General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures 9.0

Arachnophilia recently received a POTM (Message 16) for a post which, as he notes himself, was probably a violation of the Forum Guidelines. But if one reads the thread (IFOlogy: Solving the UFO-Alien mystery) one sees that Origen, the thread's originator and the recipient of Arachnophilia's criticism, is a fervent Christian who believes that UFO's are evidence of the Holiness of the Bible. He not only believes this but can prove it, which he is doing in a book, of which chapter one is now complete. He claims to have sent the chapter to Asgara, and if that's the case I wish she would post it on-line.An analysis of the thread, which would be an analysis of a deluded and fanatical mind, would be extremely interesting, and if some want to take up space here doing that then that is fine, but I lack the time. I will mention one reaction I had (of many), which was when Origen described his pastor and his wife reading his manuscript and saying that they found merit in it. In my own mind I see the pastor and his wife nodding earnestly as they usher Origen out of the house, then barring the door.That Origen has some odd ideas is not the true issue, though. What's at issue is how he approached discussion, which was to make declaration after declaration without ever once offering any supporting evidence. He knows the difference between God and Devil through their works, he claims that evolution has been promoted through political machinations, and he dismissed all those who challenged him variously as Marxists, trolls, propagandists, witches and atheists, and I'm sure we can all figure out for ourselves which category we fall into.A reading of the thread reveals that the EvC Forum membership understood that Origen was a pure loon from the beginning, and little attempt was made to engage him in serious discussion. Refusal to engage someone in serious discussion is not something we normally endorse here at EvC, but it is appropriate in this case because Origen clearly demonstrated from the beginning that he had no clue about how to support an idea with argument and evidence. Attempting to get him to seriously engage the discussion in a productive manner would only have resulted in frustration, and most likely the same outcome, Origen leaving in a huff.I expect I'm spitting in the wind, but I'd like to once again urge the Christian/creationist segment of our membership to police yourselves. Sidewalk babblers bring no credit upon the creationist viewpoint. It's bad enough that the creationist tent is so huge it includes both young and old earth scenarios, but must you also allow loons and kooks? Is creationist science so incapable of judging scientific merit that it permits approaches like Origen's, thereby leaving the ideas of mainstream science as the only things it rejects?The next time someone like Origen comes here with nothing but unsupported declarations and insults, I'd like to see a more aggressive challenge mounted from the creationist side of the fence.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Jar,Diverting threads from their topics and onto a discussion of word definitions was precisely the concern I mentioned in the Why I call myself a Conservative, Republican, Christian Creationist Evolutionist thread. Please keep the discussion of word definitions contained in threads like that one that are intended for that purpose. Outside of such threads we'll be using the widely accepted definitions of words like "creationist", and when people intend a different definition then it is incumbent upon them to make this clear.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I just noticed more evidence of Origen's problematic approach to discussion. Please see his thread proposal at Compound Interest. It's all evidence of his inability to accept constructive feedback, and the icing on the cake is when he concludes that Phat is an atheist.I guess my point to creationists is that these types of people are not your allies. They may be anti-evolution and and they may believe in God and Jesus and the Holiness of the Bible, but their behavior is not only irrational but anti-Christian. It seems that it would be in creationists' own self interest to police their own ranks and make it clear that such people do not speak for them. The statement "I'm against evolution" should not be a free pass to argue for the creationist point of view.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Randman,I've left you with permissions in some forums as a convenience and a courtesy for you, but you can lose those too if you do not follow the Forum Guidelines. Please stay on topic, respond to what has actually been said (quoting what you're responding to would help you do this), and support your rebuttals with arguments and evidence. This isn't the Showcase forum, so you cannot use every message you respond to as an opportunity to visit all your hot-button topics.