Showcase Forum Issues and Requests

This is a good opportunity to clarify the "inactive" classification for members.Any member can go into their profile and set their status to inactive. This causes only your name and no other info to be displayed with messages, Your name is removed from the list of active members, and your profile becomes inaccessible.While inactive you cannot post messages.You can return to your profile at any time and set your status back to active.DaveScot wasn't actually able to post while inactive. What he must have done was set his status back to active, then posted his message, then returned his status back to inactive. While there's nothing in the Forum Guidelines against this, needless to say it isn't a behavior that we'll be encouraging - at least from the perspective of this moderator it seems inconsistent with forthright and honest behavior.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I didn't mess with the active/inactive status on my profile. I did notice it allowed me to submit a comment while being inactive and didn't think much of it. I just figured the programmer made the assumption that if someone is posting a comment they aren't inactive at that moment. The behavior seems to have changed since it now pops up a message saying inactive members can't submit comments or something to that effect.On a more general note, I admit I had no real interest in this forum other than Davison but I didn't come to flame him. I came in the hope of getting answers on how he thinks his hypothesis can be tested. I was hoping I could pose the questions in an environment where I didn't have to put up with John replying using my real name and calling me endearing things like "genetic garbage", "goon", "coward", "Texas pig", "mongrel cur", "play with yourself and come all over yourself"... and that's just a small sample from the last few comments on John Davison's blog. Don't believe me. Read his blog starting from the bottom up. It won't take more than a minute to confirm what I said above.At any rate, if the PEH can't be tested then it's not a scientific hypothesis but rather a narrative - a just-so story that fits the facts but cannot be verified. The neoDarwinian hypothesis of chance and necessity driving organic evolution in the remote past likewise is a just-so story. By definition it describes how unrepeatable, unpredictable, unobserved events happened in the distant past. Anything that is unrepeatable, unpredictable, and unobservable is not amenable to scientific inquiry. It may make an interesting and even credible narrative but it isn't science. Davison's hypothesis in my opinion fits the facts a lot better than the modern synthesis in regard to prehistoric evolution but absent a means of verification the PEH, like NDE, is no more than a just-so story.

The purpose of the [forum=-37] forum is to make available for debate those who because of the controversial nature of their viewpoints, or because they didn't prove amenable to normal moderation, or because of both, often find themselves banned from many discussion boards, even though they are (perversely) in great demand to debate with. I trust you're happy that you caught up somewhat, but JAD's ability to produce frustration is one of the reasons he's showcased. Access to [forum=-37] is intended for those who can debate with the luminaries while staying within the Forum Guidelines. That would be me. If you can reproduce the problem, in other words, if you can make yourself inactive and find a way to post, please let me know how you did that. I've examined the code and it doesn't appear to have any obvious holes.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I tried to duplicate it in the showcase thread and discovered I no longer had permission and it won't duplicate in this thread. Is there possibly a different execution path for people with permission granted in the showcase thread, when replying to that thread, that bypasses the check for active/inactive status? If you changed/added any code to accomodate the showcase protocol I'd look there.On the Davison issue - John asked repeatedly why I removed his papers from the Uncommon Descent sidebar after I'd put them there and why I didn't put them back. I gave him an honest answer. What was I supposed to do - ignore his question or lie about it instead? They say no good deed goes unpunished. They are evidently correct.Edited by DaveScot, : Added second paragraph.

Darn good guess, that's exactly what is going on, though by a somewhat circuitous route. Thank you!I need development help, by the way, if you're familiar with web programming or interested in learning. Never paid any attention to that side of the discussion. The parts that got my attention were related to the Forum Guidelines, mostly rule 10. For example, I didn't feel comfortable with portions like, "You're a liability to anyone who associates themselves with you because of your stinking rotten personality." We try to keep discussion focused on the topic and not the people.Edited by Admin, : Remove redundant sign-off.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Dear Admin:Please approve RGB or someone else for Showcase ?Where is Belfry ?Or Crashfrog ?The boycott is coming from the Darwinists = indication ToE is not courting falsification. Einstein recklessly exposed GTR to falsification = true scientist seeking the truth. Darwinism is American football prevent defense, sour and bitter, making excuses not to have dialogue = 2nd generation and beyond Church of Darwin zealots with no zeal. Quetzal's rocking chair "don't bug me" mindset....comfortably numb....bingo....rummage sales....pot luck dinners....RayEdited by Herepton, : No reason given.

