On the Inevitable Imperfection of Moderators

[sweetpea]

Perhaps this site could learn from... http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/index.php?sid=93679f56c45cf19f032f4abf1aecaf2b
Just one mod and no insults or ad hominem arguments. but the traffic seems kind of slow.

 

[paddoboy]

No. I was thinking that whoever moderates the biology forum needs to have the equivalent of an undergraduate background in biology, along with the ability to teach the material normally found in an introductory biology syllabus to laypeople.

The exact same thing applies to all the other science fora.

You referred to rpenner, and I agree his expertise on his subject matter is professional although in most cases above the understanding of us mortals.
Still the reason he has seen the need to involve himself in certain posts, is simply because the person initiating the OP, has no intentions of accepting or listening to the mainstream answer as put by us mortals.

And given that a great deal of the discussion on Sciforums, including most of your posts it seems, aren't about science at all per se, but rather about the philosophy of science, whoever moderates the philosophy and 'fringe' fora should have some training and background in the philosophy of science.

Is that right? I beg to differ and the proof of the pudding is here for all to see.
Perhaps though you are still smarting somewhat at the many quotes I have given in the past poo pooing philosophy to some extent....Quotes like "Philosophy is for the Birds"
At this stage I'll repeat that philosophy although the basis of science, is limited in practical application.
Science is what we know: Philosophy is what we don't know

Every factual proposition should be justifiable somehow. (Though that seems to commit us to an infinite regress.) But I'm not convinced that all factual propositions are scientific or that non-scientific propositions must be justified in scientific terms.

Philosophical Bullshit: The Universe is the way it is and is described and modeled accordingly: It does not need to justify itself to anyone.
Again, this is first and foremost a science forum, and anyone claiming unscientific nonsense such as ghosts, goblins, magical Spaghetti monsters, Aliens etc, will be questioned via the scientific method.

You're ranting.

No, I'm stating well known fact.

You don't know anything about epistemology, logic or the philosophy of science. You admit your ignorance and are actually proud of it (which is profoundly anti-intellectual). Yet you pose as an authority on the soundness and justification of other people's thinking. I don't respect you or take your views seriously when you do that.

More unsupported crap from our Dean of Philosophy,
Let me straighten you out......
I simply admit to my limitations and am not as you so stupidly put it, proud of it. That's simply the way things are and I won't go into reasons at this stage for that.
I do not act as an authority and for someone as expert in philosophy as you claim to say so, is nothing short of stupid.
It is the reason that I do tell those asking questions, that I am a lay person, but by the same token have read plenty of reputable books, links and articles from professionals, and that the answers I give, in near all cases, align with mainstream.
On your claim re my commenting on other people's thinking, I'm not sure who or what you are referring to, but despite your rather "over the top"application of pure philosophy" into anything you have a beef about, havn't you just done that yourself in this rambling post of yours. Oh, yes, I forgot, you are the Dean of Philosophy!

The moderators seem to devote most of their interest to the political and social issues fora. Tiassa posts about nothing else.

The moderators like anyone else, has the right to post and express their feelings whenever they have a mind to.

If you want everything to be more scientific, stay out of the philosophical discussions, avoid the 'fringe' fora and post about science.

That's my business and my choice. OK?

One difficulty you will immediately encounter is a problem that all science fora encounter: What can laypeople say about science? Are they supposed to just say "Oh, wow!" in reply to Plazma's science news reports? But if they don't know the fundamentals and the detailed context of the news story, what more can they say?

????
I say plenty on many of his articles and encourage him to keep posting them just as I do when I have a mind to and the time.

Everybody wants to post about the most arcane details of quantum mechanics, black holes, general relativity or whatever, because it seems cosmic. But most board participants seem kind of vague on the contents of freshman physics. If they want to have any hope of really understanding the cool stuff, they will have to work their way up to it, by learning the principles involved. I think that the board's moderators could ideally serve as teachers, helping people with that. (Of course, science teachers could be paid a lot more doing something else, so it's asking a lot...)

