A few home truths….

There seems to be a growing mythology about this site that I would like to nip in the bud.  This post is primarily for those at Uncommon Descent who bring up the subject of this site in their posts and comments.

Joe, aka Joe G, wrote, in response to Nullasalus

If I see Joe throwing sexual slurs at Liddle,

I may have thrown everything else at her, but not that.

putting up picture of her RL self to deface, and half the things the swampers do when they’re particularly riled, I’m going to pull no punches and call him out on that immediately.

I call her out just as I do all evos who misrepresent and over state their position and mangle ID, Behe, Dembski, Meyer, et al. She speaks from a postion of a scientist so I tend to go after those types a little harder.

If she can’t take it then perhaps she should learn and change. Or come up with a defense other than repeating herself in the face of referenced refutations of her claims.

I was banned from TSZ for getting into it with the evos who refused to comment in good faith. Ooops, that was all of them but in this case it was the evos who were just attacking me and obviously had nothing to say.

What I posted was not directed at Lizzie- it was directed at OM, aka OMagain, aka oldmaninskydidnotdoit- evo hooligan. And what I posted was spot-on for the situation.

 

Joe G was banned here for posting a sexual slur, consisting of a link to a pornographic image with a misogyinistic title, and a message apparently directed at me (although it wouldn’t have mattered at whom).  Nobody is banned for “getting into it with the evos” at TSZ.  But I will ban for posting porn links.

Upright Biped writes:

I second Null’s take on TSZ.

I only add that I spent over two and a half months there on one of the five or six threads devoted to semiosis. I focused primarity on one opponent, as the remaining crew offered little more than constant insult and absurdity. And after that one opponent abandoned his two main points, Liddle closed the thread under the auspices that I had violated her rules. She wanted to “ensure that emotional baggage and assumptions about other posters’ motivations are rigorously excluded. Let’s conduct this in an academically rigorous way”.

Upright omits to note that I started the thread for Upright Biped; and that when I closed the  older one, for the reasons Upright Biped quotes, I immediately opened a new one. Moreover, one of the topic tags here is “Upright Biped’s Semiotic Theory of ID”, and there are several threads on the topic.  I would also add that Upright Biped’s description of the discussion is not congruent with my own memory of it.  But that is my underlying point – if we want to discuss an idea seriously, we need to rid ourselves of our assumptions about other people’s motivations, and concentrate on the argument itself.  That means, in my view, not dismissing those views as “absurdity”.  There were a great many non-absurd (and non-insulting) counter-arguments and question addressed to Upright Biped, and he is welcome to return her to respond to them.

Thirdly, I want to assure any posters at UD who would like to come and post here, that the strapline on this site applies to everyone, IDists and “evos” alike, and most of all to myself, and that nobody is banned for an expressing an opinion, nor are their comments moved to guano for expressing an opinion.  The rule is “assume the other poster is posting in good faith”.  It’s not always easy to do, and it’s not always possible to believe it, but assuming it is the rule.  And while we try to mod with a light hand, I, and the other admins, will willingly move posts that break that rule to Guano.  They will not be deleted, and the poster is welcome to repost the content in a manner that does not break the rule.

Lastly, what people post on other sites has no bearing on whether they are allowed to post here, and what sites members here also post on has little bearing, in my view, on whether they are decent and honest people. What matters to me is that while here, members adhere to TSZ rules.

I  hope that has busted a few myths.

 

54 thoughts on “A few home truths….

  1. Gregory:
    It is quite obvious that Lizzie prefers the obnoxious anti-theist language of thorton, hotshoe, omagain, richard hughes (and cubist) here at atheist-oriented TSZ.

    You invite a double standard, Lizzie, with your 100% atheist admin composition.

    I’m not an Admin, or if I am, I don’t.

  2. Gregory: Repeat: To claim that you ‘cater for’ theists at TSZ is just silly. If it were true, you’d have personally deleted dozens of insults to theists by your low-brow atheist mosh pit (cubist, thorton, hotshoe, et al.) here.

    But it doesn’t seem that you really care that much at all about respecting or welcoming theists at TSZ.

    The discussion seems to have moved on, but for what it’s worth, I’m a theist and fairly frequent lurker here. I don’t comment here much because it’s my habit not to. But I *do* feel welcome and respected here. I’m not sure about the quality of the catering. The welcome is down to the structures and the admins here. Sure, there are a lot of anti-theist insulting comments, but those I just ignore. As Lizzie has pointed out, insults and “robust” debate aren’t against the rules.

    Theists aren’t actively discriminated against, in terms of being able to comment freely, and I don’t think you’ve provided any evidence of that Gregory. You may have some legitimate complaints about moderation episodes, but those don’t add up to an anti-theist bias here. But while theists aren’t actively discriminated against, neither are we given special protection from other commenters. Rightly so.

  3. Ask Blas and William Murray if they have been banned or if their comments have been unfairly deleted.

    There is a regular poster here whose writings consist largely of name-calling (atheist, darwinist, etc) and with maybe one exception, his posts remain visible,and he still retains the ability to start new threads. He has started more threads than I have.

  4. George,

    George thanks. I think that TSZ is remarkable by the usual standards of Internet debate and it is sad that it should get a bad press. I hope you feel encouraged to participate.

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