I sense a disturbance in the force.
This thread is for people to tell me what they think is going on, going wrong, and what they think we should do about it. I’m listening.
Lizzie
[Edit added 18.40 pm CET 20/08/2018 by Alan Fox]
As the comments have ballooned, Lizzie would very much like members to summarize their thoughts and suggestions into one statement and there is now a dedicated thread, “Summaries”, where they can be posted. Please just post one summary and please do not add other comments. You are welcome to comment on other people’s summaries in this thread. The idea of the “Summaries” thread is to make it easier for Lizzie to get your input. Comments judged by admins not to be summaries will move to guano.
Members who would rather keep their thoughts confidential are invited to use the private messaging system. Lizzie’s address is Elizabeth.
keiths asked me to post this in this thread. Everything after this line is his content.
Patrick, to Alan:
And:
And:
And of course, the moderators know they should lift the suspension. They know that it’s fair for the accused to be able to defend himself. They know that Lizzie wants an open discussion of what’s right and wrong at TSZ and how to make things better. They know what Lizzie wants, but they are actively opposed to her wishes, and they are abusing their moderation powers toward that end.
In particular, they know what they’ve gotten away with in Lizzie’s absence, and they want to keep her in the dark about it. If they allow me to speak, Lizzie will learn about what they’ve done (if she hasn’t done so already, by reading old threads).
Like censors everywhere, the moderators are frightened of the truth. If the truth gets out, they look bad. Solution? Suppress the truth. Censor people. Abuse moderation privileges.
Lizzie’s been away for a long time, and this sort of behavior has been rampant during her absence. I’ve very glad that it’s finally coming to her attention. As Patrick notes, sunlight is the best disinfectant.
To close, here’s a paradigmatic example of the grudge-nursing and moderation abuses that TSZ has suffered through in Lizzie’s absence:
keiths:
Alan:
keiths:
Here’s another comment from keiths. Everything after this line is his content.
From an old comment:
It’s extremely valuable that this stuff is coming to light. The truth is out, and everyone, including Lizzie, can now see Alan and Neil’s true colors. No wonder they’re trying to censor me.
For more moderation abuses by both Alan and Neil, see the beginning of the current Moderation Issues thread. (The thread is full of such abuses, of course, but they are particularly concentrated in the early part.)
One more comment from keiths. Everything after this line is his content.
Lizzie is just a tool as far as Alan is concerned. When he wants to overstep his authority, he claims that Lizzie has given him absolute power:
When he doesn’t want to do something — including undoing his own abusive actions — he claims he can’t act without her approval.
It’s utterly contradictory and unprincipled. Alan doesn’t care. He’s just using Lizzie as a convenient excuse for his own impulsive and abusive moderation actions.
This isn’t a one-time phenomenon. He did exactly the same thing during the ALurker fiasco — censoring both ALurker and Patrick by suspending their accounts, and then claiming that he couldn’t undo the abuse without Lizzie’s blessing.
Would you say the exact same thing of the current mods then? They do not value free speech because they are willing to enforce these rules that you see as infringements on freedom of expression?
And of course, by extension, the same applies to Elizabeth. She likewise does not value free speech, because they are her rules.
And finally, we can ask about your own time as moderator. How conflicted you must have been! You were either willing to enforce the rules or you agreed to be an admin under false pretenses.
Do your own actions speak louder than words? You were an actual mod here. I never have been. 🙂
A trial then! Can we have a burning afterwards?
Regarding Tom English’s comment about different software and Alan Fox’s experiment. FWIW, I found a de facto ignore feature on the forum software I use here:
http://creationevolutionuniversity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4
Beyond that, the issues is why someone joins in a blog or forum. If one joins a blog or forum is to humiliate and discredit his opponents in debate publicly and get his kicks doing that, then that is different than someone that joining a discussion to test out the quality of his discussion. Each reason for participating creates a dynamic.
For example, what value is there in having Joe G participate in a forum/blog for me? If I have a pro-ID advocacy blog, I wouldn’t want him showing up, nor Adapa nor Gregory. In fact if I have an advocacy blog, I probably wouldn’t want any comments.
