Exclusion of pseudoscientists from posting in the Science subforums

Discussion in 'SF Open Government' started by James R, Feb 6, 2015.

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  1. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Background
    We often get complaints that the Fringe/Pseudoscience areas bleed over into the Science areas of the forums. That is, some members post nonsense, pseudoscience or other fringe ideas in the Science categories.

    Often, threads can simply be moved to more appropiate subforums in the Fringe section of sciforums. However, this leaves the problem of pseudoscientific posts that are posted in threads that legitimately belong in the Science subforums. Often, members complain that scientific discussions are disrupted and derailed by members who have a poor or non-existent understanding of what is being discussed, or who simply want to talk about their own pseudoscientific ideas instead.

    A suggestion to deal with this issue was put to the vote of the membership. The proposal was approved by a vote of 32 to 2 members, and is now in effect.

    Policy: Exclusion of pseudoscientists from posting in the Science sections
    Sciforums members may now file reports (using the usual "report" system) about other members who repeatedly post pseudoscience or non-science in the Science subforums.

    The moderators will investigate such reports to see if they are justified. If they are found to be valid, then the member posting the pseudoscience or nonsense will be asked to post in more appropriate subforums in future.

    Any member receiving 5 of these official warnings (for 5 posts or threads) may, at the discretion of the moderators, be forbidden from posting to the Science sections of sciforums for an initial period of 1 month, after which they will again have full posting privileges.

    If, on being reinstated with full posting privileges, a member continues to post inappropriately, the Science subforum ban may be reinstated for a longer period of time, as determined by the moderators.

    Disputes
    Since this is a new policy, we may need to tweak it depending in the light of its application in practice. Any member who is excluded from posting in the Science sections as a result of the application of this policy may, for now, start an open discussion about the exclusion in the Open Government subforum. In this way we will be able to gauge the attitudes of our entire community regarding the implementation of this policy.

    Notes
    Threads and other posts to the Fringe subforums are unaffected by this policy.

    Importantly, we do not wish to discourage anybody from asking questions in the Science subforums. We do not intend to exclude anybody from posting there purely on the basis that the person is not scientifically knowledgable. Nor do we seek in any way to stifle debate about contentious areas of science. The aim here is to preserve in the Science sections a respect for the scientific method and for discussion of science in good faith.

    Any comments or questions about this policy may be discussed in the following thread:
    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/pr...sts-from-posting-in-science-subforums.144244/
     
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