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Well said. Some of the things you say are things I have said myself, one of them just five minutes ago when replying to TheMystic. I have often thought this myself. I fear it is true and hope that it isn't. If true then it means that rational dialogue between the two sides will never truly be possible. There will always be the occasional example of changing sides, but for the most part the best each side can hope for is to persuade the undecided. But if it is somehow possible to forge a bridge of understanding between science and conservative religion, and I think it premature to say it's not, then the search for that bridge that we perform every day at websites like this one is worthwhile because of the potential rewards.But getting back to Origen, I called him a loon not because of his idea relating UFO's to the Holiness of the Bible, but because after introducing the idea he somehow thought that what he was doing subsequently was advancing the idea. Whether or not someone believes in UFO's, if they're rational then Origen's approach to discussion should seem simply loony. No facts. No argument. No rebuttal. Just declarations and insults. Why isn't there a creationist brigade out there saying, "Hey, come on, that's no way to make your point. That's no way to make any point."On average I'm sure the children and the programs in public schools in the Bible belt are roughly equal to anywhere else in the country. I don't believe there's any intellectual deficit in the Bible belt or anywhere else creationists happen to spring from. People who happen to be creationists run schools and colleges and businesses, are managers, accountants and lawyers, and I'm sure they all think pretty well and that they would all easily recognize the obvious deficiencies in Origen's approach. Where are they and why aren't they doing something about their idiots posting idiocy?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

This thread is for raising moderation issues.Ray, you're restricted to Showcase and the board administration forums because you have over time proven unreceptive to the requests of moderators. Please contribute here on a constructive basis if you wish to retain your permissions for these board administration forums.Arach, you've made your point, please stop instigating. If you wish to engage Ray in a constructive discussion of issues related to board moderation then that would be fine.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Herepton,I wanted to comment on the description for the Showcase forum: This is true as far as it goes, but forum descriptions can't run on forever, and this one is already pretty long. What the description doesn't say, partly due to length constraints and partly out of consideration for those restricted to Showcase, is that it is a place for those with the inability and/or unwillingness to follow the Forum Guidelines, but whose viewpoints are so controversial or unusual that many people wish to debate them anyway.Residents of Showcase are given control over who is permitted to debate with them, and what happened to Randman and John Davison is that they kept requesting that people's Showcase permissions be rescinded until there was finally no one left to debate. I don't think you did this as much, and I'm not sure why your threads aren't more active.Like the other alternatives that preceded it, Showcase is an imperfect vehicle. It will eventually be replaced.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Randman,The main goal in the discussion forums is to keep discussion focused and on-topic. This is achieved by enforcing the Forum Guidelines, which are unbiased with regard to viewpoint.I understand you believe the moderator team is using purported Forum Guidelines violations as an excuse to muzzle creationists, but even AdminBuzsaw can see your Forum Guidelines violations and has tried to get you to give them greater consideration, unsuccessfully of course. Until you understand that debate doesn't consist of calling people dishonest liars first and discussing later, and that every thread is not just a point of departure to bring up Haeckel, then your full permissions cannot be restored. It isn't your viewpoint that has gotten you confined to Showcase but your continual Forum Guidelines violations.Nothing would please me more than to see productive discussion between evolutionists and the most strident creationists, but stridency doesn't have to come at the expense of courtesy and rationality. Courtesy is the yeast that makes the bread possible by allowing ideas to be explored, and rationality can only be confirmed by testing your ideas against other ideas.Let me expand on this a little. Where courtesy is a factor in your own discussions, you have to realize that the definition of a liar is not someone who disagrees with you. For you to conclude this means that you hold your own rationality to be superior without seeing the need to test that possibility on the playing field of ideas. This makes no sense. Even when someone appears to be disagreeing about something basic, such as the meaning of "is", the way to resolve the difference of opinion is through discussion. Only in that way can you demonstrate both to yourself *and* to everyone else that the other person is wrong. Choosing the course of calling someone a liar is just intellectually lazy, and here at EvC Forum it's against the Forum Guidelines as well.When someone is just unconstructively disputing every point you make no matter how obvious, then your recourse is to the moderators. Compounding one Forum Guidelines violation with another only makes it more difficult for moderators to figure out who, if anyone, is responsible for stymieing debate.Concerning rationality, human beings are not inherently rational. We're great at finding patterns of cause and effect, but the conclusions we draw are often faulty. Experience and practice and knowledge make us increasingly better at being rational, but all of us hold ideas not consistent with reality.Science is a way of building a consensus about the nature of reality so as to overcome in the aggregate the foibles of individuals. Discussion and communication is a way of building this consensus.So the way to see if you have the more rational viewpoint is through discussion. It is the only way to resolve differences and find common ground. It is why EvC Forum exists, to make available a place where polite and constructive discourse between evolutionists and creationists can occur because exchanges like, "You're a liar", "Oh yeah! Well, you're stupid!" are disallowed.