I'm probably the most intelligent and reasonable participant that you have on this board.
Oh my...
Unfortunately, I don't think that you administer this board well. I'm not impressed by your choices of moderators, who often seem clueless about the subjects they moderate and often seem rude and emotionally unstable. Worse, you never seem to discipline them, you never make any attempt to hold them to the same standard that is apparently expected of rank-and-file board participants.
This is, most likely, because you aren't privy to what goes on in the Moderator sub-forum...
And that seems to be a sliding standard, loosely construed if you or the moderators agree with somebody, but tightly construed when you don't. So bad actors that you happen to like effectively get carte blanche, while those who disagree with moderator opinion are quickly banned. (I expect that my own banning is immanent.)
Curiously enough, you are correct in a way - folks who continually are a drain on moderator time and/or contribute little of value to the forums, as their bad behavior continues, are leaned on harder and harder, while those who only occasionally slip up and continually make quality, thought provoking contributions are given more leeway.
This is built into the system intentionally, by way of infraction points expiring after a duration. Additionally, it allows for the handling of those who attempt to game the system by acting in ways they know (and have been warned before) are inappropriate, then simply "go dark" long enough for the points to expire, just to return and repeat said bad behavior.
As for the "crude insult" I supposedly directed at you, you had written this directed at MR:
Curious that you use "supposedly" - do you deny writing it? Maybe someone else was at your computer at the time?
The fact that you immediately jump to such a conclusion (that you were picturing James having a sneaky wank at the prospect of a member grovelling) is telling of your supposed "respect" for him.
Then when I continued reading the thread, I saw that you had tried to smooth it over a little, a few posts below. So I deleted my sarcastic remark which was only up for a minute or two.
It was rude, but what else is new on Sciforums? I think that it captured my emotional response to what you were doing very well. And I think that my emotional response was justified.
Curious. You say that your "emotional" action was "justified", yet in the same post whinge that you feel moderators are too emotional... while ALSO whinging that we aren't held to the same standard.
What's it going to be Yazata? Are we all held to the same standard? Are we held to different standards based on our station?
So, from now on, whenever someone calls MR out for something using an absolute, if anyone takes umbrage to it, the defense of "it was hyperbole" is sufficient, correct? Or, are we to give MR special dispensation and preferential treatment in this regard?
You and your moderators seem unwilling to even consider the possibility that some (not all) anomalous events might conceivably have extra-mundane explanations. That's not the same thing as insisting that they do, it's just acknowledging the possibility.
Certainly you can prove that we are "unwilling to even consider the possibility that some (not all) anomalous events might conceivably have extra-mundane explanations." I would be curious to see what you come up with...
... especially given that I have recounted my own seemingly paranormal tale that I cannot provide any reasonable explanation for.
Worse, the threads always turn hostile and abusive.
Always? Is this more hyperbole, or do you actually mean what you are saying? Or is this a case where the intent will change based on how well you feel you can actually back what you are saying?
And yes, they do often turn hostile - in the case of MR, they typically turn hostile when he is requested to provide supporting evidence, and responds with some variation of "LOL no do your own research" or "I already did". Or, as he often does, when he makes a thread (such as this one) into yet
another of his "Everyone is mean to me, I'm such a victim wahh!" pity parties. Or when he becomes hostile first, such as when asked if he will continue a conversation instead of abandoning thread, and responds with:
I'll answer whatever I feel like answering.
Yes, people tend to get a little miffed when you start simply ignoring large parts of their posts because you cannot refute it, and so instead pretend it doesn't exist. What a shock!
You, your moderators and a good portion of the board's dimmer participants seem to think that anyone who suggests that a ufo sighting might be a sighting of something hitherto unknown should be dismissed not only as wrong, but as stupid and evil as well.
1) Curious that you seem to infer you know what is going on in our heads.
2) Curious that you would, in the same post where you are ranting about poor behavior, take it upon yourself to
insult the intelligence of some insofar unspecified portion of the Forum Community.
One of the real defects of Sciforums is that every argument seems to turn into a moral argument. It's always implicitly good vs evil. That's full frontal in the "politics" and "ethics" forums where your moderators seemingly spend most of their time, but it's also obvious in the 'fringe' fora.
Us moderators spend most of our time in the "politics" and "ethics" forums precisely because those sub-fora are where things get heated the most, and thus most moderator intervention is required.
Most other sub-forums, either things stay civil enough to not need more than a gentle nudge back on track, posts are
so egregiously off-topic (or spam) that we just punt them to another subforum (or delete them altogether), or things go well enough that we can *gasp* interact as just another member partaking in stimulating discussion.
'Something that deviates from what is normal and expected. Something extraordinary.'
Sometimes I give the word 'anomalous' a stronger meaning, where it means something like 'Something that is seemingly inconsistent with our current scientific understanding of how the universe behaves.'
In other words, I intend 'anomalous' to refer to the flip side of 'mundane', which also embodies that same ambiguity.
By that same token, an F/A-18 Super Eagle buzzing a local high school at high speed is anomalous - it does not make it supernatural.
Not necessarily. We can start with the nature of particular reports: something seemingly metallic, something that behaves as if it was under control, something witnessed by multiple observers and occasionally on radar too. Obviously jumping from that to space aliens is a non-sequitur, but just bleating that eye-witness testimony is bullshit by its nature doesn't suffice either.
Obviously things like imagination, confabulation and misidentification of something more common might be possible explanations. But not obviously so, unless one has already stacked the deck in their own mind.
And yet, it appears that bringing up the obvious questions of "Were these eye-witness accounts verified, cross-examined, and checked against more mundane explanations" seems to be the more egregious of insults one can utter.
That's why I've asked (repeatedly) why the 'fringe' fora even exist, if people who give these kind of things some credence are so unwelcome. Are these just 'insult people who take fringe subjects seriously' fora? I would much prefer that these be fora where problem cases in the philosophy of science can be discussed intelligently. The problem cases are typically going to arise at the fringes, not where everyone is already in agreement and need only repeat what the authorities say. But in order for it to work, people need to be able to deal emotionally with differences of opinion and with the frustrations that might accompany that.
Ideally, some modicum of decorum and rationality is expected... but lately, that seems like it is too much to ask.
Lets rule out the plausible first, before jumping to little green men with a penchant for prodding us with weird instruments, eh?
EDIT - per mod note below - removed quoted offensive remark.
