Change in Moderation?

Hi Moose,
Well, you can't say I have not tried. I have spent two days trying to nicely goad salty back onto the thread topic. As soon as Scott posts salty goes ballistic. He actually first got angry just because Scott posted, not because Scott insulted him.I will try again to draw salty back into the conversation. I would not bet on my success.In any case, the thread seems pretty healthy for now as a lot of discussion about the science is ongoing with the distractions not derailing the entire topic.cheers,
M

Schraf, from message 67, of the "PROOF against evolution" topic:

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Well, why not ask True Creation to have a look, in his Admin. mode. He's fair, and a Creationist.

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In all honesty, I'm inclined to think that TC (non-dmin mode) has been as bad as, if not worse than Buz, as far as debating in good faith. Which reminds me, I need to get back to the "Pseudo YEC" topic someday.Buz does need to work on his quality, BUT I'm thinking one word for Percy also - decaf.Now, I need to brew up an expresso, and see if I can do my grand pseudo-geologist reply to Buz, in the "radiometric" topic.In the non-admin mode,
Mooseps - If you think Buz is bad, it's time to revisit Terry at his Talk Origins.[This message has been edited by minnemooseus, 07-13-2003]

Hi Moose! Don't go easy on me just because I'm a fellow admin plus I own the joint. Anyone's behavior that warrants a warning or suspension I think obligates you to do your duty. My own oft-expressed view is that bad debate pushes out good debate, and that no debate at all is better than bad debate. There are already plenty of sites on the web for bad debate.I've updated the Forum Guidelines to reflect the enforcement policy I've been following recently. The 24-hour suspension was too much work noting on my calendar when to restore posting privileges, and it didn't change behavior. This new approach requires email interaction with the administrator - perhaps it will work better.--Percy

From http://EvC Forum: Retire Free For All Forum? -->EvC Forum: Retire Free For All Forum?

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To everyone,

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If I could provide just a little more clarification...

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It is often asked, "Why are you warning me about following the guidelines when no one else is following them either?" A good question.

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It helps to think of the guidelines as traffic laws. Our traffic laws are not strictly obeyed, but they're obeyed well enough that our roads are pretty safe. But consider how many traffic laws aren't followed. Most people roll through stop signs. Some people roll through right-turn-on red. Some people think it's okay to cut off traffic at yield signs. Almost everyone goes over the speed limit. In other words, our traffic laws aren't hard and fast. In some respects they're a little like guidelines - mostly follow them and you'll do fine.

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But some violations are worse than others. Going 5 or 10 miles per hour over the speed limit is fine. In fact, on some roads this isn't fast enough and you have to follow the non-statute but well-known rule of "keeping up with traffic." But go too fast and you'll get pulled over - not always, not even most of the time, not even very often in fact, but if you make a common practice of it probably a couple times a year. Run red lights and you likely won't get pulled over since the odds of a policemen being there at the right time is small, but you'll be spending a lot of time filling out accident reports and insurance forms.

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There's additional variation between policemen, and even between time of day with the same policeman. Blow through a speed trap at 13 mph over the limit and some policemen give you a pass, others pull you over. Maybe they're looking for the big "double penalty" speeders of 20 mph or more over the limit that day. Maybe they're in a good mood or a bad mood. Who knows? Sometimes you commit a moving violation and get pulled over, sometimes you don't. Maybe even sometimes you get pulled over when you didn't do anything. I once got pulled over three times in two days - I later found out a car similar in appearance to mine had been reported involved in a robbery.

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So, if you get a warning about following the guidelines, it's possible you didn't do anything wrong, but you probably did. And you've probably been doing it a lot. And other people have been doing it, too, but probably not as much as you, or maybe just not with quite as much panache. Anyway, if you get warned, please just say, "Okay, okay, I'll be good." And then be good. Or at least better. Thanks!

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--Percy
EvC Forum Administrator

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Admin and I are spread pretty thin here. I think I need to reactivate my efforts to bring in some new moderators, to help out.I have been in contact with a number of members in the past - You know who you are. If you are interested in giving being a moderator a shot, please send me an e-mail at mnmoose@lakenet.com.I think we also need to have more "self moderation" happening around here. It would be ugly, if the various moderators were to interject messages as often as the situations may actually call for it. Every third message or so would be a topic drift or behaviour warning message.People (per "self moderation"), let's pay more attention to the topic titles, the topic contents, the forum areas, and what is the intended area of discussion/debate in the various topics.Cheers,
Adminnemooseus[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 07-15-2003]

delete[This message has been edited by SLPx, 07-18-2003]

Hey Percy,With reference to your "suspensions and banning list", didn't our old buddy ksc get permanently banned after hacking the board? The infamous "Iridium Nightmare" thread?

