Warning for asking a question via PM

[Bells]

But I wasn't complaining about about this poster for his role as a moderator, just arguing about the issue like with any other forum member UNTIL I was given by this same person, now switching to their moderator role, this warning of warnings to come (which was forwarded to James).

__________________________________________________ ___



To point 2, This doesn't apply because I'm not complaining about the moderation of an individual post.

To point 3, This doesn't apply because I'm not complaining about an individual moderator, I'm asking in SFOG if getting a warning for replying to a question in a PM is legitimate.

James has said it is.



Because none of this applied Bells.



The behavior in question was that we were discussing the actual issue.

The person in question never asked me to stop PMing them about this.

Which I would have if asked.

I presumed (erroneously it appears) that if someone PMed me, without asking me to not PM them in the future, that that has an implied consent to reply to their PM

Nice switch.

And your PM to me about the issue you are trying to win at on this site is not welcome. I am not involved in your dispute on the subject you had been discussing with the moderator in question. PM'ing me and trying to convince me that you are correct as well is not really going to work. As I said earlier, that does not concern me. What does concern me is your conduct in this matter.

Which goes like this:

1) You were asked by the moderator in question to stop or face moderation.
2) You decided (by your own admittance) to PM the moderator and try to take up the fight with him there because as you said yourself:

I sincerely believe that the moderator is wrong on the issue, and I've presented pages and pages of proof that is the case and yet the moderator won't admit it​

3) After countless of PM's to the moderator in question, were you were trying to demand he says you were right, he warned you again.
4) You ignored those warnings and kept PM'ing him.
5) Moderator issues you with a warning and you start this thread.


Are you now claiming that you have no complaint about this moderator's actions?

He told you, clearly, no more chances. He also told you to stop and to be honest and to stop trolling. Instead of adhering to that request, you again fired off yet another PM, completely ignoring his request to stop trolling him, you trolled him some more with this:

So why is it [Moderator name], that if I am the one who is distorting the issue that NO ONE agrees with YOUR version?

NO ONE.

Not even Joe?

Having read through those PM's of yours and his responses to you, you were trolling. He issued you with a warning for trolling.

If you have a complaint about that warning, by the rules of this site, you are required to PM the administrator of this site and discuss your concerns with him. Otherwise, this thread is pretty much more trolling on your behalf.

I think I made that clear to you quite a while back now. You were also advised by an administrator of this site that everyone has their limit and you pushed this moderator to his limit and you were also advised to stop pushing. You also ignored that request.

I warned you to stop pushing and what do you do? You send me a PM, trying to convince me that you were right about the issue you were discussing with said moderator. This is the extent of your desire to win. Did you not read where I said that I didn't really care what you were discussing the moderator in question and that the issue I was dealing with was your supposed complaint? You were told by the administrator that the moderator in question was within his rights to issue you with a warning. The issue ended there. You're still going..

So stop. How this ends is up to you. You can either PM James and discuss your concerns about the actions taken by the moderator in question or you can face the rules of this site. From me. Up to you.

So here it is, final warning to you...

Mod Note

Final warning. If you have an issue with the moderator action taken against you, you are required, by the rules of this site, to contact either the moderator in question or the administrator of this site. The rules clearly state that any such complaint or concern about a moderator's actions are to be taken directly to the administrator of this site by PM and that you are not to start a thread about it. Persisting in trying to "win" will result in further moderation.

 

[Gustav]

No one invited you either. No one invited anyone to the thread.

i would like to invite every tom, dick and harry to throw in their two cents here

occupy sfog
we are the 99% and whatnot
down with the pigs

last and absolutely final warning, bitches!

 

[Tiassa]

Mod Hat — Response

Mod Hat — Response

I. Technical Note​

Excerpted from Section H of the current site rules (Aug., 2011):

14. A Private Message, whether from another member or from a moderator, is private and should not be posted to the public forums without the express permission of the author.

(Boldface accent added)​

That express permission is given, and the only caveat is that a complaining member documenting private messages from moderators regarding disciplinary issues will find his own messages similarly exposed to public scrutiny.

We will also be considering other sections of the rules, including I.15—

Knowingly posting false or misleading information
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.​

—and I.29:

Repeat offenders
29. 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.​

These sections will have specific consideration and consequence in this thread.

Lastly, the answer to the question of what recourse one has but to take up the issue here (see post #3 in this thread) is that one can also appeal up the ladder. In this case, that would be James R. Reviewing staff notes, I find no mention from James R that such correspondence occurred prior to the posting of this thread. That in itself is not conclusive, as there may be reasons James would not have logged the note; perhaps he was asleep or otherwise engaged, or maybe he did not wish to log the note until he had responded to the member's complaint. However, neither does the complainant suggest he appealed to James, suggesting that James did not log the note because there was nothing to record.

