General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures (aka 'The Whine List')

See Message 33 and Message 35.Regardless of intent, I'm amazed and dismayed by what an incredible failure of optics this is. Obviously Buz is going to act like his thread was such a masterpiece that we had no choice but to suppress it, and every creationist will see this as confirmation of their worst suspicions about the board. It certainly confirmed my suspicions that the moderators here are so hopelessly naive that they cannot possibly conceive why anyone might view their actions in any light but the most charitable. What are you going to say when creationists point to this as evidence that we suppress opposing views?Percy, could you briefly describe your goal in enjoining Buzsaw from participation in science threads? Is the purpose to enable science discussion absent Buz's disruptive ignorance, or is it actually to prevent him from being involve in any science discussion whatsoever? If that's the case, how are we supposed to correct his misunderstandings?The worst part of it is how needless it was. Buz was right about literally nothing in the entire thread. What on Earth was the pressing issue that necessitated this incredible misstep?

Neither of those threads were promoted, yet participating in them seems to have been made a precondition of Buz's ability to discuss science topics. You'll only let Buz participate in exactly the way he doesn't want to participate, so why is he even here? Why not ban him and be done with it?If you're really concerned about the degree to which he requires "moderator attention", why not restrict him to Free For All and let him do whatever he wants? The uniquely circumscribed nature of his permissions here only affords him ample opportunity to play the martyr.I can't understand why this isn't readily apparent to you. You've expressed regret about the poor participation of creationists at EvC, and (correctly, IMO) laid much of the blame at the feet of the evolutionists who immediately respond with more heat than light. But the way moderation so frequently gives the impression of a stacked deck has to bear some of the blame, as well. I understand, largely, the goals of moderation at EvC and I don't agree that they're meant to disadvantage creationists (except in so far as they're inherently disadvantaged by a requirement to support claims with evidence.) But frequently the moderation is so ham-handed that it takes an enormous act of good faith to see it as anything but enforcing uniformity of opinion. Surely you can't expect to rely on that good faith from creationists?

We've all identified it as a problem that creationist participation is so poor around here.Moderator acts that exacerbate that problem should be subject to criticism, not bootlicking approval. Of course Buz's thread was stupid, I'm not a fucking idiot NoNukes, but that's not the point. The point is that when creationists tell you that the reason they don't put much effort here is that moderators act to suppress divergent opinion, moderators whose actions make it look like they're suppressing divergent opinion need to react with more self-reflection than to shrug their shoulders and wonder how their actions could possibly merit criticism. And evolutionist participants who can't possibly imagine how creationists - or even the often-forgotten "on the fence" lurkers - might see things differently should hold their tongues. The needless cheerleading is also an optics problem. He's still here, he's still talking. While that's true there's always a chance he could learn. But that's not the fucking point.

I still don't understand why the forum has been made specifically Buzsaw unfriendly. If his participation is not constructive, ban him for good and send him away. If he's a part of the discussions here, then he should be a part of them.I'm not saying that Buzsaw should be subject to special treatment. In fact I'm saying that he shouldn't be. Nobody else is under an obligation to define the nature of evidence before they're allowed to post on a science topic. No, I'm suggesting that people have a care for how their overtures of support will be interpreted by a community who we'd like to have participate, here. Nobody needs to tell the moderators that they're making correct decisions. They already know they are. They need to know when they've fucked up, and when they have, they don't need knee-jerk support that makes it look like they're protecting us. Then you've completely missed my point, which is that Percy could make the board more attractive to creationists by not singling them out for mistreatment.

Which evolutionists are barred from participation in the evolution forums? Please be specific. No, I'm not. No.Anybody acting like Buz has in the past would be banned outright. So why is he still here? Percy's doing Buz no favors by continually martyring him.

By not having any evidence for any of his positions? How on Earth does that make him different than all the other creationists? How does that make him even in the least bit different? That's par for the course, but Buz is the only one whose participation is under such extreme constraint.And it's not just Buz who is under the contraint; the rest of us are constrained from talking about science in any thread Buz chooses to start. What did I do to deserve to be placed under such restrictions?

