As the replacement Moderation page has developed the old bug so that permalinks no longer navigate to the appropriate comment, so here is yet another page for continuing discussion on moderating issues. The Rules can be found there so anyone with an issue should check that they are familiar with them.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Again just my two cents for what it’s worth.
I don’t often post in the moderation thread. As an outsider here I don’t feel that it’s my place to get involved in rules discussions.
I would guess that lurkers and prospective posters would probably have the same attitude.
If you limit decent to this thread it might create the impression for visitors that everyone is generally OK with the way things proceed here. That would be unfortunate
peace
I think that Mung makes a point worthy of discussion (perhaps a first!) when he asks (albeit in the wrong place) :
Now, I am not an admin here and cannot speak for them, so what follows is merely my understanding of the rules; the view from the Clapham Omnibus, as it were.
The reason for the no-outing rule is to protect participants here from having a google search for their IRL name reveal comments by or about them that could adversely affect their Real Lives.
I can see two potential issues regarding the publication here of a personal email.
1) The ethics, in general, of publishing a personal email: here the question hangs on whether the writer, BKA, had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Did he view it, in fact, as a ”Private” email? I think not, for the reasons stated on that thread. He is welcome to argue otherwise, either here or elsewhere (I believe he is associated with a once-popular blog) .
2) Linking BKA’s name to this correspondence constitutes “outing”, in contravention of the rules of this site.
I think that the publication is highly harmful to the internet-persona BKA, who is fond of claiming sole occupancy of the moral high ground. However, as I understand it, the real-life BKA is a lawyer who earns his living as a debt collector, but occasionally manages to land plum assignments defending Christian bigots. I therefore think that publishing his “fighting a war for the soul of Western Civilization” rant is not going to harm IRL BKA in any way, but rather is providing him with free marketing publicity. Others have suggested that this might be the sole purpose of his once-popular blog…
So we need a continual supply of threads about moderation, just in case someone new logs in who wasn’t aware there were people with issues about it?
I agree with Allan on this. I think the proliferation of metathreads is simply off-putting to anybody checking out this site for the first time. In fact I think it would make sense to have a rule added that gives the admins discretion to move moderation complaints.
I’m not making an accusation here, but I hope the real purpose FMM’s remark above was not to get Lizzie to allow this site to be trashed up more than it already has become. That pretty much anybody is allowed to post here is a nice feature. If a cohort comes with the purpose of starting scores of “This Place Sucks” threads, I’m OK with them losing that privilege. I also think the “UD sucks” threads are awful. As I’ve said before, a general “Nobody is allowed to shit in my living room” rule would help tremendously–as would having one or two theist admins.
Elizabeth,
I am pretty sure we have been laying out all the ways free speech has been curtailed here lately.
Let’s face it Lizzie, for well over a year, atheists have been allowed to call non-athesist every name in the book, make any insult they want, any accusation they please, with abandon. Go back and look at some of the old threads, look at what you let them get away with. Now the other side has simply given them back what they have been doing for a long time. Then suddenly Alan and Patrick have an attack of conscious. “We can’t be having this, the natives are getting restless, we better quell the rebellion now, make up any application of the rules you want, just start cutting…”
Take a look at some of Mungs recent posts that get sent to guano Lizzie. Try to defend that compared to what you have allowed since the beginning. Its laughable. Mung says a post belongs in the Hall of Fame-that gets guanoed. And you stand behind your mods and say they are doing a great job.
Do you really need me to show you all the things I have been called here in the past, in which nothing was done? So I now give it back. And Patrick has the gall to call me the troll? I will let you know if I ever feel the need to listen to Patrick try to lecture me on anything.
Allan Miller,
See the post above yours to understand why Allan.
Barry is also a poster here.
Allan Miller,
Patrick and Alan wanted a war. Now they got it. Blame us if you like. I don’t mind.
(And Lizzie pretends she saw nothing).
phoodoo, what do you really want? What is your goal, exactly? Would your life–or the life of the internet, or the life of “the MIND” be improved if TSZ were, in your view, so close to being perfectly fair to everyone that you had nothing to complain about–indeed nothing to write about at all–when you came here? Suppose you get the admission you think you deserve, something like “You’re right phoodoo, I’ve checked and it really DOES seem like the theists have been ill-treated by the admins. Sorry.” Would that cause you to float happily away? Or maybe you would you like Lizzie to simply close her doors. Just shut the fucking hellhole down. Would that be best do you think?
What’s the long term strategy here?
Loose talk.
My purpose would be to see the quality of discussions at this site improved. It would be nice to see the narrative move beyond Christians are poopy heads and ignorant boobs.