HOWEVER, if I really do want a place to show I’m not afraid to engage my critics, then TSZ is the place for that. But I’m sure as heck not going to let Adapa and Joe G and Gregory defecate all over my advocacy blog.
I am confused about who is on trial here. Cue Al Pacino clip.
DNA_Jock must be an albino. He of no true color.
I think the recent behavior of the current admins does not demonstrate that they value free expression. It appears to me that they have let their egos get in the way and have overreacted, at least in part because of personal animus towards keiths. Their continued refusal to lift his suspension in the interest of fairness provides more support for that view.
I would very much like it if Elizabeth would modify the rules to eliminate Guano and the ability of the admins to control what people read and write. My conclusion from her experiment with the site so far is that those rules have been a net negative. I give her the benefit of the doubt and assume her goal has always been to encourage open discussion.
I became more conflicted over time and reached the point where I couldn’t in good conscience censor other people’s comments. I no longer buy into the common knowledge that of course online fora need moderation. I learned and changed. Is that against the rules too?
No, that’s not against the rules. And I am perfectly willing to give things a shot with no moderation, no Moderation Issues, no Guano, and no Noyau.
I’m with you about letting people show their true colors and that the appropriate response to bad speech is good speech. I think we just disagree about what qualifies as “good speech” and “bad speech.” 🙂
The current moderation is not working and needs an overhaul.
HT to Neil for tipping the scales. Who knew that provocative speech needed to be Guanoed if it provokes a rule-breaking response.
Let’s be clear about something though.
keiths’s post declared Swamidass a liar right in the title of the OP. If he had done the same thing, replacing Swamidass with Elizabeth, it would have elicited the same response. The “innocent victim” routine is simply not believable and hurts his case.
Well, if TSZ was setting the laws of Canada, I might have a different view.
But consider the role of the speaker in the UK parliament, which I think is the better analogy:
I suppose EL could decide an a yes/no vote before suspending members for more than a short period. But that is not what I would recommend.
No! Really?!?
Repetitive sanctimonious blather (with absence of answer regarding hate speech) snipped
Very inspiring story! Has the new Patrick apologized to FMM yet?
BruceS,
Interesting, I might look at Roberts Rules to see if that’s consistent.
Of course, another difference between Parliamentary rules of procedure and what goes on here is that endless haggling about a Speaker’s ruling prevents the important business of the day from proceeding. That’s not the case with an on-line blog where parallel processing is possible.
And Salvador. Isn’t Salvador just exercising his free speech rights?
I’m really looking forward to meeting this guy!
Mung,
Give him a big smooch for me.
I suspect we won’t agree, possibly because we have different values about transparency versus the acceptability of moral outrage. That may reflect a basic Canada/US difference, which is also reflected perhaps in hate laws: we have them, you do not I believe.
We may not agree even if you and I agree on the what constitutes a good discussion, which I suspect we do.
But, in the end, I trust and believe EL will review and think about all the comments in this thread. And it is she I am hoping to convince.
I think not.
(Unless, by ‘the same response’ you mean that a moderator would have contacted Lizzie to ask: “What do you want to do?”)
Gregory, for instance, is still going strong.
Wasn’t it Neil who moved it to private and then later released it after modifying it?
In that case, I’ll defer to him as to what response a post accusing Elizabeth of being a liar would have elicited. If I had the guts I’d create such an OP myself and refer people to some obscure thread somewhere and tell people to go read it for the proof of the truth of my claim just to see what would happen.
I don’t understand that (possible) connection. Can you explain? Thanks.
There is no connection between hate laws and this discussion of moderation at TSZ. I was trying to draw attention to a place where Canadian values differ from US values (as reflected in the respective federal laws, anyway). I’ve seen also this expressed as a difference in the two countries between the relative valuation of freedom versus order. We both want both of these, I think, but sometimes differ on the edge cases.