I'm not wanting to debate Davison but I would like to ask a few, hopefully clarifying questions. Request permission for A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis thread.lfen

Access to [forum=-37] forum granted for purposes of participation in the A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis thread.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Denial of posting acess to restricted forums for inactive/suspended members is now fixed, thank for putting me on the trail.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

This may be out of bounds, but as Herapton did it also (though not in precisely the same way I'm about to . . . )If have argued his points that he made in his OP. He has yet to respond to them, instead focusing on a minor issue to the discussion. He is derailing his own thread, and refuses to answer any thing I brought up. I didn't ask permission to be ignored--I asked permission to debate him, and so far, it is HE who has done the real evasion (in my opinion of course, but you read the thread for yourself) He wants an evolutionist, he got two--EZ and me. My guess is that anymore for him will not matter--he will ignore them.Basically, I'm asking if you can have him actually reply to my major points, and not focus on a somewhat irrelevant issue.ABE: I just reread the thread by Herapton and my responses to his OP.
He can claim all he wants that since no evolutionist is accepting his ideas that we aren't embracing the idea of falsification. Problem is, he isn't accepting the possibility that he is wrong, as evidenced by his assertion that if no one responds then they are too scared to actually have their beliefs challenged. Hey, if he can use that sort of screwy logic, then I can too. After all, from what I understand, the Showcase forum is a no-holds barred match-up (or whatever the heck that idiomatic prhase is). I say let him actually answer my points before giving his someone else. (not that I have any authority what-soever, of course ).Edited by kuresu, : No reason given.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

25 years experience programming. Millions of lines of code. The guess was that you recently modified the forum source code for the showcase i.e. there was no sandbox extant. From there it was pretty safe to assume that you had to mess with permission checks to make a sandbox for certain users. Probably had to add a new category of permission SHOWCASE. Easy to accidently skip past some other permission checks once you identified a SHOWCASE authorized poster posting to the showcase forum. Almost all my work has been in various assembly languages (mostly 80x86), C, and Visual C++. I'm expert with lower level TCP/IP protocols, Winsock, peer2peer and client/server applications but have done little at HTML level inside a browser - just a few things on as needed basis mostly to embed banner advertising with ad agencies like Double Click in stand-alone applications where there's no browser to fetch and display the GIF adverts from their server. Email me with a quick description of your programming environment and I'll see if it's up my alley or if not whether it looks interesting enough to spend some time learning. So far I've mostly avoided mucking around in the script code for WordPress on Uncommon Descent. Micah Sparacio does the harder technical stuff and I have all the fun. May I plead nolo contendere and throw myself upon the mercy of the court? It's actually better if I don't interact with John. Restraint isn't one of my virtues and John could drive a saint to drink. Edited by DaveScot, : Added final paragraph.

Do you think there's something in there that I would find interesting?I assure you, Percy has assented to every request I have made to enter the Showcase forum - that is to say, all none of them. I love rummage sales!

Herepton writes

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Please approve RGB or someone else for Showcase ?

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Supposedly, I am kept out of the showcase for my own good. The admins are afraid I might get cannibalized by you

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I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

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I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

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Speaking for myself, I can say that I do not boycott the thread because of my Darwinist point of view.The reason I don't participate is twofold: first, I don't like the Showcase format. I think debate should be free and not be restricted in any way other than by the forum rules.Second, I find Davison's personality not very agreeable. Simple as that.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

Request permission to participate in the above thread.