Relevant extracts from the Sciforums Posting Guidelines follow. This set of rules has been in place for years. Magical Realist should be well aware of our guidelines by now. I have highlighted certain particularly relevant sections in
bold.
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When posting:
- Post clearly and coherently.
- Support your arguments with evidence.
- Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
- Do not breach copyright laws.
- Do not expect members to do your homework for you.
"[W]e retain in all areas of debate an ethos of respect for the scientific method, which demands critical analysis, clear thinking and evidence-based argument."
D. Moderation and Penalties
D1. Posting on sciforums is a privilege, not a right. All material published on sciforums is at the discretion of the moderator team.
E6. Sciforums publishes links to external sites at its sole discretion. We reserve the right to remove links without notice.
E7. Sciforums is not responsible for and does not endorse the content on external sites.
E8. When linking to other sites, include a description and/or meaningful link text – not just ‘Link’ or ‘Click here’.
E13. Appropriate supporting evidence or explanations should be posted together with any opinion, especially on contentious issues. Sciforums is not your personal blog, and should not be used to promote your unsupported opinions.
E15. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. If you’re claiming that Einstein was wrong, or that evolution does not occur, or that aliens are visiting Earth, be prepared to provide strong evidence in defence of your argument. If you only have an opinion, avoid posting on topics such as these.
H16. Do not expect sciforums members to do your homework for you. Do not ask for help with homework-style questions or essays without first showing that you have put some time and effort into the work yourself.
I15. The intentional posting of false or misleading information is unacceptable. This includes posting half-truths, i.e. leaving out relevant and known information to give a false impression.
I16. Advertising and spam is not permitted on sciforums. Examples include: posting solely in order to link to an external site, placing contact information for yourself or a site (links or email addresses) at the bottom of posts, off-topic posts mentioning or directing readers to an external service,
opening posts that say only ‘Have you heard about/read/seen site X? (Link)’. Spammers are invariably quickly discovered and permanently banned from sciforums. Posting sprees aimed solely at increasing a member’s post count (particularly for new members to be able to post links) are considered spam.
I18. Trolling is the posting of inflammatory posts with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional (often angry) response. Trolls aim to disrupt normal on-topic discussion, often by raising tangential or irrelevant hot-button issues. Trolling posts are intended to incite controversy or conflict and/or to cause annoyance or offence.
Trolls are damaging to online communities because they attempt to pass as legitimate participants in discussions while actually seeking to disrupt normal conversation and debate. If permitted to remain, trolls tend to reduce the level of trust among members in an online community. One consequence may be that truly naive posts are rejected by sensitised members as just more examples of trolling.
Trolls tend to follow certain patterns of behaviour that may include:
- Posting of similar responses and topics repeatedly.
- Avoiding giving answers to direct questions put to them.
- Never attempting to justify their position.
- Demanding evidence from others while offering none in return.
- Vanishing when their bluff is called, only to reappear in a different thread arguing the same point.
- Deliberately derailing discussions onto tangential matters in order to try to control the flow of discussion.
Trolls are not tolerated on sciforums.
I19. Repetitive or vexatious
posting is considered trolling.
Sciforums reserves the right to reject contributions that have been widely canvassed in the forum and to reject contributions from participants who seek to dominate the discussion.
I21. Propaganda is loosely defined here as posts that have no aim other than to proclaim the superiority of one belief over another, particularly where the belief in question is the subject of controversy or argument. Examples include preaching one’s own religion as the only true religion, proclaiming that one’s favoured political party is superior to the opposing party, or proclaiming that one group is morally superior to another.
The signature of propaganda is that it consists largely of a member expressing strongly held personal beliefs about things that can’t be proven, supposedly in the interests of achieving some important aim (e.g. world peace, governing the nation effectively, ensuring that people act morally).
I23. Propaganda can include
material copied verbatim from other websites, books or articles,
that demonstrates a clear bias for or against a particular belief. It does not include article which examine an issue objectively and rationally, looking at both sides of an argument.
I26. Evangelising is where the poster’s main aim is to spread the word about his or her beliefs, without being interested in real discussion or critical analysis.
I27.
The moderator team takes a dim view of propaganda, preaching, proselytising
and evangelising. Engaging in these activities is not guaranteed to get you banned, but you do so at your own risk.
I29. The moderator team have limited time and resources. We reserve the right to ban members who require continual policing by the moderators, those who contribute little useful content, and those who spend their time on the forum criticising it or its leadership. We similarly reserve the right to complain to a member’s ISP and/or to take legal action against a vexatious member.
