Please use this thread for alerting admins to moderation issues and for discussion or complaints arising from particular decisions. This thread has been reissued as a post rather than a page as the “ignore commenter” button does not apply to threads started as pages.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
here is hoping you keep searching.
quote:
[wisdom says] I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.
(Pro 8:17)
end quote
Too bad you don’t believe in free will.
William J. Murray,
Logic fail. Just presuppose he’s right. It’s what you do.
either do that or justify your presuppositions.
it’s that simple
peace
Only ideologues are sure they have the right answer. Not an ideologue. Of course ,I am pretty sure some have the wrong answer.
I do believe in freewill I just don’t think it means what you (apparently) think it means.
peace
What an absurd thing to say.
I not sure I have the right answer but I know a guy who I’m sure does
😉
peace
Absurd according to what standard exactly?
peace
Bill is already trying to change the subject…
…and newton has cold feet. So we have two seemingly unwilling folks there. But we also have:
DNA_Jock:
And fifth:
Great! So what are you waiting for? I already laid out the first three examples for you to defend, in my comments to the cold-footed guys:
First:
Next:
And:
With plenty more to come.
Good luck to Jock and fifth.
You have shot yourself in the foot.
Do we need yet another thread for the presuppositionalists to embarrass themselves in?
The standard of intellectual honesty about what people who disagree with you actually believe.
Why not? It’s not like we’re doing anything else.
keiths,
keiths, you are guano. Almost no one else cares and can easily create comments that follow the rules.
Nope. I came, I saw, I conquered. It’s done.
One of the presuppositionalists even confessed that they have no points worth considering.
keiths:
KN:
Here you go:
Bill,
You were supposed to defend the acceptability of Alan’s actions as moderator. You failed on the very first one.
No one is surprised.
Changing the subject does not constitute a defense.
fifth:
The question isn’t whether he’s been kind and respectful to you. In fact, the disparity between his kid-glove treatment of you and his appalling treatment of ALurker is what precipitated this latest moderation brouhaha.
I have a solution that allows the moderators to be perfectly unbiased and neutral. If we take away their power to guano, there can be no bias in guanoing. Problem solved.
Alan never made that argument.
You wrote:
He responded:
You appear unable to understand the distinction.
No, I do not.
But I have seen no evidence to suggest he has ever done so — only your failure to understand the obviously sardonic “The lying; it’s an emotional response that I’m learning to curb. At least no one else affects me in this way.”
You were the only one who didn’t get the joke
This is acceptable if, and only if, keiths is an asshole.
Given keiths`s documented behavior, I think we are all pretty much in agreement there.
YMMV
keiths,
Alan is fine as a moderator. The problem is we have participants that cannot argue inside the rules. If everyone argued inside the rules moderation would go away. It’s not that hard. Why don’t you try it and reduce guano by 40% instantly. I look forward to your leadership.
colewd:
That’s an assertion. I asked for people who were willing to defend, not assert, the acceptability of Alan’s actions as moderator.
You clearly aren’t willing, preferring to change the subject. So please accept your failure and fade into the background while your braver bedfellows, Jock and fifth, attempt to do what you cannot.
keiths,
It’s the same subject just taking a different approach to the root cause of the problem. You claim it is Alan I propose it is you.
Question: What are Alan’s key challenges to better moderation.
Answer: Keiths continuing to violate the rules.
If the rules are followed moderation is a chip shot.
That was beautifully put. Your conclusion doesn’t follow, though, because there is an alternative to ignoring him. The moderators could enforce the rules. If fifthmonarchyman is unable to park his priors by the door, then this isn’t the site for him. The honest and respectful thing for him to do is not participate.
Re-read the rules yourself. You do not have the authority to make a thread an adjunct of Noyau. That you would rather break the rules than enforce them demonstrates a complete lack of backbone. keiths is right — you are not fit to be a moderator here.
Grow a pair and do your job.
Did Lizzie agree with you on changing the rules in the thread I started? Did she agree that you and Neil shouldn’t enforce the rules? I’m guessing no.
Please make it clear that the thread “Do Atheists Exist?” is NOT operating under Noyau rules and then do your job and enforce the rules that fifthmonarchyman is breaking.