It is not unusual for members disputing with moderators to skip that appeal up the ladder and bring their complaint straight to SFOG. Such a rush to bang their fists on the podium and denounce perceived injustice is not something that wins a member any sympathy from the staff, to be certain, but neither is it something we routinely suspend members for.

As the complaint has arisen in SFOG, it will be considered in SFOG.

II. Complaint Details​

The title of this thread: "Warning for asking a question via PM".

The first line of the topic post: "Is getting a warning for a PM to a moderator for asking them a question reasonable?"

Both of these expressions are inaccurate reflections of the situation.

As the complainant ought to know from reading the warning message, the infraction warning was issued for repeatedly refusing to consider a specific issue in order to insist on a particular framing of the contentious issue.

The infraction warning is not for simply asking a question. Rather, it was for ignoring a salient aspect of the discussion repeatedly in order to continue advocating a dishonest argument.

The title and topic post misrepresent the situation.

We might also consider another portion of post #3:

Indeed, this started because I was warned by the same moderator that I was going to start getting official warnings and this specific issue was brought up as an example of why that was so. So I took this issue off line via PM to try to resolve the issue and POOF, a warning.​

This statement is a little bit misleading. The timeline for this particular dispute:

• 2 March: Dispute arises.

• 22 March: Dispute is considered in member complaint thread; noted as part of member's well-established history of disingenuous argument.

• 2 April: Issue arises in EM&J thread as an example of member's frequent tactic of selecting specific definitions that suit his need and demanding the exclusion of all others.

• 10 April: Member raises dispute in Politics, a digression about details of a Georgia anti-abortion bill.

• 19 April: With member perceived by multiple moderators as trolling in diverse subfora, an informal warning (without yellow card) is sent.

• 20 April: Member invokes issue as specific response to informal warning. A total of eight messages—four apiece—exchanged between moderator and member, ending on 21 April.

• 22 April: Member opens poll thread in Politics; shortly thereafter it is transferred to Free Thoughts. Thread lapses into dormancy on 24 April.

• 1 May: Member revives private message discussion, citing poll thread. A total of seven messages exchanged—four by member, three by moderator—with the last message from member resulting in yellow card warning; member also responds to warning via private message. Member opens complaint thread in SFOG.​

This is the process that, apparently, equals "POOF". Two months, several threads, fifteen private messages.

The complainant also asserts:

I sincerely believe that the moderator is wrong on the issue, and I've presented pages and pages of proof that is the case and yet the moderator won't admit it, but rather than simply admit the error, it appears that the Moderator is trying to make me stop bringing up the issue by using the Warning system.​

The complainant's sincere belief that the moderator is wrong on the issue depends on an argumentative tactic that he has been repeatedly advised is apparent to the staff. Specifically, the complainant assigns to another the context of the other's words and insists—regardless of protestation, clarification, advisement, and reiteration—that the assigned context is the only possible or acceptable one. In this case, that context is contrary to both American vernacular and the perspective of the editors of a magazine specializing in the relevant field.

This becomes especially important in the context of the poll thread and revival of the private message discussion. The poll is spiked insofar as the answers available to respondents do not include the oft-repeated counterpoint to the complainant's assigned context.

The specific dispute is the whole of the complainant's response to an informal warning that spans multiple threads, multiple subfora, and considers behavior that has attracted the attention of multiple moderators. Out of all of the issues, this is the one line of discussion the complainant has chosen to pursue. Yet in that last bloc of seven private messages, the complainant refused to acknowledge the longstanding counterpoint, once again insisting that the context he assigned to another is the only valid context for the discussion.

That refusal to acknowledge the counterpoint is what earned the complainant a yellow card warning. Furthermore, there is no question in the language of the warning about the reason; it is even explicitly stated that, while an answer to the counterpoint probably would not have helped his standing, it might have been enough to avoid the yellow card warning.

Thus it would seem the title and general premise of the thread, whether a warning is appropriate for asking a reasonable question, is something of a distortion.

Given that another explicit point made in the warning message is that perceptions of the complainant's dishonesty are what have brought the situation to disciplinary necessity, one wonders what possible good the complainant expects an apparent deliberate distortion will do.

III. General Notes​

The staff is already considering this complaint thread, and comparing the complainant's tale to the record. We have been watching this situation develop for months, and have pursued a specifically cautious approach.

As many are aware, we have hopped our own disciplinary cycle before, and this has caused all manner of dispute both in the general community and among the staff specifically. We have chosen a cautious approach to dealing with the complainant because of our prior policy disputes. We have logged a record of the complainant's offenses as we perceive them for over a month, starting with the occasion that he tried lying about James R in a prior complaint thread. As some on staff are aware, that log is, technically, incomplete as it does not include some of his greatest hits, like the time he tried to assert that long division was a simpler way to express a difference than basic subtraction.

