General discussion of moderation procedures - Part οκτώ

Please note that passage you quote is not something that Percy was replying to--this is where NWR declared his refusal to continue the discussion. NWR did not "show up in front" of anyone to "vociferously...object to the conclusions of science" or to "devalue the life's-work of scientists." He expressed a lingering skepticism about the Big Bang theory, while acknowledging the evidential strengths of that theory, noting that he would remain skeptical until further confirmation. Skepticism is also an essential part of science; arm-twisting demands to submit are not.Percy's comparison of NWR's skepticism to creationism, and his resort to terms like "ignorant" were, in my opinion, unfair, invalid, and counterproductive--as are yours. These tactics represent an ad hominem turn from debate to scorn: neither science, nor the pursuit of truth, nor the seeking of mutual understanding, are well served by tactics that smack of orthodoxy prosecuting heresy. We all have different thresholds for retaining skepticism; science has benefitted many times from a stubborn refusal to yield to the prevailing winds. Right or wrong, skepticism does science no harm and often does it good, as fresh evidence and more persuasive arguments are sought.Address the argument, not the person: that is a founding principle of good debate and this forum. There are many varieties of bad faith, but skepticism is much further from it than scornful replies.

After some consideration I'm siding with nwr on this one. However, both parties puzzled me.It started with nwr simply commenting he was skeptical of the BB. Percy asking to discuss it further, and nwr agreeing. Nwr made it clear he was not trying to refute BB, just that the evidence he had seen hadn't been enough to convince him.Percy continued to debate nwr as if he were trying to refute the BB, and it went around for a while with nwr trying to explain this wasn't the case. Eventually Percy concluded that nwr was letting his ignorance shine through.I'm puzzled as to why nwr thought it was a good to idea to put his opinion forward in a debate board without the opinion being...debated.On reflection though, Percy was less civil than he could have been and it discoloured the flavour of debate. If his purpose was to show that two evolutionists debate the same as an evolutionist versus a creationist - then all he really achieved was showing that creationists get given a hard time around here.If Percy succeeds in making this debate style the norm, I'd be very disappointed. We all like to see people that make grand declarations about how their opinion of science is Truth get taken down a notch and shown to be the arrogant ignoramuses they are. However, I don't think I want to be part of a culture where tentative skepticism is met with criticism and accusations of ignorance.If a creationist says 'I'm not convinced by the evidence of macroevolution' then I'd rather see a discussion along the lines of 'Let's look at the evidence and discuss what you think of it.'

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I don't think it warranted suspension personally. Though I suppose it shows that even the board's administrator can be rebuked by other mods - so that equivalence thing is working. Still - I think the best thing for nwr to have done is called an end to his discussion with Percy and concentrated on the discussions with the cosmologists.Not a perfect solution, but I don't think suspension was quite necessary.

I realize that I may have left an erroneous impression: I agree that the suspension was not strictly necessary. I often disagree with brief suspensions in both directions--those I would not have imposed and those I would have.We generally treat a 24-hour suspension as a relatively minor thing. Though I wouldn't have imposed one here regardless of who the member was, it does not seem wildly inappropriate either. In other words, it seems within the normal range of diverse admin perspectives.Edited by AdminOmni, : No reason given.

Regardless of anyone's assessment of the arguments made regarding anyone or anything, my judgement had solely to do with the conduct of the poster. As I suggested, compare the conduct and manner of communicating of NWR's other counterparts, NWR himself and that of Percy relative to personal attacks and I think you will see the problem that I was addressing.

I did compare them. I saw Percy growing more and more frustrated with NWR's consistent bad faith in the debate. If NWR wanted his opinion to be private, he should have kept it private. When he spoke about it, it became public. If he wanted his opinion to be immune from response, he shouldn't have brought it to the debate.Nobody twisted NWR's arm to join the debate. I see NWR's conduct as much, much more consistently against the forum rules than anything Percy said. Almost from the beginning of the thread NWR is arguing in bad faith, but predictably, science's defenders are held to a higher standard on EvC than anybody else. Well, fair enough. Percy wants it that way. But let's not act like NWR is some kind of innocent aggreived party here, ok?

