Making Sciforums more Successful.!!!

I think MR is like many people who maintain a shallow belief in things (like, say UFO's.) It's a pleasant belief that makes them feel good for a myriad of reasons. It doesn't hold up well under scrutiny, so their response is simply to not apply that level of scrutiny. There are a few billion people out there who believe in a very literal version of God who perform similar suspensions of disbelief.

 

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evolving the mind and levels of consciousness is a great thing.

 

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"Trolling" is not a useful term.
It seems to mean someone who persists in a belief that you disagree with, despite the sense you are talking.

"Lying" again, may mean proposing something you don't agree with.

"Misrepresenting"". Ditto

"Insults".
I am intolerant of these. My practise is to warn the person and then if necessary put them on ignore.
I won't put up with insults.
As far as I am concerned, disrespect is not admissible if you want to have a reasonable debate.


You can't have a "ghost" section, and then say that someone is "lying", "misrepresenting" or "trolling",
when they say they have had some spectral or psychic encounter.
These people believe what they are saying.

If you don't like such opinions being expressed, then don't have these sections.
But don't complain if you have a ghost section and people chat about ghosts.

 

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Well, in general it means posting intentionally inflammatory material in order to get a rise out of people. It, unfortunately, is common on Internet forums.

 

these continuous frivolous shenanigans are very tiresome.

 

The original "trolling" was done by computer experts pretending that they were fools on tech sites.
They used to ask stupid questions, or pretend that they believed some obvious nonsense.
Then they would wait until some unsuspecting techie made a bite at their bait, and enjoy the tomfoolery.

This was twenty odd years ago.
Someone who is doing this is spotted very quickly these days.
Sometimes people have a go.
Often we call them out on their first post here.
You soon spot the genuine from the spurious.
It doesn't work any more.

 

I agree/share that perception. The problem is that he brings that shallow belief here and then reacts to the thoughtful scrutiny he receives with stupidtrolling.

Oy. Words have definitions -- this isn't a game. A lie is purposely saying something you know to be false. It most certainly is not just saying something someone else disagrees with.

It depends on the specifics of what they say. For example:

"I think I saw a ghost." -- Opinion: can't be a lie.

"I saw a ghost." -- Unproven claim of fact, but not a lie.

"I have proven I saw a ghost." -- Claim of fact that is false, but not necessarily a lie if the person doesn't know what "proof" is. This is the "I'm too stupid to be a liar" defense.

"This photo proves I saw a ghost." -- If it is clearly photoshopped, then it is a lie. If it is just showing a wispy/smoky blob, then it's not conclusive; the "I'm too stupid to be a liar" defense again.

As Origin says, MR's beliefs most likely start off just coming from thoughtlessness. But in most threads, he is quickly shown the facts and errors and responds with false statements that are either too stupid to be honestly believed or clear lies.

I will say that due to the subject matter, it is actually possible that MR really believes everything he says. But again, whichever the truth really is -- too stupid or actual liar/troll -- the negative impact his nonsense has on the forum is the same and IMO the punishment should be the same.

For many of the others such as Farsight and Forrest Noble, the "I'm too stupid to be a liar" defense doesn't fly even if it is true. They have waived it. Both of those are claiming to be published (or soon to be published) cutting edge theorists with decades of scientific experience. When they claim to be experts, they set the bar for our expectations of their knowledge level and take the "I'm too stupid to be a liar" defense off the table. So when Forrest Noble claims QM isn't a theory because theories are written in language and math isn't a language (as he's been on the past few days), he's not entitled to use that as a defense. He has earned a liar/troll infraction for it.

 

Oh, so you DO know what it means. So why did you pretend not to?

How do you know it doesn't work? How do you know MR actually believes what he is saying? More to the point, when he says "obvious nonsense", why does it matter whether he believes it or not if the impact on the forum is the same?

 

I don't like the suggestion that I am pretending not to know what "trolling" is.
Some kind of trolling about trolling.
I know what it is, but I think that other people just use it as an insult.
They don't know what it means.

 

"Lying" and "misrepresenting" too - and I don't like that you are doing it. So if you stop, we'll both feel better about this discussion.

So you purposely use these words improperly because you think others don't know what they mean? Helping or hurting, K C?

Please start using these words properly so we can discuss policy and not bog the discussion down arguing about the definitions of words we all know.

 

I don't know about that. Motordaddy has been doing it successfully for some time. (He admitted it to me after one particularly pointless exchange.)

 

I agree that what he posts is often pretty stupid, but in his case I don't think he is trolling. He's not posting inflammatory material just to get a reaction; he's posting oddball material because he thinks it's cool, or he thinks that he has an open mind and wants to prove it, or wants more people to believe what he does. (At least as far as I can tell.) Then people disagree with him (predictably) and he gets angry and defensive. I can understand this since it's happened to me a few times as well.

Needless to say it's odd that he posts what is effectively science fiction, then gets mad when people tell him "that's science fiction." However, I don't think the intent is malice; in his case, Hanlon's Razor applies.

 

Define "Trolling" please.

Is billvon's definition complete?

 

trolling - literally, "throwing something out there and hoping for a bite" - in this context, it is literally almost equivalent to flame-baiting

 

You and I are finished discussing.
I am putting you on ignore.

 

Finished? Never started. Instead of expressing an opinion on whether lying (etc.) should be allowed in the non-science forums, you chose instead to play games with the definition of lying. And you're ignoring me for pointing it out? Jeez. Was your statement that trolling doesn't exist anymore supposed to be ironic?!

 

Or maybe Sciforums is perfect?

 

@RW
That was probably something so brilliant it would have wiped me away.
Fortunately, I can't see it, so you'll have to annoy someone else.

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I use the word 'trolling' to refer to blatant attempts to arouse anger and other negative emotions in others. The 'troll' seems to work on the principle that he/she scores points if somebody else can be induced to display emotion, and lots of points if the other person loses self-control entirely.

An obvious problem with the 'troll' idea is that sometimes everything is in the eye of the beholder. If X merely expresses an opinion that Y happens to hate, something that makes Y's knee jerk, Y might label X a troll simply for having dared to express the forbidden idea in the first place.

I think that we commonly see examples of both of those here on Sciforums.

Sciforums often misuses that one. A 'lie' is a knowing and intentional misrepresentation of a fact. That's not the same thing as a mistake and it's definitely not the same thing as an opinion that somebody just happens to dislike.

I heartily agree.

Right. I have no objection to people arguing for the possibility of ghosts in the appropriate forum. Equally, I have no objection to people expressing their disbelief in ghosts. What's important is that the belief and disbelief be expressed intelligently and well.

When that happens, when discussions pro- and con- about things like ghosts start to raise deeper issues about what does and doesn't exist (ontology) and about how people might know it (epistemology), these kind of discussions get interesting and can have a lot of philosophical value. The same thing often happens in discussions of religion.

 

So my question was: why does that distinction matter if the damage to the forum is the same either way? SF has a traffic problem and if bad post quality is what is driving people away, why does it matter if such a post is just spectacularly stupid and not a life? Either way, IMO, it should be moderated to prevent it from damaging the forum.