Feedback on Recent Changes

I was against it at first, although I admit the new structure actually seems reasonable.
 
I'm not really saying much of anything other than I see a certain working order in it. That is, the question disappears entirely with the subforum titled as it is. I'm not suggesting tequila and scrambled eggs here, but rather a common bond between the genres of legend.


it is so fucking weird that you offer up Free Thoughts as a logical destination for sasquatch and the yeti since a Ufology title would preclude their inclusion.

i looked for references and they are all found in Pseudoscience

Dartmoor Beast Identified As New Species Of European Giant Hyrax?

New Bigfoot Thermal Video Impresses Researchers

Trail Cam Photo Of Louisiana Swamp Monster (Hyrax IMO)

so lets eyeball the your premise......

renaming UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters to Ufology would result in saquatch/yeti threads situating in Free Thoughts. you ignore the fact that the Pseudoscience forum still exists in order to avoid shitting on your own premise

you do this because you are not interested in sensible and reasoned arguments but are here to kneejerk and be contrary
 
Or, alternatively, rename if from 'on the fringe' to 'fringe science', and seeing as how we already have a parapsychology subforum, split it, but drop the ghosts part, as that is already covered, and rename the two new subfora 'Ufology' and 'Cryptozoology'.
 
ja
and seeing that we do not have a pool in sci's backyard....

lets split the cesspool forum in two
Cess and Pool

last one in is a.........!

i must say i admire sci's egalitarian spirit
sasquatch's demand for equal time with the little green men had found quite a few proponents here

bravo, woo woos
 
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Cptbork #20: "I once had someone tell me that the Egyptian pyramids were constructed by using flutes to manipulate quantum gravitons. Like if Mozart hit the right notes, maybe the whole concert hall would go flying to the moon. Yeah, doesn't deserve much respect on a science board."

. . . .J. Keeley might disagree with you on this!
 
I was against it at first, although I admit the new structure actually seems reasonable.

It all looks weird to me. I haven't logged in for a month, and just noticed it.

Regarding one section, and not that this necessarily has changed anything, but...
I somewhat object to the pigeonholing ( or cornholing :eek:) of subjects sometimes, since certain threads covering half-way legitimate topics, but also considered fringe by some , would be unnecessarily relegated to a category that could impugn the intentions or arguments of some of the posters by mere label.
Not that we didn't already have that with the broad, sometimes derogatory term pseudoscience. Fringe is probably less disrespectful overall, since it implies outer reaches of understanding, rather than poor, fraudulent, or unscientific.
I'm thinking in particular of all the ad hominem arguments that simply consist of one person calling another a "conspiracy theorist" as if that epithet constitutes a valid line of argumentation. Or woo woo.
Again, not that much has changed, we just have more ways to label people, threads, and wrong ideas!

C'est la :shrug:
 
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Cptbork #20: Like if Mozart hit the right notes, maybe the whole concert hall would go flying to the moon.

I like the concept very much. Let's make that dream a reality!


Tiassa said:
I saw a winged, evil-looking midget molesting my wife as she slept. What is it?

I KNOW, I KNOW!!! But if I said what it is, I might get banned! :wtf:
 
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Gustav:

the inclusion of "Ghosts" in the title.....

The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research.[2] Parapsychologists study a number of ostensible paranormal phenomena, including telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation and apparitional experiences.

discussions of such belong in the para forum. remove the reference

the inclusion of "Monsters" in the title.....

what is that? care to give some examples because i can only come up with some hollywood and greek mythology shit. remove that reference too.

Max Dessoir may have considered ghosts and monsters to be psychological phenomena. Maybe he would also have put alien spaceships in the same category. However, I think the definition of "parapsychology" may have moved a bit since the 1930s.

It makes sense to me that UFOs, ghosts and cryptozoology should share a section. All of them involve people seeing things that some other people either doubt the existence of or doubt the proferred explanations of.

Tiassa's point about the historical context of aliens vs. demons and so on is pertinent here, too.

with regards to the inclusion of SciFi & Fantasy in the Life subforum....

the focus appears to be way to narrow to justify its inclusion in that forum. if anything, it would be more appropriate to group under Art and Culture. the implication of this move is that other genres could theoretically have a home here. i imagine an argument could be made for a Horror or Romance forum in Life in light of this precedent.

