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."
hotshoe_,
That coming from the woman who said this:
When is enough enough for Patrick to bully and badger Erik? Does he really think we haven’t heard him yet?!
Admins? Anything fair?
Admins,
Is TSZ using the latest version of all of its WordPress plugins? I’m wondering if things like the page number bug have been fixed by the plugin coders.
Yep.
If I give in to the temptation to tell someone “Fuck off” the way you just did to Patrick, I will expect my rule-breaking comment being moved to Guano as it should be.
I’m okay with you being a rude, mean, insulting ass, too — this isn’t an exclusive club, ya know — but it has to be in accordance with the rules of this site.
Don’t like the rules: go somewhere else. No one is keeping you here.
Wow, that’s even easier! Thanks!
Admins,
Just a brainstorm.
I don’t like monopolizing the front page space at the expense of other authors who have more active threads. I’ve tried to use the “more” tag a lot so as to shrink the foot print on the front page to a minimum.
Is it OK if I just put the “more” tag at the top so that only the title is seen? I have a few threads in mind that are specialized enough that I think it might get only a few comments at most. i.e. mathematical stuff about population genetics
I’m glad to see more threads being started here as it shows more interest in participating. At some point, if TSZ grows there might have to be a decision how to manage the growth of discussions.
Is there a way, for example, a thread can be archived off the front page?
Example, an OP might be worth one read, and a couple comments, but it is somewhat like a news item that can be read and then archived after a day or so since it doesn’t have a lot of interest:
I’d like to supercede two threads and move onto another topic, but I have already 2 threads on the front page. Is there a way to deprioritize them off the front page?
There an unwholesome trick of changing the time stamp. 🙂 I suppose if the admin notes the time stamp change as a kluge to get it off the front page, I’m totally fine with that. For me personally, he can do that without even notification.
I would suggest that at least a first paragraph show. It could be a one sentence summary.
What on earth do you have against Neptune!
All latest available updates for everything applied. The problem is to do with how comment links are generated. Bad links contain the wrong thread page number but don’t need to include that thread page number. The thread link finds the latest page and the comment number finds the comment. The fault should be in the software creating links that are displayed on the index page. Links that are generated as permalinks seem OK.
Hey, nobody should complain about being sent to Neptune as long as Sun Ra resides there.
walto,
Better than Uranus!
…ba.dum ba!
When ordinary users misbehave, it’s generally a matter of the character of the said users. But when admins misbehave, it’s obviously a matter of the character of the website that they are adminning. Right now Neil and Patrick actively contribute to the derailment of this thread http://theskepticalzone.fr/the-varieties-of-religious-language/
Erik,
I disagree. You yourself have noted that one of the “varieties of religious language” is literal. You yourself have repeatedly made a claim about the supposed historical accuracy of a literal reading of a religious text.
I am simply trying to understand your claim. My comments are fully on topic in that thread.
Gotta give ya’ credit, Erik. At least you’ve finally figured out which thread is appropriate for your self-centered whining about admins.
Good on ya!
I’ve looked at the multi-page link bug and I believe the links being displayed on the left column are simply wrong. My first answer is that the page numbers are off by one.
One less than they should be.
So a quick workaround is to edit the URL and bump up the page number.
I haven’t test this on a lot of links.
The answers are there http://theskepticalzone.fr/the-varieties-of-religious-language/comment-page-34/#comment-94200
As long as you pretend they are not there, you are just a troll and a bully. Go ahead and sink this website. You are succeeding.
from the Religious Language slag-fest
Well, sure, it’s not a rule in the sense that it’s not spelled out on the rules page — but it’s been stated as policy more than once, right? I’m not going to search for confirmation of my idea, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Lizzie – and admins – telling other people to take their moderation complaints to the Moderation Thread.
If someone else wants to second Mung’s idea about “no rule”, I’ll apologize to Erik for scolding him about derailing his Religious Language thread with his pissbaby complaints.
Whaddya think, folks?
Your apologies are insincere, because the thread was derailed by the posts of two admins just before me.
