Please use this thread for alerting admins to moderation issues and for discussion or complaints arising from particular decisions.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Please use this thread for alerting admins to moderation issues and for discussion or complaints arising from particular decisions.
It’s an analysis of the quality of the comment and a reference to the history of the commenter.If you feel either is inaccurate, challenge the claim.
I just ignore the person as I know it is full of BS. Challenge the claim? Hitchens applies- that which can be spewed without evidence can be dismissed/ ignored
Well, if you want to be wrong on multiple levels, sure.
Well, if you want to be wrong on multiple levels, sure.
You don’t seem to mind being wrong on multiple levels
I agree with Patrick, it’s not, it’s making an assessment of the quality of comments.
Alan Fox,
Ok.
Thanks for the clarification. I think taking ad hominem out of the debates would improve the quality of the discussions. You certainly shy away from them.
Let’s check in with the
Russiancreationist judge….A person without a clue and on an agenda cannot make rational assessments on the quality of comments. Especially given the fact that said person has never posted anything of quality
That’s the most self-aware thing I’ve ever seen you write. Is 2017 the year you turn yourself around? Good on you!
I don’t make comments on the quality of posts- well not until AFTER that was written. My above comment pertained to the “it” that tried to say my comments weren’t any good.
Did Joe get a mirror for Christmas?
The following post attacks the content of the comment:
Why is it in guano?
Frankie,
“Buy a dictionary” implies ignorance. You can always repost minus the offending phrase.
You say that as if ignorance is an insult. Do you know everything, Alan? Really?
Buy a dictionary is a suggestion as common design flows right out of archetype once you read the definitions of the words. And the pithy argument tangent would go away.
And saying that a post is tantamount to intellectual cowardice implies what about the offending poster?
Do claims that someone needs to educate himself?
Almost everything I write implies that the other person is ignorant, lol.
Some might say everything you write proves someone is ignorant,lol
You are so full of shit Alan. There have got to be literally thousands of posts, probably 100 in the last week that directly insult more than this, and you chose this one.
What is the phrase “go educate yourself” if not an implied call of ignorance? How many of those statements have you let go? In the past week?
If its against the rules, then try actually doing something about that. I gave you an entire list of direct insults, that you didn’t even comment on.
phoodoo,
Can you bring examples to the table?
colewd: Can you bring examples to the table?
Go educate yourself!
Mung,
Challenging but I will give it my best 🙂
Saying someone has a lack of knowledge clearly implies they are ignorant:
colewd,
I gave Alan a list of such examples three days ago.
TSZ doesn’t have a usable search function for old posts, but this is something that occurs here daily, if not hourly.
If Alan were being honest, and using this standard, he would have to put half of his own posts into guano. I think the moderators mindset here has become, we can do anything we want, who can tell us otherwise…
site:http://theskepticalzone.com/ search words go here “phrases like this”
Or here: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-admin/edit-comments.php
There’s a search field in the top-right corner
Maybe they are just aknowledgable
Alan Fox,
This is about Mung misrepresenting evolutionary science. Is this ok?
Christ you’re a whiny ass.
phoodoo,
FWIW, I’m inclined to agree on those comments under the rules. Equally, I’m not all that bothered about insult, as long as (like moderation disputes about them) it does not become the main signal. Water off a duck’s back to me.
I also think moderation discussions anywhere other than in ‘Moderation Issues’ should be moved, either to Guano or, probably better, to Moderation Issues where they belong.
Let me preface my remarks by saying I would much prefer never to make a moderating decision. Unfortunately, people have a variety of commenting style and a varying threshold for what constitutes the line between civil and uncivil discourse. Blog owner Elizabeth Liddle has tried, by her stated aims and rules, to create a venue where discussions across widely diverging viewpoints can take place without rancour. So the aim of the rules, so to speak, is to de-escalate rather than exacerbate situations that can occur when commenters are strongly committed to views that others find antithetical.
My hope is that, over time, regular commenters come to see the value of that and accept the minimal restrictions on total free expression. My problem is that in refereeing between discussants where tempers are frayed, admins have one sanction which is to move a comment to guano. I do try also to interject what I hope is a de-escalating remark if I happen to spot a smouldering flame-war.
Also, as Allan Miller points out, admins have a life outside TSZ, and moderation is never going to be a 24 hour service here. So let me repeat my request, that anyone aggrieved by a particular comment should flag it by alerting an admin, preferably using the PM system. Also please also include a link to the offending comment.
Remember that substantive comments are less likely to be guano’d by me than content-free one-liners. New or infrequent commenters will receive more leeway than regulars.
Now, on the specific point, the distinction I use is whether a derogatory epithet is applied to the commenter or a commenter’s action. There is a distinction between calling someone stupid and calling content of a comment stupid. There is also a distinction I would make between misrepresenting and lying. You can misrepresent a concept honestly but ignorantly so I would say to describe someone’s comment as a misrepresentation is not an accusation of lying.
The problem is the “is what he does”. I parse that as a claim that all of mung’s comments that mention biological evolution are misrepresentations. It’s pretty insulting, I agree. What do other admins think?
I agree and where I see comments about moderation in other threads than the appropriate one I will move them to guano. I also agree that it might make more sense to move them directly to the moderation issues thread but the rules require that either a comment stays where it is or it moves to guano.
I’m with you there. I have a longish comment on that topic coming up.
I agree that one crossed the line. On the other hand . . . well, see my next comment.
Adapa and Alan Fox recently had the following exchange that raises an interesting question about whether or not the site rules support the site goals:
(PRATT is the acronym for Previously Refuted A Thousand Times.)
Elizabeth’s goals for the site are summarized on the About this site page:
and on the Rules page:
It is painfully obvious that Elizabeth’s final sentence is not supported by the empirical evidence. The reason for that is equally obvious: Elizabeth’s goals can only be achieved if all participants are genuinely supportive of them and willing to not just assume good faith but actually act in good faith. That is not the case here. We have several participants who will never question their own priors and who add nothing to the discussion but disruption through the repetition of baseless, nonsensical claims even after multiple refutations.
Elizabeth does support some types of responses to those who are not aligned with the goals:
In practice, unfortunately, the rule that requires everyone to assume that others are acting in good faith empowers those who manifestly are not. The amount of opprobrium allowed is insufficient to change the behavior of the bad actors. Measured by its ability to achieve Elizabeth’s stated goals, The Skeptical Zone is broken.
The question now is what, if anything, is a better way to achieve Elizabeth’s goals for the site? How do we get to the point where we can “find out where our real differences lie” so that “who is right becomes obvious to both parties”?
One option is to make failure to act in accordance with the site goals a bannable offense. That violates the principle of freedom of expression, is not a good way to encourage the free and open exchange of ideas, and is likely to lead to significantly reduced participation.
Alan, if I understand him correctly, supports treating PRATTs as spam and moving comments containing them to Guano. That’s one step on the path to curating every post and comment for quality, a very labor intensive task likely to lead to more arguments about curation than actual discussion.
A more scalable alternative is to add some kind of rating system as used by Reddit and other sites. Giving individuals the ability to configure their viewing preferences so that only comments above some threshold are displayed would reduce the ability of those not acting in good faith to disrupt discussion. This would also eliminate the need for admins to move rule-violating comments to Guano.
Regardless of other changes, my personal view is that the rule about assuming good faith should not require active stupidity in the face of bad faith. It should not be against the rules to call out flagrant dishonesty, for example. The rule should be changed to assume good faith until that assumption is no longer tenable, and be ready to re-extend the assumption when the behavior has changed.
Maybe these or other changes will allow TSZ to achieve Elizabeth’s goals. Maybe those goals are simply impossibly naive.
I’d take a harder line. A persistent PRATTER would be risking suspension if I ruled the World. I don’t think it would involve more work for admins and possibly less. I wouldn’t expect it to be a rule that needed to be enforced very often if at all.
If this involves “liking” or “voting up”, then I’m sure there must be a suitable plugin. I’m always conflicted between “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” and “if it ain’t working try something else”. It might be worth trying “jetpack”.
Perhaps I don’t understand the details of your proposal, but wouldn’t that eliminate Frankie, phoodoo, colewd, and fifthmonarchyman immediately? (No, I’m not being facetious.)
Only if the rule were enforced retrospectively. I’m imagining new member arrives and includes PRATT remark in comment. Maybe gets asked to support claim. Doesn’t but repeats PRATT. At some point, an admin draws attention of commenter to the rule that repeating unsupported PRATT claims may lead to a suspension. Scenario 1, commenter repeats PRATTs and gets suspended. Scenario 2, stops repeating PRATTs. (Great!). Scenario 3, moves on.
Alan Fox,
What about you guys and your ID PRATTs? What if your alleged PRATTs are nonsense?
Shorter version: Probably within 3 posts 😛
People can be honestly wrong and committed to a false belief. For example the Universe is generally reckoned to be around 14.7 billion years old. There’s consilient evidence that supports that claim. It’s open to scrutiny and challenge, no problem. Someone may insist that the Universe is only 6,000 years old. If they continued to make that assertion in the face of evidence to the contrary, that would be a PRATT claim. Or they could support their claim with evidence, if they believe such evidence exists.
This is the sort of comment that doesn’t break a specific rule but is all noise and no signal.
That is your sad opinion and it is wrong. If you and yours cannot support the claims of your position why should anyone care about your whining about ID?
Asking for evidence to support claims? Prepare to be mocked by Mung!
Right, we ask evos for evidence supporting their claims and never receive any. No one knows how to test the claim that NS and drift produced vision systems- there isn’t any evidence to support the claim.
Frankie,
Do you think that’s true? Pick and contested biological feature and I’ll research the evolutionary narrative if you promise to give the same level of detail and length from the ID narrative (with associated CSI calcs)
I was aaware that was even a word. How ignorant I am!
Mung,
Meta Aknowledageble – Rumsfeldian!
People know the rules [posts about moderation issues belong in the Moderation Issues thread] and rule-breaking posts belong in Guano.
Keep sending them to Guano.
Alan,
As long as you continue to state that Frankie breaks the rules more then other posters and thus you are justified in ONLY putting all of his posts in moderation que, and doing virtually NOTHING with all the other posters who routinely break the rules to your delight, I don’t take a single word you say seriously anymore.
Heck just the fact that you allow other posters to address Frankie by any name other than his chosen name is against the rules. Yet you do nothing. You have never noticed, is that your excuse? Can I use any name I want for other posters?
Good, yours is now “Lion Fckface” . Is that within the rules? I have names for everyone else as well.
“Lion Fckface-I think you are wrong about there being a theory of evolution…”
It’s my signature move!