I’m not sure how to accomplish that but my preference right now would be to add a couple of confident theists to the admin staff
peace
I agree, and I think Lizzie does as well. In my view, the people in charge matter at least to the extent that “the rules” do. I guess I’m a Trollopean on that matter (as on many others). I belive that complaints about bias will drop if there are one or two theist admins, whether the actual number of biased actions falls or not.
Sounds reasonable, maybe you should volunteer. In fact I would think it would be an interesting experiment in to see Phodoo and mung put their vision of an evenhanded TSZ in action. What do you think mung, would that result in less or more censorship?
phoodoo,
Nope, the post above mine does not make me any more understanding of the need for multiple threads on moderation.
quote:
But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”
(Luk 12:14)
end quote:
😉
peace
It would certainly clarify some of the motivations for the complaints
I hear the same thing when I try to get someone to replace me as mgr of my softball team.
Mung,
*raises hand*
Look at me! Disagreeing with Lizzie!
*looks around nervously for lightning bolts*
fifthmonarchyman,
You’re not an outsider, you’re one of the more active participants with over 2500 comments.
I strongly disagree. Keeping discussion of moderation issues in this thread is simple housekeeping that keeps these never-ending complaints from taking over every other thread. Moderation Issues is permanently linked on the top of every page. There is no reason to spam the forum with copies of it.
walto,
As the resident anarchist, I agree. My understanding is that Lizzie is experimenting with what rules are necessary to support her goals for the site. There is already a Moderation Issues thread — that’s where all discussion of moderation issues should take place, leaving the rest of the site for more substantive topics.
Elizabeth,
I propose the following rule change:
“All discussion of moderation issues should take place in the Moderation Issues thread. New posts that discuss moderation issues will not be published. Comments that are primarily about moderation issues may be moved to the Moderation Issues thread by the admins.”
Does anyone disagree (he asks naively)?
phoodoo,
Support or retract this ridiculous claim.
No, what we have is a few people spamming the forum with posts that duplicate the purpose of Moderation Issues and comments that derail every thread. That meets my definition of trolling.
walto,
Mine is pretty much like everyone else’s, I imagine: “To crush your enemies — See them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!”
I’d strongly support this idea. And it can be an experiment. Nothing need be written in stone.
There’s a few posters on a ‘death by cop’ mission hoping to grab some sort of false equivalency. What I would suggest is a master thread on moderation and rules and site ethics and collapsing all other threads into that now and going forward, so we can keep comments about it in the right place.
I suggested a while back that posts dealing with moderation be moved to the moderation thread. Posts addressing the personality or failings of individuals be moved to noyau, and only the most vulgar posts be moved to guano.
I suspect a lot of “our side” posts would wind up in noyau.
I’d rather keep it that the only moves are to guano. If people want to post (or repost) their posts in Moderation Issues or Noyau, they can. But let’s keep it simple.
Elizabeth,
I’m a bit confused, then. Are you changing the rules such that comments that are primarily about moderation issues posted in threads other than Moderation Issues should be moved to Guano?
I do not find that to be keeping it simple. That could fill up the sidebar with duplicated posts.
This seems reasonable to me.
If someone opens another meta-thread on moderation, I will probably close comments on that thread. If someone does this repeatedly, perhaps they should lose author status so that their new threads have to be approved before they appear.
Perhaps we should treat repeated complaints about moderation that derail other threads as spam and move them to guano. Moving moderation complaints that clutter other threads to the dedicated thread for moderation issues seems a bit more straightforward.
It doesn’t really mater what the rules say or don’t say, if it is Patrick and Alan deciding how to apply them. Alan says its ok to call my post scurrilous, but as soon as I challenge him on that he claims that if I call someone’s elses post that, I better explain why or it is spam. Patrick says its against the rules saying someone is whining, except when its not. Its against the rules for Mung to say a post should be in the Hall of Fame, except there is no such rule, but Patrick doesn’t care.
Make a new rule about where one can talk about moderation and of course Patrick is going to allow others to make a comment about the nature of a post, but if someone he doesn’t like does it, then that of course is spam. If the admins already make a mockery of the rules, how is more rules to curb speech more going to improve that?
Of course I certainly understand why Alan wants even more rules and power to curb dissent.
walto,
What do you think about Lizzie asking for what we mean by curbing speech, and then ignoring the reply?
Alan and Patrick are proposing even more reasons for moving posts. They want a rule that says anything related to moderation gets moved. Who is going to decide what’s related to moderation?
Oh right, that will be Patrick and Alan of course, who think they have the right to tell posters, “Defend your claim about me, or you are spamming!” What if next time Alan says my post is scurrilous, and I reply, “Hey defend that remark, you shouldn’t be allowed to say that” and he says, that is a moderation subject, I am moving your post to guano..
Does Alan need to defend his claim that my post is scurrilous?
