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.
Alan Fox,
That’s OK, my suggestion wasn’t really in earnest. I was really just trying to make a point about the impossibility of demarcating all the types of objectionable behavior while simultaneously tweaking someone who posts a lot here.
Commenter B then says: I accept that you said that in good faith. I do not accept that it is true. In accepting that you said that in good faith, I am accepting that you are quite insane.”
Isn’t this all a bit too literalistic. I think we are expected to use a little common sense.
But that is a fuzzy line when the poster claims to be a universe of one, claims to be posting a worldview that is applicable only to himself, claims not to be trying to convince anyone, but merely to be explaining himself.
William, can you grok the problem you present? You post only about yourself and your private universe absolute truths. There is no demarcation between your ideas and yourself, because that is the way you present yourself.
ETA:
That is why I call it an abuse of the rules, because any criticism of your ideas is a criticism of you. But that’s the way you have defined things.
Let’s face it: petrushka doesn’t have, and KN didn’t have, and several others here do not have, the adult self-control necessary to simply ignore posts that they consider to be BS or which push their emotional buttons. No, they have to attack the person, find some way to insult them “within the rules” if they feel like it (keiths is really good at that), outside of the rules if they don’t (OMagain), confident that such behavior will probably not even be “restricted” (since their own kind are the moderators) and since the worst that can happen is that their comment is moved to another thread. It certainly leads to no negative consequences worth considering.
Hey petrushka: if you don’t like what I’ve got to say, here’s a clue: stop reading my posts. Ignore me. Be an adult and stop demanding that rules be erected and enforced by others on everyone to do what you lack the self-control to do for yourself as an individual. People behave badly on the internet! Get over it.
Oh wait. That’s right. You don’t have free will. I forgot. My bad.
I don’t present any problem to anyone with the free will capacity to simply f*ing ignore me.
Where Have I demanded any new rules or any existing rules be enforced?
Link to any such request.
I have merely noted that I think you are trolling. that you post in such a way that any criticism of your claims is automatically a personal criticism.
That’s the way you set the game up, William. I’m merely observing.
It is my fervent wish that people would use a little common sense And for the most part they do. Probably one reason I’m not very good at moderating is not getting much practice.
I’m bound to say I’m glad we don’t have a rule against “trolling”. It’s such an amorphous term and often used as an excuse to censor an inconvenient point of view. Being “off-topic” is another bête noire of mine, though I can see the sense of it when a thread is derailed.
FW(little)IW, I don’t like any “don’t address the poster” type rules. Many valid and important points can be made by addressing the poster and one philosopher wrote a book (I think his name was Johnston–I’ll have to look it up) making a pretty good case that ALL philosophical argumentation must be ad hominem to be any good.
There are valid “genetic” arguments.
Jones was drunk–so you shouldn’t believe what he said then.
Jones said exactly the opposite thing yesterday.
Jones has a financial interest in people agreeing with that remark.
Jones has a history of racist behavior so should not be believed when he asserts that X.
Jones is, himself engaged in Philadelphia in just the activity he is deriding you for in Chicago.
Etc.
It’s my view that sometimes posters SHOULD be attacked, and it’s not really the post that’s the problem. If people are engaging in behavior that lacks integrity (intellectual or otherwise), I think they should be called on it–not the post, their untoward pattern of behavior.
Anyhow, I understand that not only is this not my site, I’m just a freaking opinionated newbie. And I understand that people here see things somewhat differently than I do (and may have wonderful reasons for doing so). I want and expect you to do what Lizzie and the Elders here want. What the hell do I know?
I’ve started to read an interview in 3AM with a philosopher regarding topics like theistic explanation. If I just want to call the article to the attention of participants at the forum, where is the best place to post the link?
I’ve tried Sandbox but I suspect recommended links can get lost among other conversations.
What about some kind of open thread for people to post such links? A suggested list of topics could be provided (eg theology, philosophy, biology, things you could have learned in kindergarten)
walto,
I think:
Communication is the important thing. The mission is to encourage genuine dialogue. The intention is desirable even if the result sometimes falls short.
Alan, on that mission, we’re agreed.
Peculiar weather we’re having. (Love the outfit).
