As the original Moderation page has developed a bug so that permalinks no longer navigate to the appropriate comment, I thought I’d put up a 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.
26th June 2015: the bug has now affected this page so there is now a new Moderation Issues page here.
It may be worth pointing out that commenters may edit their own comments for up to one hour after posting. Admins are able to edit comments on request if need be but will not otherwise edit other peoples comments.
So if a sentence or phrase is outside the rules, the whole comment will be moved to guano. Any commenter has the option of editing out the offending phrase and resubmitting the comment. Of course, ideally, such editing should be done before posting! 🙂
The hard part for you, Alan, is that it’s right on track what I’ve been saying about the rampant atheism at TSZ. That moderators pretend to hide it is the joke. And they’ll delete this too because truth is obviously not important to them.
I understand your frustration and personally ignore one participant here because I am unable to assume he is posting in good faith.
Pointing out bias, though, does not seem to violate the rules:
Arguably, pointing out bias could be construed as addressing the person rather than the argument, but if the focus is on how the argument demonstrates bias rather than on how the person making the argument is biased and therefore evil and stupid, it should fall within the rules.
I consider Lizzie’s rules as means to achieve the goal of polite, constructive dialog among people who fundamentally disagree. (I stand ready to be corrected by Herself, of course.) I don’t see any a priori reason that our various biases can’t be the subject of such discussion.
I don’t know about rampant atheism, Gregory, it’s certainly unashamed atheism for quite a few contributors to this site. I don’t think anyone is hiding the fact that a majority of those who express a view seem to be atheist or agnostic.
I really don’t understand what your problem is. You seem determined to believe there is some kind of conspiracy here but there isn’t. I restored your membership to author and you have the same opportunity as anyone to comment within the rules as anyone else. The two rules that are most important are “treat everyone as if they are posting in good faith” and “attack the post, not the person (which includes “outing”)”. Such comments, when spotted, should be moved to guano. Off-topic comments may be moved to a more appropriate thread. All moderating decisions are open to challenge. No comments are deleted or edited. You always have the option to repost a comment that has been moved to guano, leaving out the bits that don’t comply with the rules.
If you look through the guano pages, you will see that Gregory has picked fights and made personal attacks on about a half dozen posters here. He always starts the ruckus and his antagonistic behavior has apparently caused a couple of people to leave. There are no repercussions for him except that his posts of that nature get moved to another section of the site. I take it that it’s a strategy–if you don’t agree with his religious views, he will muck around the internet for info about you, make insults and spread falsities, until maybe you’ll say “fuck it” and leave. It seems to be working and suggests to me that some of the policies here could stand revision.
Do you have any specific suggestions that reflect Lizzie’s commitment to open discussion?
The currency of online fora is attention. I have a limited amount of time to spend here, so when I encounter a participant who routinely writes nothing of value to me, I stop reading their comments. I still catch a few views of them when others respond, but that’s easy enough to skim over (or read for the enjoyment of seeing someone else expending the energy to eviscerate the trolls).
Ultimately it’s just dots on a screen. Thank the people who anger you for showing you what you still need to work on and move to the next comment.
The blog, The Skeptical Zone, was set up and is maintained by neuroscientist Dr. Elizabeth Liddle. She has not participated lately due to pressure of work but she has already mentioned that she is planning some kind of rule revision and perhaps changes to functionality.
Until she finds the time, we are going to have to bumble along as we are. One thing I would not be happy about is if any kind of exclusion policy were instigated. It’s not Lizzie’s fault that her idea of free and civilized discussion across a spectrum of differing beliefs and political views is subverted by some who are unable to live with these minimal restraints. I think it’s worked much better than I originally feared and we can live with the downside. As Patrick says: “it’s only pixels on a screen.”.
I am wondering whether a theme change to say “twenty-fourteen” might see off some of the glitches regarding links to comments on pages once past 100 comments.
Anyone with thoughts?
That’s all good advice, Patrick, but suppose there are valuable posters here who are unwilling or unable to take it. They take a few hits–then maybe they start to worry that somebody unconnected to the site will google their names and see falsehoods about them and it will harm them. Gregory’s interactions with KN clearly caused him angst, and he went away. KN did nothing at all to start these fights. But he was caused to suffer from them and when he’d had enough, he left. That’s bad currency replacing good, I think.
I haven’t really thought this through, but I guess I’d suggest elimination of the stuff now sent to guano and some kind of system of progressive warnings, leading to banning. This, of course, would not be for holding any views, but for picking fights, outing, personal attacks, things of that sort.
