General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures 9.0

The reason you are restricted Ray, is because of the rules infractions. I'm not sure what I am mistaken about if what I said is not in dispute? I dunno, does that make Fred Williams a Darwinist (evolutionfairytale.com - go see how many are censored there), or perhaps Bill Dembski is a Darwinist:

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I don’t plan on policing or editing comments. If you post a comment that I don’t think is productive, I’ll probably not just eliminate your comment but you from this blog (which, given the way WordPress handles comments, means all your comments will be removed). So if you have any doubts about whether I’m going to react negatively to your comments, back them up ” I won’t. Note also that I’ve had it happen where someone ingratiates himself with me and then turns. Bait and switch is a sure way to be banned from commenting here...

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Finally, there is one cardinal rule at this blog, namely, I make up the rules as I go along. In other words, these policies can change at any time. Moreover, if they change, it will most likely be in the direction of curtailing the time I need to spend with comments.

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Moderation of what people say Ray, happens everywhere. You failed to acknowledge that fact. We publish the rules, if you break them we hand out short term suspensions and explain the infraction. If you continue to break them the suspensions get longer and longer until they are permanent. We very rarely delete posts (that is even in our Constitution).Sometimes people come along that people want to debate but who break the rules. The Showcase service is provided in this case.This forum is one of the freest moderated forums out there. If you don't want to take part in moderated debate, find an unmoderated (or less moderated) board. I'm not a Darwinist. I am not angry. I am not refuting anything, just explaining our policies.The date remains exactly the same as it was before: When the moderators are satisfied that you are able to engage in debate honestly.Edited by AdminModulous, : No reason given.

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

Where have I called someone a liar here? You guys get a lot of mileage out of something that happened months ago and conveniently ignore the frequent charges of "intellectual dishonesty", "lying for Jesus" or some other bogus crap levied towards your critics and non-evo posters, but somehow when you guys do it, it's just courteous explanations of where critics of evos fall short, eh?Regarding your comment: The simple truth of the matter all of these things are indeed allowed for evos in their smears of creationists and IDers and even encouraged by you whether you realize it or not. It's just that such behaviour is not allowed for your critics.I suggest a little more practicing what you preach and less lecturing others on civility.Edited by randman, : No reason given.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

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

Oh, and those of us who did your math homework for you. You didn't like that, did you?

Ringo, my comments to which you refer were not in defense of Randman's MO perse, but meant as applicable to creationists in general, the more fundamentally Biblical being convinced of higher realms of intelligence capable of what we call miraculous.

Your point is well taken, Percy. I forgot to take in account that there are IDists who are not necessarily global floodists and for that matter not Biblicalists. I agree that it is also not synonymous to YEC, myself not being YEC perse. Edited by AdminBuzsaw, : Change message title.

And that is a point of view we could discuss. But what we are talking about here is precisely "Randman's MO per se", which is to spew out lying garbage.Although I think that you're wrong, you seem quite reasonable. Randman, on the other hand, screams halfwitted lies as a substitute for argument; I despise him for the same reasons that I like you.

I wasn't appologizing for anyone, Omni. I was simply suggesting that "bull crap" is not necessarily calling someone a liar. Rand is certainly not the only member of this board who resorts to this sort of communication. I and other creationists receive this sort of crap quite often by counterparts, sometimes with more vulgar choice of wording than Rand used.

Disagreements as smears?No, but when your position is continually misrepresented and whole topics are started accusing the IDers and Creationists here on this board of purposeful deception, lying, stupidity, insanity, ignorance, etc, etc,....it takes someone particularly blind not to see that as a smear.But hey, I understand....it's just courteous discussion when an evo calls an IDer dishonest, insane, ignorant, etc, etc,.....like this gem here: No need to respond. I can do it for you. "That's not a smear randman, but just someone politely disagreeing with you. If you would just try to obey the forum rules a little better, you'd see that."Edited by randman, : No reason given.

My point was that anybody claiming to be a Christian should model their behaviour after Christ and not use "I believe in miracles" to justify being an a**hole.

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DA, I've never regarded Randman as a liar. You may not agree with his argument, but when accusations are made of outright intentional lying, I'd advise that you not do that without on the spot documentation. I don't frequent the Showcase much. When I get some time perhaps I should have a look at your encounters with him, not that I would try to moderate that forum but so as to review your charges.From what I've read of Randman, I see his primary problem to be PR and self control as to how he generalizes on evolutionist's perceived faults and tends to loose his cool et al. If he can shape up his MO I see his input, controversial as it may be, as productive to the level of debate we need more of in the science forums.I believe Admin sees Rand as beating what Admin considers to be dead horses too much, as likely he sometimes does with me, but perhaps moreso with Rand. I'm not sure how serious this is as per Forum Guidelines as sometimes it gets hard for determination. What is a dead horse may have some relavence to ideological preference. Thus the need for representation in admin for both ideological camps.I've tried to advise him on MO some, but more needs to happen before Admin is going to consider restoring his priviledges. When on parole it's best to keep as squeeky clean as possible being your conduct is likely being evaluated fairly regularly.There's some acceptable conduct going on from time to time in the other forums which certainly, if conducted by Rand, would be counted against him, conduct which is too close to call and which more often is not frequent enough to make a call. Rand sees this as justification for his MO, but as I've said before, if we all work to keep our own noses clean offences will diminish and we'll all benefit by it.

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A creationist Jesus knowing God loving Biblical fundie moderator for EvC.

No argument there, Ringo, so long as you apply it to both camps and as well, to all ideological positions. We're all part ideological AHs as fallible human beings and to what extent may apply some to ideological perspective as viewed by those we encounter in debate. Keep this in mind when choosing to use the term in communication regarding others on the www.

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