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.
J-Mac what’s your level of security clearance? This can not be confirmed or denied. He has already said too much.
All I would like to know is who really calls the shots here and why?
If TSZ is to continue and not to sink into an oblivion similar to UD, we need some level of consistency from moderators which means we can’t have 3 bias moderators just as we have right now…
Mung’s “sins” include removing keiths off moderation and giving me basic publishing rights, which people like OMagain apparently have… Now, without any explanation, my publishing rights were taken away…
Oh no! I don’t think there is any need to look any further than your most recent OP to understand why that might have come about.
When, or if, one day you come up with an OP, or a comment, that makes me want to respond to… You may consider showing off your abilities to Google, by looking up the difference between naturally occurring “trans fats” and artificial ones you embarrassed yourself so badly about… on the OP you just mentioned…😂
It is well-known that Mung is the only religious theist to have been made a Moderator at TSZ. Bartlett & Torley didn’t actually serve as Moderators.
The other 3 current Mods enabled by the Lizzie/Alan duo are atheist, agnostic, apatheist. They are either non-religious or anti-religious.
The message is clear: TSZ is not a friendly place for religious theists.
Gregory,
Why do you think its called The Skeptical Zone Gregory.
Skeptics are famous for their online shennigans. Its why Wikipedia is so blatantly biased. Its run by skeptics.
Blatantly biased against stultifying pseudoscience isn’t a bad thing.
Then why do the skeptics need to constantly lie and cheat if the truth were on their side?
They don’t.
Enlightmen me, what bullshit is it you keep wanting to edit into some wikipedia article?
Rumraket,
Alan pulling this bullshit is all part and parcel of the nonsense skeptic lie machine.
phoodoo,
Alan is a certified prick, but it has nothing to do with some imaginary “skeptic lie machine”.
Ah, yes, Wikipedia’s well-known blatant bias towards objectivity. It’s so damn tragic. Why can’t Wikipedia accept alternative facts?
Alan:
J-Mac:
If he (or they) did, that would be an enormous abuse of moderator privileges. They owe us an immediate answer.
Lizzie is fully aware of the situation.
phoodoo,
It’s beyond ridiculous.
Jock:
That doesn’t answer J-Mac’s question:
Perhaps mung can email Patrick to give you an answer.
FWIW, I would not want to be a moderator of most any forum. NOTHING a moderator does will ever be appreciated. I have enough haters already, I don’t need to make more.
I’d love to know what the hell mung has been accused of doing–and what he says about those accusations. I know Bruce and some others here don’t like transparency. I’m not in that group myself.
Why aren’t the people WHO CONTRIBUTE ALL THE CONTENT HERE aware of the situation?
The skeptical guerrilla skepticism conspiracy continues.
Despicable.
My criticisms of Alan were obviously well placed. His intentions here have always been self-serving.
So suppose you knew. What practical difference would it make other than gossiping and even more noise on this thread?
Well, I might think OK, that makes sense. Or I might think, Wow, if that’s how they run the place I’m done here. Or I might think, They need another moderator, I don’t want to do it, but maybe I should help them find one. Or I might think, I wonder if I can talk them out of that kind of policy. Etc.
Your anti-democratic attitude is kind of dangerous in the sense that it models precisely what we don’t want in our governments, MO.
walto,
Exactly.
How can anyone who voluntarily participates feel it is better to have hidden censorship. Whacko.
Saying what you might think is not a practical consequence unless there is something you can do about it different from what you can do now.. Of your list, only the last seems item an actionable change from what you can do now. A possible rule change would be for guidelines for moderators being published, should whoever ends up running the forum decide to do so.
I don’t know how you can call my attitude anti-democratic. Ensuring an informed public when voting is the core reason why democracies have transparency, I believe. So if democracy is the reason for transparency, you also need to argue that moderators should be elected by all people who want to vote on it and provide some process for making such a vote representative.
But even in democracies, there are plenty of private processes: think of closed congressional door hearings, the process for requesting private information from government agencies, and the processes and standards for information from public corporation.