That’s what’s done elsewhere, anyhow.
Also, as I’ve indicated before, an ignore function may be useful to some people too. It’s no panacea, of course. I recognize that I’m a newbie and not really in a position to be making these kinds of suggestions, so you can take this for what little it’s worth.
I’m not blaming Lizzie! I don’t like to see her wonderful idea of free and civilized discussion subverted. I think, in fact, more could be done to keep it alive.
Some people aren’t willing to participate in the rough-and-tumble of a free and open discussion (see UD and ENV for many examples). That’s not a reason to eliminate fora that value that principle.
I happen to agree with your last sentence, but with all due respect to KN, he chose to leave. None of us have the power to control the actions of others, but we all have the power to choose our reactions. Sometimes it isn’t easy to let go of one’s immediate, ego-driven response, but that doesn’t make it any less a choice.
Personally I would be extremely disappointed if those kinds of anti-free expression controls were put in place here. Unlike the intelligent design creationists, most of the participants here aren’t afraid of having their views challenged. You never know when some generally obnoxious troll is going to suddenly make a really good point. I greatly prefer a forum allows for such serendipity and that trusts in the idea that good ideas will eventually win over bad.
I would love to see support for personal kill files like we used to have on Usenet. The choice of where to spend one’s attention should reside with the individual.
I have no idea whether a theme change would affect this. I had assumed that it was a database problem.
I agree with that assessment. But I’m not sure of its relevance.
If we had stricter banning policies, the same probably would have happened. Yes, by now Gregory would have been banned. But that would have happened after KN had quit the site. Most of Gregory’s offensive behavior has been since KN decided to leave.
It is unfortunate that KN left. I enjoyed his participation. But I don’t think we can prevent people from leaving.
Most of the participants here ignore Gregory, other than to laugh at him. It’s a pity that KN was unable to do that.
I don’t think so, as the permalinks accessed from the comments section on the dashboard work OK and the problem only starts when the number of comments on a page exceeds 100. I’m a great believer in “if something’s not working, try something else.” But it’s a minor annoyance, I guess, that can wait till Lizzie gets back.
That’s not the sense I got perusing the guano pages. Elzinga, Fox, you, and a couple others have all gotten the same treatment. After KN bowed out, Gregory started on me. Same M.O. each time.
That’s something I hadn’t considered, and it’s true.
I guess I don’t…but maybe I should. Does seem kind of adult.
Right.
Not unlike Sir Terry Pratchett’s views on your own specialty:
“That’s why it’s always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it’s all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does A Falling Tree in the Forest Make A Sound if There’s No one There to Hear It, and then just when you think they’re going to start dribbling one of ’em says, ‘Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy’s ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles.'”
Bravo!
(I’m still waiting for my own like insight, sadly, but, OTOH, I AM getting pretty deft at dribbling.)
I think William, from the beginning of his participation here, has depended rather heavily on his first person testimony to discredit mainstream science.
I think that is not playing fair. Anyone can win an argument if allowed to make any claim and not be challenged. The board rules require us to assume good faith, but there are limits to what can be accepted in good faith.
If I claim to be the Queen of Sheba, and the forum rules require everyone to accept this without challenge, then discourse will quickly break down.
petrushka,
I think the forum rules only require you to assume that William means what he says, not that what he says is actually true.
It’s possible to dispute his versions of events like spoon bending and two-finger lifting without impugning his honesty, though I’ll admit it can be difficult if you really do suspect that he’s being dishonest.
Text moved (by DNA_Jock) from “A Critique of Naturalism”. Sorry for the confusion…
To WJM:
Finally, please understand that the statement “You appear to be fooling yourself (about X).” is NOT guano. “You are delusional.” would be, so the ‘bronze-age’ comment is borderline, IMO, but given your habit of responding “What makes you think I am trying to convince anyone that this applies to anyone but myself?” to requests that you support your statements, I would grant petrushka some leeway.
ETA “You appear to be sincerely self-deceived” is NOT guano either
OK
We have a rule that we must treat all commenters as if they are posting in good faith, whether we believe it or not and a rule that says attack argument, not the person.
I think we have assumed that commenters who made unsupported assertions would either support or withdraw those assertions. Is there a case for treating assertions that are repeated without supporting evidence as rule-breaking?
Should there be a rule along the lines of “please support assertions with evidence when challenged or otherwise withdraw them”?