That the offenses the staff has perceived have only earned the complainant a yellow card at this time is reflective of our cautious approach. Had we not followed this slower route, the complainant would be farther along in the disciplinary cycle. But we chose to give him every chance to correct his behavior, have tried expressing the problem without our mod hats on, and now with. We are finding no success.

IV. Some Manner of a Ruling​

According to the above-cited rule I.29, pertaining to repeat offenders, staff perceptions seem, somewhat consistently, to regard the complainant in this category. The only question in that context is whether the perceptions of offense are legitimate.

Similarly, according to the above-cited rule I.15, pertaining to the posting of false or misleading information, the complainant has every appearance of misrepresenting the present situation and the issues leading thereunto. The only question in that context is whether that appearance is a valid perception.

The complainant will be afforded twenty-four hours to respond in his own defense. We will consider that response. He should not expect to win any argument, but, rather, demonstrate his case honestly in order to forestall disciplinary action pertaining to the appearance of disingenuous argument in this complaint thread.

Lacking any response, the staff will proceed according to its perceptions.

In the event of further dishonesty in the complainant's response, disciplinary magnitude will be amplified accordingly.

 

[Gustav]

weird how adoucette hates the authorities here in sci since he bends over backwards excusing most other instances of it elsewhere

i suppose liberals with batons ain't his thing

 

[James R]

Just a quick note: I have also been a recipient of adoucette's PMs on this issue.

I regard the moderation issue as one that arose with Tiassa, and I am very happy to stay right out of it and let Tiassa deal with it as he wishes.

---

As to the substance of the dispute, my impression is that it is very petty and insignificant. I have no intention of actually trying to sort out the minutiae of what the argument is all about, by the way - I'm just not interested. But my impression (which may be wrong) is that the dispute essentially revolves around whether one defines "oil" as "crude oil" or "petroleum products", or something like that. It appears that the US is a net importer of crude oil and a net exporter of petroleum products.

I have no idea why something that can be stated in a paragraph requires two months of argument.

I also don't see why adoucette is so desperate to convince one person that he is right - so desperate that he feels the need to reiterate his point ad nauseam, to PM people who just don't care about it, to start threads complaining that he is correct etc. etc. Anyway, I'm out. :shrug:

 

[leopold]

HOLY SHIT!!!
don't mess with tiassa, he'll nail you to the wall with railroad spikes.

 

[leopold]

only the administrators should have the right to complain to posters ISPs.
only the administrators should have the right to complain to "the authorities" or take legal action.

 

[quadraphonics]

The only sensible conclusion is that the rules don't matter in such cases.

I've concluded that the rules here, in practice, are concerned with exactly two things: keeping pageviews up, and keeping time and effort devoted to moderation down. Any principled considerations about consistency and community values simply do not rate, to the extent that they diverge from (or conflict with) the above two priorities. The question of whether the pretense to the contrary implied by the presentation and phrasing of the rules-as-written is a calculated ploy or simply an absence of self-awareness is left as an exercise for the reader (hint: as usual, start with Hanlon's Razor).

 

[adoucette]

Well I was going to let this die, but apparently I have no choice but to rehash this one more time:

First to deal with the POOF issue:

We might also consider another portion of post #3:

Indeed, this started because I was warned by the same moderator that I was going to start getting official warnings and this specific issue was brought up as an example of why that was so. So I took this issue off line via PM to try to resolve the issue and POOF, a warning.

This statement is a little bit misleading. The timeline for this particular dispute:

• 2 March: Dispute arises.

• 22 March: Dispute is considered in member complaint thread; noted as part of member's well-established history of disingenuous argument. <== Note how disingenious THIS is. Tiassa brought this up when he used his unilateral decision that he was right to discredit me with another poster:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2918149&postcount=41 (I'll cover this in more detail in my broader response)

• 2 April: Issue arises in EM&J thread as an example of member's frequent tactic of selecting specific definitions that suit his need and demanding the exclusion of all others. <== What is this, am I supposed to review every post in the EM&J thread to figure out what you are referring to Tiassa?

• 10 April: Member raises dispute in Politics, a digression about details of a Georgia anti-abortion bill. <== hardly a digression, it was one line Tiassa, and if FIT, because you were again making bogus claims.

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2925207&postcount=100

• 19 April: With member perceived by multiple moderators as trolling in diverse subfora, an informal warning (without yellow card) is sent. <== Yes and using this bogus issue as one of the reasons, sort of circular don't you think?

• 20 April: Member invokes issue as specific response to informal warning. A total of eight messages—four apiece—exchanged between moderator and member, ending on 21 April.

• 22 April: Member opens poll thread in Politics; shortly thereafter it is transferred to Free Thoughts. Thread lapses into dormancy on 24 April. <== And is there supposedly something wrong with opening a poll?

