Please use this thread for (and only for) alerting admins to moderation issues and for raising complaints arising from particular decisions. We remind participants that TSZ is a benign dictatorship, the property of Dr. Elizabeth Liddle. All decisions regarding policy and implementation are hers alone.
I think they both said they would but didn’t. Like proving ID, kind of.
walto,
It’s too low on the scale of worthwhile priorities to associate oneself with ‘skeptics.’ Elisabeth was simply upset because kind ole’ apostate her was kicked out of UD. But UD is a joke. It was started by Dembski, but just window dressing for IDists now.
This site serves no valuable purpose and has no function, once IDism is gone.
Would you like to help me end IDism once and for all?
This is factually incorrect. I asked for volunteers as admin and Vincent offered his services at the same time making clear that he could only offer a limited amount of time.
Vincent is a free agent.
Lizzie personally requested Jon”s input. He also offered limited input bearing in mind his other commitments.
Alan Fox,
Has Vincent ‘moderated’ a single time, Alan? Yes or No will do.
Or, perhaps Alan is waiting ‘moderation without a moderator’? LOL!
Thanks, but it’s not really my area.
Alan got fired by keiths… He still thinks he is involved…
France changed is life… it’s paradise I couldn’t see…somehow..
Back-channel certainly. Whether he’s moved a comment or similar action, possibly not. Not any way to check.
You could start an entire new branch of philosophy and declare yourself the expert.
FWIW, I do think it’s a shame that no theist will ever act as a mod here–even the two that have agreed to do so. As I said, the moderation has always seemed a bit asymmetrical–especially to the theists. And even though patrick’s departure was all to the good on that front (he was about as bad as it’s possible to be), the site will still be criticized as unfair without a mod from “the other side.”
It takes a particular sort to be a good mod, and I think Neil and Jock are the right sort and do a creditable job myself. But there are too many posts for them to really know what’s going on. and I don’t know who else would make sense from the non-theist side–corneel maybe? newton?
But what about from the other faction? FMM, mung, Gregory and J-Mac seem obviously bad choices (not a criticism–I wouldn’t be any good either) for various reaons. So who’s left since Vince obviously isn’t going to do anything? Bill (colewd)? Would he actually do it? I think he’d be pretty good myself. Probably nobody else, unfortunately.
But whoever takes the keys has to actually start the freaking car!
I’m already planning to do that with my forthcoming work on why we shouldn’t trust goatherds as much as we now do.
walto:
walto, What was that line from The Last Emperor. Help or get out of the fucking way; was it?
keiths,
Well, keiths, I think your views are particularly relevant on this matter for obvious reasons, so I withdraw the suggestion.
Although, I believe you have veto power anyhow.
Alan Fox,
Love that movie–but don’t remember that line.
I’d nominate mung and newton as moderators.
I think that they are partisan but could be fair and participate enough to catch egregious violations.
In my opinion what would help in general is more of a balance and diversity of opinions.
So I think that you could even go out on a limb and bring in colewd and walto to counter balance each other.
It would not be a bad thing to have a little conflict between the moderators from time to time as long as a consensus could be reached in the end.
No offense but I think that it’s by design that the moderators from the theist side tend to be either mostly absent or not as partisan as the atheist mods here.
I think that all the moderators do a terrific job but as with all of us their decisions are colored by their worldview. We can’t help it it’s human nature
When there is limited diversity there is a tendency to miss unconscious bias.
peace
The easiest way to eliminate bias, as a factor, is to eliminate moderation altogether. Admins will still have biases, of course, but if they’re restricted to admin duties and forbidden from moderating, then their biases won’t matter nearly as much, if at all.
TSZ doesn’t need moderators, and it runs far more smoothly when they’re absent or not moderating.
If you eliminated moderation I fear that what little civility that is present here would be lost in no time.
We are people after all
quote:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
end quote
Alexander Hamilton (famous rapper and Broadway star)
😉
peace
fifth:
That hasn’t been the case. When the moderators are absent or on vacation, TSZ does just fine. It doesn’t descend into chaos or substanceless flame wars.
When Alan ran his two “experiments” with no-guano threads, they turned out just fine. No chaos. It’s exactly the opposite of what he had hoped to prove.
