Quote from a recent post, where another member was citing for trolling
“I guess I missed the trolling. You’ve got such a small participation rate here that it would be an embarrassment to lose one.”
The specific incident was the member saying, “you can’t or won’t post your proof”. That is taunting, mind-reading, or whatever you want to call it. It’s the opposite of a nice, “link please” comment. I’m not tone policing. This is way over the line of “asking nice”.
I’m sure there is more to say on this, but mostly I wanted to get this out of the Ukraine thread, and put it here, where it belongs.
Proof is for alcohol and mathematics,
the rest of us need to deal with evidence and evaluating it’s voracity and how the evidence fits in with other streams of evidence.
Keep comments to a minimum on the Issues and Concerns thread. If people don’t feel safe to give feedback, we won’t ever know why they aren’t participating.
I might have missed a comma in the title. The suggestion of the member was that if we ban a troll, that will decrease the membership, and decreasing membership is bad for the forum.
The opposing viewpoint, of CFI (if you read the guidelines), and the volunteer admins, is that this is a moderated forum, and that attracts a type of member, the ones we want. Outreach by CFI is, well, I don’t see any, so I think that could have something to do with the low membership.
Lausten, you are a moderator and if one is trolling, it’s against the rules, which you have to enforce the rules when people don’t follow them. If one mod doesn’t do it, especially when a member has been warned, then another mod has to do it, especially if we, the mods, agree the rule has been violated one too many times and they need to be banned. Given that the forum isn’t a priority of CFI, we probably won’t have a high number of participants.
I think possibly, lausten, you are caught here as both a moderator and a participant in the discussion.
Obviously this forum needs your participation, but if you can’t find the time to provide some support for your arguments, then I can imagine you are feeling spread too thin, yet at the same time wanting to participate and thus keep the forum up and running.
Honestly, from my perspective here as a fairly new (or at least recently re-engaged) user, that the statement “you can’t or won’t post your proof” is an awfully mild form of trolling. Admittedly, none of us will ever prove anything here in the mathematical sense. We are caught developing our beliefs from dubious sources. The falsification of those sources is possible, even when they act en masse and have reputations as intellectual sources.
This ability that we have here to do this is new. It is an artifact of the internet. Wee citizens can, and a few of us do, speak here. I think just the fact that you care to break this out and have a discussion in the open like this points to your integrity as a moderator. On the other side though, for you to maintain integrity in the discussion will require more.
The times we are in are exceptional. We’ve only just seen the censorship at Twitter exposed. I myself get censored off of moderated forums regularly. No doubt my political postings on Facebook have barely made it to my friends’ feeds. Well, I haven’t bothered checking into Facebook now for months. Likewise I used to be a daily listener to NPR and treated them as a respectable source; even contributed to them in the past. They are no longer a source of information that I trust. I now practice media accountability onto them, and they make it very difficult to do so. Imagine the scramble as the past lies accumulate and some attempt is made to rectify the situation. Imagine as your listenership dwindles down to a few dullards. I suppose you can insist that the deep state create some better lies. It wouldn’t surprise me if that is the sort of discussions that they have with their handlers. Likewise at the NYT.
I apologize for going OT here. I guess the point is that what few users you have likely do value this forum, and your attention to its maintenance. As our positions vary, how can you not take this personally? If you are a daily listener to NPR and I’ve just called you a dullard indirectly is this trolling? Now here you could take this as snide, but I assure you I am working in the hypothetical. How can you as a moderator not take your position here even more personally than wee contributors? It is an extremely difficult position that you’ve taken on. Please do keep up the good work.
There is also a pattern of problem posts. I let a lot go before I start warning. No one, ever, ever is obligated to post anything. Anyone can post any theory, belief, whatever, as long as it doesn’t insight violence. Okay?
Now, if someone posted garbage every five minutes, that’s a problem. If they made judgments on others intelligence while doing it, that’s a problem. Do you see the difference?
As for me, I’m sitting here with a heat pad, trying to keep a 2 year old occupied. We are taking care of a single mom’s kids for a couple days. I was up early sealing 54 cement tiles before it got hot, then shoveled some aggregate to prepare the placement spot. I need to get all that done before I drive to my mom’s, who has dementia, because my sister, her caretaker, is going in for a mascectomy. So, looking up what Putin said in 2014 is not high on my priorities.
If you are getting kicked off other platforms, maybe it’s you. Just a thought.
In that case the complaint against you is your practice of jumping into conversations with a "i will show how you are wrong " statement only to later come back down with “look it up your yourself i am too busy” and then complain about trolling when you are called out on it.
Here is timb trying to reachout with advice and your response is to escalate tensions and end it on your typical dismissive terms with maybe the problem is you. Do better. Thats my thoughts
Thanks Sunny. I’ll think about that. There’s something that is stated well in FAQ, but I’ll put it my own words. Above, I said you can say anything, whatever you believe. That means someone else can comment on that thread and say they believe the opposite. Neither one is REQUIRED to give evidence by the RULES of CFI. See?
IF, IF, if you want someone to be convinced that you are correct, they might ask (request, state a requirement, say please) for evidence. It is completely illogical to say that because one member at CFI did not provide evidence that convinced you, that your entire thesis is valid. That’s in the list of logical fallacie found all over the internet. It is trolling to tell someone that they must supply evidence because you want it, or they must supply it within a given time frame, or state that because they give it today that means they won’t give it tomorrow, or that there is something wrong with their mental state or condition.
You can state that someone’s evidence is poorly sourced, that you have previously studied their proposal and found it wanting, that you just don’t like all the stuff about quantum physics, or many other statements of YOUR thoughts. CFI wants your thoughts. I want your thoughts, but I’m not going to dance around my opinion. I will state it clearly and provide evidence as I can find the time, and when I believe it is worth my time. Those decisions are mine alone, as are your decisions to link whatever you want (check the rules), claim whatever you want, or show your work however you think is right.
I thought I was clear about that. Absolutely yes. I can’t read minds, but it seems that some people get mixed up, that if someone questions their claims, or asks for evidence, they are insulting the person who made the claims.
You can make any claim you want, that goes for everyone. No one is obligated to accept the claim, even after evidence is provided, that goes for everyone. Making a claim that is the opposite of someone else’s claim, in the same thread, or as a response, is allowed, that goes for everyone. Anyone can question someone else’s claim or anything about the claim.
The mix up is that if someone questions their claims, or asks for evidence, some here believe they are trolling that person who made the claims.
Best not to say you will respond with further evidence or clarification if you dont have the time to do so and complain about it later when its brought to your attention
There is a behavior over on usenet that I call the usenet dodge.
It basically means that the other person refuses to concede a point but they will not put it this way.
Instead they simply exit via any means possible.
We can’t make somebody hold their side of an argument.
The loss in credibility is simply in the weakness of their response.
But this is not generally for anyone to declare, or even to claim to have won some argument.
The larger picture remains more important anyways.
The times we are in are times of extraordinary propaganda.
To have a place to discuss these things is great.
You can’t vent this stuff to your friends.
These forums are good enough for what they are.
Of course this presumes you are not under the threat of censorship.
Although I disagree with lausten I’ll still stick up for him in some ways.
That said I’m sticking up for sunny too.
Peace be with you both.
This forum has been around for years and members have always asked for information/evidence to back up claims. There can be no claims without back up to the claims. It is reasonable to ask for the information in which they use to make claims.