I WAS ON VACATION for much of this time, no posts at all from ~4/27 through 4/30

• 1 May: Member revives private message discussion, citing poll thread. A total of seven messages exchanged—four by member, three by moderator—with the last message from member resulting in yellow card warning; member also responds to warning via private message. Member opens complaint thread in SFOG.
This is the process that, apparently, equals "POOF". Two months, several threads, fifteen private messages.

So yes, as I said, WHEN I RETURNED FROM VACATION

So I took this issue (poll results) off line via PM to try to resolve the issue and POOF, a warning.

Because Tiassa those PMs, which were simply discussing the poll results and the issue with you, that led to the actual warning when I simply responded to one of your PMs you sent to me (would that be considered entrapment?), all happened in the same day, 5/1 so YES, POOF, is a reasonable discription, particularly when I thought you and I were just hashing this out. I've posted that last PM and clearly you didn not ask me not to respond and the actual message had nothing in it that deserved a warning. Indeed your main complaint was that I didn't address an issue you thought I should have, but getting a warning for something you didn't say has to be a first.

The complainant also asserts:

I sincerely believe that the moderator is wrong on the issue, and I've presented pages and pages of proof that is the case and yet the moderator won't admit it, but rather than simply admit the error, it appears that the Moderator is trying to make me stop bringing up the issue by using the Warning system.​

The complainant's sincere belief that the moderator is wrong on the issue depends on an argumentative tactic that he has been repeatedly advised is apparent to the staff. Specifically, the complainant assigns to another the context of the other's words and insists—regardless of protestation, clarification, advisement, and reiteration—that the assigned context is the only possible or acceptable one. In this case, that context is contrary to both American vernacular and the perspective of the editors of a magazine specializing in the relevant field.

(color mine)

Note that colored piece because it is the one source that Tiassa refers to over and over, and that reference is to nothing more than a teaser HEADLINE from Hydrocarbon Processing.

We'll get to that later.

But to start with, what is the underlying issue?

The original post that started this:

It's worth noting that in 2011, the United States was a net exporter of oil. First time since 1949.

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2910835&postcount=10

And one of the arguments that will be made will be on the definition of OIL, which Tiassa just referred to as being used in the "American vernacular".

But there was never a misunderstanding of the term Oil vs Oil Products because that was clarified in the very first reply to Tiassa, and it was rejected:

Hmmm?

I suspect you got that fractured fairytale from a badly worded headline somewhere.

US oil output in all of 2011 was 5.877 million bpd, less than half our consumption, so no we were not a net exporter of oil.

http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/monthly/pdf/table2.pdf

We do export quite a bit of refined oil products, about 700,000 barrels per day of different distillate fuels, for instance we use 8.659 million bpd of Gasoline but we produce 9.034 million bpd, the excess about 373,000 bpd we export.

But I'd like to see some actual support for your claim that we Exported more OIL then we imported.

(bolding added)

So I suggested right from the start of this disagreement that Tiassa was simply confusing our exporting of OIL PRODUCTS for the MUCH BROADER category of OIL and that the confusion was probably because of a badly worded headline.

Tiassa then produced 4 links to support his contention that, yes we were a NET exporter of OIL.

Now going further you will note that where I was polite and I didn't call Tiassa names or anything, I simply explained the difference between oil products and oil, and I provided a link to an official govt report that showed my numbers were correct and even suggested the source of his error, a badly worded headline (which as it turned out is exactly what it was).

This same set of posts and those 4 sources were recently reviewed by an independent observer:

All four of those sources only say that the US is (2011-2012) a net exporter of petroleum products. All of them make this distinction if not always in the headlines.

Line (4) shows we are a net importer of crude oil to the tune of about 8.7 million barrels per day

(bolding & size mine)

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2932070&postcount=82

So this whole bruhaha is just because the teaser HEADLINE Tiassa keeps referring to from Hydrocarbon Processing was misleading, because in actuality:

Line (4) shows we are a net importer of crude oil to the tune of about 8.7 million barrels per day

And to put that HUGE amount of OIL we import in perspective to the relatively small amount of Oil Products that we export:

Line (21) shows we are next exporter of oil products to the tune of about 0.88 million barrels per day

Or as I tried to explain to Tiassa (over and over), we import TEN times more OIL and OIL products then we export so in no way can one claim that we are a NET exporter of oil.

Indeed, using the twisted logic and "Vernacular" that Tiassa asserts is correct, one could say that Iran is a NET importer of OIL simply because it imports some Gasoline.

NO

Iran is a NET exporter of oil and it's relatively small amount of Gasoline imports (60,000 bpd) in comparison to the 3 million barrels of oil it exports each day doesn't change that fact. (indeed most of OPEC imports gasoline, so by Tiassa's strange definition, they would all be considered NET oil importers, which is obviously absurd)

http://arabnews.com/economy/article531921.ece

See it's not only the term OIL, but the contention that we are a NET exporter of Oil, and we are not and haven't been since the late 40s.