I call the shots as I see them, Crashfrog and I'm afraid you haven't confinced me that I've made the wrong judgement. Imo, it's about how you communicate your argument to another. This statement in Forum Guidelines, item 10 is what I've based my judgement on. Abe: Unlike the other participants of the discussion, Percy was making personal demeaning statements either implied or outright spoken in presenting his arguments regarding science aimed at the his counterpart in the debate. Others were making the same arguments and agreeing without doing it in a demeaning manner. If we all avoid this personal stuff, things hum along much better here at EvC. Edited by AdminBuzsaw, : No reason given.

Well, I guess I can't let my lone defender go it alone like this. Suffice to say that there's an avid discussion on this topic going on right now in the private admin forum, so I'm not sure why Buzsaw saw the need to make further public comment while the admin discussion is still in progress, but anyway: I think it would be illuminating for you and any other interested moderators to present some actual passages of me doing this, naturally being sure to provide any context necessary to making an accurate presentation.Insight and understanding develops out of discussion, so I see this as healthy. It should help us all reach a better understanding of what constitutes constructive discussion.--Percy

Well, I don't know that the guy that runs the place needs to be defended by the likes of me; I just thought it was a little ridiculous how at least 3 people were bending over backwards to defend a guy's right to argue in bad faith without being called on it.I would have closed the thread or tried to redirect it to a topic that would have supported a greater signal/noise ratio, maybe? Seems like the topic was fruitless from the get-go.

First, it was five Moderators including myself who posted public messages here advising that you were debating in bad form. Why do you single me out as bringing this public when NWR called for a review in this thread? I was responding to his call for moderation in this public thread where, as I understand he was suppose to do.Likely folks out here are wondering what NWR's problem was. (Btw I did not call for a suspension nor would I have, though I don't fault Adminnemouseous for making the questionable call). I assumed that this is where we we as moderators were suppose to respond. Am I mistaken in this?So far as going to the work of citing all of the offensive stuff, it's all public and I advised that interested parties do a comparison of the debate style of others supportive of your position and compare that to your style to make their own judgement. I don't see it as productive to delve into it in detail, but if you really want me to I'll oblige. Do you still want me to do that?I'll recap some of how other moderators assessed your conduct. In AdminOmni's comment I'm not sure what he was referring to when he add, "as are yours," but he nevertheless cited the offence. http://EvC Forum: General discussion of moderation procedures - Part -->EvC Forum: General discussion of moderation procedures - Part http://EvC Forum: General discussion of moderation procedures - Part -->EvC Forum: General discussion of moderation procedures - Part http://EvC Forum: General discussion of moderation procedures - Part -->EvC Forum: General discussion of moderation procedures - Part Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Changed the "m=" numbers (which had all been "m=181") to be the same as the "#" numbers. Since different members are set up to display different numbers of messages per page, not having those numbers the same may result in not getting to the correct message. For example, my setup is 15 messages per page, and thus the "m=181" page contains messages 181 thru 195.

When I saw NWR's review request, I skimmed the series of messages he cited. Not a careful, in depth analysis by any means.At the time I posted the above quoted (and I was soon going to be off-line for many hours), there seemed to be an admin consensus that Percy was indeed in serious violation of guidelines. Thus I decided to do the suspension deed. Basically, I was presuming that Percy was shooting for a demonstration that not even the site owner was immune to suspensions.Upon further reflection (but not after re-reading the messages), my recollection is that there was a lot of smoke with little substance. In such a mess, it can require (at least for me) a lot of work to determine who is at fault for the blather. In the past, I have sometimes just declared such a topic to be terminal mess and then close it.In summary, it was a strange thing to have two members (of admin status no less) who I have such high regard for to be involved in such a mess.Adminnemooseus

When I made a request like NWR just did, I got criticized by him. His admonition to just get over it is not good enough for himself apparently. I essentially made quite a similar argument to you a while ago, as well as nwr. You both dismissed it out of hand.Perhaps a little less hubris and a little more sympathy/empathy in dealing with others (when problems in discussion arise) might be a suggestion for the both of you.Heheheh... you were both "wrong". Technically nwr opened the point for debate by posting his opinion, and he then reopened it after you (percy) had agreed to close it. You made a side comment to cavediver but it wasn't sufficient reason for him to reopen it with the rather large protest post he made in response to your one line.But you definitely engaged in name-calling as well as treating him poorly. Unfortunately it is the kind of treatment which creos get around here which gives me the creeps. For all the talk of being scientific high minded, there is a dogmatic defence of it which is really uncalled for and unhelpful. Not to mention somewhat erroneous.As much as I might disagree with nwr's position (apparently both metaphysically and epistemologically) he didn't deserve the name calling and twisting of his position.Anyway, I'm putting in my two cents to note that ironically you both just fell into the same pair of shoes I have worn, the toes of which you both stepped on. Hope they are as uncomfortable for you as they were for me, and out of this more empathy for others is squeezed. No need to reply.Edited by holmes, : tenseEdited by holmes, : not have

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Holmes, IDist creationist EvC members have lived with this atmosphere for years while they last. Imo that it is coming to a head is providential. The irony of it all is that it took an encounter of Christian Percy vs athiest NWR to bring it about.

I didn't single you out for bringing this public. I was just wondering why you saw the need to make *further* public comment while there was an active discussion in progress in the admin forum. Neither do I. He called it as he saw it. This is what I ask all administrators to do. He acted in good faith. But as has been pointed out in the admin forum, there are a couple very fundamental issues critical to the nature of debate here at EvC Forum which perhaps didn't receive adequate attention. Or any attention at all, actually, which has me perplexed. But more on that when the discussion is concluded. Yes, of course it's all public. But I do request that if you're going to continue making characterizations of offensive and demeaning behavior while the admin discussion is ongoing that you support these assertions with specific citations that include sufficient context to accurately characterize things.--Percy

1. As I said, NWR brought it public, asking for moderation review. I assumed he did not intend for that review to be private. That's not how we do other members who have no access to PAF. Why should you as a participating member be treated other than others in this respect?
2. Including AdminPhat, NWR and myself, three other admins made comments also while the discussion in PAF was getting underway. Actually that makes six.
3. AdminOmni and AdminModulous both made public comments after mine, yet you chose to single mine out for whatever reason. If the fundamental issues of the nature of debate are violated in discussion and debate, the rule of thumb is, as I understand, to take those violations to the proper moderator forum rather than to take it upon yourself as a posting member and apply the violations amidst the discussion/debate in a personal manner so as to antagonize your debate counterpart. This, imo, is what inflamed the dissention in the affair and a was a violation of Forum Guidelines #10 on your part. Give me some time and I will do so. In the meantime I'll begin by advising you that the way to inflame, humiliate, insult and infuriate an articulate science minded secularistic highly intelligent scientifically apprised and studied athiest on the world wide web, who has also been a very efficient and useful asset to your website, is to liken that member to the creationists whom you've consistently been so very critical of and who for the most part are portrayed as simpleton nonothings, including creationist PHD grade ID scientists who you contend don't even do science in their IDist research papers and who you falsly allege do not provide evidence when in fact their evidence is largly the same as yours interpreted supportive of their own hypothesis.You clearly implicated NWR repeatedly during the discussion as doing equally as poorly as you consider creationists to be doing rather than addressing your problem with his manner of debate in the proper forum.Edited by AdminBuzsaw, : Fix a gramatical error

After your Message 201, which is the message I was responding to? No they didn't.Yours was the only public comment after the discussion in the admin forum began. That's what I just finished saying: "I was just wondering why you saw the need to make *further* public comment while there was an active discussion in progress in the admin forum."My only point is that in the interests of fairness I don't think it right to keep repeating things along the lines of "demeaning and offensive comments" without providing some substantiation. I think serious issues have been raised concerning such a characterization in the admin forum. Perhaps in the end we'll conclude that my behavior was offensive, in which case I'll take full responsibility, but the other outcome is possible, too, so I think this it inappropriate to keep repeating the charge publicly while the issue is still being discussed privately.But if you want to continue repeating it, I think it only fair that it be substantiated by citing the relevant portions in context and making clear what is wrong with them in light of the Forum Guidelines.--Percy