More than 25 students gathered on Monday to discuss the possibility of stricter regulation of the Wolfpack Students Facebook page, currently run by Student Government.

The open forum addressed issues with Wolfpack Students, including harassment, excessive joking and a general lack of useful information on the page. 

The meeting began with a brief history of the Facebook group. According to Student Body President Alex Parker, Student Government initially created the page to facilitate discussion between students and administrators. Any N.C. State student is allowed to post, read or comment about university related issues on the Wolfpack Students wall. 

“The purpose of this meeting was to have an open discussion dialogue about the mission of Wolfpack Students, to find out what students want from that resource and to kind of bridge the gap between student government and other users of Wolfpack Students,” Parker said.  

Student senate president Kelsey Mills and Parker ran the forum, asking students to express their own personal concerns. They also asked students to give opinions about how Student Government should address the problems facing the Facebook group.

The possibility of enforcing a stricter set of posting rules sparked heavy debate. Emily Benson, a senior in business marketing, said that although she sees a problem with harassment, it gets “tricky” when deciding how to moderate discussions. 

“We should decide what can be moderated and what can’t be moderated and who’s in charge of that and set forth guidelines if there are going to be some,” Benson said. 

Conversely, some students, such as Stephon Beaufort, a sophomore in mathematics, did not want to see stricter moderation of the page at all.

 “I was a little disturbed by the fact that [Student Government] wanted to enforce more policy on it. I like the fact that it is open and free. It’s like the internet as it applies to N.C. State, so I really like that I don’t want that to change that’s why I came here,” Beaufort said.

After students finished listing their concerns, Parker concluded the meeting by inviting students back on Wednesday, Sept. 18, when the committee will debate on specifics of the bill before it moves to the Student Senate Sept. 25.

Everything discussed at the Monday meeting will be reviewed and discussed by the committee on Sept. 18. This committee will vote on a list of characteristics defining what will be regulated in the Wolfpack Students group. The meeting will be open to students who want to give more input on the subject. 

Overall, Parker said he was pleased with the results of the forum. 

“I think it was a great forum,” Parker said. “I think we have some clear next steps that we can pursue and there is still plenty of time for students to voice their opinions about certain things and what to do.”