Hi, Quetzal!The board's ban list doesn't permit comments, so with no info about the member ID of who was actually banned (banning is by more objective criteria than member ID, though still far from perfect) we lost track and eventually just deleted the whole list. In other words, had we needed to unban someone, we wouldn't have known which item on the list to remove.The Suspensions and Bannings thread is intended to give administrators a place to track this information, and also provides a place where the information can be made public, which we think is important.------------------
--Percy
   EvC Forum Administrator

Re: Message 91 in "Evolution of Light" by Adminnemooseus If there's a specific forum guideline you feel I'm violating, by all means, point it out.But otherwise it feels a bit like you're picking on me simply because I post a lot. Which I realize I do.However I largely see it as my "place" here to take on those creationists who are not likely to be swayed by evidence, because their objections to evolution are not based on evidence but rather faulty logic or equivocation. Discussions with these folks rarely take the form of deep, well-researched posts, I realize, but rather quick, short messages and bantering wordplay.I make an effort to hold my tongue in discussions of a more evidental nature, though sometimes my enthusiasm gets the better of me. But even if I make a greater effort to curb my enthusiasm, what assurance do I have that you won't continue to take my large number of posts as a black mark against me? What could I possibly do in the face of so many posts that would make you think I was improving?I guess my point is, if the large number of my posts is the only thing that makes you suggest I'm a less-than-helpful member, what could I possibly do about that? I can't erase my posts.These are earnest questions. I'm genuinely curious what you think I could do to ease your objections besides a total suspension of posts while I wait for somebody else to "catch up".[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 09-02-2003]

I'm with you crash. Moose needs to lighten up a bit. I get the feeling he wants to run this place lock-step, and, frankly, I'd quickly loose interest if that happens. Some order is good, too much would kill the forums.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

I'm with crash as well....and I am really confused about this...salty posted pure one liner drivel for months and there was not this much Admin attention regarding him....what is so bad about crashfrog? He does not blow up at people nearly as often as I do for example, makes a good effort to address questions and post queries of his own....that not every post is Post of the Month quality could apply to every single one of us regardless of the frequency of our posts. If there is a new guideline regarding frequency of posts this should be clarified...why slap down someone like crashfrog who is genuinely interested in participating here but let people like salty or Syamsu (or the now apparantly returned Fred Williams for that matter) roam free though they clearly have no interest in debate? I can see where SLPx stepped over the line sometimes but crashfrog is more baffling.

I think you're overreacting, Crash, my impression was that Moose simply wanted you to consider toning down the level of 'low-content' posts. That perhaps EvC was experiencing an overweight of blathering or trivial posts, and that this inevitably was increasing the noise-to-signal ratio unfavourably.I don't think he meant to brand you less-than-helpful member #12, but instead to suggest a lowering of the level of low-content posts by all members would improve the quality of discussion.Of course, this is all impression, only the Moose can tell us for sure.

I second this. I don't see why Crashfrog is an offender. His many contributions at least indicate that he actually reads a lot of posts, which is more than can be said of some other people. Some don't even write, they just cut and paste. If Moose were to act as stringently there as he's picking on Crashfrog here, this board would be a much tidier place.[This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 09-03-2003]

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I think you're overreacting, Crash, my impression was that Moose simply wanted you to consider toning down the level of 'low-content' posts. That perhaps EvC was experiencing an overweight of blathering or trivial posts, and that this inevitably was increasing the noise-to-signal ratio unfavourably.

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I don't think he meant to brand you less-than-helpful member #12, but instead to suggest a lowering of the level of low-content posts by all members would improve the quality of discussion.

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In the old nutshell, the above states my position pretty well.An extreme example of a bad signal to noise ratio (and I say this not having read most of the string), is the "Evolution of Light" topic. Probably, both Admin and I have written that one off as being a total wasteland, not worthy of even bothering to look at. Has a really nice message been buried in there somewhere? If so, my guess is that most will never see it.Very busy lately, and same for the immediate future.Gotta go,
Adminnemooseus

For persons interested in a serious discussion of the evidence, yes. But such topics provide an opportunity for posters like Wise, who are clearly inexperienced with the rigorous style of debate practiced here, to be shown a better way to argue.Like, training wheels. People come here from all corners of the internet - from forums across a spectrum of civility. Is it really reasonable to expect a new poster to immediately take to heart a more serious style of debate? Can't one or two topic be spared for the express purpose of correcting some poster's bad critical thinking habits before they try to sit at the adults table?

Good argument! I've temporarily closed the Evolution of "Light" thread. When it reopens later today I will hopefully have caught the attention of Wise, and perhaps he'll reengage more constructively. But even more importantly, I would like to request that those engaging in dialogue with Wise recognize that responding in kind isn't helpful, and so I'm asking that they respond with more understanding and helpfulness while trying to avoid being condescending. It's a lot to ask, I know, but I'm sure you guys are up to it!------------------

--	Percy
	EvC Forum Administrator