ETA: I see that my comment is “awaiting moderation.” I assume that resulted from my editing my Nickname to Reciprocating Bill from the older Reciprocating Bill 2. And maybe adding my avatar.
I haven’t asked for any enforcement against trolling.
Nor any enforcement against the observation that someone is trolling.
I think I need to qualify this by saying that the accusation of trolling sounds like an accusation of bad faith, but that’s not my intention with William.
I do not think William is posting with the intention of causing a flame war. That would be intentional trolling.
I think, however, that he has tried to insulate himself from criticism by encapsulating his ideas inside his persona. He has made himself and his ideas coextensive.
Yes, it is possible to say his ideas are bullshit, and that his personal testimony is bullshit, but it will invariably sound like a criticism of the poster rather than the post. How can it be otherwise?
This first surfaced a long time ago when he discussed his wife’s illness.
How could anyone be heartless enough to question the touching story of a cancer survivor? Only a meanie could do that.
But embedded within this heartwarming story is William’s argument that science and materialism are wrong and misguided. It is quite difficult to parse out the logical fallacies without sounding mean.
William recently escalated with stories of miraculous happenings. He seems to be a magnet for the miraculous. If we doubt the veracity of the stories — either by implying that he is dishonest or by implying he is deluded — we are attacking the poster instead of the post. How can it be otherwise? He has insulated himself from criticism by making the evidence himself and his testimony.
He is using the site rules to avoid critical inquiry about his evidence.
You’ll have to come up with a snappy title for the page. 😉 One persistent snag is that, if it’s set up as a page, links from the latest comments list seem to just find the top of the page rather than the specific comment. I’m still hoping somebody could suggest a fix.
Dare I suggest you could author an OP? You have author status.
I know. It was me that asked for opinions on an additional rule about unsupported assertions and, seeing what’s been said, I agree it would probably be unworkable.
Alan,
The problems with your proposed “unsupported assertions” thread are that
a) the moderators would have to judge what counts as supporting evidence, which would be contentious, to say the least; and
b) moving comments to other threads breaks the continuity of discussions and should be minimized.
On the other hand, if you didn’t move comments, but merely established a thread where people could post assertions that they felt weren’t adequately supported, and questions they felt hadn’t been adequately answered, then I’d be all for that.
Lizzie has tried to keep moderation to a minimum here, and I think her instincts are right. TSZ is the polar opposite of UD in this respect, and I think that’s a good thing.
Did you read any of Sriskandarajah’s comments? I didn’t respond as they were not of much interest to me and I didn’t notice anyone else say much to him apart from Keith. I think William’s advice to ignore his comments would probably work in the long term. I’m going to put the the hypothesis to the test, anyway.
Absolutely agree. And any changes to Lizzie’s site should be made or approved by her. There’s no bar to discussing “improvements” though.
Reminds me of a solution that Pandas Thumb tried with the late John Davison. They set him up his own thread called “Davison’s Soapbox”. You may recall how that went. 🙂
ETA Not to imply that a thread such as you suggest couldn’t work!
I have ignored nearly all of William’s posts, except where he has made rather egregious factual errors.
I can ignore what I consider pointless discussions of absolute morality, but I hit the edge with the post on spoon bending.
That is a claim that the world is flat and is 6000 years old. It’s not philosophy or theology. It isn’t even personal. It’s just stupid.
But William tried to insulate it from criticism by claiming he has personally participated in spoon bending.
Now, when we say this is ridiculous, we are confronted with the rule against claims of bad faith. How can we claim that someone has made an untrue statement without violating Lizzie’s rule? (I say untrue without implying that William is dishonest. His claim could be unintentionally deceptive. I have said things through fault memory that were unintentionally untrue.)
Petrushka said:
I never made such a claim, much less such an argument. I guess if you just fabricate stuff to be upset about, there’s no getting around it.
petrushka,
As you point out, it’s sometimes hard to attack a statement or belief without seeming to attack the person.
I think the key is to distinguish between criticisms of a person generally, which are against the rules, vs criticisms of a person with respect to a statement or argument that they’re making, which aren’t.
If you say X, and I respond that it’s crazy to assert X, then I am not calling you crazy in general. I’m just saying that your assertion of X is crazy, which is within the rules as I interpret them.
What about a page on the lines Keiths suggests?
Might it answer Petrushka and my concerns without creating a “moderation” issue?
That’s how I try to interpret the rule. “What you just said *inserts quote* is stupid” is fine and “You are stupid” is not.
The claim is that science has somehow managed to do extensive research on physics and on psychic phenomena without noticing that you can heal the sick and bend spoons with your mind.
William, it is not reasonable to reconcile your claims with science. either you are wrong or science is wrong.
To point out a statement isn’t true is not against the rules. To assert the person making it is lying is. They could be mistaken or (in the case of spoon bending) deluded.
I don’t see this being that big a problem. I could see a thread on the subject of extraordinary claims and on effective ways to discuss them. I would expect it to be a bit toastier than average, but maybe worth it.
keiths said:
Yeah, that’s how you get around the rules, keiths. And that gives Alan (usually) all the leeway his who, little ol me? schtick requires to let his side get away with stuff (like his recent “forgetting” that there’s more than one rule to this site).
What possible discussion/debate value is achieved by using the term “crazy”, if not to diminish the person who made the original comment and to heap scorn on their views with negative invective? Is that really how an atmosphere of idea exchange is fostered? Of course not. To try and make a case that it is acceptable by the letter of the rules is to purposely attempt to circumvent the spirit of the rules.
It’s hilarious that you people go all apoplectic about someone doing nothing more than posting about his personal experiences and qualifying even that by saying he doesn’t expect anyone to believe him and that he has no way to prove any of it to anyone. Heck, KN nearly wet his pants when I said I didn’t care if anyone took me seriously. Gregory practically has seizures about my “non-mainstream, personalized” set of beliefs.
Holy crap! A non-conformist! Make some rules! Mommy, make the bad man go away!
You people truly are pitiful.
Reciprocating Bill,
Sorry RB, should be visible now!
I don’t know the spoon bending claim is untrue. What I know is that many people have done spoon bending tricks as stage magic, at least one famous person claimed it wasn’t a stage trick and was caught cheating on camera. I know there is no known physical principle that could account for it and an well attested instances of it.
So it is an extraordinary claim.
I also know that William ignored repeated requests to elaborate on the claim, to discuss the circumstances and the reasons he believes ith happened and is possible.
It is this latter that offends me. making of extraordinary claims and not following through with details. Trying to divert attention away from the claim by saying others should try it is simply reprehensible.
Either William is a personal witness to one of the most extraordinary events in the history of human kind, or he is mistaken. His claim of spoon bending is far more implausible than any claim of faith healing.
William:
William, a few sentences later:
I’m not sure you can grade implausibility.
The spoon bending is just silly entertainment. The potential for such an effect, were it to exist, is mind boggling. If Uri Geller had any such abilities, all sorts of interested parties would be fighting for access and patents
Faith healing is exploiting the vulnerable. Faith healing claims should be treated as advertising claims. (I’m sure I’ve said that before) No proven results should open such charlatans to legal action on behalf of the duped and vulnerable.
Petrushka said:
Good grief. Even Michael Shermer bent the bowl of the spoon and it’s on the video. He saw many people bending utensils. One of the children said it was like bending putty. Shermer even admitted he thought it was impossible for him to do so after struggling with the spoon. After he did it, he chalked it up to “adrenaline”.
Did you miss that?
Bending utensils is not uncommon. It looks like most of the people in the Shermer video accomplished some pretty amazing spoon and fork-bending feats. The only question is, how were they (especially the children) able to accomplish this?
I think you can have a scale of implausibility.
Spontaneous remission of disease is an everyday occurrence. It’s a bit rare in certain kinds of cancer, but it happens. Any medical journal would have dozens of reported cases.
So faith healing is not implausible. I find the causal connection to be implausible, but the temporal connection is common.
Spoon bending, if actual, would require a rewrite of physics. I think William tossed it out thinking it was just a bit on the unusual side, not a game changer. He doesn’t seem to understand how profoundly implausible it is.
I do not hover over William’s posts. I seldom even read them. But spoon bending jumped out.
Did you ever figure out how whatever causes gravity pushes atoms around? Or are you still confused about the difference between a model and an explanation?
Are you trying to change the subject, William?
Petrushka said:
So, petrushka can’t be bothered to read any of the back-post context; something just “catches his eye” and he jumps in, gets bent out of shape, then because I won’t answer his uninformed, irrelevant challenges (irrelevant because of the prior passages he neglected to “hover” over), starts a cascade of negative comments about me?
How about this, Petrushka: if you can’t be bothered to read the back-post context, stay the f* out of the discussion.
Pit. E. Ful.
William, if you can bend one of my everyday spoons, just holding it in one hand, I’ll give you my house. One word of warning. I can’t bend it using both hands, with my best effort.
Here’s a picture.
http://images.replacements.com/images/images5/flatware/D/dansk_odin_stainless_korea_oval_place_soup_spoon_P0000155191S0021T2.jpg
The secret of your claim is not that the phenomenon you have observed is anything extraordinary, but that your interpretation and powers of deduction are so defective. You cannot distinguish between parlor tricks and science.
That is why I insist on details.
No. But trying to explain the importance of context to you is like trying to explain “the spirit of the rules” to someone who thinks that calling someone’s ideas crazy is not functionally the same as calling them crazy.
Glad to see you maintaining your calm and objective stance.
But you could have simply responded in a timely manner to my request for details.
William J. Murray,
I don’t see why you mind that. Personally, I’d much rather have somebody call me crazy than lie about what I’ve written, misrepresent my posts and their own, weasel and morph their position constantly without noting it or admitting it when pressed , claim they’ve said stuff they never actually said, etc., etc.
So some person here you don’t really respect anyhow, thinks you’re crazy. Who gives a shit. That’s their opinion. Sticks and stones and all that. Why people consider that kind of stuff more important than preservation of intellectual integrity is really strange to me.
If you had read the back posts, you might have understand why providing you with any details was entirely irrelevant to the point.
And don’t you dare rain on my Al Pacino moment.
William,
It obviously isn’t the same. If it were, then we could never conceive of a sane person having a crazy idea.
What I’m not happy about is the potential for reification that happens when someone makes some stuff up. “Psychokinesis” indeed! Even spell-checker thinks it’s a word.
Too much health care is bad for your health apparently. Many sick people get better whether treated, prayed over or whatever.
Well indeed. I’m also bothered by the exploitation.
There was a guy who used to broadcast on Radio Luxembourg selling his scheme for winning the UK “football pool” (a lottery based on guessing the drawn matches in the UK league.) As a youngster, I used to wonder, if his scheme worked, why did he need to sell it to anyone and why didn’t he just keep winning the pools. Anyone who could demonstrate genuine PK powers would be overwhelmed with governments and corporations wanting to exploit the huge potential of such an effect were it to exist.
walto,
If you ever see someone doing that, I hope you’ll point it out — while providing specific evidence for your accusation, of course.
Alan Fox,
No kidding. I’m still waiting to rent the auditorium. If somebody would PLEASE give me the dates and places!!!!
William,
It isn’t “getting around the rules”, William. The rules aren’t supposed to shield you from feeling bad because someone called your ideas crazy. Lizzie has made it clear that ideas and arguments are fair game.
They are only supposed to shield you from being called an “idiot” or a “nutcase”, for example.
walto said:
I don’t mind it. Obviously, someone with my views either knows how to take that kind of abuse or … you know, I’d have to go all KN every time I get overtly or subtly dissed. Oh, my! I’m not being properly respected by my peers! BOOM! (head exploding)
Yes, he’s quite talented at what he does, isn’t he?
My point was about how **a certain person** was trying to justify calling the ideas of others crazy, as if such a “letter of the law” argument was anything more than an attempt to provide cover for what he knows are insults. But, you wouldn’t know that, seeing as you’re not reading **that person’s** posts.
This all serves a purpose that I have in mind.
Or, I could try to explain the difference between “functionally the same” and “technically the same”, but once again, some people don’t understand context. Or, maybe some people abuse context for their own advantage. Not that I’d ever accuse anyone here of that.