Erik,
I’m amazed that you still reference that comment as an answer when it contains this statement of yours:
That’s not an answer. That’s the opposite of an answer. It’s in clear opposition to the goals of this site and to your own moral stance of playing by the rules.
Answer the questions or retract your claim.
Patrick, I pointed this post out to you from Rumraket and it seems you have done nothing:
“Seriously what the fuck is wrong with you people? It’s like your brain explodes on any subject that involves godbelief. It’s absurd to see how you flail around all over the place trying to make shit up as you go along, because you’re desperate to deny anything that could possibly show you’ve been wrong about this whole god business. Fearful pathetic men, all of you.”
Are you sure you are capable of applying your moderation fairly? You suggested in an earlier post that your admire Richard Hughes posts.
Now this.
This post follows the rules, but I can’t call Tom Tommy? I have lost faith in your ability to be impartial.
Ooh, in that case, I’ll be sure to quash any impulse to apologize to you.
Happy now? Ya’ getting what ya want out of alienating everyone? You in the right place in your life? Planing to keep on keeping on exactly as you have been?
Well, okay then.
phoodoo,
Can you give me a link or at least the thread? I searched for the terms but didn’t find it. I tend to skip around threads during short breaks and only spend more than five minutes at a time during lunch.
I have no idea what you’re talking about with this one.
At the risk of sounding like some superannuated NetNanny, can I suggest that people simply try to a) stick to the rules themselves b) try not to rise to the bait when others don’t and c) regard post moves simply as a dynamic housekeeping process designed to keep discussions on track, and largely irrelevant once the conversation has moved on?
tl:dr – behave like, um, grownups?
Elizabeth,
Your regulars cannot stay on-topic nor address the actual arguments. If that isn’t bad enough the falsehoods that some post are just pathetic for people allegedly posting in good faith.
Gregory,
Why don’t you compartmentalize your rants against my posts or other people’s thoughts in your own threads?
If you stay away from the threads I author, I’ll stay away from yours. Quid pro quo. Or do you have issues with such a quid pro quo offer?
Also not in the rules.
This one:
Park your priors.
And this one:
Don’t be an ass.
Mung,
If Lizzie ever makes that a rule it will get very quiet around here very quickly.
Elizabeth,
The problem Lizzie, is that your moderators all share the same worldview, so they are super good at quickly finding anything they object to and moving it out of the conversation, when it works against their worldview (ie the Tom English rant against UD that was allowed to stay despite calling people there click bait whores, but the response to that childish post of his was removed), and yet EVEN when I point out to Patrick an egregious abuse by Rumraket, Patrick says he can’t even find the post, when I have shown it to him in two different places (Its in the Moral Outrage posts Patrick!) .
So you have Patrick (who seems to be the same person as Richard) saying he admires Richard who has stated his purpose here is to derail threads with empty nonsense, finding every post he can which he disagrees with, and moving it, but struggling to move any who share his views.
Now perhaps you begin to see some of the concerns that other sites have about moderation, and how you can’t just let some posters do whatever they want, while censoring others. Do it fairly, or not at all (I would prefer fairly). Right now it seems to be in the EvC mode, where Percy censors every view he doesn’t like, by claiming it is off topic. Patrick is claiming he just can’t ever see the offensive evolutionists.
Have I stated that? Support or retract.
Hooray!
Update seems to have fixed page bug.
That’s excellent news.
But I’m confused. When I asked about that, I thought you said that all the available updates had already been applied:
Indeed I did. And my comment was perfectly correct. Your confusion might be reduced by considering when the latest version of WordPress (4.4) was made available for general release.
Thank you for the clarification.
And thank you for the vote of confidence!
Good grief, Alan. It was a perfectly legitimate question.
How about when admins rise the bait? This has been the problem here. Whenever regular members complain to (other) admins, they hide behind your back, and then you arrive and solve nothing. And so it goes on and on. You are an enabler of a bunch of bullies.
Can you be specific? Obviously admins are people like everyone else, and will “rise to the bait”, as do I. But I try not to, as, I suggest, do we all.
Can you explain what you mean by “hide behind your back”? And what is the problem exactly that you want me to solve? What am I “enabling”?
I’m not disputing it – I’m asking for clarity.
