to fall asleep.

Everything there is either a seemingly endless exchange of "Isn't Enya wonderful? / Yes, Enya is wonderful!" posts or an over-moderated set of forums with no really meaningful content...


My point being that without conflict, we may as well all shut down our Internet connections, put on some healy-feely New Age music, wrap ourselves up in a warm blankie, and never speak to anyone else ever again.

Depends on your online interests. I think you can play games, read wikipedia and wiki pages, download/watch movies, download software, etc, without interacting with anyone online, unless you need to ask information about something you need (which could be a last resort). You could avoid any type of conflict like that as that is not something you would be interested in.

Yeah, for some that would be boring, for others, it would be great.

I, in particular, give a crap about social networks, I don't care about socializing (real life and online) I find sites such as facebook too confusing to follow, which makes me prefer forums, which are more comfortable to use.

As for "What Would WP Be Like If There Were No Conflict?"
WP without some sections, such as PPR, L&D and perhaps others.

I got a kick out of this from their rules ...

That is just part of life!

So, I voted "Other", as in "Philosophically Useless".

So I guess not the best place to start a Ted Haggard thread?

Perhaps we should stick we saying how much we enjoy having our homoeopath realign our shakras using colonic crystals.

That's "chakras" - with a "c".