Again, as a lay person who has read plenty, I believe I have a reasonable basic knowledge of cosmology in general and BH's, GR and such.
I express my knowledge and views to the best I am able and in the majority of cases, that view is correct and aligns with the mainstream view.
Sometimes when questions are asked by cranks [you know the ones to which I refer I'm sure] with no intention of accepting any answer, is the time when rpenner steps in and shows in mathematical language, the correctness of the answers being given to our anti science protagonists.

My view though [philosophical if you like] is that you and others, see a victim when mainstream science is applied when scrutinising the fanatical anti science claims of some and sympathy for them and against the ogres that congregate to tell them the error of their ways.

 

[DaveC426913]

Given that opening post, though, would it be fair to say

• In order for the law to be upheld, there must be policemen.
• In order for those who have been accused to be breaking the law to be proved to have done so, there must be courts.
• In order for those courts to function, there must be lawyers, and judges; court officials.
• In order for the law to be upheld, the outcomes must be arrived at objectively, according to the tenets of that law.
• In order for all of the above to function effectively, respect should be accorded to those charged with the upholding of the above, as it is often a thankless task.

these things in order to clarify the premise?

No, it would not be fair to say.
It is a private forum, run by an owner, who has every right to impose rules as s/he sees fit.
Note that that does not automatically mean they are arbitrary or unjust; it simply means they are not subject to acceptance by members.
Anyone who doesn't like the rules can always start their own forum and attract the kind of traffic they want.
Pretty much all private fora work that way.

 

[DaveC426913]

Yazata - how would you recommend that someone who expresses no interest in learning how to properly analyze or investigate something, or hasn't even a rudimentary understanding of scientific principles (recall Victor Esperenza), yet continues to, with no better way to say it, shit-post across one or several sub forums, with no intent to actually learn/validate claims they make/ or otherwise participate in actual discussion? We've tried a few times to simply limit them to a particular thread (such as Victor and also all that "Reality is..." stuff) but it rarely works - once they stop getting the attention they crave, they inevitably spread to other areas.

This would be much trickier to enforce (if one chose to).

Ad homs are, by definition, off-topic - since the topic of any thread is never the member.

There are ways around ad homs, of course. Instead of "you're stupid", they will simply resort to "your argument is stupid". Same thing though. It's still an ad hom. People are stupid; arguments are invalid or unsupported.


But shit-posting, as you call it, is in a much greyer, more arbitrary area - one that, if penalized, flirts with censorship.

Best you can do is simply call it as 'attempting to derail a thread' (with their pet ATM idea) and delete it/ have it moved.

But I wouldn't even try that. I'd simply stick with enforcing respectful treatment of other people, and see how that goes cleaing up the nonsense.

 

[Kittamaru]

Was the problem Victor's resistance to learning basic science, or was the problem Victor's lack of interest in "learning how to properly analyze or investigate something"? What I'm drawing attention to is the distinction between scientific and philosophical issues.

It was a combination therein - that and he had a bad habit of, whenever he thought of a "change" to his "inventions", he would create an entirely new topic dedicated to it - towards the end, I believe he had a half a dozen different posts about the idea of using giant fans in an enclosed space to push a craft through space by having the fans circulate air within a circular enclosure; it became quite spammish. I think the eventual reason for dismissal was that, despite being given a unified thread for his "inventions" (including the idea of a veeg-hole, which was essentially a black hole but... victorized? I dunno how to explain it really) he kept parking stuff where it didn't belong.

I don't know how to put this nicely, but I think that a few of the people who presume to teach others about proper analysis and investigation are little different than the cranks presuming to pontificate on general relativity. Epistemology and logic are serious academic subjects just as quantum mechanics and general relativity are. If one is going to presume to instruct others, then one needs to know something about one's subject and needs to have studied it.

I would agree on premise - however, this is effectively impossible for a volunteer position such as this. I cannot think of many who would be candidate material for a professor's level position who would freely give up their time moderating the chemistry forum here, for example. It isn't impossible, but improbable; not to mention the difficulty in verifying those credentials without an utter abolition of security and anonymity (I guess we could require them to send us a live-feed video of them standing there with their diploma/degree/certifications?)