From a previous post of yours:
I understand you to mean different conversations, including one on moderation, can be going on at the same time. That is true, but an individual moderator has to move between threads*. Replying to question on their moderation actions would take moderators time away from the actual discussions. Plus I would not be surprised if having to deal with second-guessers would mean many good candidates would not want the job of moderator.
—————————————-
* just like single processor CPUs — inside joke for the techies
Reasonable, clear, polite replies like this are never going to elicit the flame wars you mentioned. Step up your game!
I think they’re related–which is why patrick is ducking mung’s questions about racial and gender slurs. I’m more sympathetic with the Canadian position on such laws, myself–having little truck with the “fundamental human right” of free speech, as I do.
But do you think sympathy for hate speech laws cuts one way or another on the transparency issue? That’s the connection I’m not seeing–if you were suggesting one.
I am fairly certain that, were Patrick to read the Do atheists exist? thread that Alan switched to “No Holds Barred”, he would conclude that it was just hunky dory and was not negatively impacted by flaming.
Your mileage may vary.
Reasonable people can differ, right?
What is puzzling to me is Patrick’s somewhat fluid relationship with evidence.
According to Patrick, the ‘No Holds Barred’ threads
On what basis does he conclude this?
Because keiths told him so! He didn’t bother to look.
Patrick also holds that
On what basis does he conclude this?
Well, because
His confirmation bias is so strong that he will ascribe nefarious motives to an entire category of posters here; he accuses those freaks who claim this forum has decayed of posting in bad faith, but he didn’t actually bother to look at the data, and he claims that their position cannot possibly be supported by the data, because err, obviously because they are insufficiently strident.
WTF?
EfixLink
I’m not sure why. Prior to our last presidential election he asked me for evidence that Trump was a lying fraud, so I took the trouble to fish up a dozen links. Soon after he put me on ignore for good.That sums up his interest in evidence pretty well, I think.
He’s been that way on pretty much everything. Surprised you’re just realizing it now.
Yes. Note that I had already received email from other moderators about that post.
As for a post about another person — without seeing the post, I cannot really say what I would do.
Funny how memory works. What I remembered was Patrick’s (valid) point about many people jumping to conclusions re Trump, and I conveniently forgot the subsequent descent in to “He’s not so bad” apologetics.
DNA_Jock,
As you can probably guess, I think the only ‘valid point’ about people jumping to conclusions about Trump involves those who thought he must be a good/savvy businessman since his name is on a bunch of big buildings and he was on TV a lot. Some of us didn’t jump to those conclusions and looked around a bit (at the many bankruptcies, lawsuits, etc.).
ETA: Also at his hefty inheritance.
Yes. A good example of that was my take on how/why Noyau was created. A pm from Alan plus a look at the record disabused me of my (wacky) theory. I DiD use it for making random posts three or four times. And maybe I liked having it around for that purpose–but that’s not why it was made.
DNA_Jock,
Evidently I’ve been too aggressive to engage productively with you. My apologies. Let me turn it down a notch so we “can come to discover what common ground we share; what misunderstandings of other views we hold; and, having cleared away the straw men, find out where our real differences lie.”
I believe you mixed and matched my statements a bit. To be clear, when I said “If any real harm had come from them, the people in favor of giving more power to the admins would be trumpeting it to support their position. Apparently all that’s there is speech that some people don’t like. That’s okay, unless you’re a control freak.” I was referring to the threads where the admins decided to be hands off. I admit that the “control freak” bit was unnecessarily combative. The remainder, though, I stand by. Can you point to anything in those threads that caused real harm to the site? You mentioned “flaming”, but that’s just speech you personally don’t like. Where’s the harm?
Following onto that, I’m interested in your answers to the questions I asked Mung about his desire to censor: Why? I don’t understand this desire to control what others can write and read. How do you think discussions will be improved by you or another admin interfering?
With regard to “forum decay”, I don’t see anyone who isn’t in favor of stricter moderation who accepts that hypothesis. It requires some actual evidence, and responses to contrary examples, if it is to be used to drive decisions about TSZ. Without that evidence, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that it is accepted because it aligns with the preferences of those accepting it.
Regards,
Patrick
What contrary examples? The question-begging/fantasy ones Jock referred to?
…and the smooching! Jesus.
More puffery or more kissery?–that seems to be the key question here.
I discussed a few in my first comment on this thread:
I’m sure I could come up with more.
Yes. Hard cases make bad law.
Yes. I think that the current admins have suspended keiths for personal reasons and are violating basic principles of fairness by not allowing him to participate on this thread where we have Elizabeth’s unfortunately rare attention.
I would have let the post stand and allowed people who disagreed with it to comment. I certainly wouldn’t have channeled Barry Arrington and his loudspeaker in the ceiling. It’s clear that all OPs here are the opinion of the poster — there was no need to edit that post and doing so was a clear violation of the rules.
I don’t see any legal liability from that post, as I’ve discussed upthread. It strikes me as simply an excuse to take action against keiths.
That endless discussion is why I’m advocating the elimination of Guano and restricting the admins to policing for the Bannable Offenses.
What I remember is noting that people were disparaging Trump for unevidenced reasons, despite there being many legitimate, supportable reasons.
I don’t recall ever making any claim that Trump is “not so bad.” As a strong libertarian and supporter of Gary Johnson, that would be an unusual claim, to say the least. Do you have a cite?
Speaking of the loudspeaker, here’s the first of two additional comments from keiths. Everything after this line is from him.
Let’s take another look at the suspension.
Here is the “justification” that Alan offered for it:
But as everyone knows, Lizzie fully intended for moderators to be accountable to members and subject to criticism. That’s what ‘Moderation Issues’ is for! Alan abused his authority in order to protect his fellow moderators from criticism. His action was illegitimate and against Lizzie’s wishes for the site.
Instead of reversing his action — which even he must realize was abusive and unwarranted — Alan has dug in his heels. And his fellow moderators, who are supposed to act as a check on him, are refusing to intervene and speak out against it. They are complicit in the censorship.
So what have the moderators been doing, instead of reversing or speaking out against the censorship? They’ve been making excuses for maintaining it.
Hence the bogus claims about how my OP was “arguably libelous” and put TSZ and Lizzie in legal jeopardy. Those claims don’t hold water and seem to have been dropped.
And as Mung pointed out earlier, Lizzie herself has done exactly what I did. She accused Stephen Meyer of lying, just as I accused Joshua Swamidass:
Were there howls of outrage? Did the moderators call for her suspension? No, of course not. It would have been ridiculous to do so (and it would have been ridiculous even if Lizzie hadn’t been the blog owner). Lizzie could back up her accusation, just as I can back up mine. Such accusations are perfectly appropriate at TSZ.
The difference? The moderators don’t have personal grudges toward Lizzie. They do toward me. And so they censor me, while nary a peep of protest escapes their lips regarding Lizzie’s accusation toward Meyer. It’s pure hypocrisy.
Some people simply cannot be relied upon to exercise power responsibly. Our three active moderators, sadly, fall into this category.
Here’s the second from keiths.
Jock,
Lizzie is trying to make an informed decision about the future of TSZ.
The topic of A/B testing came up. You are fully aware that such testing has already taken place, and you chose not to mention that. I had to intervene, via Patrick, to bring this out into the open.
Would you care to explain to the readers, and to Lizzie, why you wanted to sweep the evidence under the rug?
No, I was not thinking about such a connection when I wrote that. I was just thinking of another place where Canadian values differed from American values*.
I recognize that talk of a single set of American values is debatable. Hence the weasel phrase “at least as reflected in federal law” in the first post.
Hahahaha. Hilarious stuff here!
ETA: the hilarity has worn off. That is one of the most dishonest, disgusting, disgraceful remarks I’ve ever seen on this site.
Patrick,
One thing it seems like everybody would have to agree about this keiths suspension. It’s been very effective at keeping his posts off the site.
Patrick says he feels bad about Frankie’s treatment too. I wonder if he could be his mouthpiece on this thread as well.