A lot of people have a magical belief in the protective power of moderation. It’s a silly belief, and the evidence doesn’t support it.
1) I don’t think that you are the best judge as to what counts as a substanceless flame war
2) A temporary absence is not the same thing as a permanent abolishment of moderation.
Moderators can and do often remove comments long after they are made and everyone interested has read them.
What is helpful is the knowledge that a particular comment is considered over the line by the powers that be not it’s instantaneous removal to guano.
Peace
fifth,
The evidence I’ve mentioned shows that we don’t need moderation. You haven’t presented any evidence that we do need it. It’s just a magical belief.
Do you really think that moving comments from one thread to another is saving us from chaos? That’s just goofy.
There is blatant rule breaking in most threads here.
People often even acknowledge that their own comments should be moved to guano.
What other evidence could you possibly need??
peace
What saves us from chaos most of the time is the knowledge that there are some things that won’t be tolerated here forever.
Incidentally that is generally what saves us from chaos in our communities and societies as well.
peace
fifth:
Which, if you think about it, is strong evidence that the threat of guanoing doesn’t prevent rule breaking. Oops.
Again, moderation does not have the magical power that you and others ascribe to it.
Also, you seem to be forgetting, if you ever realized it, that the rules are not ends in themselves at TSZ, and neither is civility. Lizzie has said that she never intended for TSZ to be a particularly polite place. She just wanted it to remain a productive place where substantive discussion could happen. The goal is not to prevent snark or mockery, and it it certainly isn’t to give special protection to religious views, which is what you were arguing for in your dispute with walto over his comments on the Orthodox funeral he attended.
Substantive discussion can and does continue even in the absence of politeness. We see it all the time here.
Third, if civility actually were the aim, then the threat of guanoing would be woefully inadequate as a means of achieving it.
There are at least a couple of reasons for this.
First, in order for guanoing to be an effective deterrent, the people making the comments actually have to care whether they get guanoed, and they have to care enough that they are dissuaded from making the comment in the first place.
Quite often they don’t. Hotshoe provided many vivid examples of this. She would openly state that she knew a comment of hers was rule-violating and that it would likely be guanoed, but she would post it anyway just for the satisfaction of expressing herself.
We saw something like that from walto today:
Deterrent effect on walto: zero.
Second, even the folks who do care can simply rephrase their comments to avoid guanoing while retaining the intended derisive effect. The rules are helpless against this.
Guanoing doesn’t work as a way of achieving civility, and it’s easy to see why.
No, I was arguing for human compassion and decency and treating others with a little respect especially in the time of their grieving.
I agree moderation is woefully inadequate. That is not a reason to abandon it.
In order for civility to be sufficient for genuinely productive discussion to take place what is necessary is regeneration. That is way too much to expect here with any regularity.
Like in all the worlds interactions between apposing viewpoints the best we can generally hope for is a little shower of common grace from time to time.
My suggestion for you when you find someone who is willing to lie in order to gain a debating advantage is to place them on ignore. 😉
peace
That’s because I remembered it incorrectly. It was “Join us, comrade, or fuck off.”
PS
I mentioned it as an extreme example of what Lizzie’s been hoping to avoid:
“My motivation for starting the site has been the experience of trying to discuss religion, politics, evolution, the Mind/Brain problem, creationism, ethics, exit polls, probability, intelligent design, and many other topics in venues where positions are strongly held and feelings run high. In most venues, one view dominates, and there is a kind of “resident prior” about the integrity, intelligence and motivation of those who differ from the majority view.
It’s that “resident prior” that a more diverse moderation group should help to address.
That’s the idea anyway
peace
I recommended that my comment be moved because it is rule-violative, contains no (other) substance, and might drive visitors away. There either aren’t enough mods here to implement the rules or they don’t care enough to do so.
Incidentally, I think the idea that keiths has theories about civility and its values is pretty funny. For those who’d lke to know what ‘it ran better then ‘ means in keithsland, it’s something like ‘nobody guanoed anything.’ It’s pretty much like that now, which he naturally likes. And the substance to noise ratio is incredibly bad at thi point.
