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.
No offence Mung, but I don’t care anymore…I think that even if you are reinstated to the full privileges as the moderator, it won’t matter anymore…It could actually be worse for people like me, because the other 3 mods have the upper hand over you due to your poor judgment… It may as well be Byers appointed as a theistic moderator…
As the saying goes — it takes two to make a fight.
As best I recall, you started the fight with a post here which Swamidass saw as a personal attack. I moved that to guano, in an attempt to cool things. Unfortunately, somebody else moved it back out of guano. Without that move-back, I doubt that the “outing” would have occurred.
In any case, the outing was of your anonymous identity at PS. That’s all that was newly revealed as far as I can tell. But yes, technically still against the rules.
Alan,
No, because the views, statements, and arguments of others are fair game here. Obviously.
Lack of spelling proficiency is yet another reason I shouldn’t start my own blog
peace
I’ve already revealed that I was the one who moved it back, Neil.
Swamidass threatened to out Gregory. But rather than put Swamidass in moderation, Gregory’s post was moved to Guano, where Swamidass could still see it.
Neil was one of the mods who objected that I was acting unilaterally. Ironic.
You could give it a title that was mis-spelled and make it about people who think spelling words correctly is far more important than dealing with the argument.
Are Red Harings Real Fish?
fifth:
A spellchecker could mostly fix that. Usage issues, like your exasperate/exacerbate confusion, are harder to catch automatically.
Good. I didn’t include the full quote. Here’s the rest of it:
Sorry dude. But I gave you Author, I warned you, and yet you still ended up making claims about Lenski that were unwarranted. I went to bat for you and struck out. 🙂
ETA: To continue that analogy, I was not just benched, I was kicked off the team!
But I am not blaming you, I hope that’s clear from my earlier comments in this thread.
I explained. No comment from you? You’ve been uncharacteristically silent abut this whole affair. Is that because Alan didn’t reach out to you for your approval of his action before he did it?
Given you’ve now been run out of several “towns”, perhaps it’s time to consider your approach.
Mung,
Interestingly, I noticed in the Peaceful Science thread about how proteins evolve where Cornelius Hunter was asked to comment, he gets involved in the thread, so what happens-Timothy is allowed to just spam the thread with countless ad hominen insults, over and over, and the only result is that some (a few) of his comments are hidden, and most aren’t. The ones that got hidden seems to happen only at random.
In the meantime, Cornelius Hunter simply provides a link to some of his posts suggesting they answer some of the questions posed to him, and what happens? He immediately gets a warning from Swamidass saying he is posting spam, and Bill Cole gets a warning about being off topic. Not one word is said to Timothy.
Holy Shit, is PS worse than here? What the fuck is with Swamidass?? Reading that thread is a damn joke.
Why not show them all how it’s done? Set up and run such a site yourself. Or continue to whine about how everyone else is getting it wrong.
Given your past form it’s clear what option you’ll choose.
To clarify, I think the “Timothy” that you refer to is the poster “Timothy_Horton” at PS. And, as far as I know, that is not the same as the “timothya” who posts here.
At PS, anyone can flag a post as inappropriate. And flagged posts get hidden at least temporarily — although that might depend on the “trust level” of the person who did the flagging.
Neil Rickert,
Yea, I don’t know who that Timothy is, but there must be 30 posts of his flagged in that one thread alone, and Swamidass instead warns Cornelius and Bill?
Weird.
I didn’t think a comment was needed. Let me note that I too approve of your decision to remove keiths from moderation. Good call. But I found the big ‘reveal’ that the ‘ace up your sleeve’ was a compliment from Alan rather underwhelming.
You misinterpret my silence. Back when I reverted J-Mac’s status, I explicitly told Alan that he was free to deal with you as he saw fit. Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin.
DNA_Jock,
nisrahpu leket enem enem.
You don’t know that it is Swamidass. Anybody can flag a post.
Timothy_Horton is flagged far more often than Bill Cole or than Cornelius. Even John Harshman has had some posts flagged.
Right, what I am saying is Swamidass sees all the posts from Timothy, and he clearly sees that dozens and dozens of his posts in one thread alone are being flagged, he sees the others which are just as flagrant and aren’t flagged, and instead of warning Timothy, he decides to warn Cornelius for posting a link to his writings! And he warns Bill about being off topic.
And says nothing to Timothy at all.
What the heck is wrong with Swami?
Mods,
There is a comment from a new member, evograd, in the Pending queue.
Jock, to Mung:
That’s appalling. You should be trying to curb moderation abuses, including your own, rather than encouraging them.
The last thing anyone should say to an impulsive hothead like Alan is “do as you see fit”.
You guys (Neil included) have really blown it, and you’ve driven away the only theist moderator at TSZ, whom Lizzie went out of her way to appoint.
Sounds you should ask him at his site.
I would think sent down to the minors would be a better analogy.
Just to set the record straight, it was actually Alan’s suggestion that we give mung an opportunity to be a moderator. And it was discussed between us before he (Alan) suggested that to Lizzie.
Neil Rickert,
And I don’t recall much enthusiasm from keiths at the idea at the time. Quite the reverse, I think. 😕
Neil,
How is that “setting the record straight”? Nothing you said contradicts what I wrote:
This makes no sense. There was a collective discussion and the unanimous view was “let’s give it a go”.
Alan,
True. I wasn’t enthusiastic, based on past experience with Mung. He turned out to be much better than I expected as a moderator.
In any case, so what if I wasn’t initially enthusiastic? I never demanded that Mung be removed, nor did I claim that Lizzie couldn’t appoint whomever she wished as moderator.
The prick who removed Mung, in a fit of pique, was you. And the Rubber Stamp Twins piled on instead of doing the right thing and opposing you. They are equally responsible for the fiasco.
You guys really blew it, and you’ve shown yet again that you aren’t fit to be moderators.
There’s been a very strange narrative that has Lizzie “going out of her way to appoint Mung” when in fact it was Alan’s suggestion, with Neil and I both agreeing to give it a go. Then we have Alan’s impulsive hotheadedness to unilaterally get rid of Mung, when in fact Alan was the one who wanted to restore Mung (read this thread, FFS), and Neil and I objected. I was a mite more vociferous. Evidence be damned, given the hard-on that keiths has for Alan, it has to be Alan leading the charge, meekly followed by the rubber stamp twins…
It was quite the opposite.
In other news, I thought vjt was a theist.
keiths:
Alan:
What I said makes perfect sense. Lizzie did go out of her way to appoint Mung. Despite being a chronic absentee, she came here and posted a special OP announcing Mung’s appointment:
Moderation issues belong on this thread, J-Mac.
keiths,
Oh, wow! I actually asked Lizzie to make that announcement as I feared certain folks wouldn’t believe it from me. 😇
And she did it. She went out of her way to come here and post a special OP announcing the appointment of Mung as moderator.
So again, my statement is correct:
FFS 😉
In all this self-serving manipulative spin, where does this leave Mung?
You mean I should go sign up at Peaceful Science, tell Swamidass that is is really hypocritical that he is reprimanding Cornelius Hunter and Bill Cole (who did nothing wrong at all), while he is totally ignoring the most egregious rule breaker on the site, so I have no intention of getting involved in such a biased and poorly moderated environment, “Good day Sir!”
That’s what I should do?
Alan,
“Self-serving manipulative spin”? You are the one trying to dispute a simple, true statement about Lizzie.
Why are you asking me? You guys are the ones who fucked up, abused, your powers, created this mess, and drove Mung away.
And Neil and Jock have compounded the abuse. By Jock’s own account, he and Neil opposed the restoration of Mung’s moderator status after your screwup.
Jock:
What’s strange about it? It happened, as I demonstrated.
So your argument is that Alan’s hotheaded and impulsive removal of Mung – eight minutes after Mung restored me to Author status — wasn’t hotheaded and impulsive, because long after the hotheaded and impulsive action, and after vigorous protests, he finally proposed its reversal?
Damn, Jock. You really need to work on your debating skills.
Apparently you didn’t read this:
keiths, to Alan:
And make no mistake, the two of you have committed abuses on your own as well as in concert with Alan. You are the Rubber Stamp Twins, but Alan rubber stamps your abuses as well.
The three of you have behaved so badly that former moderator Patrick has called for your ouster. And he’s right; you aren’t fit to be moderators.
And since you consider him a moderator, you’ve been including him in all of your inter-moderator discussions, right? What’s that? You haven’t?
Oops.
Besides, do you think it would somehow exonerate you if Mung had been the only active theist moderator, as opposed to the only theist moderator? Either way, your fuckup has the same effects on the site.
You really need to work on those debating skills, Jock.
Funny, I thought it was Alan paying for this site hosting nowadays, not Lizzie? I’m certainly not ‘waiting to hear from her’ either. She never did impress me in her woolly thinking & apostasy, only in making a stand against UD, which is largely irrelevant nowadays, surely in comparison with PS.
If it was Alan’s wrongdoing, which he’s now basically admitted, why not just accept return to previous Author & Moderator status? Please be not like Ann Gauger who threatened to leave PS because of how she was being treated by Swamidass & then quite quickly returned. An Alan blunder is just that; nothing too uninspiring or off-putting.
You do it at this place all the time with an atheist ,unfair and terrible moderation, surely a theist moderator would be better.
Of course Vincent was copied in admin discussions.
As were Jon Bartlett and Lizzie.
If VJT, Johnny Bartlett & Mung were accepted & invited in as active TSZ Moderators, all of them theists, alongside of Neil Rickert (who is reasonably apostate and sometimes reflexive about religiosity), DNA_Jock (who is actively anti-religious, often biologistically & otherwise obnoxious), & Alan who is self-labelled as an apatheist (but not lazy, at least wrt TSZ), I’d consider coming back here. Bartlett’s a standup guy & Torley is tolerable, if he can continue to shorten his wind & hasn’t yet fallen off the Catholic wagon in Japan, after all. Lizzie could even be the tie-breaking 7th in that group of 6, half non-religious / half-religious group, as far as I’m concerned.
It would not surprise me if Paul Nelson & some others (e.g. Eric Holloway) who have shown up here but been quickly turned off by the common anti-religious tone of not a few posters here, would return if such a configuration as above were in place. Indeed, most theists are ‘skeptical’ about certain topics & ideas as well (as Torley has demonstrated more than aptly), but we draw the line at being treated beyond unfairly & will not allow ourselves to become ‘skeptics’ in the secular humanist meaning of that term.
In such a case, Alan ought to issue an apology to Mung for his recent knee-jerking. The atmosphere would improve considerably and likely quiet the relentless complaining & oftentimes whiny comments from the generic ‘non-denominational’ theists, who are clearly the loudest minority at TSZ, if such a Moderation improvement were made. Would Bartlett, Torley & Mung reconsider themselves as participants here in such a scenario?
I think it’s BS that it even matters what the moderators believe. We expect scientists who are believers to do science, why would we expect anything less from a moderator?
A poor scientist is a poor scientist regardless of what their personal beliefs are. Likewise moderators. Sure, throw a few believers into the moderator pile, it won’t stop them from whining about their treatment. Nothing will. They are victims, and were brought up as such. Nothing will ever change that, except deconversation.
You are right. When people push their religion wrapped up in science we should accept that and not push back at all.
You’ve not been paying attention. There’s a reason comments are turned off on all of the, for example, EN&V posts. They don’t want discussion.
Both the implicit biases of individuals and the superiority of diverse teams in solving problems are well supported by scientific studies.
Setting performance norms for scientists and moderators is a good start, but does not replace the need for diverse teams to address these factors.
I’d be interested to see such a study, presumably one that shows a group of atheists and theists are better at science (or moderating) then a comparable unmixed group. Right?
Heavens, no. That observation was to show that Alan was clearly not trying to get rid of Mung unilaterally. We know that he was not “hot-headed and impulsive” because he took six days, not eight minutes, to pull the plug, which you would know if you had been paying sufficient attention…
You might want to consider the possibility that it isn’t always about you, keiths.
Yes, I’d be interested in that too.
But of course that is not the way science works.
It is fair to ask about generalization of the studies to specific circumstances not covered in the available experiments. Perhaps there is a new causal factor that was not be varied in any of these extant studies or implementation constraints that are not addressed? Whole books have been written about that eg,
Lacking the sort of study you are looking for, and given the nature of the discussions at TSZ, I think it is reasonable to suppose that diversity of views on religion and its role in explanation are going to be help with problem solving and with implicit bias against posters whose views differ from some of the moderators in these areas. YMMV.
As I detailed in previous posts, we still need norms for moderator and decisions processes for resolving moderator disagreement.
Fair enough.
LOL at Alan and Jock’s further foot-shots. More later.
I have an OP waiting to be published.
I think it is going to be easier to talk about Swamidass’ webinar…