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Buz,In the discussion forums I prefer to let misunderstandings about terminology be settled in discussion, but in the administration forums I'm concerned about the confusion that the misuse of terminology might cause. I'm referring to this: ID has no views on flood geology. ID is not a synonym for Young Earth Creationism. Believing in a young earth and a global flood as being responsible for much of the geology we observe today is a Young Earth Creationist belief, not an ID belief.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Your confinement to showcase has nothing to do with "something that happened months ago," but with continual violations of the Forum Guidelines over a period of more than a year which temporary suspensions did nothing to alleviate. But you interpret mere disagreement as a smear, and you feel smears are a license for you to disregard the Forum Guidelines. Until you demonstrate that you can follow Forum Guidelines, full permissions cannot be restored to you. I'm glad you've found someone in showcase to have a productive discussion with. Maybe it will help you achieve this goal.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Yes, disagreements as smears. Witness the recent Congress stepping in to stop witchunt of IDers thread where the mere fact we disagreed with you brought responses like this, along with attempts to foray off-topic onto some of your pet peeves (these excerpts are from a bunch of different posts): This thread all by itself is a more than clear example of your inability to stay within the Forum Guidelines. You question people's ability to think, make accusations of fraud and of political and legal tricks and of discrimination, diverge off-topic onto Haeckel and QM, label responses bull-crap and cow-dung, and ascribe base motives to evolutionists at every turn.But much more importantly is what your messages don't contain: there is rarely any substantive response to rebuttals. They reflect a marked preference for denigration to the almost complete exclusion of any substantiation.Until you come to see evolutionists as just as sincerely believing what they believe as you do what you believe instead of seeing them as frauds and cheats bent on deceiving the world, I don't believe it will be possible for you to carry out civil dialogue. You perceive each evolutionist statement as forwarding an evil conspiracy, and this leaves you unable to constructively participate in discussions.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

If you have been accused of anything then it is by your own words, for that is all I did, quote your own words back to you. In a thread where other people debated with evidence and reasoned argument, you responded almost exclusively with denigration, aspersion and unsupported accusation. There was no provocation in that thread for you to claim as your justification for Forum Guidelines violations. And as has been explained to you many times, being the victim of a Forum Guidelines violation doesn't excuse you from following them yourself. And anyway, when you let someone else pull you down into the mud then you look just as bad as them, so I don't understand why you would want to do this anyway.For just a month and just to show you can do it, why don't you participate in the Showcase forum in a way consistent with the Forum Guidelines.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I'm afraid the quotes I provided from you *are* rules violations. Taken one at a time most of them aren't too bad, but taken in the aggregate and as part of just a single very short thread they show an unwillingness to forthrightly address rebuttal and to instead treat it with denigration, aspersion and unsupported accusation.I was assuming that you were participating in this dialogue out of a desire to regain full permissions, and to that end I have been trying to make clear to you how your behavior is in violation of the Forum Guidelines so that you can take corrective action. If I can provide any more assistance to you in making clear what you need to do before you can regain full permissions please let me know.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Niether do I, please see the 1st paragraph of Message 101. I purposefully chose about the politest Randman thread I could find, which is one where I purposefully made every effort to avoid sending him over the edge.If you'd like to have a discussion with Randman then you can be provided permissions to the Showcase forum. But Randman's permissions to the regular discussion forums will not be restored until he demonstrates an ability to follow the Forum Guidelines.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Yes, that's the important point.The significant result is that threads in which Randman participates are spectacularly unproductive.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director