If somebody is posting to the science fora up on top but shows no interest in actually learning the science necessary to discuss whatever they want to discuss, and if their behavior is becoming disruptive and is taking over threads, then my suggestion would be to restrict their participation to the 'fringe' fora. I kind of conceive of the 'fringe' fora as (almost) anything-goes fora, while the science fora should be preserved for real science of the sort taught in universities (keeping in mind that many of those posting are laypersons). I think that a few of our self-proclaimed experts in critical thinking (especially the ones convinced that epistemology and the philosophy of science are bullshit) are best off posting their philosophical ideas in the fringe fora too.

Perhaps, but that wind blows both ways.

Does the forum software support banning people from some parts of the board but not others?

Yes - posters can be restricted, and even banned from particular threads.

But all of this is dependent on the moderators making these decisions knowing enough about their subjects to make the decisions intelligently. I can imagine participants making posts that are unwelcome and make knees jerk, but introduce deep and important underlying issues. In some cases, the 'crank' may know more about his/her subject than some of the louder and more self-righteous defenders of "science". So moderators need to have the sophistication necessary to discern when that's happening. Banishment to the fringe fora needs to be a last resort measure and it needs to be reversible.

To be honest, I generally stay out of the physics and higher math discussions because I know they are over my head - however, there have been times where it was easy to spot someone who was blowing smoke. I do not profess myself to be an expert in any field of science (at best, I consider myself an adept in computer technology, networking, and security, but even there I have plenty of gaps I long to fill); I do believe I am, in most cases, capable of stepping back and impartially and critically weighing both sides of an argument and coming to a rational conclusion based on facts at hand.

 

[The God]

I am still not sure what this forum as whole wishes to discuss in science sub fora, discussion here means creative ideas involving both + and -...let me guess.

1. News based items, like Plazma is actively posting..

We really do not need an active science forum for this. It will be extremely boring and mostly Plazma Threads pass without significant discussions, so we should respectfully create one more sub fora for Plazma...The Science News.


2. Learning mostly in the from of Q & A

Can this be a regular feature of a science forum ? For example is it the objective of this forum to answer questions on regular basis, what is the photo electric effect ? How the time dilation calculations are carried out ? what is the uncertainty principle ?.......I do not thin k so, khanacademy is there for that and there are many such sites doing this job in a much better and professional way.

3. Discussing a theory or an issue

How ? This neads to be explored how a difficult aspect can be discussed, more in words and less in mathematical symbols. For example there are many participants who support manstream but with incorrect understanding of the same, how to tackle such posters ?

4. Animated discussions involving counter arguments or so called crank pots Vs mainstream

Now this one is tricky, but this can be interesting, this can get in depth learning and this can get good site traffic too. But dissent and crank pottery must be identified, a genuine dissent should not be painted in the same brush as used for cranks. The biggest problem this site is facing is that those who are on the side of mainstream are quite rusty or plain ignorants, these guys tend to derail an argument involving dissent by cluttering or by posting something which is neither mainstream nor anti-mainstream. So if we can learn to handle this aspect in a mature way, then I am sure site can be more beneficial to many.


On the Moderator role..

1. Rpenner words are his maths, so he cannot possibly write more than a paragraph without involving mathematics. He has to learn to write more words than symbols. It is not that his maths is questionable, it is just that only a few understand that and rest agree that whatever this guy is saying must be correct.

2. A Mod looses his judging power and respect if he involves himself in the argument. Let the Mods be invisible and Mods action posts should contain least words, pure professional posts. See, this is required, because Rpenner as a student of science deserves respect but as a Mod he is loosing my respect, his action of changing the title in derogatory way for BDS, Farsight and my threads clearly shows his personal bias and immaturity. None wants a judge to act so regularly this way with his personalized opinion. A judge is not expected to side openly till final decision, a Mod if visible cannot avoid that.

3. Personal insult must be handled on the first appearance...any thing even remotely suggestive of insult must be spotted and acted upon. In an anonymous situation expecting mature behavious could be asking a bit too much.

 

[The God]

See, the incorrigible paddoboy, he has made this thread also as his personal fight...Post # 42.
The biggest hindrance a thread faces is Paddoboy's cluttering.
How to handle this ? Paddoboy is the key to successful handling of science forum, learn to handle him and we are through.

 

[paddoboy]

See, the incorrigible paddoboy, he has made this thread also as his personal fight...Post # 42.
The biggest hindrance a thread faces is Paddoboy's cluttering.
How to handle this ? Paddoboy is the key to successful handling of science forum, learn to handle him and we are through.

You sleep well tonight, OK?

 

[paddoboy]

I am still not sure what this forum as whole wishes to discuss in science sub fora, discussion here means creative ideas involving both + and -...let me guess.

1. News based items, like Plazma is actively posting..

We really do not need an active science forum for this. It will be extremely boring and mostly Plazma Threads pass without significant discussions, so we should respectfully create one more sub fora for Plazma...The Science News.


2. Learning mostly in the from of Q & A

Can this be a regular feature of a science forum ? For example is it the objective of this forum to answer questions on regular basis, what is the photo electric effect ? How the time dilation calculations are carried out ? what is the uncertainty principle ?.......I do not thin k so, khanacademy is there for that and there are many such sites doing this job in a much better and professional way.

3. Discussing a theory or an issue

How ? This neads to be explored how a difficult aspect can be discussed, more in words and less in mathematical symbols. For example there are many participants who support mansgream but with incorrect understanding of the same, how to tackle such posters ?

4. Animated discussions involving counter arguments or so called crank pots by mainstream

Now this one is tricky, but this can be interesting, this can get in depth learning and this can get good site traffic too. But dissent and crank pottery must be identified, a genuine dissent should not be painted in the same brush as used for cranks. The biggest problem this site is facing is that those who are on the side of mainstream are quite rusty or plain ignorants, these guys tend to derail an argument involving dissent by cluttering or by posting something which is neither mainstream nor anti-mainstream. So if we can learn to handle this aspect in a mature way, then I am sure site can be more beneficial to many.


On the Moderator role..

1. Rpenner words are his maths, so he cannot possibly write more than a paragraph without involving mathematics. He has to learn to write more words than symbols. It is not that his maths is questionable, it is just that only a few understand that and rest agree that whatever this guy is saying must be correct.

2. A Mod looses his judging power and respect if he involves himself in the argument. Let the Mods be invisible and Mods action posts should contain least words, pure professional posts. See, this is required, because Rpenner as a student of science deserves respect but as a Mod he is loosing my respect, his action of changing the title in derogatory way for BDS, Farsight and my threads clearly shows his personal bias and immaturity. None wants a judge to act so regularly this way with his personalized opinion. A judge is not expected to side openly till final decision, a Mod if visible cannot avoid that.

3. Personal insult must be handled on the first appearance...any thing even remotely suggestive of insult must be spotted and acted upon. In an anonymous situation expecting mature behavious could be asking a bit too much.

.
Anyone who doesn't like the rules can always start their own forum and attract the kind of traffic they want.
Pretty much all private fora work that way.

All the best my friend.

 

[river]

Imperfections.

 

[krash661]

in reality-- this site has an ethics problem.
i find it odd that there are an abundance of so-called intellects on this site and as it appears that none are able to understand this. comical.

 

[sculptor]

I have no complaints:
.............
Well, maybe one:
When first I came here, I had used a different avatar, a female.
As per my perspective, not much different than the current one.
James R seemed troubled by it and advised me that this was not a porn site.

'Twas just a sculpture, so perhaps I could take that as a compliment. And I did so, and chose a different sculpture for the avatar.
"Twas but a small concession.

........................
And, well worth it.
Great site, my continued thanx.

 

[Farsight]

I agree the mixing of personal views with moderation is a bad thing - and said as much. It would be lovely to have moderators who are - as rpenner is regarding the physical sciences - an authority on the subjects they moderate.

Only he isn't. He likes to portray himself as such, but when I correct him and refer to the Einstein digital papers to back up what I'm saying about gravity, he dismisses my bona-fide references as "antique sources". And then he fabricates "don't misteach physics" warnings and suspensions so that I can't embarrass him with such corrections. Only these warnings aren't public, they're secret. So you can't see them, or my rebuttal which is backed by further robust references. And meanwhile he gives free rein to ad-hominem abuse.

That is one reason why I have chosen to put a word in for the imperfect moderators we have.

Ask to see rpenner's warnings instead. Oh, and see where sweetpea said this?

"Perhaps this site could learn from... http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/index.php?sid=93679f56c45cf19f032f4abf1aecaf2b Just one mod and no insults or ad hominem arguments. but the traffic seems kind of slow".

That's my site. I'm the moderator there. And there is no "inevitable imperfection".

 

[Dr_Toad]

Hilarious.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

And then he fabricates "don't misteach physics" warnings and suspensions so that I can't embarrass him with such corrections.

Will moderate for beer

I'll promise to never get embarrassed... But, it would be much cooler if a moderater could (find time?) post things like Mr. Inferno.

 

[sweetpea]

That's my site. I'm the moderator there. And there is no "inevitable imperfection".

I know it's your site and your the mod. Can you say why the traffic is slow there? Perhaps you could PM some of the free thinkers here with a link to there...
Ps. I note you are still bound to forums and the comment sections of others blog sites.

 

[sweetpea]

Will moderate for beer

I'll promise to never get embarrassed... But, it would be much cooler if a moderater could (find time?) post things like Mr. Inferno.

Perhaps you could guest mod here for a time? Or, guest mod at Farsight's...free beer and lots and lots of free time there.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

Perhaps you could guest mod here for a time? Or, guest mod at Farsight's...free beer and lots and lots of free time there.

My Mama used to say: 'If you don't have anything nice to say...''

But I would do it for beer of course.

 

[rpenner]

Only he isn't. He likes to portray himself as such, but when I correct him and refer to the Einstein digital papers to back up what I'm saying about gravity, he dismisses my bona-fide references as "antique sources".

You literally can't get more antique than going back to Einstein's 1914-1920 papers on General Relativity (GR, finished 1916). They use conventions and notations which are antique. They were proofread and typeset using tools that are antique and suffer from typos in equations. And they suffer from being devoid of later mathematical developments, notably the exact solutions to certain exterior solutions and various proofs.

But I don't dismiss them. I've taken the time to use them to show one person with a very narrow and peculiar view of what constitutes scientific authority that Einstein defined straight lines in GR to be identical to the geodesics of late nineteenth mathematics of curved manifolds, and that Einstein claimed these geodesics/straightlines were the trajectories of material bodies. That's not dismissing them. That's understanding them better.

I dismiss one particular autodidact's take on them when that person can't actually do GR calculations despite two instances where Einstein gives tutorials in GR maths. I dismiss that autodidact's view because he can't be bothered with any other sources, thus has a narrow, blinkered view of science that leaves him willfully and unnecessarily ignorant. And in his ignorance, he feels free to invent claims unfettered by the constraints of observation of phenomena which science holds as the ultimate authority. That's what I mean by misteaching science.

And then he fabricates "don't misteach physics" warnings

Specifically, there is a publicly available written policy forbidding pseudoscience on the main science sub-forums. That policy has been provided to you via PM.

and suspensions

All suspensions have been an automatic feature of the forum as result of picking up so many warnings. One of them happened mid-warning process and I was forced to wait for it to end before providing you with your explanatory PM. As far as I know you were not suspended during any part of June 2016, but after five formal warnings, your policy-driven exclusion from the main science forums covers that entire month.

so that I can't embarrass him with such corrections. Only these warnings aren't public, they're secret. So you can't see them, or my rebuttal which is backed by further robust references.

As noticed frequently in the PMs, you are free to invite whomever you choose to any of the threads, and in nearly every case, I have made the moderator action publicly visible on the affected post. So they are not conventionally secret. I've seen no corrections or rebuttals. Time and time again, you confirm that I understood the position you expressed which was the cause of the warning and rather than presenting any demonstration of correctness you simply deny the validity of the warning.

If there is embarrassing content in the PM conversations, I would think it belongs to the one with the most sense of entitlement in the conversations, demanding specific actions without resting on anything more than soi disant authority. There is an art to writing an argument which is persuasive to undecided readers.

And meanwhile he gives free rein to ad-hominem abuse.

As I've written before, it's the ad hominem fallacy of denigrating an argument by claiming its advocate is not a good person or verbal abuse by use of uncalled-for pejoratives, commands and explicatives. As a moderator of the science section, it's my duty to employ pejoratives descriptive of behavior when the job calls for explaining why I'm taking action. I don't issue warnings to posters who are doing a good job.

Ask to see rpenner's warnings instead.

The privacy the PM mechanism protects is your own. Rather than guess which PM's you want exposed, I will leave it to you to field requests from people to see your conversations with moderators and allow you the discretion of picking which PMs to allow them to see.

Oh, and see where sweetpea said this?

"Perhaps this site could learn from... http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/index.php?sid=93679f56c45cf19f032f4abf1aecaf2b Just one mod and no insults or ad hominem arguments. but the traffic seems kind of slow".

That's my site. I'm the moderator there. And there is no "inevitable imperfection".

Because that moderator never struggles with any question, no matter how complicated our outside his field of experience? Which of us is the unthoughtful, arrogant one?

 

[exchemist]

Only he isn't. He likes to portray himself as such, but when I correct him and refer to the Einstein digital papers to back up what I'm saying about gravity, he dismisses my bona-fide references as "antique sources". And then he fabricates "don't misteach physics" warnings and suspensions so that I can't embarrass him with such corrections. Only these warnings aren't public, they're secret. So you can't see them, or my rebuttal which is backed by further robust references. And meanwhile he gives free rein to ad-hominem abuse.

Ask to see rpenner's warnings instead. Oh, and see where sweetpea said this?

"Perhaps this site could learn from... http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/index.php?sid=93679f56c45cf19f032f4abf1aecaf2b Just one mod and no insults or ad hominem arguments. but the traffic seems kind of slow".

That's my site. I'm the moderator there. And there is no "inevitable imperfection".

Rpenner quite clearly is recognised as an authority on physical science, by those of us on this forum who have university level physical science qualifications. But I quite understand that you don't recognise him as such.

I also note that it seems a number of science forums appear to have banned you entirely, or at least from the hard science areas.

http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/farsight-t666.html

http://www.thephysicsforum.com/members/farsight.html

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169567

So, frankly, if it's your word against rpenner's.............well.........I need say no more, really.

P.S. Oh, and then there was this review of your self-published book:

" This is a work of pure imagination. The author has come up with an imaginative idea (that does NOT meet the criterion for being considered a theory) about what comprises the universe we live in. This book claims that matter, energy and space are the same thing, with the particles we observe being 'knots' of space.
Unfortunately, his ideas simply don't work. When one creates even the most rudimentary mathematical model of his theories, one finds predictions that contradict what we know about the universe. Even without doing any math, it is possible to find errors and false predictions in his ideas based on simply finding the logical conclusions of his claims.
This book is self-published, after having been rejected by a number of publishers. I find it quite telling that even a company that would publish works by Deepak Chopra would turn down this author.
Duffield has been shopping this theory around the internet for several years now. In that time, he's been banned from numerous science forums for various reasons, including refusing to accept correction, presenting his ideas as established science, and even attempting to intimidate others by describing his claimed prowess at boxing and willingness to travel.
In short, this book is a waste of time, for the author as well as any reader. I would recommend that anyone wishing to learn more about physics purchase a book by an actual physicist."