Dishonesty has shadings.
William asserted he and friends engaged in spoon bending. I did not ask for proof that this was true, but I did ask for an account of the event.
My allegation of rule abuse stems not from his claim, but from his disinclination to elaborate on the conditions of his claim.
He is making an argument against mainstream science based not on philosophy or morality or ethics, but on evidence. He suggests that he has in his possession, evidence of events that disprove much of what we believe about reality, but he presents it as a teaser, not as a genuine effort to engage in reasoned discourse.
Alan,
I think it’s a good principle, but making it a rule would be problematic because it would require the moderators to judge what does and doesn’t count as supporting evidence.
I didn’t ask William to prove his claim, or even to provide objective evidence. I asked him to elaborate on his claim.
Now if I were to say that I saw an apparition, or a flying saucer, or something equivalent, I could present it as an anecdote, with no follow-up expected.
But if I present it as evidence against science or materialism, I think I should expect some critical inquiry.
Should there be a rule along the lines of “please support assertions with evidence when challenged or otherwise withdraw them”?
I don’t think so. But perhaps the alleging party might be asked to concede that he/she either has no (additional) evidence or produce something. So, e.g., if someone here repeats something about supervenience that depends on what that term means as if it does not depend on what that term means, I suppose there’s little chance that once this is pointed out this person will either pull the post or admit that he has no idea what he is talking about. But it would be nice to be required to post something like “I’m saying exactly what I’ve said before and been questioned on, and I don’t have anything substantive to add to my former remark which is why I’m pretending to say something else.” Maybe the moderators could fashion a statement like that in bold orange or something and insert it into offending posts when the poster in question hasn’t got the integrity to either pull the offending post or concede this point.
petrushka,
I’d bet that almost everyone here thinks that your question was reasonable and that William should answer it. However, forcing people to answer questions might create more problems than it solves.
My preference is to allow people to state their cases however they choose, which includes the right to respond selectively to questions.
You can always point out that William is ignoring your question, and that without an answer you have no reason to take his claim seriously. None of that violates the rules, as far as I can see.
petrushka,
There may be statements like “I don’t know, it seemed like it was bending to me” for which no additional evidence can be adduced. But I have no problem with people being required to admit THAT.
not at all; Whether the evidence was sound could, and should, be central to the discussion.
Alan,
Of course, but that’s completely different from establishing a rule that requires commenters to supply supporting evidence to the satisfaction of the moderators.
Absolutely not. Comments are sacrosanct; Only the author should edit his own comment. I think moving comments is the lesser evil.
Indeed it is. Which is why I did not say “to the satisfaction of the moderators”.
My problem with rules like these generally is that they don’t usually pick up the right things. On another board I used to frequent, people would apparently purposely misquote and/or misrepresent other people, take stuff out of context, alter their own former remarks so they’d be saying something different, etc. Then, when they were called dishonest assholes for doing that kind of stuff, they’d complain that they were being subjected to ad homs. In my opinion, there are significantly worse things that one can do on these boards than call people names, but it’s very difficult to precisely demarcate that behavior. That’s one of the reasons that I prefer progressive discipline leading to banning. People who want to be shmucks will find a way around even careful rules.
I don’t really think this is a guano issue.
I’m merely defending my call for William to discuss the specifics of his claims, since they seem to be central to his argument.
I think most of us have tested the edge of the forum rules. I have no problem with that.
But William is a special case. He is almost invariably polite, but he says things that push the boundaries of what reasonable people can believe. And his claims of fact are presented as evidence that the whole scientific enterprise is fatally flawed.
Alan,
Who is going to enforce your proposed rule, if not the moderators?
walto,
Absolutely not! The whole raison-dêtre of this site is:as Dr Liddle set out
That is not achieved by banning people.
petrushka,
I don’t think anyone is disputing your right to ask William for specifics. (Specifics are very important, as Walt knows. 🙂 )
I’m just disagreeing that if William (or anyone) fails to respond to a question, then that should be considered a violation of the rules. And if you argue that the requirement should only apply to reasonable questions, then you’re putting the moderators in the position of deciding which questions are reasonable and must therefore be answered.
I think it’s a can of worms that is best left unopened.
Scenario:
Commenter A says “I can turn myself into a pumpkin”?
Commenter B says “Really? Can you demonstrate that?”
Commenter A says “You should accept what I say in good faith.”