Or we could have a special forum: ‘Patrick Speaks for the Oppressed’
The Russians had a lot more money to throw around back then.
So DNA_Jock does have some color to him after all.
Vincent, otoh, is transparent. Diaphanous even.
The position of prioritizing free speech over hate speech restrictions is defended in this NYT editorial, which looks at tech companies approach, as lately exemplified with the Alex Jones banning. It is well worth reading as background to this thread.
I think it echoes to your concern (as I understand it) about private moderation in that it says tech company policies leading to banning can end up biased, due to subjective interpretation of the vague rules.
(I agree vague rules are bad: That’s is why I agree that rules like “address the position, not the speaker” should be jettisoned.)
The opinion writer thinks libel laws would suffice. That’s probably something for EL to decide based on her view of cost/benefit of adding hate speech laws as a basis for a rule.
I question whether the “Do Atheists Exist” thread serves as a useful example.
I wasn’t there to participate and help inflame people.
What was that thread, fifth vs. the world?
One more from keiths. (I’ll be offline for a bit, so take your time reading this one.)
Alan,
Your unjustified censorship scheme isn’t just affecting me. It’s affecting others at TSZ as well.
First, this entire kerfuffle has resulted from your indulgence of a personal grudge. It’s your “gift” to your fellow TSZ members.
Second, you are interfering with Lizzie’s desire to have an open discussion regarding moderation at TSZ and future alternatives:
Lizzie wants to hear. You don’t want her to. You would like to cover her ears by silencing a voice that is opposed to yours. It’s childish. It’s also exactly the wrong thing for Lizzie and for TSZ.
Third, you are interfering with discussions elsewhere at TSZ. A prominent example is my thread on walto’s philosophy paper. The conversation has ground to a halt because people are waiting for responses from me. Your childishness is preventing that discussion from continuing.
It reminds me of Trump, actually. If Congress doesn’t give him his wall, Trump will throw a tantrum and shut down the government.
Likewise, Alan is stamping his feet. If he doesn’t get what he wants, then he’s going to shut the discussion down. Screw everyone else; Alan isn’t here to serve TSZ’s interests. He’s here to indulge himself like a spoiled toddler — or a certain US president.
No doubt one of Patrick’s ‘legitimate, supportable’ concerns. The ones he’s always had.
Sounds to me like keiths has a personal grudge towards Alan and is using this as an opportunity to push that grudge further for all it’s worth.
There is a vast store of evidence available here on this site that keiths does hold this personal grudge against Alan. It’s sad, really.
keiths must be eating it up, finally the center of attention. Bringing the whole site to it’s knees just to serve his selfish interests.
It’s really not a good thing that one single poster can have such a negative influence on the site with this tantrum.
You’d think someone had accused him of doing something WRONG.
If keiths has done nothing wrong, he ought not be suspended.
keiths isn’t going to keep me on his side talking about our glorious president that way.
Patrick:
[Side note] : Oh-err. Don’t try that line on any of the women in my household, you’re cruising for a bruising if ya do.
I’m fine with aggression. Flame wars don’t bother me, personally. It’s not your aggression that bothers me, it’s the mind-blowing confirmation bias.
But let’s move on, noting only that you have offered zero evidence to support your “no negative effects” argument.
I did not mix and match your statements in any way, shape, or form. Please stop that. Charitably speaking, you may have mis-understood my original juxtaposition of two mutually inconsistent Patrickisms; you then re-arranged the sequence.
Nope. Flaming does not bother me personally. I enjoy a good flame. I’m indulging a little right now. Rather, it is for completely paternalistic reasons that I do not like to see flaming at TSZ: the harm I see it do to others and to the quality of discourse. Oh, it’s full-on pearl-clutching “Will nobody think of the children?” stuff, I grant you, but if you were honest about the goals of TSZ, you would see the point. You don’ t see the point, because you are a Free Speech Warrior. Given your level of confirmation bias and sanctimony, I doubt that there is much point in discussing this issue. You are welcome to characterize the preceding sentence as a cowardly and dishonest refusal to engage, motivated by my knowledge that I would lose. It isn’t true, but such characterizations certainly seemed to make keiths happy.