Or I could continue to poke at the edifice and see where the weak points are. That would be more fun.
Alternatively, I could try to improve the quality here, as I see it. I think I’ll keep doing that.
In my experience, it improves the quality of a discussion forum to have clear rules enforced fairly. I wouldn’t like to see TSZ fail.
Until today I would have agreed with you.
Yes, fifthmonarchyman chief among them. And yet Alan and Neil do nothing (excuse me, Neil Guanos comments that don’t break the rules). Alan has now progressed to violating the rules himself.
Secret Ops people always talk like this.
Yes, that would be the honest and respectful thing for him to do.
ALurker:
Interesting that many of our opponents take an attitude of “Pipe down. Just accept the flaws. Things are good enough as they are.”
By the way, I owe you an apology. While lurking, I tended to skip over your comments about the moderators being unfit. You have a slightly crusty delivery style (there’s nothing wrong with that) and I thought your position was due to some personal issues with Alan and Neil that I didn’t know about.
I was wrong. They’d rather break the rules than enforce them fairly. They really are not living up to the responsibilities of the role. I’m sorry I ignored your arguments.
ALurker:
Remember, ALurker — Alan flips back and forth between “I can’t do it without Lizzie’s approval” and “Lizzie gave absolute power to Neil and me”, depending on whatever is convenient at the moment.
Regarding this particular issue, he will go with “Lizzie gave us absolute power.” He will reverse himself the moment that becomes necessary for advancing his agenda.
Alan’s dishonesty is reflexive, and his rule-breaking routine. Jock and fifth think that Alan’s behavior is acceptable. It clearly isn’t.
ALurker:
Thank you for saying that. Apology accepted.
As with you, it took me a while to realize what Alan and Neil are really like. First impressions can be very misleading.
I’m glad you’ve seen through their posturing, and I hope that other folks reading this will see through it too.
ALurker,
The data does not support this. Last 85 Guano comments:
-keiths 36
-Fifth 0
The subject you were arguing was challenging and I agree Fifth was walking a line but in general he is respectful commentator.
colewd:
No, it wouldn’t (as I will explain in a later comment). Plus, we already know that people don’t invariably stick to the rules — and sometimes for very good reasons (for example, when the rules punish honesty and reward dishonesty).
You’re basing your solution on an idealized population of rule followers. That isn’t realistic (nor desirable, given flaws in the rules such as the one I mentioned above). We need a solution that works in reality, not in some fictional realm.
Your solution isn’t one. Mine would actually achieve your stated goal of making moderation “go away”, and it would work with real people, not the rule-followers of your imaginary utopia.
That data explicitly supports my statement. Alan and Neil are failing to enforce the rules that fifthmonarchyman is breaking.
That’s simply bullshit. Telling other people what they believe or know, after repeatedly being told otherwise, is utterly disrespectful.
colewd:
No, it wouldn’t. Neil demonstrated that just this morning by guanoing ALurker’s comment for a bogus reason. Alan circled the wagons with Neil and supported his action instead of criticizing it. It was a problem created by the moderators’ contempt for the rules, not ALurker’s.
But once again, my solution takes care of that problem. Alan and Neil will remain asses even if they are stripped of their power to guano. But without that power, they won’t be able to inflict themselves on the rest of us in the same way as before. It’s a big win for TSZ.
What if you presume you don’t have to justify what few assumptions as possible.?
If I understand what you’re saying, I agree. Why the hell would anyone “presuppose” (a synonym for “assume”, as far as I can tell) a freaking GOD? I’d start with something we might all be able to agree on and support with some empirical evidence like “There appears to be an objective reality that we all perceive through our senses more or less similarly.” Skipping to the conclusion you were raised to believe in before you were able to able to think critically strikes me as self-serving, at best.
Jock,
You’re a reasonably bright person, but one thing that bedevils you is your tendency to rush to judgment before gathering the facts. Then, having committed to a position, you stick to it obstinately instead of re-evaluating it in light of the new evidence that is presented to you.
We’ll return to this theme multiple times, but for now let’s look at one particular instance of your rushing to judgment.