Sadly, only about a third of the noise here is actionable under the current rules anyhow. which is why I’ve advocated for their change since I’ve been here.
But bad as it has always been on that front, as I said elsewhere, we have now
Anyhow, I entirely agree with fmm (and Hamilton) on this matter, except for the suggestions that I moderate and that I’m somehow akin to colewd. One, I have no interest in the job. Two, I’d be much worse than he would be at it. Bill’s wrong about nearly everything, but he seems even-tempered. Even (the cuckoo) Charlie would be a better choice than me.
Let me just close my remarks on this matter by reminding everyone that keiths needs help, and that if he would, as I suggest, fuck off, it might be good for him too.
It would also test the claim that TSZ has become a better place.
I was checking something and noticed we have passed the seventh anniversary of TSZ!
Do you agree with the aims? Should be easy to tailor the rules to suit the aims, if the aims are supported by at least a majority of contributors. What would be ideal is that Lizzie return and restate her aims or cede the site.
For about the eighth time, Alan, I’m not offering any more suggestions for rules revisions until it’s clear that there’s a real interest in changing things here. I’ve wasted enough time on that in the past.
{Note to self: In fact, I waste far too much time here as it is.}
I paired you guys not because of your temperament but because you seem be similar in other ways. You both seem to be willing to share your actual positions and can be a little wordy at times.
I think newton and mung would be a good match because they are both pithy and quirky and odd and don’t seemed to be too concerned that others understand where they are actually coming from.
Likewise I would probably pare Charlie with KN because they have a similar style of prose and seem to have an intense interest in sharing what their favorite authorities think while attempting to expand upon it.
If I wanted to pick a counterpart for me it would probably be keiths. We have polar opposite temperaments but we are both true believers and hate to ever admit that we are wrong and would hold to our respective opinions even if we were the only ones in the world who did so. We are nothing if not stubborn
Anyway long story short in my opinion what we need when it comes to moderation is diversity not necessarily a particular temperament.
peace
keiths:
fifth:
No, you weren’t. The attendees of that funeral were not affected by walto’s words here at TSZ, as you know perfectly well.
You were whining because you were offended, and you seized on the funeral attendees in a failed attempt at legitimizing your personal grievance.
TSZ is not about protecting the beliefs of Special Snowflakes. If you choose to maintain a ridiculous belief system such as Christianity, then you should expect criticism. To freely criticize your opponents’ beliefs, as you do, but then to whine when your own absurd beliefs are criticized, is hypocritical.
Man up, fifth. The honest way to defend your faith is by actually defending it, not by trying to prevent others from criticizing it.
Well, fifth, I agree with you on the diversity of viewpoint angle, but I don’t think you’d ever want anybody like me, keiths, you, or Patrick as a mod. You have to be even-tempered and at least try to be impartial. I don’t think mung makes sense either. Too interested in being a provocateur/firebrand/jokester. Vince would have been perfect. He should have just done what I did–say that he’s not interested.
seriously??
Do you actually think that to say the music was nice but you wish they did not have all the jebuz talk at the Orthodox funereal of your friend is a criticism of my beliefs?
Don’t answer that. You probably do.
peace
What does “back-channel certainly” mean? What’s an example of something ‘moderatorial’ that Vince has done at TSZ, without going into specifics?
The public wall is what I’m talking about. I don’t care if Vincent J. Torley is servicing you or other TSZists privately as individuals or not.
I do understand where you are coming from.
But I don’t think that impartiality is remotely possible in humans. It’s just not in our nature. I think all we can hope for is a little kindness and understanding.
Diversity of opinions and internal and structural checks and balances is what Hamilton would advocate to make moderation work better. I think.
I certainly don’t think I’d ever be asked to moderate here. I’m not good at that sort of thing anyway. I don’t do very well on jury duty either
I honestly thought Patrick was a moderator for a very long time. He seemed to be the one harping on the rules all the time. It was not until he tried to get me banned that I understood that he was not in charge.
peace
Gregory, to Alan:
We disagree on a lot, Gregory, but credit where it’s due. That was an excellent zinger.
The theoretical deterrent effect would be on those who feel the need to respond to Walto’s comment. Absent the comment ,nothing to respond to.
walto,
What do you come here for then? Wasn’t it anti-IDism in the beginning for you, like it was for most of the atheists that got thrown from the painfully prolonged sinking of the UD ship? There’s a major feature of IDism & YECism bashing, as well as religion-doubting, sometimes even attempted shaming at this site. The ability to be ‘skeptical’ is of course not limited to people who are religiously numb and/or who have simply pushed all gods or spirits out of the ‘rational realm of possibility.’ It’s like actuarialising the human soul, yet some people even get paid to do it!
newton,
A guanoed comment has been moved, not deleted, and if the moderator is doing his job, there is a link from the original thread to the guanoed comment. Commenters who “feel the need” to respond can and will do so.
I’ve advocated that the starter of a thread sets the policy for the thread, as to who may participate and what sort of exchanges are allowed. When the ignore feature was given, it made it useful to actually participate here, and so my recommendation wasn’t as urgently needed as before.
So why should anyone participate here? Should it be to convince the opposing party he is wrong? HAHAHAHA!
It is a way to extend one’s own thinking process, not to change anyone’s mind or to promote or advocate ideas to the public in general. Hardly anyone reads this blog. If one wants to promote their ideas, TSZ isn’t the place to do it.
It’s a good place to have your ideas criticized. If someone’s comments are particularly brain dead, I put them on ignore. I come to TSZ to hear opposing opinions from experts like Tom English, Joe Felsenstein, faded_glory, John Harshman (although sometime when Harshman continues to put up the same lame arguments he gets put on ignore), Larry Moran, etc.
As far as how I’d deal with some of the theist crowd here if I had my way, like say Mung and Gregory, you can ask them how I dealt with them over yonder at UD. 🙂
I’ve been gone from TSZ, not because wasn’t having a good time, but I found other places to have a good time.
That said, the International Conference on Creationism is happening next week in Pittsburgh, PA July 29-August 18, 2018. I want to discuss some of the papers here, one in particularly that would be of interest to the population geneticists and molecular biologists here.
Most of the papers are downloadable.
http://www.creationicc.org/icc18_abstracts.php
There is enough stuff from that conference to last 5 years of discussion!!!
Sal:
Five years of swatting down creationist inanities.
Sounds wonderful… not.
Sal,
Lizzie shot that idea down quickly, and rightly so. If I recall, “mini echo chambers” was the way she described the threads that would be produced under that rule.
The last thing we need is for the Sals, J-Macs, and fifths of the world to be given the power to censor willy-nilly.
Censor? You want to start a dissenting thread at TSZ, you can, no one will stop you. The idea was keeping people from heckling a thread. If Gregory wants to bombast on his own thread at TSZ, he can, I just don’t want hecklers derailing a discussion.
That said, I found that the problem usually goes away if a technical topic is discussed. Remember that thermodynamics thread. I don’t recall a single moderation action was necessary. Mostly the same for the Common Design thread except maybe for Entropy losing his cool when I dissed him and ignored his bone headed “expertise” and let him know I have a rather low regard for his knowledge base.
Such discussions can move forward without guano or mod interference.
Sal,
When you prevent someone from commenting in your thread or you delete their comments, you are censoring them.
Censorship is the last thing we need at TSZ.
Keiths,
As far as I’m concerned, with your generous help in adding the ignore button, TSZ satisfies most of my requirements. I was mostly making suggestions for those unhappy here as I’d like TSZ to prosper. If someone is really unhappy here they can start their own website and see if they can get people to participate.
I created and participate in private website and com channels through DISCORD and ZOOM. It’s much more effective. But occasionally I need to interact with opposing views.
You don’t like what goes down here at TSZ, you can go elsewhere. So why haven’t you? Hmm….not enough people would visit your website to stroke your need for constant argumentation, even of trivial stuff like arguments over 500 fair coins or thermodynamics? 🙂
FWIW, things do move forward for some who pass by here, and I want TSZ to continue to stay alive.
For example Bill Basener was keynote speaker at a SECULAR international biology conference. He adjusted his speech based on some of the feedback here at TSZ. See? This place serves a good purpose, especially for the ID side: