Just thought I’d start a thread about my reappearance to save derailing this one!
Thanks to all who have been keeping the place busy in my absence! Things are still sticky for me, but I can smell a thaw!
147 thoughts on “Hi everyone!”
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One all-important difference between TSZ and UD is that at TSZ, everyone knows the rules and the rules are the same for everyone: as much as possible, assume that others are arguing in good faith; personal attacks are sent to Guano; users are banned if they post obscene pictures. (Actually, I’m not sure about that last bit — presumably one could be banned for other reasons — but the one person who has been banned, was banned for posting obscene pictures.) Everyone plays by the same set of rules, they are easy to follow, and no one is left in the dark about what is permitted and what is prohibited.
At UD, the situation is, shall we say, a bit different. Users are banned for voicing disagreement with the moderators, or personal attacks on other users, but the rules are applied selectively. UD supporters are protected by the moderators, and only UD critics are ever banned. UD supporters also have their comments editorialized, which is (I think) an egregious abuse of moderator power. Sometimes comments simply disappear, often without warning or explanation. No one knows what will set off editorializing, censoring, or banning — the UD editors work in mysterious ways.
Kantian Naturalist,
I’m glad Lizzie’s back. I enjoyed doing back-office stuff but moderating is less fun than herding cats.
@ Walto
I agree with KN that it’s entirely up to you whether to pop in and set us straight occasionally but you’d be very welcome. At least you got to see the real Lizzie. 🙂
KN: ” UD supporters are protected by the moderators, and only UD critics are ever banned”
That’s not true. I remember that Joe was once banned for at least an hour.
That’s the kind of factual error that would get me banned at UD, if the moderators are having a bad day.
Actually, that would get you banned if they were having a “good” day.
Kantian Naturalist,
H’rumph! I play guitar and drums semi-pro, learn a couple of songs a week, play a bit o’piano, hold down a job, run 30-40 miles a week, cook, garden, travel, watch lots of telly, try to write my magnum opus, occasionally be a dad and husband – and I find time to pursue discussions I know will never end in agreement … it’s all about multitasking!
Damn. I am on the Internet because I have no other life. Now I feel inadequate.
Allan,
Do tell!
I’ll just add my vote of support for that.
Just ignore the one particular poster who irks you.
Neil,
Judging from experience, he’d have a hard time doing that.
Now I feel inadequate. All I did today was comment on two rough drafts from students, write a study guide for a final exam, revise a paper for an upcoming conference, and write a long-overdue referee report. I need to step up my game!
Phoodoo,
“Lizzie, you have said you like the atmosphere here, and yet you totally stopped being involved here, and continued posting for quite some time at talkrational. How is one site better than the other?”
Lizzie,
“Stop invading into my personal life.”
Phoodoo:
“Oh brother”
Allan Miller,
Anyone who runs 30-40 miles a week, who isn’t required to do so for their job, can’t be all bad.
That is objectively true.
Hi Lizzie. As almost everyone who has defended you on the UD Active Information thread has since been banned, I was just curious as to whether you are still a welcome guest in Barry’s realm.
MODERATOR:
Please move phoodoo’s post (and my reply) to guano.
It doesn’t seem to violate the letter of TSZ’s guidelines but I’m offended by its violation of the spirit.
This kind of stalker-ish, obsessively personal post against Lizzie is not appropriate.
Since I’m sure Lizzie would not complain on her own behalf, I wish to do so.
,
phoodoo, please do not put quotation marks around words I did not say.
I’m not sure what your issue is here: You asked me a personal question, and implied that because I host a discussion site I should have no problem with answering personal questions in public.
Well, that is not the case. Just because someone likes discussing impersonal issues in public does not means that she likes, or should like, posting personal information.
And in any case, I have given you clear reasons (some of them, in fact, very personal) why I have not been posting here, yet continued to post at TR, the most pertinent being that I became an admin at TR, a site of which I was a founder member, and which is a busy site with gormenghastian rituals associated with any admin action.