It really has always been a simple statement of FACT.

But NOTICE what Tiassa posts after MY civil reply to him:

Please see the following:

(1) Bird, David. "US sees lower 2011 oil use, becomes net exporter". Hydrocarbon Processing. March 1, 2012. HydrocarbonProcessing.com. March 2, 2012. http://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.co...-lower-2011-oil-use-becomes-net-exporter.html

(2) Powell, Barbara. "U.S. Was Net Oil-Product Exporter for First Time Since 1949". Bloomberg. February 29, 2012. Bloomberg.com. March 2, 2012. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-29/u-s-was-net-oil-product-exporter-in-2011.html

(3) Pleven, Liam and Russel Gold. "U.S. Nears Milestone: Net Fuel Exporter". The Wall Street Journal. November 30, 2011. Online.WSJ.com. March 2, 2012. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203441704577068670488306242.html

(4) Koch, Wendy. "Oil boomlet sweeps U.S. as exports and production rise". USA Today. December 19, 2011. USAToday.com. March 2, 2012. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/story/2011-12-16/us-oil-boom/52053236/1 ​

As you can see, this bit of news has been swirling around the cycle for a few months, at least. I can understand why people missed it, what with Survivor: GOP dominating the headlines, and all. ”

(color mine)

Now I ask you, who started out with being childish here?

It's apparent he never even looked at the data I provided and that he was convinced from the start that he was correct and nothing since has disuaded him from that absurd conclusion that the US has suddenly become a NET exporter of OIL.

Indeed I probably STILL would have let this whole issue drop but then Tiassa brought it up again when he dissed me to another forum member:

Like my disagreement with him about oil exports. It's not that I don't see his point, but it's also a hard proposition that his definition should trump the editors of a hydrocarbon trade magazine, financial news sites, and the general discourse. Trying to win an argument by redefining its terms is not universally advisable.

So here we have Tiassa claiming that I am the one who is redefining the term OIL, when as we can see, in the VERY FIRST reply I made the distinction between OIL and OIL Products and that distinction was rejected.

And as rpenner's recent analysis showed neither the trade magazines nor the financial news sites agreed with him on this:

All four of those sources only say that the US is (2011-2012) a net exporter of petroleum products. All of them make this distinction if not always in the headlines. Table 1 of the weekly Petroleum Status Report of the U.S. Energy Information Administraion (EIS) makes this clear, and the WSJ pointed me to the EIS as the source of their claim.

It was then that I ran this poll on the question, and sure enough no one agreed with Tiassa.

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=113388

Now Tiassa, who got no support at all, just claims this poll is not valid.

This becomes especially important in the context of the poll thread and revival of the private message discussion. The poll is spiked insofar as the answers available to respondents do not include the oft-repeated counterpoint to the complainant's assigned context.

But please try to find this "oft-repeated counterpoint to the complaintants assigned context" because this is the best I could come up with:

The underlying question of Adoucette's objection is whether we adhere to a strict definition of oil meaning only crude petroleum, as opposed to an application that refers to the oil/petroleum sector.

But the problem with that statement is as I have shown, Tiassa himself rejected that in the VERY FIRST reply to him, that NET exports of Oil was referring to the much smaller subset of Oil Products.

I also dealt with this objection in detail early on:

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2928810&postcount=13

None the less, the POLL had a THIRD open option that allowed Poll respondents to give ANY answer, even support of this supposed "oft repeated counterpoint", but NONE DID.

Now I know that one is not supposed to post PMs, but this is germane to this point of discussion and contains no PRIVATE info and because I'm literally under the gun to defend myself I believe this minor exception is warranted:

It said:

US sees lower 2011 oil use, becomes net exporter

The headline does NOT say what we became a net exporter of though and it most certainly does NOT say: becomes net exporter of OIL

You need to learn how to read. Setting aside, for the moment your smarter-than-the-editors-of-an-industry-magazine trip, the question of "exporter of what", if that headline is read as a sentence, is "oil".

(color and bolding mine)

So Tiassa has explicitly REJECTED the concession offered that the US was a net exporter of OIL PRODUCTS and is sticking to his reference to the MUCH BROADER category of OIL, which includes Crude and Finished products.

And that's what I've said from the very first reply to Tiassa on this subject.

Indeed Tiassa hangs his ENTIRE argument on this one headline:

US sees lower 2011 oil use, becomes net exporter

But one can see what Tiassa has done, and what he admits that he has done, he has read that as IF it had said:

US sees lower 2011 oil use, becomes net exporter OF OIL

But as rpenner points out the articles clearly did not say that.

All four of those sources only say that the US is (2011-2012) a net exporter of petroleum products. All of them make this distinction if not always in the headlines.

(bolding mine)

You would think that all Tiassa had to do was to read the actual articles.

Did he?

It is hard to believe that he did, or if he did that the facts weren't obvious.

You're noting the difference between the headline and the body of the article. While this is not in itself an invalid argument, it seems that you presume nobody else can figure out the difference, or else, well, you're observing a different definition than the editors of Hydrocarbon Processing magazine.

And I specifically challenged him on that issue of the definition of oil:

NO Tiassa, Hydrocarbon Processing does not agree with you on this. Indeed you can't come up with a quote from that article that supports your claim that we were a NET exporter of Oil in 2011.

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2928922&postcount=20

What did I get in response to that specific challenge to Tiassa to back up his claim from the actual ARTICLE that Hydrocarbon Processing supported his claim that we were a NET exporter of OIL?

NOTHING

Indeed he has never been able to find ONE sentence in ANY of those articles that says what he posted: That the US was a NET exporter of OIL.

His ONLY support for his version is his admitted adding the words OF OIL to a headline, even though the article did not support that addition.

Which again has been my consistent contention from the VERY FIRST post, that the the only subset of NET exports we had were of OIL Products.

What do others say on the issue:

It appears that the US is a net importer of crude oil and a net exporter of petroleum products.

Of course we are a net importer of oil. We only have a tiny amount of the world's reserves, but we are the leading consumer.

Did I say the US was a net oil exporter? No.

The United States remained a net importer of crude oil, some of which was refined into petroleum products that were then exported.

Now finally, in my defense look at the actual threads on this:

They are filled with valid links, charts, and graphs of supporting data, they stick to the issue and they are not filled with cussing or name calling and I suggested right from the beginning of this the likely problem and the likely source, which Tiassa only just recently admitted in a PM was EXACTLY where he went off the rails.

Had he simply said, "my bad" in the next post, this would have ended then.
Had he NOT brought this issue back up when he used it to diss me to another member it is unlikely that it would have been brought back up by me.
And had he NOT in a recent PM to James used this as one of the reasons that I should start getting warnings, none of these recent PMs etc would have occured.

In EACH of these cases Tiassa rejected a reasonable path
In EACH of these cases Tiassa brought this issue back to life.
and
In EACH case Tiassa ignored all the data presented and relied on his misreading of a single headline as the basis for his entire argument.
In effect, he unilaterally determined I was wrong and he was right and now he is bringing his moderator status to bear to enforce that decision.

But no matter what Tiassa manages to do to me on this forum, he can't actually change the facts:

So people, if you care about truth, vote in the Poll.

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=113388

Show the mods that this is indeed still a SCIENCE based forum and that a science based forum will not allow this absurd statement:

It's worth noting that in 2011, the United States was a net exporter of oil. First time since 1949.

To stand unchallenged.

Arthur

 

[spidergoat]

You have made a good case, Arthur. Tiassa was being disingenuous in resting his argument on a headline and not the essence of the issue. It also appears that he abused his moderator status simply in order to shut you up. While this abuse may be petty, it is not insignificant. I have found Tiassa to be fair, but mods aren't perfect, and when they do wrong they should be accountable.

 

[adoucette]

Thank you.
And I too have generally found Tiassa to be fair.
Sure we butt heads on politics but up until this issue I've had no real complaints with his moderation.
Indeed, I have always tried to make this argument about the data, not the person.
Even in this thread, I never mentioned who the mod was nor did I tell people who asked via PM.

 

[quadraphonics]

I have no idea why something that can be stated in a paragraph requires two months of argument.

Of course, it's not really about the actual first-order issue.

It's about whether adoucette can browbeat Tiassa into assenting to adoucette's prerogative to dictate context and framing as it serves his purposes.

This is basically the entire game that the whole Right Wing Noise Machine - which out own adoucette is an avid paladin of - is playing. It's not a policy debate - that requires a common understanding of what constitutes reality - but the pursuit of discursive supremacy. As an authoritarian, it drives adoucette crazy that there exist authorities here with the desire to deny him discursive supremacy, and the hard power to sanction him.

Upshot is that there is no scenario in which a chastened adoucette continues to participate here in good faith. He either succeeds in browbeating his way to discursive supremacy (highly unlikely), or gives up and goes away (like all of his predecessors here eventually did). I'll leave it up to you guys to decide whether you want to hasten or delay that outcome, and to figure out how any potential sanctions would fit into that.

 

[adoucette]

Since when did the Data behind our Net Oil Imports vs Net Oil Exports have ANYTHING to do with Right Wing Politics?

Of couse it has nothing to do with it.

So your post is, as expected, nothing but a self serving attempt to drive everyone who disagrees with your politics from this site.

This is not a political issue.

 

[spidergoat]

Is this a forum that allows those with unpopular politics to be bullied into silence? Because that's how it appears Arthur is being treated.

 

[quadraphonics]

Since when did the Data behind our Net Oil Imports vs Net Oil Exports have ANYTHING to do with Right Wing Politics?

US oil economics have been politicized since before I was born, and figure directly into the current presidential campaign. We have a whole thread about exactly that. And there's no presumption whatsoever that any dispute between you and Tiassa is anything other than politicized from the outset. Heck, there's no reasonable presumption that anything you post here is anything other than a politicized talking point from the right wing noise machine - that is the reputation you've carved out for yourself here, what with your long record of doing such energetically.

But my point there was very explicit: that this is much more about pursuit of discursive supremacy than the actual first-order issue in question (which failure to rise to the observed levels was the entire premise of my post, there).

And you've proved my point to be exactly correct with your response, there, which is 100% distortion and point-avoidance, powered by sheer brazen pig-headedness.

So your post is, as expected, nothing but a self serving attempt to drive everyone who disagrees with your politics from this site.

Nah, this site is littered with people who disagree with my politics and don't catch any particular flak for such. You probably don't even realize the depths of my political disagreements with various of your other antagonists here.

What I gun for is the GOP propaganda artists that pop up here to push the right-wing disinformation campaign, attempt to shut down all conversations they can't control via threadshitting and abuse, and other such dishonorable charlatans.

And it's not "an attempt." This is a regular pattern that repeats here, with or without any effort on my part. It's fun to play along, but it's mostly spectation. I've told you before that we've already been through multiple iterations of this - which is why I recognize your type and the arc of your participation. I'm simply milking it for as much entertainment as possible in the meantime. It's ironic - and sort of endearing, in a pathetic way - that you remain ignorant of those types (search for countezero in the archives, if you don't believe me) and so imagine that you'll prevail if you just double down on your own delusions enough times.

Have you not noticed that your program's primary effect here is to unify your opponents and energize their politics? Time was Tiassa and I and iceaura and the like spent more time tearing into one another as anything else. But these days? You've managed to mobilize a unified, disciplined counterforce that has more than enough energy and authority and plain old argumentative skill to systematically shut your efforts down on all fronts, no matter how energetic you get. Indeed, we're at the point where you have to struggle so mightily just to keep up an appearance of response on all the fronts you open, that you make tons of silly mistakes and generally undermine yourself. It's just a matter of time before you exhaust yourself.

 

[quadraphonics]

Is this a forum that allows those with unpopular politics to be bullied into silence? Because that's how it appears Arthur is being treated.

You're confused. Arthur's the one who goes around trying to bully people with politics he doesn't like into silence. The fact that he gets called on it and thwarted, and that this drives him mad with rage, does not render him any kind of victim.

 

[adoucette]

US oil economics have been politicized since before I was born, and figure directly into the current presidential campaign. We have a whole thread about exactly that. And there's no presumption whatsoever that any dispute between you and Tiassa is anything other than politicized from the outset.

Nope.
Since the position, that the US suddenly became a NET exporter of OIL, is SO wrong it clearly has no political merit one way or the other.

Indeed my first response to him after that error was to give him the data to easily correct his post, to state that we had become a Net Exporter of Oil Products for the first time in 49 years, and I also gave him the easy out, as I suggested his mistake was simply caused by a badly written headline.

Hardly the post of someone trying to Bully anyone.

Or make it into anything political.

 

[Bells]

Nope.
Since the position, that the US suddenly became a NET exporter of OIL, is SO wrong it clearly has no political merit one way or the other.

Indeed my first response to him after that error was to give him the data to easily correct his post, to state that we had become a Net Exporter of Oil Products for the first time in 49 years, and I also gave him the easy out, as I suggested his mistake was simply caused by a badly written headline.

Hardly the post of someone trying to Bully anyone.

Or make it into anything political.

Who cares if he doesn't agree with you? Not everyone has to agree with you Arthur. That's not how life works.

If someone does not agree with you and they feel you are being dishonest and they warn you about that, you don't then take it to PM and try to drown them in "pages and pages" of PM's trying to convince them of just how right you are.

The extent of your issue came on display in this thread when I said I believed you were wrong but that was not why you are here and why I am here. Within a day, I receive this massive PM from you with quite a bit of information and you trying to convince me that you are correct.

Even after I told you I didn't care who was right and who was not.


And you're still arguing that poing in this thread, and going off topic. There are a couple of threads on this issue so far, isn't there? This thread is not about whether you are wrong or not but whether a moderator overstepped his boundaries and acted unfairly. Who is right about "oil" is moot in this thread.

Do you want to know why?

Because you were warned, repeatedly, not to troll. You were asked and warned to stop misrepresenting some arguments in those threads about "oil" and you were told why. What you then did was to troll the moderator by PM. After a long long time and as you said, "pages and pages" of you trying to tell him how right you were, you were warned again, whereupon you responded with this:

So why is it MOD, that if I am the one who is distorting the issue that NO ONE agrees with YOUR version?

NO ONE.

Not even Joe?

You are asked to stop trolling and this is what you come back with?

And you act surprised you get a warning for trolling? Really?

Do you know, the only reason this issue and your dishonest manner of posting has gotten to this point is simply because, we have had to be cautious with you. Reason being, no one in the back room actually likes you very much. So we handle you with kid gloves, and make sure that all issues with you that we come across is tabled and copied and a record kept of it. Just in case we miss something and just in case we are deemed to act unfairly. You file is a few pages long now. And we haven't even added everything in there. And at the moment, the consensus goes against you. The only reason you are still here Arthur is because we are trying to be fair about this and not act in a manner that would be constituted as biased.

You have breached this site's rules in starting this thread alone, rules that have resulted in an automatic ban for others. So are we being unfair? Yes, we are giving you special treatment. I don't think that's right, but if we had banned you outright from the start, it would have looked like we were simply trying to shut you up.

The course of action that you should have followed was to PM an administrator. The rules clearly say so. You are also not allowed to reproduce PM's in public without the explicit consent of the other person(s) involved in said PM discussion. You did not do that either. Don't you get it yet? We aren't looking to moderate you because you are going up against a moderator. We are looking to moderate you because you keep breaching this site's rules, even with explicit warnings that you stop doing so.

You earlier said, you had supposedly "let it go". But you haven't, have you? Yet another dishonest comment from you. You're still going and still trying to prove that you are right and you have taken to PM'ing other moderators with why you are right and why Tiassa is wrong and trying to drag even more people into the fray in those PM's. Again, I reiterate, I don't care if you are right. That PM just makes me believe more that you are dishonest (you lied when you said you had let it go), as does the mega long post above makes me think that you can't let this go and that this thread was not to query about the warning you received but to again try to find yet another avenue to show just how right you are and how the moderator in question is wrong about the oil issue. After all, if the thread in question didn't work, and you spamming PM's didn't work, what else can you do to try and force how right you are down people's throats?

 

[adoucette]

You earlier said, you had supposedly "let it go". But you haven't, have you? Yet another dishonest comment from you.

Bells, after that comment this was posted by Tiassa:

Similarly, according to the above-cited rule I.15, pertaining to the posting of false or misleading information, the complainant has every appearance of misrepresenting the present situation and the issues leading thereunto. The only question in that context is whether that appearance is a valid perception.

The complainant will be afforded twenty-four hours to respond in his own defense.

So I had to go over the "present situation and the issues leading thereunto" and I had to do it NOW.

 

[universaldistress]

I don't agree with Adoucette hardly ever. I don't agree with his ideology towards any issues around oil consumption or the steps we need to take forward regarding renewable energies etc. etc. But from what he is saying I think his argument could be sound, if it is an honest one.

I have found Adoucette's general stance very unappealing when we have discoursed. I, no doubt, would have polar opposite political views to Adoucette should we ever go down that path (not likely as I don't a give a monkeys about American politics) or near enough any other subject one cares to name, no doubt; but when we have argued he has always backed up his claims with well sourced facts so I have no reason to doubt his "fact" here. It is usually his interpretation on an issue that I have not agreed with, and not the sourced facts he presents, as he is a rigorous researcher, sometimes annoyingly so (though we have had countering-research exchanges, with both sides enjoying success) but does seem the ball is in Tiassa’s court now? Is Adoucette’s argument relying on a fact and not on his interpretations of said fact as he claims? From the excerpts Adoucette presents Tiassa would seem to be in the wrong here, regarding the initial argument, but was just too stubborn to admit fault (something I have seen chastised before with ban-threats). I would suggest (within this thread's context) the onus is on Tiassa to directly counter Adoucette's claims as regards to the inceptive argument of this whole debacle, or retract his original statement like a man (Tiassa opened up this can of worms by forcing Adoucette's hand; going to need a fairly comprehensive rebuttal on the OIL point within this thread to put this to bed in his favour?)

I would further suggest that it is now Adoucette's responsibility to apologise profusely for his inadherence to expected protocols by not keeping this issue one for direct referral to the administrators, especially after direct requests from moderators, if he is to possibly avoid serious consequences?

If this is just one in a catalogue of errors made by Adoucette (the straw that broke the camel’s back) then surely Adoucette’s original argument (as regards the specific “OIL” issue) needs to be falsified effectively (for qualifying this episode's inclusion in any body of evidence against him), or the counter claim withdrawn? Then Adoucette can apologise for not following correct complaints procedure?

Disclaimer: this post is not an attack on the moderator or how they moderate; simply an out-loud observance of data presented in this thread as regards the original argument and its quasi-interpretive connotations, and the conduct of the standard member in question.