Well, I do believe that. But you're right, it gets harder to believe when moderators don't treat creationists fairly, when they're not given the same latitude given to evolutionists because they're not as entertaining in their invective.The issue I'm trying to point out is that it's going to be very easy for everybody here to tell you you're wrong about the forum, but how are they going to be able to show you? The issue is that the moderators believe that it's so readily apparent that they're trying to cultivate fair dialogue that who on Earth could possibly doubt it?Moderator acts such as those under discussion make it very easy to think the worst about EvC's moderation, particularly if you have no particular reason to be on their side. Yeah, that's exactly right. The truth is, Dr. A gets away with a lot more because he's funnier and more entertaining. You probably could, too, if you'd cultivate more of a sense of humor. Sure. I agree that this is what they largely said, and we should listen. And moderators should know that their actions - even if not with the intention of suppressing debate - are the cause of much of this belief among creationists. Percy and many of his defenders would like us to believe that the creationists would think that anyway, no matter what the moderation was like, but that obviously can't be the case - there was a time when EvC Forum had a reputation even among creationists for being a site welcoming of, and respectful to, the other side of the debate.At some point, Bolder, I'll give you a list of evolutionist participants whom the moderation of EvC has driven away. I was one of them, for a while.

Like the application of Occam's Razor?

"Self-defense?"What would happen, specifically, if someone called you a name and you didn't call them a name back? Do you have an opinion, AE? About anything? You've been here a while and I've yet to see you actually advance an argument or defend a position on anything. I don't see how you can be subject to some kind of suppression of minority opinion, when your only opinion on anything is "LOL, I don't care about that."Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Agreed. AdminPD doesn't seem to have any notion of what the topic actually is. For instance, my Message 15 was ruled "off-topic", but in message one, it clearly states: Ergo a discussion about criteria for historicity as used by historians and Biblical historians is precisely on topic.PD your moderation is completely out of control in that thread. Very inappropriate.

Historicity was one of the bases on which the canons were being compared, which naturally leads to a discussion of the techniques by which one makes comparisons of historicity, and the degree to which those comparisons represent valid scholarship.The chain of conversation of which message 15 was clearly on topic, as it speaks directly to a point raised in the OP.

I guess AdminPD must have slipped and fallen on her keyboard and marked it as off-topic by mistake. Oh, well, accidents happen! As we know, moderators are constitutionally incapable of error.

I'd support your promotion to moderator, and I'm an evolutionist. And unlike Dogmafood, I'd support it in earnest, because I think the board is improved when creationists are engaged in the process.The pattern, typically, is that promotion to moderator is the "kiss of death" for creationists - they just stop coming around. I hope you'd be the exception to the rule.

I'm always surprised by the people who say this, who think it needs to be said, and by the notion that moderating a discussion board is a task of such Herculean difficulty that we should just completely ignore all the times that moderation actually blocks productive discussion because, gosh, at least they're trying.Sorry, Rahvin, but I expect more from moderators than "aren't 100% fuck-ups" and I think you should, too. Certainly the moderation here is a cut above the rest of the internet, but it's fairly rare for the moderation here to reach it's own standards. I think that matters.

For the same reason you have to agree with your counterparts on the English language. There has to be some basis of shared agreement for discussion to take place. If words mean one thing when I say them, but something else completely when you do, how can discussion take place between us?For that matter, Buz, how do you expect to convince anybody who asks for evidence, if you can't either present the kind of evidence they're asking for, or convince them to accept a different kind of evidence? I appreciate your perspective - that you're talking to people who have a radically different notion of what "evidence" means - because the exact same thing is true from our perspective. If you're interested in participating in the debate then you're going to have to arrive at some consensus with us about what "evidence" means. I appreciate that it's an uphill battle for you, but you'll just have to be at your most convincing.Here's the thing, though. I don't think you'll find it as impossible as you may suspect. A great deal of us would like the opportunity to show you that even according your own construction of the term "evidence", you've yet to present any that corroborates the Biblical record. In order to do so, I suspect you'll find that many of us are prepared to be quite conciliatory about what constitutes evidence in the context of a "Buzsaw" thread, just for purposes of discussion. But you have to make some effort to meet us there.