In addition, as I said, I have been doing a very demanding job, and had a family illness and bereavement. Plus, my personality is such that I am attracted to present shiny things, and can all too readily put off things requiring the initiation of actions requiring thought and effort if they are not urgent.
As I said, there is no onus on me to explain this, but I have.
So perhaps drop it?
And Mung, for quite a while, also another guy, can’t remember his name. “Reciprocating” something? No, that’s not right. He had his own blog. Dammit I can’t remember.
Dunno. Haven’t been back.
keiths,
keith – not here! I’ve sent you a PM.
phoodoo,
Heh. I’ll take it!
Robert Beyer. He was too religious for even that crowd.
No, I’m wrong! Not Reciprocating. That was Reciprocating Bill. I wish I could remember the guy’s name. Not Robert Byers.
DaveScot
TristanM,
I thought DaveScot simply left, with a pretty rude parting shot concerning the looks of Denyse O’Leary
Elizabeth,
Schneibster?
damitall2,
In hindsight, you’re right. I was remembering the post at UD in which Arrington announced DaveScot’s departure, and it seemed to have been on a sour note, but Barry later clarified that DS quit.
TristanM,
Resignation bluff called, as I saw it. 😉
lol
No, none of those people. He used to tend to be on with Mung, and I think they were banned at the same time. He had his own ID theory of some kind I think (not Upright Biped though). It’ll come to me.
It was Ilion.
Sounds just like hoe Barry lied about him not banning me. Oh well. At least I now know that I wasn’t given special treatment.
Ooohhh, Gary.
Elizabeth: “He [Ilion] used to tend to be on with Mung, and I think they were banned at the same time.”
Of course, you have no evidence this was the case. Not that it matters to any of your fanboys here at TSZ. But wouldn’t you rather speak the truth? No? OK.
So let’s set the record straight.
Ilion spoke the truth about Elizabeth, but in order to do so he had to expose the hypocrisy of Barry Arrington. As a reward for speaking the truth about Elizabeth and exposing the hypocrisy of Barry, Ilion was banned from UD. In protest, I took an extended leave of absence from UD.
Those are the facts.
Mung: “Ilion spoke the truth about Elizabeth, but in order to do so he had to expose the hypocrisy of Barry Arrington. As a reward for speaking the truth about Elizabeth and exposing the hypocrisy of Barry, Ilion was banned from UD. In protest, I took an extended leave of absence from UD.”
But I think that is largely the point. The person in charge of the biggest ID web site is so insecure and childish that he feels it necessary to ban anyone who is remotely critical of him. A commenter on UD was recently banned because he/she criticized Barry for not interceding when KairosFocus repeatedly accused Elizabeth of being complicit in illegal cyber stalking activities (and I am not talking about Truth Bringer, who deserved to be banned). You participated in that thread and I am sure that you were embarrassed by KF’s behaviour, and Barry’s lack of action on it. But what was more shocking than KF’s and Barry’s deplorable behaviour, was the fact that there was not a single ID proponent who called KF on his behaviour. Not one. As KF is so fond of saying, that speaks volumes.
Elizabeth can’t get the facts straight is irrelevant.
TSZ in a nutshell
Mung: “Elizabeth can’t get the facts straight is irrelevant.”
Yes it is. Unless you are suggesting that not getting the facts straight justifies KF accusing her of a criminal act.
Please give me your honest opinion. Do you honestly think that KF accusing Elizabeth of cyber stalking and other criminal activities without providing a single shred of evidence was acceptable behaviour? And do you think that Barry completely ignoring this fact and banning one of the commenters who brought this to his attention, is the act of someone who wants to run a blog that encourages fair and honest discussion?
Is that the sound of crickets I hear?
Creodont2,
Meh. I have no reputation to lose.
eta – Guano-bait removed
Creodont2,
Easy, Creodont2. I, for one, don’t think you deserved to be banned. I regret that the discussion of Aurelio Smith’s OP was so badly derailed — it initially began to develop into something interesting and enjoyable. But let’s face it, the harm was started by the UD regulars and culminated in KF’s fit of malicious paranoia and Barry’s bullying frenzy. When you joined the fray, the thread was already in ruins.
