Change in Moderation?

Thanks for the inquiry. We welcome feedback about board moderation.First, let me say that I don't think board moderation has quite achieved the standards we'd like. In some ways it seems more an art form than a science, and I think the moderators are learning as they go along, but our key need at present is increased resources. There is simply more activity here than moderators can keep up with.Second, it would be greatly appreciated if members would bring suspected violations to the attention of moderators through email. Our addresses are Admin, Adminaquility and Adminnemooseus.Third, Jet has a history here. He's already demonstrated that if given a free enough hand he can consume all the moderator resources for the board by himself. Now that moderators are aware of Jet's proclivities he is being kept on a very short leash. Naturally, he is welcome to post whatever he likes in the Free For All forum.Fourth, other moderators will have their own opinions, and this thread is a good place for them to air their views.--------------------EvC Forum Administrator

Michael Schrage writes the In the Weeds column at MIT's Technology Review magazine. This month's column is titled Flaming Ideas, and it begins like this: He also goes on to say something that I used to often repeat at our old site over at Yahoo. I somehow left the true path, but Mr. Schrage recalls me to it and says it much better: To an important extent it comes down to what people would like out of this site. The contributions of Ten-sai aka Zephan aka Back in Black aka Apple Toast, and those of Jet, and those of some other like-minded contributors, made for some very interesting and fun times, but productive? Informative? I don't think so. I think we might be better off to confine such styles to the Free For All forum.There's another category of poster who is polite, or at least mostly polite, and sincere, but nearly impossible to have a productive discussion with, and for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes it's because they know nothing but concede nothing. Sometimes it's because they have trouble with logic or simple concepts. Sometimes it's because they avoid key issues. Sometimes it's because they seem purposefully vague or obcurantist. There are no simple rules for successfully dealing with these types of contributors, but I'm sure I speak for all EvC Forum moderators when I say that we are committed to being fair to all members while keeping in mind that pleasing everyone is never possible and that you can't throw out standards in the interest of fairness. The Forum Guidelines I hope represent a good basis upon which to work, and we'll continue to refine them.So this message represents a sort of call to arms to all EvC Forum members, both present and future, to rededicate themselves to the interests of fair, open and honest debate such as will lead to enlightenment instead of obfuscation and partnership rather than antagonism.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

(This is a reply to Message 66 of the John A. (Salty) Davison - The Case For Instant Evolution thread)Hi Mammuthus and everyone,First, I think it would be a good idea for people to read my Message 10 above titled Yes, moderation is probably changing that I wrote last month. In particular note where I quote Michael Schrage saying, "Idiotic postings drive away contributors who have something interesting to say."I believe this, and I believe we've lost some good people because of it. I know there is always the question of, "Who gets to decide which posts are idiotic," but this is where the value of good moderators enters the picture. It's also where feedback from members is useful. For example, if debate with Peter Borger and Salty isn't an exercise in idiocy then I need members to explain to me why it is not so I can improve my moderator skills.Mammuthus, I understand and share your concerns, you're not the first to express them, and I believe at least one of the other admins, Moose, shares them, too. But my vision for EvC Forum is that it be for serious discussion where both parties are sincerely interested in exploring the issues, and I see neither Peter Borger nor Salty exhibiting any hint that they're of this frame of mind.Rather than fruitlessly wasting my time trying to bring sanity to the discussions Peter Borger and Salty engage in, and rather than causing frustration and disappointment amongst other members when discussion, however pointless (my opinion), is interrupted because of suspension, perhaps the better solution is to simply move Peter Borger and Salty threads to the Free For All forum where everyone can tilt with windmills to their heart's content.Another possibility is to create another unmoderated forum for those proposing their own theories, perhaps called Unmoderated Debate of New Theories. Another idea is to have forums dedicated to particular moderators, with titles like Moderated by Moose, Moderated by Percy, Moderated by TB and Moderated by TC. Then people could choose the style of moderation they want for those topics where they think moderation could become an issue.I'm open to proposals, folks, but get your feedback in now, because I *am* going to do something.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

