Are we under some sort of attack as a science forum by certain quarters beyond our control? We see so many banned everyday here, the latest by this "ring" character yesterday. We have the God Botherers and religious nuts, the out and out trolls, the nutty alternative pushers that want to infest the science threads with nonsense and I could go on. Do other forums have this much of a problem? Or is there a problem at all? Is it just me? Am I over-stating the issue?
I think some of them are sock puppets of repeat offenders. It seems to me the site is perpetually under attack. The perp(s) is/are obsessed with a manic need to attack science and insert nonsense all over the board. Probably this person or clique has low self esteem, and gets a cheap high randomly insulting people if not just insulting their intelligence.
We're an oasis of reason in a sea of madness. Or, it could be that anti-science nuts are just particularly persistent in trying to get their message out on any site that associates itself with science. There are some repeat offenders who are desperate to be here no matter how often we ban them, so we get some of those. And there are always the spammers and spambots out there attacking everything they can get their message into. Finally, it's worth stating that for a science forum we're very tolerant of bullshit. So that probably makes us a bit of a nut magnet.
In that case you mean this is a hippy 'science' forum. Like, hey man, the cranks have a right to be heard as well, they are people man, and the web is like a great big blooming sunflower of love and hugs man, and we don't want to hurt the cranks and nutters feelings man. That's me trying to be a hippy man. love/hugsPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
hey, not bad. but . . . what's the difference between "cranks" and people like galileo? what's the difference between "cranks" and someone that has a valid reason to disagree with YOUR theory? bonus question, what is the difference between "crank" and genius?
Leopold - simply put, a genius can provide actual evidence to back their claims... after all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Cranks... well, cranks simply spew their garbage all over and insist it is right, even when they have no factual evidence to back it up... even worse is when they link to blogs that are so decrepit and and moonstruck as to have been sued for slander/libel and insist that those blogs are "concrete evidence"
Obviously if someone doesn’t post anything there’s no problem, it’s when they post and how they back-up their claims. See Kittamaru's post #9.