I wrote:
You replied:
You had already asserted that Alan’s behavior was acceptable. Yet you did so without bothering to look at the evidence available to you.
Alan’s dishonesty has been demonstrated more than once, right in front of you, in this very discussion. How did you manage to miss it?
I hope fifth hasn’t given up. It would be a shame if Jock were the only one left defending the indefensible.
ALurker,
.
36 to 0 since September
You appear to have a unique perspective. Do you think you understand the rules better then the moderators?
You did not ask them how they would perceived, you questioned the honesty of his intent. Wonder what others think?
colewd, to ALurker:
This is not difficult, Bill.
ALurker asked fifth if fifth thought his own behavior was honest.
ALurker did not accuse fifth of behaving dishonestly.
ALurker’s question was a question, not an accusation.
Now, it might occur to you, as it would to anyone with an IQ in the double digits or higher, that ALurker probably thought that fifth was being dishonest. It might also occur to you that ALurker wanted others to reach that conclusion. I would be willing to bet on both.
But the thoughts behind a comment are not what matters. A comment is only supposed to be guanoed if the comment itself violates the rules.
Neil clearly screwed up. Alan circled the wagons and backed Neil, when he should have called Neil on it and corrected the mistake.
It was yet another moderation fuckup.
Note also that this demonstrates one of the systemic problems with moderation at TSZ, independent of the incompetence and dishonesty of our particular moderators.
When a rule is so lame that you can get around it by a simple edit, like changing a sentence from…
…to…
…then what has the rule accomplished? Nothing useful, other than forcing the writer to make a pointless edit in order to bring the comment in line with the rules. The message still gets through.
There are people here who have a kind of magical belief in the protective power of the rules, as if they were keeping TSZ from descending into a chaos of flame wars. But come on — do they really think that if
…will ignite a flame war, that
…will not? It’s ludicrous.
It’s like someone doing a ritual every morning to protect herself from being trampled by elephants during her walk to the bus stop — in Cleveland. The ritual accomplishes nothing. The absence of stampeding elephants in the streets of Cleveland does all the work.
Some people seem to believe that the rule is protecting us, but a little thought shows that it’s doing nothing of the sort. It’s just like the bus rider’s ritual. Why bother with it, given all the headaches? Even with good moderators, it’s a waste of time and effort. With bad ones, you get more fuckups like the one that Neil and Alan provided us with today.
We’re better off without the rule.
This is good stuff, keiths, I think you are close to an epiphany.
You argue that ALurker’s comment did not break the rules, thanks to its careful phrasing, and therefore the moderators were wrong to guano it.
You do reckon that ALurker’s intent was to paint fifth as dishonest.
In the next comment you argue that this represents a fundamental flaw in the ruleset and its enforcement, since crafty bastards can, by careful phrasing, stay within the letter of the law whilst breaching the spirit of the law.
If only there were some way around this quandry. You’re a smart guy keiths, maybe you can come up with a solution…
Verily, you have a future in comedy, my man.
You are making an unwarranted assumption. I did look at the evidence. I reached a different conclusion. My statement “I have seen no evidence” is not the admission of ignorance that you presume it to be. It is an invitation to you to provide some…
Perhaps because it wasn’t there. You’ll have to forgive me for giving your assertions the weight they deserve; given the opportunity to defend your claim that Alan argued “that the rules don’t apply to him because he “gave no specific undertakings” to Lizzie?” or your claim that Alan has admitted to lying, you ducked.
You realize that according to a strict interpretation of the rules all non moderation posts on this thread should be sent to guano to avoid cluttering up this thread.
I realize that Fifth can be frustrating but I think no one can doubt the sincerity of his beliefs. And as one of the vocal proponents of theism he provides a diversity of opinion which this site was founded to promote. And for me the preservation that diversity has a greater benefit than fifth views on the existence of atheism cause harm. I realize that that is subjective judgement, but I think it is worth considering. For the record the owner seemed to share that feeling. In this particular case the greater good is served by neglect.
None of this say that Fifth should be given a pass in other areas.
Rather than a flaw I see that as a feature to promote a more creative discourse.