Petrushka said:
Please direct me to where I have attempted to “discredit mainstream science”, and explain in what way have I attempted to “discredit” it?
What claims have I made? That I’ve experienced something that I specifically admit I have no way of proving to anyone else? What’s your problem with that? Nobody is forcing you to “accept” it.
How can it be anything other than good faith than when I admit that have no way of proving to anyone else (at least not those of the mainstream scientific consensus persuasion, who require a certain kind of evidence) anything I say, assume, or post as my personal experience?
The forum rules don’t require anyone to accept anything. I ignore and do not respond to a lot of things I think are utter BS.
That’s really, in a nutshell, what I had in mind by abuse of the good faith rule.
I think the obvious remedy is to call attention to it when it occurs.
Nothing more.
That’s not what I am suggesting. If a poster repeats an unsupported assertion, some anecdote, at some point that repetition if it continues to be unsupported by any evidence, could be moved. What about an unsupported assertions thread? I have no complaint when people don’t respond to a fair question. The failure to respond is as eloquent as anything.
Petrushka said:
I think that the board rules only mean that if you’re going to respond here, you respond as if the statements are made in good faith. It doesn’t mean you have to personally believe (accept) that the other person is actually posting in good faith.
If you do not, you might do what I do: don’t bother responding to it.
I know that’s the position here. The thing is that such intellectual progress can (at least usually) be made only by CIVIL discussion. It is notoriously difficult to precisely determine what constitutes that. But at some point it may become clear that someone isn’t really so interested in intellectual progress of the type that Lizzie envisions.
For example, there’s a rule against outing. Somebody violates it. The offending post is moved to guano, but somebody has been outed and so, perhaps personally harmed. How many times does Lizzie’s vision allow that kind of behavior to be repeated?
Oh, this is priceless.
Alan Fox, Absolutely not. Comments are sacrosanct; Only the author should edit his own comment. I think moving comments is the lesser evil.
A flag on a comment isn’t exactly a revision to it. It’s a note by the moderators that something untoward is going on in that comment. Obviously, the idea isn’t to pretend the orange flag was inserted by the original commenter.
Difficult area. As soon as anyone not using an anonymous proxy clicks on a website, their IP address is in the public domain. Lizzie has had perhaps too much faith in other people’s integrity in the past. It’s a learning curve. To prevent incidents from getting to the screen, we’d have to implement pre-moderation. Luckily, only Gregory seemed obsessed with commenter IDs.
Seriously, I couldn’t contemplate such a move.
Alan said:
Posting in good faith is not the only rule, Alan, as a quick glance through guano clearly reflects. Did you just forget this rule:
or do you just apply whichever rule you feel like applying to whomever you feel like applying it? Can you tell me which of Gregory’s guano-ized posts assumes that the poster is not posting in good faith? In fact, I see very little in the guano department where anyone has accused someone of not posting in good faith, or even implied it.
Looks like you’re really good at selectively applying the rules, Alan. Looks like you’re also trying to come up with some new rules so you can protect yourself and your buddies from having to be adults and just ignore posts they **claim** are not worth responding to.
OH, that’s right. You guys don’t have free will. I forgot. My bad.
William, the problem with some of your posts is not one of good faith.
The problem with your claims is that they are fantastic, they are made to support a claim that science is fatally flawed, and they are unsupported.
Unbelievable claims require more evidence than believable claims. That’s not a rule of logic, but in life, it’s the way to bet.
If someone says he had a flat tire on the way to work, and someone crashed into him while he was changing the tire, that claim could be an enormous lie, but its truth or falseness does not have entailments for the way the universe works.
Claims that you can cure cancer by wishing for it, bend spoons with your mind, or lift impossibly heavy objects as a result of a ritual, are claims about the nature of the universe and our existence. They are important claims.
Because they are central to the worldview you are espousing, they require supporting evidence. It makes no difference whether you believe they are true, but it makes a difference whether you have deceived yourself.
I don’t think the situation is quite so dire. Somebody repeatedly violates some rules (and I’d even add–being a hard ass prick) “the spirit of good faith intellectual discourse”), you warn the violator a couple of times and then if they continue to do that kind of stuff, you bounce them.
I know, I know, such power is subject to abuse, you want FREE, OPEN discourse, etc. Me too. But the nature of civil society sometimes requires a bit more than moving someone’s vicious remark to another part of the site where it can be seen more easily. You may have noted this morning that I REQUESTED that a post of mine be moved to Sandbox or Guano so it would be more readily accessible.