Hi Moose,Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to respond to this point, and a couple of the points from others. That's not the example I would have chosen, though I concede there are probably other excellent recent examples. I was responding to a math error. Salty was confusing units of time to units of 1/time. I suppose I could have left out the tie-in to the actual Darwinist perspective, but having never experienced Salty before I had no way of knowing he was so far out in left field.I was hoping that the addition of a 2nd Creationist moderator would free me up from the contortionist exercise of trying to appear neutral when posting as Admin. However, since both seem to have disappeared maybe I should go back to my more neutral persona. Nobody has to defer to me on anything. I try to run the board for the benefit of all members. I enforce the guidelines as they are, but I'm always open to suggestions for modifications and additions.That being said, I do have a vision for the board. There are already plenty of venues on the Internet for the Creation/evolution debate, so why another? The value-added I was hoping to provide was balanced moderation through a mix of Creationist and evolutionist moderators. This is proving more difficult to achieve then I had thought. Where are TB and TC, anyway? I forget if this is public knowledge, so I'll just say that I once offered a very well known Creationist a moderator role here. I wanted a strong minded Creationist viewpoint to balance off my own evolutionist perspective. I thought that he/she and I could argue in the background through email about how to handle various situations and that we'd balance out. The person turned the offer down due to workload, but I still think it would have been a good idea.The most fascinating thing about what's happening here is that, to overstate this just a bit, I'm beating up on the Creationists and the evolutionists are complaining about it. Someone explain this to me. Does the equivalent happen at Terry's board? Anyway, I'm glad this has come up, because it's stimulating discussion and I'm getting valuable feedback. Past moderator discussion threads have all died with almost no posts at all.By the way, Creationists, this is not an "evolutionist only" thread. Pile on!Moving on to PB, getting PB to clarify his theory is important both for those trying to follow along and especially for new participants. In Message 95 of the John A. (Salty) Davison - The Case For Instant Evolution thread Grape Ape says, "I'm afraid I don't have time to go hunting for whatever the GUToB is." PB could point to the the post where he describes it, but that definition is just a collection of unsupported claims, and we don't want to reopen the discussion of the GUToB definition every time someone new joins the debate.While those who have been debating Peter for a while may feel they've established a baseline for discussion (I'm not so sure of that myself), every one else, and especially new participants, are going to have the same reaction as Grape Ape: What's GUToB? This is a question Peter has never answered satisfactorily. I agree again with Grape Ape when he says, "It seems to me simply that you could address things in terms of current molecular knowledge."I have to strongly agree with Quetzal that one can learn a lot debating people like PB and Salty. One could also learn a lot reading the posts of some of those who've left or chosen not to join because of presence of people like PB (I get occasional emails to this effect), but since other evolutionists won't normally hold contrarian views the instigation to research would be absent. So Quetzal's point is that people like PB and Salty provide the motivation for deeper study. Pretty strong argument.But why debate someone who can't understand a simple math error, or much of anything else, for that matter? The result seems a pretty dumb level of dialogue. Irrational discussion is what a moderated site is supposed to avoid.I'm a strong believer in accepting the world as it is. You can't get blood out of a stone. PB and Salty are what they are, and they're not going to change. LRP (asteroid collision) and w_fortenberry (geocentrism) were the same way, and to be frank I'm growing weary of hosting debates on obvious pseudoscience and nonsense. Are we so desperate for debate that we'll grasp at any manner of opponent? Why not just let PB and Salty go their way and wait for someone rational?------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

I first addressed this point by saying, "Either I'm completely missing the point, in which case additional explanation is required..." Salty never clarified, and the lack of response to an administrative request instead became the issue.But if it's the wrong/deceptive way to look at it then it's also the wrong/deceptive way to look at almost anything else where many events over time are characterized as a rate. Salty could have clarified by explaining, for instance, how it is okay to describe many automobile accidents, which also occur in a few seconds, happening over time into a rate, or how it is okay to describe crimes, which also typically happen in a few seconds or at least a few minutes, happening over time as a rate, but wrong for evolution to transform genetic changes over time into a rate. But it isn't the validity of any clarification that is the issue now. It's that the request to clarify was refused. Don't feel singled out. I've been restricting PB's GUToB threads, and I'm strongly leaning toward closing down Salty's thread. As I've already said, any idea or theory is allowed here, but I'm growing weary of sponsoring irrational, sometimes even senseless, debate. If I reopen your thread are you going to be responsive to administrative requests? That was one consideration I made when I closed it.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

You're just adding another analogy to the list - how does that support your view that "it's all arguable still". Like I said before, unless I'm missing something, this is a ridiculous discussion to be having. So far nobody's told me what I'm missing. But you believe *everyone* misunderstands it but you. I don't think it is within my power to sway your position on this, and it causes your threads to rehash the same arguments over and over. I will not reopen your thread, or allow to stay open any threads which attempt to discuss the Theory of Reproduction.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

