A Request For Sciforum "Moderators"

[Kittamaru]

Indeed and well said... hopefully he will take this chance to cool his proverbial jets and come back with a more level head... but I fear that might be impossible. Why would he change, over the course of seven days, something he has not been willing to change over the course of over seven years?

 

[Balerion]

Fair 'nuff... I keep hoping something can break thru his shrll of anger but it seems a futile exercise.

I think a more reasoned approach would better accomplish that than returning his insults in kind.

Has anyone tried actually addressing Q's complaints? I understand he went overboard, but he had moderators insulting him virtually the entire time. Why can't the mods try talking to people who have complaints, instead of ridiculing and deriding them?

 

[Kittamaru]

I think a more reasoned approach would better accomplish that than returning his insults in kind.

Has anyone tried actually addressing Q's complaints? I understand he went overboard, but he had moderators insulting him virtually the entire time. Why can't the mods try talking to people who have complaints, instead of ridiculing and deriding them?

Unfortunately, many times. The parts I pasted from the mod forum in the other post are just snippets - even when the entire thread went without anyone returning an insult, he would continue to fly off the handle and lash out at everyone around him.

 

[Randwolf]

I think a more reasoned approach would better accomplish that than returning his insults in kind.

I think the allowance to return insults in kind should be restored. Like it was "back in the day". How do you feel about that J?

 

[cluelusshusbund]

Unfortunately, many times. The parts I pasted from the mod forum in the other post are just snippets - even when the entire thread went without anyone returning an insult, he would continue to fly off the handle and lash out at everyone around him.

What Sciforums needs is... mods who will actualy calm the situation if a poster is goin "overbord"... not add fuel to the fire like showin 6 year old posts.!!!

Q windin up bein baned benefits noone.!!!

 

[cluelusshusbund]

I think the allowance to return insults in kind should be restored. Like it was "back in the day". How do you feel about that J?

After readin this thred it kinda looks like "back in the day" is here.!!!

How about it mods... a special area for people who want to duke it out (no holds bared)... then i coud put my boot up Randwolfs Azz... lol... or... a duke it out area they coud get baned to if they ant behavin in the "intelegent discussion" forums.!!!

That way very few people will actualy be baned from the fourm... an the site traffic :jawdrop:... my God... thank of all the site traffic :bravo:

 

[Magical Realist]

We could call it Flame Wars! Bet there'd be a ALOT of viewers.

 

[cluelusshusbund]

We could call it Flame Wars! Bet there'd be a ALOT of viewers.

Yeah... an its been suggested befor but i forget why it was shot down.!!!

I thank it went somethin like... the flame forum woud be more popular than the intelligent-people forums... O... an it woud take away some of the perks of some of the mods to be able to bully people... cause about the worst thang they coud do is send you to the flame/fun area for a while... lol.!!!

It woud worke grate... same 'ol same 'ol moderation in the forums whare people act intelligent... an baned to flames if you act stoopid... an mod-drama instently cut by 52%... poster partisipation increase by 54%... site traffic increase by 56%... an over-all satisfaction wit Scifourms increase by 75%... now thats what i call a win win win win win situation... eh :xctd:

 

[Alerya]

How about it mods... a special area for people who want to duke it out (no holds bared)... then i coud put my boot up Randwolfs Azz... lol... or... a duke it out area they coud get baned to if they ant behavin in the "intelegent discussion" forums.!!!

That way very few people will actualy be baned from the fourm... an the site traffic :jawdrop:... my God... thank of all the site traffic :bravo:

Had this happen on forums I used to frequent (granted they did it for a different reason, but still...) and it actually worked pretty well. It was a great way for people to blow off steam without the primary people on the forums having to be involved because the only people that could see the forums these people were banned to were those people and the moderators/admins. Unfortunately I am not sure how they set it up or anything, so it might be more difficult than we imagine.

 

[Yazata]

Your [Q's] opening post in the 'note to all atheist thread' thread was not to discuss the issues regarding atheism, it was to complain that it was a moderator who stated the thread.

I made the same complaint. Here's Tiassa's original piece of trolling:

A Request Directed to Sciforums' "Atheists"

Alright, I'm calling you all out.

Would you please stop deliberately misrepresenting atheism as a brainless cult?

Here's my response to it.

That's childish.

The idea that atheists are "a brainless cult" is your crude misrepresentation of atheists.

Are you really battling us, or just struggling against your own reflection in the mirror?

I still think that's a valid and mature observation about the first post.

Q's first post in that thread was his agreeing with what I'd written.

If this thread were created by anyone who was not a moderator, it would most likely get deleted and the offender warned or banned. But, since Tiassa created it...

And I thoroughly agree with that.

I continue to note that to my knowledge, no moderator (even Fraggle, who wears his atheism on his sleeve) has ever expressed any criticism of either the content (what little there was, it was basically just emotional noise) or (more to the point) the childish troll-like style of that first post. (To be fair, Syne did criticize it, he called it a 'steaming turd' or something like that. Syne's been purged.)

At no time did you attempt to discuss the subject matter - you just complained. Okay. You were ignored by all participants

Again, he agreed with me and I agree with him. I don't think that our wonderful moderators would have been nearly so sanguine had a rank-and-file Sciforums participant tried to do what Tiassa so crudely did. The double-standard on Sciforums is clear for every one of its participants to see.

so your next post in the thread upped the level of anger

What actually happened was that I wrote a response to Tiassa's marginally more rational and coherent second post:

You're shifting goalposts, Tiassa. You began this thread by calling all atheists out. That looked like an over-broad generalization at the time. Now you're talking about evangelical atheists. The obvious difficulty is that not all atheists are evangelists in your sense.

Atheists are simply people who don't believe in the literal existence of 'God'. (There's a problem there with defining that word, which we can pass over.) Atheists don't all hate 'religion' (same problem). Most of them don't. Many of them like religion. Many of them are religious, albeit in some non-theistic way.

Some atheists are ignorant. Others of us probably know far more about many of those things [the philosophy of religion and religious studies generally] than you do.

We see the same spectrum among theists. Some theists are crude poorly-educated Bible-wavers. Others are like my thesis advisor in graduate school, a former Catholic priest and a noted authority on a certain late antique Neoplatonist.

You speak of "religious megalomaniacs". Does that mean that you are willing to differentiate among different sorts of theists, between these (arguably) low-end examples and more sophisticated, humane and thoughtful believers in 'God'?

If you are, then why don't you extend the same courtesy to atheists?

If you aren't, then where does that leave you? If the theists and the atheists suck, if they are all such inferiors in your eyes, then what little island are you standing on where you can avoid the wholesale condemnation?

At that point Kittamaru tried to restate what Tiassa had written so as to extract a valid and defensible point from it:

Yazata, allow me to add some clarity into what Tiassa was saying (or, at least, my take on what he meant).

He has nothing against Atheists at all. It's just when Atheists start shoving their beliefs down other peoples throats, he feels they become no better than the Theist's they are trying to say they aren't.

In other words... it's like the old addage... having a penis is great. Being proud of said penis is great. Waving it around all over and showing it to every person you come across? Not so great.

The thread predictably derailed for a few posts because Kittamaru had written the word 'penis', then I replied:

If Tiassa's words require someone else's exegesis in order to make sense of them, then they would seem to have been very badly written.

The thread title is "A Request Directed to Sciforums' "Atheists"". The first line in the first post was, "Alright, I'm calling you all out".

That looks to me like a schoolyard bully's challenge. I'm something of an atheist, I guess, so I assume that the challenge applies to me too.

If Tiassa had actually said that [that he had nothing against atheism per-se and simply didn't like the occasional atheist who behaves like an asshole], instead of firing crazily at anything that moves, then I would have probably agreed with him. I've said similar things on many occasions myself.

Then Q made his second post (quoting my 'schoolyard bully's challenge' remark):

Exactly, but since the rules don't apply to moderators, they can do whatever they want.

Where is the moderator of this forum and why haven't they dealt with this and given Tiassa a time out so he may ponder his folly?

I get three fucking days ban for posting an image while Tiassa creates threads calling out people on the forum and will probably get fuck all. Wtf?

JamesR, where the fuck are you? Get your police squad in line. Do your fucking job.

That post might indeed have been angry, but no more so than Tiassa's original post in this thread. Unlike that first post, Q's remarks were coherent and had a defensible point.

Once again I agree with Q that it's hypocritical to let moderators get away with behavior that would earn the rest of us warnings or bans.

I would still like to hear our moderator's opinions on the way that Tiassa started that thread.

Are any of you now willing to criticize it? If you aren't, are you willing to say for the record that it's ok for the rest of us to behave in the same manner that Tiassa did? If you aren't willing to endorse that, then how do you justify the seeming hypocrisy? Why is it some kind failing when Q gets angry and makes heated posts, while it's an expression of rightousness when Tiassa gets mad and writes incoherently? How do you make that consistent?

In my opinion, one of the worst problems here on Sciforums is the self-indulgent and emotionally undisciplined way that our moderators occasionally behave. It appears to me that no behavioral standards exist for moderators (apart from political correctness perhaps, a la Syne). And since moderators needn't meet any standard, several moderators seem prone to behaving in ways that would quickly attract moderators' righteous criticism if any of the rest of us behaved in the same way.

Bottom line, if you aren't willing to let Q get away with it, then don't do it yourselves. If you are going to continue doing it yourselves, then leave Q and the rest of us alone when we do it. You can't consistently have it both ways.

It is time that you stop blaming others for your acting this way and take some responsibility for your own actions.

Right. That's excellent advice. Everyone needs to heed it, including moderators.

 

[GeoffP]

Bravo.

 

[brucep]

I made the same complaint. Here's Tiassa's original piece of trolling:



Here's my response to it.



I still think that's a valid and mature observation about the first post.

Q's first post in that thread was his agreeing with what I'd written.



And I thoroughly agree with that.

I continue to note that to my knowledge, no moderator (even Fraggle, who wears his atheism on his sleeve) has ever expressed any criticism of either the content (what little there was, it was basically just emotional noise) or (more to the point) the childish troll-like style of that first post. (To be fair, Syne did criticize it, he called it a 'steaming turd' or something like that. Syne's been purged.)



Again, he agreed with me and I agree with him. I don't think that our wonderful moderators would have been nearly so sanguine had a rank-and-file Sciforums participant tried to do what Tiassa so crudely did. The double-standard on Sciforums is clear for every one of its participants to see.



What actually happened was that I wrote a response to Tiassa's marginally more rational and coherent second post:



At that point Kittamaru tried to restate what Tiassa had written so as to extract a valid and defensible point from it:



The thread predictably derailed for a few posts because Kittamaru had written the word 'penis', then I replied:



Then Q made his second post (quoting my 'schoolyard bully's challenge' remark):



That post might indeed have been angry, but no more so than Tiassa's original post in this thread. Unlike that first post, Q's remarks were coherent and had a defensible point.

Once again I agree with Q that it's hypocritical to let moderators get away with behavior that would earn the rest of us warnings or bans.

I would still like to hear our moderator's opinions on the way that Tiassa started that thread.

Are any of you now willing to criticize it? If you aren't, are you willing to say for the record that it's ok for the rest of us to behave in the same manner that Tiassa did? If you aren't willing to endorse that, then how do you justify the seeming hypocrisy? Why is it some kind failing when Q gets angry and makes heated posts, while it's an expression of rightousness when Tiassa gets mad and writes incoherently? How do you make that consistent?

In my opinion, one of the worst problems here on Sciforums is the self-indulgent and emotionally undisciplined way that our moderators occasionally behave. It appears to me that no behavioral standards exist for moderators (apart from political correctness perhaps, a la Syne). And since moderators needn't meet any standard, several moderators seem prone to behaving in ways that would quickly attract moderators' righteous criticism if any of the rest of us behaved in the same way.

Bottom line, if you aren't willing to let Q get away with it, then don't do it yourselves. If you are going to continue doing it yourselves, then leave Q and the rest of us alone when we do it. You can't consistently have it both ways.



Right. That's excellent advice. Everyone needs to heed it, including moderators.

Right on.
This 'team' of moderators are incoherent in my estimation. If the moderation doesn't have a coherent plan that is consistently followed then there might as well be no moderators since none is getting done anyway. Except nitpicking folks for getting frustrated with the bullshit noise dominating the board. I vote for no moderation. It would be good for all. Nobody ends up feeling guilty for not doing the job and nobody gets nitpicked by 'ghost moderation'.

 

[brucep]

El Paso “SciForums”

To the tune of "El Paso"

Out in the wild threads at olde SciForums
I fell in love with a post I had wrote
Mid-Thursday morning found me dodging the tantrums
I’d hit “Reply” and then pause for a gloat

Blacker than night were the lines under my eyes
Wicked and evil before I pressed “send”
A distain so profound and bolstered by Fresca
How could I know that my rampage would end?

One night a wild young Admin came in
Like a fart in a windowless ca-aaa-aa-aa-aar
Dashing and daring, opinions he’s sharing
I found myself locked in a bitter flamewar

So in anger
I challenged his logic and also his hygiene
Down went his fingers to crusty keyboard
My challenge was answered in thirty short pages
But then I called him a ‘dirty old whore’

Just for a moment I sat there in silence
Shocked at the way that my mouth had run
My ergonomic chair swung away slowly
My single chance was Ad-min-i-stra-tion

Straight to my forum Inbox I went
Figures the damn thing was fu-uuu-uu-uu-uull
I smacked the tower with all of my power
But strangely my violence did not seem to help

I logged out as fast
As I could from the SciForums server and I fled
Out to the badlands of TSF.com
Back on ‘Politics’ my account would be worthless
The thread is all frozen and everyone’s left
But it’s been so long since I trolled psykeyhackr
Without pointless debate my life seems bereft

I knew there'd be a stern notification
Delivered to me by PM-MM-MMMM-MM-MMM
But my addiction is stranger than fiction
I called up the site and I logged myself in

And at last here
I am overlooking the Ethics subforum
What’s that? Some moron tries non sequitur
My love for arguing makes me “Reply Quote” him
And then I just call him a dumb lazy turd

Closing the thread are two angry admins
Off to my left are a dozen or more
They’ve marshalled a case to just perma-ban me
…Well that just proves what I said before

Something is dreadfully wrong for I feel
An unpleasant burning deep in my profi-iiii-ii-iii-iile
I see the red card posted ‘bove my last comment
And then the banning cuts me out for a while

But my love of
Debating is strong and relentless and childish
I make up a sock and I’m back in an hour
I’ll have my say come hell or high water
You may have admin but I have a router

From out of nowhere my login is kicked out
My chances are ended and nothing to try
No point in raging and no time to pout now
Thescienceforum hello; and SF…. goooooodbyyyyyeeeeee

[instrumental Mexican guitar]

The Ode to Reiku.

 

[cluelusshusbund]

Had this happen on forums I used to frequent (granted they did it for a different reason, but still...) and it actually worked pretty well. It was a great way for people to blow off steam without the primary people on the forums having to be involved because the only people that could see the forums these people were banned to were those people and the moderators/admins. Unfortunately I am not sure how they set it up or anything, so it might be more difficult than we imagine.

When ive suggested somethin like this befor no mention was made of it bein to dificult to set up... an i thank it was Stryder or Tiassa who said he feared it woud be so popular that it woud draw people away from postin in the other areas... anyhow... as fun as it woud be... i dout its gonna happen here :shrug:

 

[Gremmie]

The Ode to Reiku.

I dunno... My guess is, he isn't out of earshot, and will soon make his presence known.

 

[Alerya]

When ive suggested somethin like this befor no mention was made of it bein to dificult to set up... an i thank it was Stryder or Tiassa who said he feared it woud be so popular that it woud draw people away from postin in the other areas... anyhow... as fun as it woud be... i dout its gonna happen here :shrug:

Actually I know it can be done in such a way that your average user could not access that section. That's how the forums I was on before worked, so it wouldn't really draw people away from posting in other areas if done correctly.

 

[cluelusshusbund]

...it actually worked pretty well. It was a great way for people to blow off steam without the primary people on the forums having to be involved because the only people that could see the forums these people were banned to were those people and the moderators/admins.

...I know it can be done in such a way that your average user could not access that section. That's how the forums I was on before worked, so it wouldn't really draw people away from posting in other areas if done correctly.

I see what you mean now an it sounds like a grate idea.!!!

How about it mods... any of you like that idea.???

 

[Killjoy]

`
A hungry feelin'
Came o'er me stealin'
And the mice were squealin'...

I mean, uh....

[video=youtube_share;4rScnRMbaF4]http://youtu.be/4rScnRMbaF4[/video]