Abuse of moderator power

[Daecon]

It's a "straw & camel's back" situation with infraction points, from what I gather.

 

[Magical Realist]

"you need to grow up"
"your hysterical need to blame is noted"
"You're not making sense now..Maybe your childhood vaccine is finally kicking in. lol!"
"Spoken like a mindless corporate tool."
"Ok now you're just lying."
"Either you're too ignorant to actually understand what they're saying, or you're being deliberately obtuse."
"You really should see a therapist about your rage issues."
"when you have to be so snivelingly condescending and prickish."

If that's what you consider "responding respectfully" then you might be better off on a political board where such attacks are accepted.

Nice out of context cherry picking.

Everybody and their dog was calling me an idiot, stupid, an asshole, a pathetic human being, a troll, and a liar. Oh, and lets not forget the one about hoping I never have any kids. What I have said I was saying in response to all this abuse.

Makes sense, and in fact you demand other people follow that rule - "Now support it per Sci Forum rules." You'd be a hypocrite to not be willing to do the same thing you demand of others.

See.. now your calling me a hypocrite. When did I ever threaten to ban someone if they didn't respond to me in time?

 

[James R]

Magical Realist:

That's right. Keep it nice and nonspecific. Just a vague breaking of forum rules. Yeah. I'd be interested in knowing how I got 65 infractions in the past few days.

Usually, when a warning is given there will also be a private conversation started between you and the moderator issuing the warning. Detailed information will be provided there. In addition, a note of some kind is usually left on the offending post(s) in the thread. Sometimes, a moderator will also post a public notice in the relevant thread.

Checking your points, 5 of them have actually expired, so you're on 60 points not 65. I made a mistake. All of those 60 points were given within a six hour period last Friday (my time). Those points will expire on 13 May. If you receive any more points before that expiry date, you will be automatically banned for at least 3 days, according to the policy here:

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/policy-warnings-and-bans.144905/

I'm asking why I was banned. There should be a specific violation instead of dredging up 65 irrelevant infractions.

If you did not receive any explanation of your warnings, please start a private conversation with me and I'll follow up. The warnings were all issued by Kittamaru.

 

[billvon]

Nice out of context cherry picking.

If you claim "I never said the word 'blue'" then noting that you claimed "the sky is blue" is not cherry picking.

You have, on several occasions, insulted other people and engaged in personal attacks. You claimed that you "respond respectfully to others." Thus that is false.

It sounds like you are now changing your story and saying "OK, I wasn't respectful, but I had a good reason, because they were really mean to me." That may be - but it means your original claim was false.

It is nonsense like the above that tends to get you banned.

See.. now your calling me a hypocrite. When did I ever threaten to ban someone if they didn't respond to me in time?

I did not say you were a hypocrite, nor did I say that you should ban anyone. I said you would be hypocritical if you demand that others support their claims, but refuse to do so yourself.

 

[rpenner]

Complaining about specific moderation action in a new thread ought to be grounds for immediate banning.

 

[Magical Realist]

If you claim "I never said the word 'blue'" then noting that you claimed "the sky is blue" is not cherry picking.

You quoted like 6 times I used sarcasm, which isn't insulting btw. The last one is a reference to the author of an article, which you twisted out of context. This is a tiny fraction of all the responses I made. If even half of those many other responses were respectful, then my statement is true: I was responding respectfully to everyone. Comprende?

You have, on several occasions, insulted other people and engaged in personal attacks. You claimed that you "respond respectfully to others." Thus that is false.

You'd have to prove I never responded respectfully to everybody for that to be false. Citing 6 sarcastic remarks out hundreds of other respectful responses doesn't do it.

It sounds like you are now changing your story and saying "OK, I wasn't respectful, but I had a good reason, because they were really mean to me." That may be - but it means your original claim was false.

Nope..I claimed I was responding respectfully to everyone, and I did do that hundreds of times. So my statement is true.

It is nonsense like the above that tends to get you banned.

You have no clue as to why I was banned.

I did not say you were a hypocrite, nor did I say that you should ban anyone. I said you would be hypocritical if you demand that others support their claims, but refuse to do so yourself.

I never "refused" to support a claim. I was simply never given the time to do so. I made that very clear in the OP. Go back and read it again if you are unclear.

 

[Magical Realist]

Complaining about specific moderation action in a new thread ought to be grounds for immediate banning.

Oh? Is that in the Sci Forum rules list? Perhaps you can quote it for me....

 

[Kittamaru]

From the SciForums Rules:

Sciforums - Rules, posting guidelines and advice to members (summary)

Sciforums is an intelligent community that encourages learning and thoughtful discussion. We expect and welcome contributions that inform as well as stimulate discussion and debate. At its foundation, sciforums focused on discussion of Science. As the forum developed, our interests broadened to include Philosophy and Ethics, Religion, World Events and Politics and other topics. However, we retain in all areas of debate an ethos of respect for the scientific method, which demands critical analysis, clear thinking and evidence-based argument. Vigorous debate is expected, but we expect all participants to treat each other with courtesy and basic good manners, and to abide by reasonable standards of intellectual integrity and honesty.

Contributions to sciforums inevitably reflect the personal views of the members. As a result, from time to time, one side of any given debate may be over-represented. Readers should not conclude that we therefore endorse one side over the other. While we welcome contributions that reflect the diverse range of perspectives and experiences of our members, we do not believe in an unlimited right to free speech. Rather, we seek to provide a welcoming environment conducive to the critical examination of topics of discussion.

This post is a summary of the most important rules and posting guidelines that we expect members to follow. For much more complete information, refer to the long-form rules in the following posts.

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Posting on sciforums is a privilege, not a right. All material published on sciforums is at the discretion of the moderator team. Moderation may include editing, moving or deletion of posts or threads. Moderator actions are usually documented in some way, though members may not be contacted personally. The forum rules and guidelines are enforced at the discretion of the moderators. Sciforums is moderated bearing in mind the stated aims and ethos of the forum; we will not be bound by the letter of the rules as written, but by the spirit of the rules.

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To make things easy, I have made bold the ones you have, in the last month alone, been found to (often repeatedly) break.... not the least of which includes this very post, whining about you getting infracted for breaking the rules.

The time limit was set to prevent you dodging the burden of proof, as you are so apt to do. You failed, in spectacular fashion, to provide the evidence OR retract the statements you left unsupported within the time period. That, in addition to your blatant intellectual dishonesty and constant trolling, is why you were issued infraction points.

I did not 'issue' you a ban - the forum software did that automatically upon you reaching a set number of points... as it is designed to do.

 

[Bells]

Oh? Is that in the Sci Forum rules list? Perhaps you can quote it for me....

"Ought"..

In other words, he is saying it should be a bannable offense.

Now, as to your complaint. You spent page after page making spurious claims, then you started to quite literally, advocate a position that poses a danger to public health. All without any scientific backing. Instead, you relied solely on what was tantamount to conspiracy sites who all peddle the same dangerous and frankly stupid message you were trying so hard to sell on this site.

On top of that, you also spent a lot of your time in that thread misrepresenting scientific fact by deliberately and very, very obviously quote mining from anti-vaccination sites.

You were told to support your argument with science. You failed to do so. Repeatedly. You were then given a deadline. You have also been given another deadline or advised that you should retract even more damaging and dangerous ideological comments that yes, do endanger the public because you are inciting and recommending people not vaccinate their children, which during a measles outbreak is reprehensible to say the least. This is no longer just a matter of mere opinion, but one that does pose a risk to society at large. You have repeatedly declared that vaccines cause autism, and you have consistently been unable to support this claim with actual science. You have repeatedly asserted that measles is not a dangerous disease, while deliberately misrepresenting how measles is dangerous and even kills thousands of people every year around the world. You have openly commented that people are somehow or other immunising their children with scoffs about "only if they want to develop autism". You also went so far as to comment that vaccinations cause disease outbreaks. To say that your position and what you were and continue to advocate on this site is irresponsible would be kind.

Every single one of your claims are unfounded and there is no science supporting you. The doctors you cited, have either been discredited by the scientific and medical establishment because they are lying and have falsified studies and/or they have their own agenda and are trying to set up a scare campaign to sell their own brand of vaccines. You then tried to cite studies, or quoted from studies, which upon further investigation, revealed those studies were retracted by scientific journals because they were so dishonest and because the results were falsified. You ignored that and kept on going.

To now declare that a moderator has abused his power because after pages and pages of giving you chance after chance to actually support yourself, with requests from everyone else participating in the thread making similar requests and pointing out that what you were providing were wrong, falsified or lies and providing you proof of how and why what you were quoting and linking was discredited by the scientific and medical community, you consistently refused to support your argument with actual science, is a bit of a joke, surely. No other science site would have given you so much leeway to do what you did. Absolutely none.

The abuse of power argument could be made that we were too nice to you and gave you the leeway to make arguments that constitute as a health risk to society and communities in general. And to do what you are doing during a measles outbreak that has no hint of stopping, I think our failure is that we allowed you to have that voice in the first. However what you clearly missed is that we are well within our powers to demand you support your argument or retract what was clearly shown to have been a false and misleading argument. You did neither. The lesson that should be learned is support your argument with science or don't make stupid arguments you cannot support at all.

 

[Kittamaru]

To expand on my previous post (bloody character limits):

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/sciforums-site-rules.142880/#post-3236597

13. 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. Links and references are always welcome, though a convincing argument will often do just as well or better.

14. Post coherently. The aim of writing anything is to communicate something to somebody else. Make your posts readable – use paragraphs, punctuation, correct capitalisation and correct spelling. Make your point clearly and succinctly.

15. 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.

16. Avoid using logical fallacies in arguments.

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/sciforums-site-rules.142880/#post-3236598

G. Feedback and Complaints
1. Members are encouraged to post general feedback regarding sciforums in the Site Feedback subforum. Matters of general interest regarding site policies and moderation (but not about individual moderators) should be posted to the Open Government subforum.

2. Specific complaints concerning the moderation of individual posts should in the first instance be directed by Personal Messaging to the moderator of the subforum in question. If that does not resolve the issue, send a personal message to a supermoderator or administrator.

3. Complaints about individual moderators should be directed to the administrators by Personal Messaging.

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/sciforums-site-rules.142880/#post-3236599

I. Unacceptable behaviour that may result in a temporary or permanent ban

Knowingly posting false or misleading information
15. 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.

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/sciforums-site-rules.142880/#post-3236600

Trolling
18. 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.

Warning: do not feed the trolls! Do not reply to inflammatory posts or threads and do not reply to insults. Hit the ‘report’ button on the relevant post(s) and let the moderators deal with the matter.

19. 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.

Interfering with moderation
20. Interfering with moderation will result in an immediate ban from sciforums. Examples: re-editing or deleting a post that has been edited by a moderator or which has otherwise been the subject of moderator action; reposting a post that has been deleted by a moderator.

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.

 

[krash661]

Abuse of moderator power


more like abuse of MR's mid life crisis sagas.

 

[Magical Realist]

You have repeatedly declared that vaccines cause autism, and you have consistently been unable to support this claim with actual science.

Both you and Kittamaru are simply lying. I have posted in my thread over 40 scientific papers from Pub Med website showing the links between vaccines, vaccine toxins, autism, and other conditions. I posted links to these papers twice in the thread, and after the repeated denials, began posting papers themselves, 8 of which are in my thread. But this is typical for both of you, jumping into the middle of a thread without having read up on it. So this new time limit is another bogus claim based on false accusations. It also comes on the heels of both of you flaming me outright and insulting me even though I told you to stop. I even reported these insults and got no alert messages about them. All my posts are argued rationally and where evidence is required I have provided it. James is now looking into how I was infracted with 65 points in this one thread without me even being warned or notified of it. It will become clear I'm sure that Kittamaru was so desperate to win the argument that he had nothing else to use but trumped up charges that expedited my speedy removal from Sci Forums. Both of you are examples of moderators who get too emotionally invested in arguments, who become abusive and insulting, and who then have to use your modhat to enforce your views on others. Let this be known to all members in this forum from henceforth, whatever fate I will suffer in the future for simply speaking the truth.

 

[Kittamaru]

Both you and Kittamaru are simply lying. I have posted in my thread over 40 scientific papers from Pub Med website showing the links between vaccines, vaccine toxins, autism, and other conditions. I posted links to these papers twice in the thread, and after the repeated denials, began posting papers themselves, 8 of which are in my thread. But this is typical for both of you, jumping into the middle of a thread without having read up on it. So this new time limit is another bogus claim based on false accusations. It also comes on the heels of both of you flaming me outright and insulting me even though I told you to stop. I even reported these insults and got no alert messages about them. All my posts are argued rationally and where evidence is required I have provided it. James is now looking into how I was infracted with 65 points in this one thread without me even being warned or notified of it. It will become clear I'm sure that Kittamaru was so desperate to win the argument that he had nothing else to use but trumped up charges that expedited my speedy removal from Sci Forums. Both of you are examples of moderators who get too emotionally invested in arguments, who become abusive and insulting, and who then have to use your modhat to enforce your views on others. Let this be known to all members in this forum from henceforth, whatever fate I will suffer in the future for simply speaking the truth.

Oh, you mean the papers that were retracted? Or do you mean the ones from anti-vax websites that use themselves as sources? You have not posted any peer-reviewed papers of any "good standing" in the scientific community. The only stuff you posted that was legitimate were the ones showing how high levels of certain chemicals could potentially cause issues; however, these are chemicals that either have been, or are being, eliminated and/or reduced in modern vaccines, as has been pointed out to (and ignored by) you time and again.

The fact that virtually every single poster in that thread is telling you that you are wrong should be a hint - you are bloody wrong.

The time limit is nothing new - you are not the first to have a deadline imposed upon them. If you cannot meet the deadline, retract / delete the statements in question until you can - or, you know, stop spending time WHINING about being called out on your dishonesty and instead do something useful, like finding actual studies from actual medical professionals, instead of angry rants from journalists with no medical background whatsoever.

Additionally, as I have pointed out to you, this very thread is also against the site rules... discussing moderator action in public forum is not allowed; it has been that way since long before I became a moderator. Yet here you are, feeling as though you are somehow privileged to be "above the rules" - any reason I shouldn't issue you the infraction that defecating upon the rules of this forum would entail?

 

[Magical Realist]

Oh, you mean the papers that were retracted? Or do you mean the ones from anti-vax websites that use themselves as sources? You have not posted any peer-reviewed papers of any "good standing" in the scientific community. The only stuff you posted that was legitimate were the ones showing how high levels of certain chemicals could potentially cause issues; however, these are chemicals that either have been, or are being, eliminated and/or reduced in modern vaccines, as has been pointed out to (and ignored by) you time and again.

You claim these 40 papers were retracted, yet continue to refuse to back up that claim. Of the over 40 papers quoted, which were retracted?

And as I already said, thimerasol has NOT been removed from ALL vaccines, and continues to be used widely in other countries outside the U.S. So again, it is YOU who is making the false claim.

The fact that virtually every single poster in that thread is telling you that you are wrong should be a hint - you are bloody wrong.

Argument ad populum: everybody disagrees, so you must be wrong.

The time limit is nothing new - you are not the first to have a deadline imposed upon them. If you cannot meet the deadline, retract / delete the statements in question until you can - or, you know, stop spending time WHINING about being called out on your dishonesty and instead do something useful, like finding actual studies from actual medical professionals, instead of angry rants from journalists with no medical background whatsoever.

I can quote whatever argument that supports my position. If that argument is from an anti-vaccination author or website, the logic of the argument is not effected in the least. Case in point, total number of deaths from measles. The article was simple math based on CDC estimates. Yet it was totally dismissed and mocked because, well, because, that's anit-vaxxer math, right? And God knows we can't trust that.

Additionally, as I have pointed out to you, this very thread is also against the site rules... discussing moderator action in public forum is not allowed; it has been that way since long before I became a moderator. Yet here you are, feeling as though you are somehow privileged to be "above the rules" - any reason I shouldn't issue you the infraction that defecating upon the rules of this forum would entail?

This thread was responded to by James last night and moved to Sci Govt. If it was a violation of the rules he would have cesspooled it. Instead, we are communicating via PM's about it and working toward resolving its issues. I posted this in an open thread simply because I wanted all members to be aware of your behavior and avoid being banned themselves in the future. That's my only motive. To help other members and to have this injustice addressed.

 

[krash661]

i can make a booger speak.

 

[Kristoffer]

i can make a booger speak.

More impressive if what it says makes sense.

 

[Kittamaru]

Cite the rule. It must be posted somewhere right? And your vile depiction of me is noted. To other members, this is the typical obscene treatment I am subjected to.

I already did... http://www.sciforums.com/threads/abuse-of-moderator-power.144935/page-2#post-3275767

G. Feedback and Complaints
1. Members are encouraged to post general feedback regarding sciforums in the Site Feedback subforum. Matters of general interest regarding site policies and moderation (but not about individual moderators) should be posted to the Open Government subforum.

2. Specific complaints concerning the moderation of individual posts should in the first instance be directed by Personal Messaging to the moderator of the subforum in question. If that does not resolve the issue, send a personal message to a supermoderator or administrator.

3. Complaints about individual moderators should be directed to the administrators by Personal Messaging.

As for the "obscene treatment you are subjected to"... all I have to say at this point is "if the shoe fits". You paint yourself to be some kind of nutjob conspiracy theorist who makes leaps of "logic" instead of even acknowledging the mundane and simple possibilities... and now you are ignoring the greater scientific community in favor of the rants of those who have either been discredited or have no medical education nor experience to speak of in order to try and make the claim that vaccinations are bad...

What do you expect people to think? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and floats like a duck... more than likely it's a goddamn duck!

Also - for all the effort you have put into being the victim, you could have EASILY provided the requested citations/evidence... instead, you have pandered and hem-haw'ed over four hours away...

 

[Kittamaru]

They were never unsubstantiated. I had already posted this whole article in the thread. Here's the final lines of it.

"But I digress, let’s compare measles death rates in 1963 to other death rates in 1963.

In 1963, there were about 450 deaths from measles. Meanwhile, about 12,000 people died from stomach ulcers and the likes. Just over 43,000 people died from car accidents in 1963. Over 700,000 people died from heart disease.

In 1963, you were more likely to be one of the 9200 people murdered that year than to die of measles. If you were born in 1963, you were more likely to die from a congenital disease than from measles. In 1963, it was about 46 times more likely for a child to die from a congenital malformation than for someone to die from the measles."

Frankly, in 1963, you were about 46 times more likely to kill yourself than you were to die from measles."

I also quoted a source showing the chances of dying from measles is closer to 1 in 10,000 now. You can go find that. I'm not going to repeat my whole thread here for you.




Interesting how your guilty conscience works... I was merely providing an example; you are the one who took it to apply to yourself *shrug*

A shame you provided no citations and no links, as was requested.

Am I supposed to assume you to be an expert on this?

So, now you are telling us that we have to go find the evidence to support YOUR claims...

Yeah, no... not how things work here bub.

I'm done debating this with you here - if you have comments on your evidence, or rather, lack thereof... bring it to the thread in question.

 

[Kittamaru]

I think, since this thread has disolved into a duplicate of the other one, that this should be locked... if James wishes to reopen it to post his findings, he can certainly do so.