We agree about the problem, you and I. The rules reward dishonesty. Your solution is to switch to No-Holds Barred. Very specifically, you wanted the freedom to attack commenters who were, in your (entirely accurate) opinion, abusing the ruleset at TSZ with their flagrant dishonesty. Our “bullying” (yes, you and I teamed up to harass Erik) drove others away.
My preferred route is to stick with (some version of) the current concept, but to have some way to de-motivate hard core trolls. Lizzie’s technique of repeatedly and calmly explaining to them how they are wrong is pretty kick-ass. I aspire to that, but I fail.
You keep making vague allusions to all the commenters who have been driven away by ‘overly zealous moderation’. For every one of those, I’ll bet there’s three that have been driven away by overly light moderation. And in fact it has been the thoughtful commentators who left because they were sick of refuting PRATTs (e.g. Allan Miller, one of my favorite commenters here. Although I think I may be developing a man-crush on newton right now…that’s some awesome writing) And just in case you think that social opprobrium will deter trolls, you should to read up on trolling.
I do not have a “desire to censor”. That’s entirely a creation of your fertile and potentially paranoid imagination. I see some “censorship” as a necessary evil. I am fully onboard with your position that the best response to bad speech is good speech, but I have sufficient empathy to recognize that that doesn’t always do the trick. And Charlottesville is still a little raw in my household. We agree about incitements to violence, I hope?
With the notable exception of you and keiths, I don’t see anyone who isn’t in favor of stricter moderation, so that’s a pretty uninformative correlation you got there, bud. The problem is that almost everyone is pointing over no-man’s land and whining “him, him, punish him!”
Which is pathetic. As Neil has pointed out, the point of moderation is to protect THE CONVERSATION.
“contrary examples” LOL.
Well, you’ve been away. You did note that your recent thread review was “not something I recommend to the faint of heart”.
I have refrained from addressing keiths’s arguments to date, and restricted myself to arguments that I can ascribe to you, since, as you note, he is currently impeded from replying. However, he has chosen to attack me through you and, given my understanding of your (plural) thought processes, I would not want anyone to over-conclude from my continued silence.
Nope. Still potentially libelous. Not going to explain why any further than I already have done, effortlessly refuting every single one of Patrick’s points (see, I can make shit up too). If you need help ascribing a motive to my behavior, ask a lawyer. If they’re an English lawyer, you could ask them about the law while you’re at it.
Haven’t dropped it.
Now, keiths is correct that Lizzie accused Meyer of lying. Ignoring the academic/non-academic distinction, which upset keiths, there’s two other differences:
Actually, no. I read the thread at Peaceful Science before any action was taken (evidence, that’s how I roll…), and unless you’ve got a killer smoking gun in your personal correspondence, you cannot back up your claim. I will go “all Patrick” at this juncture, and note that IF you had a killer smoking gun, THEN you would have used it already. You do have something of a track record.
Finally, Meyer would be in for some Kitzmiller-level embarrassment were he to sue. JS does not have the same disincentive, and is far more disposed to complain about his treatment here. For Meyer, the optics would be terrible, and Lizzie has a solid ‘honest opinion’ defense.
Keiths wrote per Patrick:
I didn’t.
I raised the idea of A/B testing. Insofar as such testing has already occurred, keiths and I disagree about the outcome. There’s no sweeping. I was going to direct Patrick to the thread. But keiths’s eagerness to impute ulterior motives is insulting. It is this behavior that is not conducive to the goals of the site.
I’ll leave protecting THE CONVERSATION up to Neil and DNA_Jock and just stick to rules violations.
Don’t bank on it. Still no response to mung’s racism and misogyny questions. Also, I think I recall a thread here wherein a couple of folks whom I probably don’t need to name lauded Hitchens’ disdain for Holmes on that very matter. (Of course being old and confused and crabby, I may be misrememering again.)
Two other things:
1. You’re right about Newton: he rocks.
2. Nice post.