So what’s my solution? Only two moderators, one partisan atheist hack (we already have three) and one theist moderator (which of course Lizzie will chose one of the most timid and non-controversial ones she can find) and the two moderators have to agree before a post can be moved.
Done.
You lot are just like Uncommon Descent!!!111
Uh-huh. :/
fifthmonarchyman,
Given that Trinity thang you keep banging on about, I think that rhetorical question supplies its own answer: “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? Oh, hang on, I did. Or one of us did anyway. It’s complicated … what was your question again?”.
(Hee hee – a derail in the Moderation thread! I like irony.).
phoodoo,
From among the enormous number of applicants for the post … those atheists (per-tooey!); even presented with one candidate, they’d pick the wrong one.
Allan Miller,
Did she ask Mung? Or Gregory?
Let’s face it, Patrick is about as partisan, and an ideologue as there is, so if he is suitable, then Gregory is. Of course that might mean steering away from Lizzie’s goal for this site, to spread skeptical propaganda.
I disagree that Patrick’s moderation is biased, and he, like the other admins, definitely err on the side of not-moving, which is what I want.
No, I have not asked Mung, or Gregory, to be an admin on the site, and do not have any plans to do so in the near future.
Yes indeed. I am looking for “timid”, or as I would call it, “conservative” (small c) moderators as I can find, and certainly non-controversial ones.
The admins. And they will use their understanding of the English language in order to figure out whether it is or not. For example, any complaints about moving, or not moving posts will be deemed to be “related to moderation”.
hth
Yes, I think that makes sense. I am seriously thinking about a revised rule-set, now that I have the illusion of some holiday time (which I can maintain as long as I do not think about the pile of unmarked essays, the lecture prep for next term, and the unwritten papers, grant applications and ethics applications on my to do list…)
phoodoo,
Would they want the task even if asked? But I can quite see why they (and you, and Gallien) will never be asked. People who don’t understand the rules well enough to avoid regularly falling foul of them are hardly likely to make good operators thereof.
Hahaha. partisan hack v. moderator That’s a good indication of why YOU’D make an awful admin, phoodoo.
Elizabeth,
As as long as you continue to suggest that they apply the rules fairly, when you have been given dozens of examples when they didn’t, I will continue to criticize you for it.
You are not as big a fan of free speech as you like to pretend. That’s why you now feel you need more rules rather than less.
Hey Lizzie, is it Ok to call other posters posts scurrilous?
walto,
Calling a moderator a partisan hack you don’t like; how do you feel about moderators calling other posters trolls, or saying their posts are scurrilous? I guess you are Ok with that.
Why do you guess that? Because I think your last remark showed bias? That’s not a very good reason. You absolutely wouldn’t make a good moderator–but if it’s any consolation, neither would I.
Rather than guess my views about moderation and rules, you could simply read them. I’ve posted a lot on those issues.
Let’s be clear how I used the word “scurrilous”. Here’s my comment.
And here is your comment that I was quoting:
So I was calling that remark “How much do you think Patrick costs” scurrilous. It is a scurrilous remark. It is also false, unwarranted and, I suspect, intended to be inflammatory. It implies that Patrick’s actions as admin are not governed by the ideal of supporting free and open communication and that his judgement could be bought. This is false, unwarranted and scurrilous.
Now if you are claiming that the statement “How much do you think Patrick costs” is not false and unwarranted, then I’d like to see your justification for it.
FWIW, I think the expression “scurrilous remark” provides one more reason (among many) why the “address the post, not the poster rule” makes no sense.
I’m looking forward to Lizzie’s rules revisions.
As a lurker I have to say that in recent weeks this site has suffered a lot from all the discussions about moderation. Frankly it has spoiled the fun and the usefulness of the site. I can’t help noticing that there are just a handful of posters who simply can’t stop talking about moderation at every opportunity.
These people are disruptive, and imo childish. I have a suggestion for Elizabeth on how to deal with this. It draws on a parental measure we sometimes had to take when the kids were disrupting the adults a bit too much.
Open a separate thread, call it Kindergarden or Trollgarden. Posters who are abusing their right of free speech by persistently disrupting conversations will be banned to there, for a measured amount of time. In the Trollgarden they can post anything they like, without any limits (apart from the forbiddens outing and porn) and to their hearts content. Once their ban is over they may return to the other fora. If they start again to be disruptive, they will be banned to the Trollgarden again, possibly for a longer time. This will continue until they learn how to behave in company, or until they decide to leave by themselves.
fG
faded_Glory,
More censorship?
Did some one force you to read moderation topics?
walto,
Do you have a problem with moderators that are hypocrites like that?
fG, you have the opportunity to try the “ignore” button. This renders the comments of any chosen fellow commenter invisible to you when logged in.