A while back, we made a deliberate decision not to nest subforums. So, whole it would be possible to create subforums of Art & Culture, say, we have deliberately chosen not to do that. The immediate implication of this is that all subforums are visible on the main page of sciforums.

the renaming of Subcultures to On the Fringe

....what really would be the point of classifying SciFi & Fantasy as "fringe" material? in fact why would sci even need to take a position on what constitutes fringe material or not? take for instance, Alternative theories and its expected contents. it is already considered "fringe" so what we have here is a redundant classification.

It's not redundant. "On the Fringe" is a category heading that demarcates certain subforums into a category separate from the Science forums. The Science forums are for discussion of established science, peer-reviewed scientific research - basically science that is supported by some kind of good evidence and/or argument. The standards of evidence and argument that are/will be applied to the "On the Fringe" subforums are/will be somewhat less strict than for the Science forums.

*rename UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters to Ufology

That would be unduly restrictive, I think. There isn't that must discussion of UFOs here - not enough to warrant an entire subforum devoted to the topic.

[qupte]while we are nitpicking......

ESP, telepathy, faith healing, precognition, dowsing, talking to dead people

thats the desc for para
esp seems covers all the subsequent ones so mod to "extra sensory perception" and eliminate the redundancies. add "ghosts" if you wanna[/quote]

While it may be true that ESP covers the rest, I'm not convinced that everybody else who may visit sciforums will know that. So, a bit of redundancy here, if that's what it is, doesn't hurt.

what the addition of ghosts and monsters imply is that be they be considered on their own account. we are now encouraging members to create "i saw a monster" thread.

Are we not equally encouraging memebrs to create "I saw a UFO" thread? If you're going to have one, why not the other?

SciFi & Fantasy is in Life not Art and Culture. Life should have more mainstream fori nested under it not some goddamn niche shit.
open ended shit like sports are sufficiently broad in scope to be nested under Life. you can then nest specific types of sports under that if the need arises

We already have a Health & Fitness forum that covers Sport. Previously there was some discussion about creating a Sport subforum, but then we wondered whether we really want to duplicate many other excellent sports-dedicated forums that can be found elsewhere. We decided that we're primarily a Science site. We don't really need a whole bunch of threads dissecting the latest Friday night football.

do we need a mile long front page?

It's now about the same length as it was before any of the recent changes.


leopold:

add "perceived gods" to ghosts and monsters.

We already have a forum for perceived gods - two, in fact. They are called "Religion" and "Comparative Religion".
 
Burrs and Bongs

Gustav said:

you do this because you are not interested in sensible and reasoned arguments but are here to kneejerk and be contrary

I definitely need to be higher before attempting to extract this burr from under your saddle.
 
Oh, and if you're actually reading anything I wrote, shame on you!
I read it all, and yours was the only sane and truthful thing posted. People have to read each thread on the forum piecemeal and ignore the structure and the categories they were put in. You can't let the collective or particular individuals try to influence perception.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” ~Buddha


I think I liked this idea the best of them all. But it didn't include art, literature or life styles.

How about renaming it to "Fringe Science/Ufology, Cryptozoology, & Parapsychology"
 
After all, where would the Star Wars v. Star Trek thread go? That one is famous around the web. How many pages is that?
 
Max Dessoir may have considered ghosts and monsters to be psychological phenomena. Maybe he would also have put alien spaceships in the same category. However, I think the definition of "parapsychology" may have moved a bit since the 1930s.


"maybe" and "think" are the operative words here. why don't you give me the new definition then? secondly, i only assert "ghosts" are the province of parapsychology, not "monsters". again, wiki's take on para....

Scope

Parapsychologists study a number of ostensible paranormal phenomena, including but not limited to:

* Telepathy: Transfer of information on thoughts or feelings between individuals by means other than the five classical senses.
* Precognition: Perception of information about future places or events before they occur.
* Clairvoyance: Obtaining information about places or events at remote locations, by means unknown to current science.
* Psychokinesis: The ability of the mind to influence matter, time, space, or energy by means unknown to current science.
* Near-death experiences: An experience reported by a person who nearly died, or who experienced clinical death and then revived.
* Reincarnation: The rebirth of a soul or other non-physical aspect of human consciousness in a new physical body after death.
* Apparitional experiences: Phenomena often attributed to ghosts and encountered in places a deceased individual is thought to have frequented, or in association with the person's former belongings.

The definitions for the terms above may not reflect their mainstream usage, nor the opinions of all parapsychologists and their critics.

According to the Parapsychological Association, parapsychologists do not study all paranormal phenomena, nor are they concerned with astrology, UFOs, Bigfoot, paganism, vampires, alchemy, or witchcraft.​

pseudo still has some uses, james. i mean look at your desc....

If it doesn't fit in any of the other Fringe categories...

It makes sense to me that UFOs, ghosts and cryptozoology should share a section. All of them involve people seeing things that some other people either doubt the existence of or doubt the proferred explanations of.


now that it has been established that "Ghosts" are already covered by Paraspsychology we are left with "Monsters" and your attempt to give it credence by wrapping it up in an officious sounding term...cryptozoology...

The subfora are appropriately titled IMO- if people want to believe in spooks and monsters in the closet, more power to them, but these kinds of superstitions shouldn't be glorified with some technical-sounding title suggesting the evidence holds a candle to the mainstream scientific view.


to you, james, the sighting of an ufo, the confirmation thru various means, the innumerable official investigations, the existence of actual unexplained events by those bodies are equated with sighting terrestrial cryptids. if you are that eager and enthusistic about this field, take cryptozoology to the science forum. after all...

Cryptozoologists claim there have been cases where species now accepted by the scientific community were initially considered superstition, hoaxes, delusions or misidentifications. The popularly reported European discovery of the okapi in 1901, earlier hinted at but unseen by Henry Morton Stanley in his travelogue of exploring the Congo, later became the emblem for the now defunct International Society of Cryptozoology. The mountain gorilla, giant squid and Hoan Kiem Turtle are other examples of extant species that were brought to the attention of modern science but formerly thought to be cryptids.

The 2003 discovery of the fossil remains of Homo floresiensis was cited by paleontologist Henry Gee, editor of the journal Nature as possible evidence that humanoid cryptids like the Orang Pendek and yeti were "founded on grains of truth". "Cryptozoology", Gee said, "the study of such fabulous creatures, can come in from the cold."​

Tiassa's point about the historical context of aliens vs. demons and so on is pertinent here, too.


i see. despite the the fact that we already have an example of a spacefaring civilization in this universe, (earthlings) speculating about the extraterrestial origins of another by way of a ufo sighting is the same as postulating it comes from realms of angels and demons. some other worldly dimension. equal credence should be given to those archaic interpretations in the 21st century. yes, that is really rational and scientific

That would be unduly restrictive, I think. There isn't that must discussion of UFOs here - not enough to warrant an entire subforum devoted to the topic.

umm
you already created one. it is called UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters.all i am saying is "ghosts" is covered by para and "monsters" is just utterly ludicrous. one would think a science site has hit rock bottom with forums like "para" and "ufos", but you hit a new low with the inclusion of ..."monsters".that is the terminology of a goddamn child. why do you not see this?

Are we not equally encouraging memebrs to create "I saw a UFO" thread? If you're going to have one, why not the other?


that's funny. ok, lets have dedicated vampire and werewolf forums

That would be unduly restrictive, I think. There isn't that must discussion of UFOs here - not enough to warrant an entire subforum devoted to the topic.

again, you just created one and all the inclusion of the disputed terms means is that you encourage topics that are even less discussed than ufos

go look for yourself. do a comparison of topic titles containing the relevant terms and see what you come up with. in para, esp is the focus,ghosts are a footnote at best, and pseudo has perhaps less than 10 cryptid discussion. now count the ufo threads. large orders of magnitude is what you will see.

so what is your objective again? make this place even more woo woo? equal time to the sasquatch proponents?


We already have a Health & Fitness forum that covers Sport..


i brought it up as a example of logical nesting. i am not here to propose the creation of new forums, i just want a few minor tweaks
 
*rename UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters to Ufology
*rename On the Fringe to Subcultures aka revert back to original title
*move SciFi & Fantasy back to Subcultures aka reverse the move


those are not radical suggestions just minor tweaks :confused:
 
Tiassa's point about the historical context of aliens vs. demons and so on is pertinent here, too.


lets see how that works

gustav: i saw 3 objects whizzing around. they seem to be et in origin and under intelligent control

james: back in the day those were held to be chariots manned by demons

gustav: thanks for the info. now back to why i think the sighting...........

/perplexed
 
It all looks weird to me. I haven't logged in for a month, and just noticed it.

Regarding one section, and not that this necessarily has changed anything, but...
I somewhat object to the pigeonholing ( or cornholing :eek:) of subjects sometimes, since certain threads covering half-way legitimate topics, but also considered fringe by some , would be unnecessarily relegated to a category that could impugn the intentions or arguments of some of the posters by mere label.

Weellll this is a good point. I suppose if the intent is to give it a completely neutral treatment, a less pejorative title could be chosen. Mods?
 
thank you geoff

/smirk

it is also clear that description has considerable negative connotations thus sci appears to officially endorse an unwarranted prejudice towards its own subforums.

in light of these conjectures, i propose a reversion back to the original title...subcultures. it is nonjudgmental, all fori in it have the virtue of being viable sub cultures found in modern societies and it maintains tradition.
 
I definitely need to be higher before attempting to extract this burr from under your saddle.

Who -cares-really. Is that like a name ? Like "Who" cares .

I think it is more inviting of more classes of peoples and hey good for sales I imagine . The management has to ask them selves if that is what they want ? More involvement from the people ? I like cross roads . I think they are a bunch of fun and exciting when it comes to trade . Is that what not we trade at the cross roads of knowledge ? Yeah man ! What makes the world go round?
 
I read it all, and yours was the only sane and truthful thing posted.
:shy:
I doubt it, but thank you for your kind words...
Eh, just something that's always bothered me about how this forum operates sometimes, relying on invalidation by categorization, or something like that. Though such sentiments have been previously expressed in the poll about this topic that I just discovered. I was unaware.

People have to read each thread on the forum piecemeal and ignore the structure and the categories they were put in. You can't let the collective or particular individuals try to influence perception.

Partially agreed. I don't mind separating subjects, and adding a few new categories, but as you can see, the labeling is contentious, and very often a way discredit, regarding some topics.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” ~Buddha

That's humorous. Buddha, the Comedian. Truthful too. I like.



After all, where would the Star Wars v. Star Trek thread go? That one is famous around the web. How many pages is that?

Too many!

Weellll this is a good point. I suppose if the intent is to give it a completely neutral treatment, a less pejorative title could be chosen. Mods?
Geez, don't I always make good points? :p
Just hoping for some good decisions, however semi-permanent. I am expecting that it won't be resolved overnight, with people like Dywyddyr saying it should be called the Woo Woo Trash Bin, or whatever he said.

thank you geoff

/smirk

gustav said:
it is also clear that description has considerable negative connotations thus sci appears to officially endorse an unwarranted prejudice towards its own subforums.

in light of these conjectures, i propose a reversion back to the original title...subcultures. it is nonjudgmental, all fori in it have the virtue of being viable sub cultures found in modern societies and it maintains tradition.

Someone feels left out? Shame on Geoffrey.
I personally don't feel that a title of "Fringe Science" or something of that sort is bad. I believe there are a few people who are considerate of the subjects under the banner who use such a term and not as a pejorative, but as a descriptor of something that is outside the box, but not unworthy of serious thought.
Pseudoscience on the other hand...

As for Subculture, I don't have a problem, but on the other hand, the "culture" thing is a bit broad. I feel that some of those subjects are a legitimate area of study, applying scientific principles, as many attempt to do. Culture to me seems more like a way of life, mindset, belief, practice, etc. which isn't necessarily the case.

Not that it matters much..
 
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