I have a new idea, I hope everyone's still checking this thread. Please tell me what you think:Those who wish to discuss novel theories must provide evidence of more than just one proponent. Lone theorists would be disallowed. Demonstrating that the theory has more than one proponent could take a variety of routes, such as bringing another proponent into the debate, or providing a reference to at least one published article, paper or book that's not by the original proponent.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

It's Ian Shoales of Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre. Uh, yes. Interesting point to ponder.One of the reasons we're here, a big one for me, is to gain and maintain expertise in opposing non-science viewpoints that are being promoted as science. I've got to be careful not to lose sight of that.On the other hand, I've already sponsored the General Theory of Reproduction debate, and don't feel like doing so again. And PB's GUToB has already been given an enormous amount of attention here, and I don't see why I should make an effort if he's not. The same is true of Salty.Another way to look at Syamsu's and PB's and Salty's theories is that when I go to the school board meeting to oppose the teaching of Creation Science in the classroom I'm not going to be opposing the GToR theory or the GUToB theory or Salty's theory (if it has a name I don't know it yet), and all these theories are so illogical I don't worry that they'll ever come to anywhere near that kind of prominence of YEC or more recently ID, in fact they'll all likely live and die with their originators.A big part of the problem for me is their unwillingness to allow moderators to bring some order to their threads. I could tolerate all manner of lunacy if they'd just listen to administrators. And this issue has nothing to do with their views. Now, it might be said that my recent administrative requests have stepped outside the bounds of the guidelines, but I don't see that. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Or maybe I'm right and the guidelines are wrong, and I'm certainly open to ammending them.Sorry, everyone, to be taking such a hard line on this. I'm not really as bad as I probably sound right now. Partly it's playing devil's advocate to get people to explore why they're so determined to have these debates, and to ask themselves what kind of structure they'd like around such debates, and I'd really like to know how people feel about this. As I've said before, when I started this site I wanted to provide a venue that added capabilities not already available elsewhere. If all I've done is added yet-another-creation-versus-evolution-site then what's the point? Thousands-not-billions just started a new site, why not go there?I suppose in the end I'll have to come up with my own answers, but I would still appreciate all the feedback I can get.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

The feedback's appreciated - thanks!I'll try replying to several posts, I'll include member IDs in the quote: WmScott's theory draws upon evidence from many different branches of science and he makes organized presentations of it (see, for example, Message 157 of his Solving the Mystery of the Biblical Flood II thread, and compare this to Salty's Manifesto), while Salty references his own papers and makes unsupported assertions. I can actually describe WmScott's theory to other people. It wouldn't suit Salty's purpose to have his theory understood, so he sees to it that it is not. This by itself seems such a huge difference to me that I see no similarity in topic style at all.And while I know you were talking about style of topic and not style of debate, if you add Salty's ascerbic and obfuscative and issue-avoidance style versus WmScott's patient and thorough addressing of issues, the contrast is staggering. I would say that WmScott's and TB's style of analysis *and* style of debate are very, very similar (hey, has anyone ever seen them in the same room together?), and they seem as dissimilar to Salty as possible. I would place Salty and PB in the same category, though PB never tries to pick fights.You know, there's another issue here. I feel I'm just enforcing the guidelines. I don't let SLPx do what Salty is doing, why should I let Salty? The more I think about it the more I believe the guidelines are going to be a major issue for me. I think it's reasonable to interpret the guidelines flexibly, and I try to do that, but I feel I'm being asked to ignore the guidelines for certain individuals. If my perspective is wrong on this then I'm going to need some major help here getting through this issue. I was only trying to say that because of how illogical, not to mention arcane, they are, they have no chance of achieving the popularity of YEC, a result of the appeal it holds for those who cannot accept both Genesis and an ancient earth. Genetics holds no such appeal, and their theories make no sense anway. Now, maybe if PB or Salty were working from within an organization and were developing a consensus and a base of support, then I'd worry, but there's no chance that such illogical proposals could gain a following simply through postings on obscure bulletin boards. WmScott takes a well-reasoned approach and has a book, and even that's having no impact. Join the club. I own the place, and I'm even more confused now than you. Not all the forums are science, for instance, Faith and Belief and The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy. And discussions of the nature of science are fair game in the Is It Science? forum. But most of the rest of the forums are science forums, and the debate is usually framed by claims that Creation science is just as much a legitimate science as evolution. Maybe my timing was off, but I thought I waited a day and then noticed you posting in other threads, so figuring you had no objection I closed it. I've just reopened it. By the way, I'm not sure I'd call topic drift an infraction. I know it's in the guidelines, but it's human nature to take the thread of a conversation into new subjects, so we usually just note that it's happening in a short post. Anyway, it's never been a guidelines problem. I've never had anyone say, "I'm going to talk about whatever I want wherever I want." That's not a bad idea - if the theory picks up support it moves to one of the regular forums. There's still the moderation issue, but this possibility deserves some thought.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

