paddoboy:
Not too long ago, you walked out of sciforums in a huff, telling everybody how you'd found another forum that suited you better than this one. But now you're back, and you're slotting right back into the pattern of behaviour that eventually made you decide to leave in a huff last time. The way things are going, I don't expect the outcome this time to be much different. Do you?
It looks to me like you enjoy latching onto one or a few people who you see as the enemy of your rather rigid view of what science ought to be. You then proceed to follow them around the forum, tell them they have an "agenda" to spread anti-science, telling them they are hypocritical and in other respects morally lacking. If one of your targets disappears, you latch onto somebody else.
You don't take criticism well. You don't like anybody questioning your interpretation of scientific articles or news stories that you post. When they do, you assume they must be pursuing some kind of anti-science agenda, and you hammer away at them with
ad hominem attacks.
This is not how science is done. Science is built on the sharing of ideas, and the rigorous scrutiny of those ideas through processes of peer review. Science is not done by proclamation by some authority or other. It is not done by bullying people into submission. Your idea "wins" when it survives the critical scrutiny of others, not when you're successful in silencing them.
Obviously I was not commenting on any other mod...I said "and yet YOU chose to have let the likes of timojin and river troll all day long"
I am not referring to anyone else.
Some people would argue that I choose to let the likes of you troll all day long, but I'm sure you'd disagree with that assessment.
We have a set of guidelines in place that set approximate boundaries for moderation, as well as certain expectations we have of our membership. There are some who believe that our rule set is too lax. If so, we can have a conversation about that, which might lead to a vote by the membership or a decision by the moderator group to change the rules. If you think the rules are lacking, start a thread in Open Government and we can discuss that.
Below the rule set, we have our moderator team. The moderators have considerable discretion to apply their own judgment when issues come up for moderation, subject to the general principles set out in our rules. Different individual moderators draw lines in different ways. Some have more tolerance for certain behaviours and less for others. Therefore, outcomes can vary somewhat depending on which moderator is handling a particular issue (which is often fairly random, since the report queue is handled in the order that reports come in, by whichever moderator happens to see the current action list at the time). When in doubt, or when there is a series of report, or when there is a contentious issue, moderations decisions are often discussed among the moderators before action is taken. In some cases, preliminary action is taken, pending a more thorough review by the wider mod team.
We receive a lot of complaints about particular moderator decisions, taken in individual cases. Some posters feel compelled to whine every time they receive a warning, either privately to the moderator concerned or to admin, or in a public thread, or both. It is very rare (actually it almost never happens these days) for any official moderator action to be reversed. This is because, most of the time, the moderator group is well aware of any truly contentious matters and has decided on the appropriate action in group consultation. Having said that, the vast majority of moderator actions are expected and are par for the course; all the moderators are on board and it is obvious that the decision taken is appropriate (or at least not unreasonable) from the start.
You are becoming a master at deception James. I said, "You seem to have a great knack and probably a bias over many months in quickly jumping in to silence or question Jan and MR at every opportunity. And certainly they deserve that rebuffing and debunking,"
. I'm not criticising you for rebuffing them...Understand?
I don't know what you're talking about regarding deception.
What did you mean by "silence or
question", if you're now saying that questioning is not an issue?
Yes, obviously on most occasions the pair are trolling...
In your eyes it is obvious. Trolling is often very subjective. That is something I have learned over many years of moderating this forum.
... and many times when you are online, but presumably more interested in your pet hates...Jan and MR
Whenever I log in here, here's the order that I typically do things:
1. Check admin approvals of new members whose memberships are being premoderated (held up) for whatever reason, if any. Deal with those.
2. Read all relevant posts from moderators in the Moderators subforum, regarding all current updates and discussions of all moderation issues.
3. Review all open reports in the report queue.
4. Handle easily-resolvable reported issues that no other moderator is taking the lead on.
5. Try to resolve harder-to-handle reported issues, unless some other moderator is already taking the lead.
6. Read, and respond if I feel I have something to add, to threads in the public forums regarding moderation and admin issues (e.g. Site Feedback threads).
7. Read and respond to subscribed threads that I am participating in as a normal member (i.e. threads that I find interesting).
8. Read new threads and respond if I'm interested.
My "pet hates", as you put it, come second-last, or last, on this prioritised list.
I should also add that I don't hate anybody on this forum. I dislike certain things about how Jan and MR go about making their arguments, such as they are, and I have been quite clear in my public posts about exactly where I see them as failing. I am as entitled to express my opinions on such things as any other member.
The moderation of one in particular is in line with the rules.
You're saying you approve of one of our moderators? Well, that's a good start, I guess.
Yours do not appear so, except of course when it suits you or depending on who is making the report.
I think you're just disgruntled because I don't automatically take your side or bow to your wishes on everything that you're involved in. I think you probably resent the fact that you don't have more power here than you do. I think that you think you deserve better. I could be wrong, of course.
No I did not report it, but to me anyway, yeah the person in question has a problem, and note the person making the remark appears also to have a problem...mainly hypocrisy to the max...a fact he has taken to heart since I revealed it.
I think that you've just decided on a new person to target with your allegations of hypocrisy, agendas and the like. You've probably been searching around for a new target.
Does that make the remark decent?
It is not the most diplomatic thing to tell somebody they are deranged, even if they are. On the other hand, sometimes calling a spade a spade is fair comment; there's little point in pussy-footing around when something is fairly obvious to anybody reading the thread. I plead guilty to a similar lack of diplomacy in the same thread.
Mental illness is difficult. It is an illness, not a moral fault. It is wrong to call somebody deranged when they clearly are not - to use it as a generic insult - because doing that is disrespectful to people who have a genuine issue, quite apart from the inappropriateness of the insult to the person receiving it. But when there are signs that somebody may have a real mental health issue, it can be kinder to direct them towards appropriate help than to ignore the matter and treat them as if they are a deliberate "troll".
You certainly are though an apparent supporter of one or two regular members and their sometimes petty reports.
Lots of people file reports here. Often the most useful ones are filed by people who are merely reading a thread and who are not direct participants in the thread that they are reporting.
It should come as no surprise that some people who file reports that are typically more reliable and useful to the moderators than the reports filed by certain other people.
As a moderator, I am very grateful that certain members will take the time to draw my attention to issues in which they have little to no personal stake. They do it out of a care for the sciforums community and a desire to make sciforums better, I think. The moderators cannot possibly keep an eye on everything that happens here all the time, so it is great when people draw our attention to things that warrant it.
We sometimes get "petty" reports. I try to deal with those appropriately. Speaking personally, I often reject such reports, or gently advise the reporter to deal with issue via a response in the relevant thread. Sometimes people report other posters because they feel offended by something that was said as part of a discussion or argument, but it turns out that whatever was said doesn't actually breach our posting guidelines. In such cases, the better course of action can often be for the reporting member simply to reply in refutation of the "offending" post in the thread. Many opinions are contestable but need not be the subject of moderator attention.