I’m not worried about my reputation. I don’t think those idiots (lowercase) could do anything to damage it even if they tried. I’ve always preferred to write under my own name. It forces me to restrain myself occasionally, but I’ve been on various discussion forums since the early days of the Internet, I’ve had to deal with all sorts of kooks and deranged characters, and I’m still alive.
Creodont2,
KF has no “list of targets”, just of those whose arguments he cannot counter, whom he hates with an intensity born of his ineffectuality.
He has absolutely no influence whatsoever:- anyone whose opinion you might value (and a good many others!) knows exactly what he is, assumed victimhood and boilerplate indignation and all.
Let him bloviate, say I. With every outpouring he makes his disconnection from reality more obvious, and thoroughly discredits any pretensions to intellectual (or any other sort of) honesty that might still cling to ID and its proponents.
Can’t get to keyboard right now. Have suspended Creodont’s account. This is pending review
If memory serves (and it usually doesn’t), there was a fellow named John Davison who was banned, either by DaveScot (who ran the place for a while, no?) or by Arrington. Davison did have his own blog.
Granted, Kairosfocus’s grammar and word-use can be hard to parse sometimes when he gets too emotional, but he did not accuse Elizabeth of cyberstalking or anything else criminal. Rather, he seemed to think that he could build a legal case against Elizabeth because
(1) she owns and hosts TSZ;
(2) some of the participants at TSZ also participate in After the Bar Closes (presumably other sites of ill repute as well);
(3) some of those people have openly mocked Kairosfocus by calling him by his name and posting defaced images of him;
(4) and Kairosfocus believes that some of those people have also engaged in cyberstalking and real-world, on-the-ground stalking and harassment;
(5) hence, since TSZ (and thus Elizabeth) provide a “front” to ATBC — by virtue of the cross-over of participants in both sites — she gets hit with a libel suit.
Unless I’m missing something important, that line of reasoning makes no sense whatsoever. That’s like saying that the owner of a bar is legally responsible for what his patrons have done, when really they’re in another bar down the street.
DaveScot’s troubles appear to have begun in May of 2008:
That post has been deleted from the thread.
On November 16, 2008 I noted on AtBC’s BlogCzar thread the following post by DaveScot, and then his revision of the same post:
Amusing given the direction UD has taken since, particularly lately. The revision:
That entire thread has been obliviated.
The following Day at UD, from Barry:
The previous title of the post was “DaveScot is no longer with us” (it is still embedded the link). Of course, there is no connection between his deleting posts by Dembski and Dodgen and his “resignation” the following day.
UD has deteriorated badly since then in exactly the ways DaveScot attempted to prevent.
Not sure of your point here, Mung, but I didn’t say that it was a “fact” that you were banned at the same time as Ilion. I said I thought you were (and couldn’t remember Ilion’s name). Glad to hear you weren’t in fact banned.
Reciprocating Bill,
Good synopsis.
These days it seems the pretence of science has been abandoned and we’re back to full time Wedge:
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
Barry just wants to attack materialism. He’s an IDiot and a WEDGIE.
Where is Phoodoo? Is he so ashamed of his terrible arguments that he’s run off, embarrassed of what he posted? ;P
Elizabeth, It’s difficult to frame a response that won’t be seen as insulting, but I’ll do my best. I do think you deserve that much.
Here’s the exchange:
Kantian Naturalist:
Arcatia:
By the way, I was the one who got Joe unblocked. Barry got something wrong and I pointed it out and Barry corrected himself.
Elizabeth:
Elizabeth:
For what it’s worth I apologize for implying you have no interest in speaking the truth. But you seem to forget from one post to the next what you wrote in the previous post.
Arcatia:
I was not embarrassed by KF’s behavior, and in fact I defended it.
Sure it was OT. But then so were the numerous responses.
Congratulations to those in the “Land of Hope and Glory” on the birth of Princess Charlotte.
This is also May the 4th, otherwise known as “May the Force be with You” Star Wars day. May the force be with you!