Erik,
Asking someone to clarify and support or retract their claims isn’t bullying. It’s part of playing by the rules — which you explicitly support as moral.
Let me take this point by point:
We do not have a policy regarding OPs and they are not moved to Guano (technically, that would be difficult). We may need to develop one, and I had issues with Tom’s OP, personally.
The comment was moved because we DO have a policy regarding comments, and it was correctly applied in this case.
It is not my impression, looking at the contents of Guano, that there is any obvious bias. I see posts from both “sides” (if we want to call them that – personally I think there are far more views than two expressed by members here, and I would like to see less polarisation) in Guano. But I will keep an eye on it.
Firstly, I do not think that Patrick is the same person as Richard. Secondly, I do not think that Patrick moves many posts at all. I will ask him.
I entirely agree that the moderation should be fair. If by “other sites” you include UD, I would say that our moderation is a great deal fairer, and would point out that no posts are deleted and that we actually have a moderation discussion area for discussing moderation. Not only that, but banning is extremely rare, and relatively easily reversible.
Can you give me an example of where you think Patrick has moved a post that is offensive to “evolutionists” yet left one that is offensive by “evolutionists”?
I noticed! Awesome!
Elizabeth,
You mean this example that I just posted of Rumraket isn’t one?:
“Seriously what the fuck is wrong with you people? It’s like your brain explodes on any subject that involves godbelief. It’s absurd to see how you flail around all over the place trying to make shit up as you go along, because you’re desperate to deny anything that could possibly show you’ve been wrong about this whole god business. Fearful pathetic men, all of you.”
Elizabeth, the address the post not the poster rule is unenforcible. If it were carefully enforced, this post would have to be moved.
Right now, keiths and I are busy attacking each other on a thread because I criticized one of his heroes. I called them both dickish know-it-alls and keith says this is not because either of them is a dickish know-it-all but because I’m filled with envy for his hero’s eloquence.
It should be obvious that that’s a good part of what people do on sites of this kind. In any case, probably a majority of comments here are, at least in part, ad hom.
That’s why I keep telling you that you have to either modify (or eliminate) that rule or buy a much bigger property to house Guano and tell the admins to get much busier. I don’t know if your gang is currently being fair in choosing the posts that they move. But they are certainly being arbitrary and capricious even if they can’t be justly accused of being unfairly discriminatory.
walto,
I sort of agree, but at the same time, if you have people who are just going to spew garbage upon garbage to interrupt any thread they can, you have to at least do something.
Is your issue that it was moved or that it wasn’t?
phoodoo,
I agree with you that Rumraket’s comment violated the rules, which is why I asked you for a link to it. I googled some of the keywords in it, but the page had evidently not been indexed yet.
While I do read every comment in Moderation Issues, I don’t read every comment on the site. Give me a little help and I’ll address your concerns.
It is already modified to read:
“Address the content of the post, not the perceived failings of the poster.”
And is, in any case, simply an special case of the general rule:
“Assume the other person is posting in good faith”.
Not that there is NO rule that you MUST post in good faith. That really would unenforceable, and it is partly in rebellion against the hopeless attempt to enforce something like that rule at UD that I started this place.
A) the ‘don’t address the failings’ rule is not a special case of the good faith rule. There are many other sorts of allegations of failings that might find their way into a comment. For example, claiming that someone is a dickish know-it-all or a falsely accusing, envious wannabe are not claims that someone is not posting in good faith.
B) The revised rule is also not enforceable without sending most posts to Guano. This post, e.g. accuses you of failing to understand the entailmrents of your rules.
Elizabeth,
It was Rumraket’s post. Even when I specially showed it to Patrick, it still wasn’t moved. He has moved some of my posts within two minutes.
He seems to agree it should be moved.
I agree that all the vicious trolling is a problem. That’s why I have pressed for a different approach to keeping the site civilized for a long time. My pleas have fallen on deaf ears, and what i’ve called ‘the statutory approach” has been maintained–along with defective ‘statutes’ and (I think necessarily) capricious enforcement.
Again. I take umbrage at this. My good faith does not extend to people attributing views to me I have not expressed. Guano the whole comment please.