In any event, TSZ is a privately run and owned forum, not some public corporation or government, and from what I have seen on the latest imbroglio, it is being run as the owner wishes.
‘Nuff said for me.
You have worked in academia. Maybe you are currently working there.
Don’t they keep personnel deliberations confidential until a final conclusion is reached?
BruceS:
You need to think more about that. Seems obviously wrong.
Way too many of those, IMHO. If it’s a personnel or national security thing, there might be a good reason. Often there isn’t.
Not just in academia, but in workplaces generally. If this is the sort of thing where someone’s reputation needs to be protected, I can understand the silence. But if it’s not, I can’t.
Neil Rickert,
You aren’t Mung’s employer.
Mung is free to comment, he has choosen not.
A private business has decided to keep volunteer deliberations confidential until a final conclusion is reached.
You have a right to complain in the moderation thread until the private business decides otherwise.
newton,
I’d very much welcome hearing from Mung, privately or publicly, as he chooses.
newton,
What’s the business model?
Wait, isn’t it getting people to trust the site enough to comment and contribute on?
Interesting tactic, removing that trust and all…
It’s an outrage! I’d take my business elsewhere if I were you.
It’s not even a business. It’s a donated service.
Although “members” have every right to come and go as they please, and be offended or not by any action of the donor, we are all guests at a free lunch.
I’m in a bit of a quandary. I’d like to take the high road. That is not in hopes of having my moderator status restored. I haven’t heard from Elizabeth but the point is moot because as far as I am concerned that ship has sailed. But neither do I care for speculation.
At some point last week my ability to perform moderation functions was removed. I logged in one day and discovered I no longer had admin permissions. Needless to say it came as a bit of a shock.
Turns out it should not have come as a shock. I misread the PM that Alan sent me. I read it as referring to what I should say to keiths regarding his request to have Author status restored. In hindsight I see he was telling me that my status was being changed. Given other conversations that were taking place at the time I assume he notified Neil and DNA_Jock and it was a unanimous decision.
The reason or reasons for this action have not been given to me. I still have not heard from Elizabeth.
Nor have the other moderators, as far as I know.
That’s it?!
How is that a big deal?! Mung made an innocent mistake acting (what he thought was) in good faith…Is this an unforgivable sin among skeptics?!
Give me a break!
There is no need to invoke CIA, Scotland Yard or the French Direction Générale De La Sécurité Extérieure…
I do think Mung is owed transparency on why exactly his privileges were revoked.
Agreed.
Thanks for that explanation, mung.
That’s already happened.
The model is he who supplies the gold ,rules.
Right now this site costs her the same amount of money whether anyone comments or not. If the value of the site to her outweighs the cost, then having it active would be better. The more hassle the site is, I would think would affect the cost/ value equation.
Since you gripe about isite and moderation all the time including mung’s , it is hard to see how your trust is actually in play. Some might say you are happier when things go south.
Indeed. You get what you pay for. IMHO, some of us have gotten WAAAY better than what we’ve paid for. All the fun I’ve had at this place for free is practically thievery!
Alan:
Are you implying that Mung’s statement was false…
…or are you saying that you informed him only after he posted that comment?
Neil Rickert,
Undoubtedly Lizzie is carefully observing these new developments in her long-term Internet experiment.
It will be interesting to read her final analysis and conclusions, once the time comes for her to publish them.
keiths,
Mung was aware and involved in discussion with other admins prior to the suspension and I sent Mung a summarizing email on 11th March. Mung since indicated he hadn’t received it and I supplied a copy as soon as he mentioned it to me..
LOL.
Yes, I think she is a psychologist.
I’m very unhappy about the lack of transparency regarding the discussion between Mung and the other administrators. I’d like to know what Mung did to merit a loss of moderator powers, whether he really did what he is accused of doing, and whether or not the other moderators are acting appropriately.
newton:
Lizzie supplies the gold, and she appointed Mung as moderator. There is no rule allowing moderators to suspend a fellow moderator.
petrushka,
The donor did not suspend Mung:
Mung:
Neil:
Neil Rickert,
Neuroscientist. I’ve always thought we were rats in a maze. I’d bet money on it.