I've never claimed to be unbiased. My recognition of this fact is the reason for the goal of balanced moderation. You're not even being prevented from discussing your General Theory of Reproduction because you can always discuss whatever you like in the Free For All forum. I'll move your thread there now.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

I already realized there are inherent weaknesses in the idea, but the arguments you present to make this case seem, at least to me, to argue in the opposite direction, eg: Why should we be the first to attempt to understand a theory? By providing evidence of at least one other proponent of the theory the originator indicates that he is capable of making his ideas understandable to at least one other human being, and that his ideas deserve consideration because they have the power to persuade.The concise definition of a crackpot was recently provided by SLPx (it came from some major magazine, I forget which one), and it is a precise fit for PB, Salty, LRP, Alan Cresswell and others that don't come to mind at the moment. One of the reasons they're crackpots and not cult leaders is because of their inability to convince anybody. Why should we be bothered?That being said, I think that part of my negative reaction is that we seem to be visited by too many crackpots simultaneously. I would probably have an easier time enduring them successively rather than simultaneously. In other words, I understand that I'm overreacting, so don't worry that anything drastic is planned.On the other hand, I'm still not emotionally prepared for another "That's GUToB rule #3". If you and Quetzal and PaulK and others think you understand what this is saying and you want PB to stay here, then help him out and explain what he's saying for the rest of us. In fact, what I would like is a short but sufficient definition of GUToB and associated terms that is expressed, as Grape Ape requested, in familiar terminology.I agree very strongly with the value of learning through debunking, and in the interests of objectivity one must concede that one's own ideas may be the ones debunked, so in the end I guess I don't want PB or Salty or any of the others to go away, either. But neither am I willing to settle for the way things are now.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

Good arguments, I see what you're getting at now. Sorry for the short response, but I have other projects I have to move on to. I just want to say that the feedback and suggestions from you and others has been very helpful.I can't compare to the period you refer to. My then project was on a hellfire mission and I had no free time to participate or moderate - Moose bore the full load during that period.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

Hi Adminnemooseus,Just read the last ten or so posts in Salty's thread. Please don't feel any pressure to "solve" the Salty issue just because I've been persuaded to step aside. I think other participants in that thread have made it clear that they'd really like to address the issues and difficulties he presents, both scientific and style-wise. In fact, call me bipolar for this 180, but maybe your original idea to "just let Salty be Salty" is best. It might even make sense to rein in the evolutionists behavior on the thread so that Salty has nothing to complain about - his posts kind of speak for themselves.I think what drove my prior behavior regarding PB and Salty was the belief that they could be rational, they just didn't want to be, but that a little pressure would fix this. This expectation runs in the face in past experience with others, however, and in retrospect it is easy to see that it wasn't very realistic. There are some "problem" posters who are amenable to persuasion, so one should always make the overture, but once rebuffed should be enough. The question then becomes, "After a moderator's request has been refused, what then?" Ultimately we'll develop better answers than suspension, but today maybe we can just let Salty's thread stay where it is and "let Salty be Salty."------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

wj raises a good point, but independent of that, we need some objective criteria for closing threads.wj's suggestion was that thread closure be by consensus.Any other suggestions?------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

Sorry, Scott, you just happen to be our poster boy for balanced treatment here at EvC Forum. We couldn't have done it without ya! I agree in general, and my recent "How to Moderate" lessons would seem to support you, but Peter Borger still has me concerned because he stalemated multiple threads simultaneously with GUToB claims. Please feel free to resume the discussion in the Dr Page's best example of common descent explained from the GUToB thread. Would you like me to put a copy of the Caporale thread in the Free For All forum?------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator