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.
Entropy:
Please explain to me what is so difficult about not closing comments on a thread, when the rules don’t permit it. Also, please explain to me why it is so difficult to tell the readers why comments were closed. Alan and Neil are grown men, and you think that’s too much to ask of them?
I am having fun. TSZ is a great place, and it has the potential to be even better. That’s what makes it worth protecting!
There’s no reason for a site as valuable as TSZ to be saddled with moderators as bad as Alan and Neil.
That is the last thing anybody should do.
Can’t find anything Lizzie has posted here that supports that assertion. Can you link to it?
Let me remind you again this is Lizzie’s blog. She has described it as a benign dictatorship. She has remarked that people who wish to complain about moderating decisions can do so. I can find no undertaking from her that she would always explain or justify her decisions. She has also remarked that in her absence, she expects admins to use their own initiative – be proactive.
In the case of closing a thread to further comments, it’s certainly a better solution than deleting the thread.
In fact, it is in the document they signed when they agreed to become admins.
Now where did I put my copy of that …
I will be answerable to the people!
Vote Mung!
When do the rules permit closing comments?
And Elizabeth.
Alan,
Exactly. So why do you ignore her rules and make up your own?
The Paley thread wasn’t an emergency, and it didn’t demand the creation of a new rule. What is it with your repeated moderation overreactions?
Why do either? Why didn’t you guys leave the thread alone?
And, after all, it was Elizabeth who set the precedent. If it’s ok for Elizabeth it’s ok for Alan and Neil.
Moderators need to have fun too.
Neil,
Why did you close comments on the Paley thread?
Alan,
Why did you rubber-stamp Neil’s action?
Mung,
Lizzie at least offered a reason, though I think it was a bad one.
Keiths,
Just a reminder, I check this thread from time to time. You could easily give a summary of your beliefs here if you chose to.
As you know until you do I just don’t see how I can follow the rule to assume you are posting in good faith.
peace
No such action is required. No such action was taken.
fifth:
Keep making excuses for hiding behind your ‘Ignore’ button, fifth. It brings great glory to Jesus.
I did not know that. I guess I should put you back on Ignore. 🙂
Alan,
You’ve told us that moderators are a check on each other.
You neither objected to, nor reversed, Neil’s decision. Do you think it was justified? If so, why, specifically?
I don’t know about that but it does make me happy when I can follow the rules.
It’s the polite thing to do.
It would also I think, be polite to let me know what you actually believe instead of claiming to hold to mutually exclusive axioms at the same time.
peace
Can I have a citation for that too?
I commented on Neil’s decision.
I think Neil’s action was acceptable in the particular circumstances. And Neil is perfectly justified in acting as he has by the power vested in him by Lizzie. He was being proactive. It is a dictatorship, here, though a benign one. As I keep saying, don’t like it, moan directly to Lizzie. Other options are open to you.
fifth,
It has nothing to do with politeness, and everything to do with fear. With the great power of Jesus on your side, you are hiding behind your Ignore button.
That says something about your supposed faith, doesn’t it?
As for what I believe, you already know that I’m an atheist. I’ve also made it explicit:
If you intend to keep hiding, you’ll need to find another excuse.
That’s funny. Aren’t all other religions fake?
Now I’m really going to have to put you back on Ignore.
No. They’re wrong, but not fake. Zoroastrianism is a real religion, Mung.
So you were pretending? Being dishonest?
You really did not believe the things you said you believed?
Why then did you claim to believe them?
Do you do this sort of thing often?
How do I know when you are telling the truth here instead of lying to try and get an advantage?
Are you lying now?
Can I expect the same behavior from other atheists?
peace
Excellent pointer.
I shall look closely inside the empty set.
Alan,
Anyone who wants to comment on the Paley thread should be free to do so. You and Neil are preventing that. Why, specifically?
Closing comments is the kind of shit kairosfocus pulls, fercrissakes. What is wrong with you guys?
fifth,
So your defense is “I was too dumb to figure out that you weren’t really a follower of Rumraket”?
This is true:
This is false. For here you are, commenting on it, and neither Alan nor Neil is preventing you.
Think, keiths.
No my “defense” is that if you are willing to lie simply try to gain a debate advantage there is no way I can follow the rule to assume you are posting in good faith and it’s really impossible to dialogue with you here at all.
And to point out that if Rumracketism does not actually exist then it is no challenge to Christianity whatsoever.
peace
I think you fundamentally misunderstand the raison d’être of TSZ. Why not look back in the early pages of the “rules” thread at some of Lizzie’s comments expanding on her aims while you are looking up cites to those, as yet, unsupported assertions of yours.
Mung:
As if you didn’t know that “commenting on the Paley thread” meant “commenting on the Paley thread.”
Please do, so that people won’t have to read your inane responses to my comments.
Alan,
You’re still avoiding the issue. Why, specifically, do you think it was appropriate for Neil to close comments on the Paley thread?
“Because he decided to” is not responsive to the question.
It’s pretty obvious that you and Neil can’t justify his decision, or you would have done so already.
It was yet another moderation screwup.
fifth,
It’s not lying to mockingly defending Rumraketism, an amusing analogue of presuppositionalist Christianity, as you know perfectly well. It’s parody, and it’s an effective form of mockery. You couldn’t even defend your own presuppositional Christianity against a fake presuppositionalist religion!
Manufacture whatever excuses you like. People can figure out the real reason you’re hiding behind your Ignore button.
keiths,
Well, first let’s have your citations.
Alan,
Good moderators correct their mistakes. Neither you nor Neil can justify the closing of comments on the Paley thread.
Why haven’t you reversed it?
You’re not serving TSZ. You’re serving yourselves, as usual.
keiths,
Citations? What’s the problem? You haven’t been making stuff up, have you?
Good members support their assertions, don’t they? Come on, Keiths, citations?
This is as close as Alan will come to admitting that he can’t justify Neil’s action.
And Neil’s silence serves the same role.
If you can’t justify it, why won’t you reverse it?
I’ve always liked these:
1. Because I can.
2. Because I don’t want to.
You made some claims, Keiths. Can you support the claim that
with a citation?
And apparently:
A reference for this?
Where’s Patrick when you need him.
Patrick would reverse Neil and force keiths to support his claims or retract them.
Alan,
This is the Moderation Issues thread, and we are talking about a moderation decision that you and Neil made.
Neither of you can justify the closing of comments. Why won’t you reverse that action?
You are desperately trying to change the subject to my “citations”, as if that should make a difference. But why? The fact that you and Neil can’t justify your action has nothing to do with any “citations”.
You screwed up, pulled a kairosfocus, and closed comments on a thread that should have remained open. It was your mistake, and it’s your responsibility, as moderators, to correct it.
Do your job.
Alan,
Remember your W(h)ine Cellar screwup? You refused to acknowledge your mistake and refused to clean up after yourself. Because of your refusal, Lizzie had to step in and clean up for you.
You keep screwing up, and you keep refusing to admit and correct your mistakes.
If you refuse to correct your mistakes, then you shouldn’t be moderating in the first place.
TSZ does fine when you and Neil are absent. Take that to heart and stop meddling. There was no reason to close comments on the Paley thread. We don’t need the two of you running around and pulling idiot kairosfocus moves like that.
Lizzie started this site partly in reaction to the censorship at UD. Why on earth do you and Neil keep pulling these idiot censorship moves, as with J-Mac, phoodoo, and the closing of comments?
If you wanted to mock Christianity by claiming that it was just like a nonsense religion you would have been able to show that Rumracketism was just like Christianity when I asked you to provide a summary of it’s tenets.
Instead when I asked you said they were secret.
So I am forced to conclude one of three things
1) You were mocking a made up religion for some unknown reason
2) To get a debating advantage you were claiming to believe something you don’t actually believe on a website that forbids me to even question such a claim.
or
3) you are lying right now!!
peace
PS Because you have shown no remorse for your admitted deception I have no choice but to assume that you are quite possibly lying every single time you comment on this website
Oh dear, keiths,
Please slow down and pay attention. When you rush to judgement, you make mistakes. Here’s one small example:
You accused me of “not doing my homework” because I disagreed with your assertion
(A)
You subsequently followed up with the weaker assertion
(B)
I asked you to support these two assertions with citations.
When I did so, I very clearly distinguished between the weaker assertion (B), which I was even willing to grant arguendo, and the “job” assertion, which was the one I had disputed, the cause of your accusation. I pointed out that, to support your claim that I had not done my homework, you needed to produce support for claim (A), the “job” assertion.
Your response: to claim that my “I think you may be correct in this, but I’d like to see your evidence.”, referring to assertion (B), confirmed that I “had not done my homework”.
Wrong assertion, kiddo. You need to support the
assertion.
Since you cannot, I insist that you retract your “homework” slander.
fifth,
I gave you a taste of your own medicine, and you didn’t like it. I used the same bogus presuppositional tactics to defend Rumraketism that you use to defend Christianity.
That put you in an embarrassing position: You could either acknowledge the superiority of Rumraketism, or admit that the tactics I was using to defend Rumraketism — the same tactics that you use to defend Christianity — were bogus, thus undermining your own case.
Your struggle was amusing to watch.
As I said, keep making excuses for hiding behind your Ignore button. People can figure out the real reason. It’s obvious.
keiths, are you really unaware of the symmetry here?
Yikes.
fifth:
“My admitted deception”? You are seriously claiming that you were deceived by an obvious parody?
Damn, fifth. If you are really that slow, then no wonder you are hiding behind your Ignore button.
no you lied because you knew I could not call you on it.
No you said that your beliefs were secret in order gain a debating advantage. That is the opposite of presupositionalism which seeks to examine our hidden beliefs.
Let’s face it you will do anything at all to win including lie.
Someone who would lie and then get their giggles because they cold not be called on it is a despicable…….. liar.
Parody is not lying, fifth.
You were helpless against your own tactics, and it was highly amusing.
Who were you parodying when you refused for months to share the beliefs of your new secret religion?
I really have no choice but to conclude that you are lying when you say that it was a parody.
That is because you are an admitted unremorseful liar
peace