SciForums Policy Discussion

Discussion in 'SF Open Government' started by Plazma Inferno!, Jun 4, 2007.

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  1. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    Hmm. You're obviously not a scientist, because you seem to be ignorant of how science actually works.

    The point is, something that has been shown to be wrong scietifically is not science---intelligent design, Afrocentrism, cold fusion. The spectific thread I'm talking about has been claiming for six years that high energy collisions at FermiLab will inevitably cause the Earth to turn into a supernova. Since roughly four million events a day are logged there, which means that there have been rouhly a billion events since this guy started posting his nonsense.

    His arguments are fundamentally flawed, and shown to be wrong. You would give him the same forum as someone with an honest question, or a good idea? Please.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2007
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  3. darksidZz Valued Senior Member

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    This has really umm, interesting posts :shrug:
     
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  5. Creative Fossil Banned Banned

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    Not everyone here is a scientist. It is a discussion board. There are no entry requirements. The problem seems to be that 'quality' of poster will (or already IS) be an issue of membership and posting rights and entitlements to moderator intervention. That is not 'just'.

    Membership would be reduced to less than 100 if you want contributions from qualified and peer respected scientists only.

    Sci's ruling body is alienating it's MAJORITY poster with this 'value poster' system it wants to encourage. As the reality is most posters do not contribute MUCH in terms of scientific value. BUT they contribute HUGELY in terms of discussion. THUS they should be valued equally.
     
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  7. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Well, that's already implied in the current text, BUT I will suggest a more explicit version, where it is stated that moderators are members (that is already clear, but for some, it seems, it's a challange) and that moderators are moderated by the admin, and all complains have to be made to admin.

    Please give me 24h, have to learn for an exam now.
     
  8. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Sciforums unites members from all countries of the world for the
    common goal to discuss, among other things, all things science in a
    pleasant, non-threatening environment, where each and every member is
    valued according to his or her contribution to the community.

    Sciforums is an Internet community that, foremost and among other things, values
    intelligent discussion, scientific method, critical thinking and sound
    reasoning.


    Are you against intelligent discussion, scientific method, critical thinking and sound
    reasoning, TOR?
     
  9. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    Hi Fossil---

    I'm not advocating that we have some filtering system that prevents people from making posts. In this respect, I think I am misunderstood. I just suggested that if something is SHOWN to be wrong or inaccurate, and its wrongness and inaccurateness is fundamental in nature, then it has no business being in the science fora.

    What if I proposed that there was no link between HIV and AIDS? What if I made postings and spread propoganda along these lines? Should my posts be tolerated in the Biology forum? Surely your answer is no, as there is a WELL established link between the two diseases. Just ask the millions of people who die in Africa every year.

    The quesiton is---why should bad physics be any less offensive than this?
     
  10. Nickelodeon Banned Banned

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    I still dont understand what the problem is. If its been shown to be wrong in the thread, why throw it out? Surely its better to keep it there so that others who come along with similar questions doubts can see the reasoning?
     
  11. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    The problem might be when another thread is made for the same thing, as it happens frequently.
    Just how many moon landing conspiracy threads do we have in our archives?
    No less than 15 I think.
     
  12. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    Do you have any problems with MetaKron's posts on AIDS denial, or MattMarr's Illuminati posts, or IAC's posts on creationism ending up in pseudoscience?
     
  13. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Are you that inane? It's a policy not a contract, there's a fundamental difference. I don't want to even imagine what your water tight contracts have been.
     
  14. Creative Fossil Banned Banned

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    exactly. That is the POINT of a discussion forum.

    In any forum there will be wrong , right and grey points of view. YOU can't delete all grey and wrong points of view otherwise there is NO platform for what is right to expose itself!
     
  15. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    And there are sections called "Pseudoscience" and "Cesspool" for such posts. If the scientific content of a post is shown to be wrong or nonexistant, it has no business in a science forum. Posts regularly get shuffled in other fora, why is it so abhorrent to suggest that the same standard be held in the science fora?
     
  16. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    I'm glad you continue to show your lack of legal education.
    There are no two parties in this document which is a policy.
    The one and only party is the community of sciforums which is made of all the memebers.
    A constitution is not a contract, a law is not a contract, a policy is not a contract.

    A warning with deletion at best, but it's totally worth it.
    Besides your "without provocation" is laughable.
     
  17. Creative Fossil Banned Banned

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    Science is not exclusively right it is subject to change. So does that mean if I get hot of the press NEW science , mods are going to cesspool it until such a time as they catch up with the advancements in science?

    THE FACT is the moderators ARE NOT TOP scientists, they are not in a postition to RULE over what is good/bad science, what they can do though is contribute as members to refute the posts as they see fit within respectable boundaries.
     
  18. Creative Fossil Banned Banned

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    the two parties are

    • the board/mods agree to
    • the community agrees to

    perhaps a re-read is in order on your behalf




    There is a clear differentiation here Avatar...TWO sets of rules for TWO sets of people.

    Meanwhile if you think you have been provoked by me to flame me, report those posts. Do not insult on this thread.
     
  19. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Moderators are members the same as governors are citizens.
    I'm not going to discuss legal theory with you here, so I just appeal to my authority and leave you be in your ignorance.

    Be seeing you.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  20. Creative Fossil Banned Banned

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    Your response to my comment about your insults to me and how you expect you will be treated by admin:


    So you advertise you abuse of the rules, yet your moderator status remains in tact? Interesting
     
  21. Creative Fossil Banned Banned

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    If that was true you would not have had 4. and 5. as seperate issues. YOU have clearly differentiated between the two and rightly so. There is a difference between the two you have demonstrated that.

    I insult you and I get an infraction/ban.
    You insult me, you post is deleted.
    We are hardly being treated the same.


    Meanwhile your continual insults to me demonstrate you have NO self control or discipline. Do you consider lack of self control to be a quality a moderator should have?
     
  22. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    Do you really think that the Physics forum is full of new ideas? The moderators in the Physics forum (where I have all of my experience) are very slow to Cesspool threads. I have no complaints about this.

    But you seem to think that "science" should be some democratic system where we listen to everybody and accept their opinions, and have no ability to pass a `right' or `wrong' scentence on their ideas. This notion is patently wrong. Just because you don't understand why an idea is right or wrong, doesn't mean that I can't decide. If I present an argument which shows, logically, that an idea is wrong, the burden of proof is on the original poster to show where my logic is mistaken. If he cannot, and if no one else can, then I am right and he is wrong. In this sense, science is not a democracy.

    Do you know this? James R and Pete are both professional scientists, as are people like spuriousmonkey. I imagine that there are others, too.

    And you never answered my question---it wasn't rhetorical. I'll cut and paste it to save you the trouble of scrolling up:

     
  23. Absane Rocket Surgeon Valued Senior Member

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    Ok.. come on. Be reasonable. Members are members and moderators/admins are members. We set up the rules for the members.. hence, they apply to EVERYONE. However, we need something that explains what the moderators do and what is expected of them. Whether you like it or not, moderators have more power than the regular members. Hence, they need a set of rules that apply to them.

    I'm a mathematician in training. Does this count?
     
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