General discussion of moderation procedures

The absence from the Forum Guidelines of anything about profanity is on purpose. A Supreme Court justice once said that though he couldn't define obscene, he knew it when he saw it, but EvC Forum does not subscribe to this view. Opinions about obscenity are subjective, and moderators here are busy enough without wasting time trying to protect the sensibilities of the easily offended.But EvC Forum strongly frowns on making debates personal. In Message 23 Dan Carroll writes in reply to you, "So basically, the state does not have the ability to fuck over a subset of the population, no matter what the group consensus is." In my judgement that is fine. If he had instead attacked you personally and said, "You're a complete fuck-wad for not understanding group consensus issues," that would be another matter entirely.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Vercingetorix,Your posting privileges are suspended.The moderators are here to help. When you decide you're willing to work with the moderators on a constructive basis please send email to Admin requesting restoration of your posting privileges.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Thanks for the feedback. Maybe balance means being vilified equally by both sides! Of course, I guess Percy achieving balance in being detested isn't the same thing as EvC Forum being balanced in it's treatment of Creationists and evolutionists, but we'll keep trying!

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Makes sense. I couldn't find the tie-in to the topic, but I can see it now. I'll put you an Wounded King back in.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

This is actually to everybody: It is much easier to investigate comments or complaints when they include a link. When short of time, like now, I'll skip those with no link.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Like any group, the moderators at EvC lack unanimity on many points, but the primary purpose of this site is to permit more informed discussion than is possible at other sites. One of the ways we achieve this is to proscribe behaviors that draw discussions into emotional realms. Placing inflammatory labels on people like "liar" is one of those behaviors.The Forum Guidelines requests that members remain dispassionate in discussion and focused on the topic. If you're going to call someone a liar you'll have to do it in a manner reminiscent of a member of Congress politely remonstrating a fellow member who has perhaps been a bit freer with the facts than can be justified, e.g.:,"I would just like to call to the attention of my distinguished colleague that the facts he has cited may lack a certain correspondence and are somewhat at variance to what is generally known."

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

The procedure you followed was correct, but somehow the AlasdiarJC alias didn't make it into the central member database. I added it manually.There are some minor member search bugs that are on the list for fixing someday. The member search faciitity available to members is sometimes a bit lackadaisical about finding and listing aliases. And while the administrative search facility finds them, it doesn't explicitly list them, listing only the primary alias, and it doesn't give any explicit indication of the aliases unless you visit the member's profile. I've classed these as minor deficiencies, so I won't be getting to them for a while.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

If you insist on continuing these criticisms I may have no choice but to make you a moderator! Seriously, I think you raise some good points. I wouldn't insist that EvC Forum practices are ideal, but moderators participate in an informal continuous improvement process, moderating the board is always presenting new unanticipated challenges, and in general we seem to have worked out a system that places fairly reasonable demands on moderator time whiel not upsetting too many members.It might help to think of moderators in the same way that lawyers think of judges. When preparing to litigate a case, lawyers often lobby behind the scenes for certain judges to be considered. They know that some judges will be more sympathetic to their case than others, or they've found that they personally have received a better hearing before some judges than others. In a similar way, litigants preparing to sue often seek out the most sympathetic juridictions.While you can't shop for moderators here in the same way that lawyers and litigants shop for judges and jurisdictions, the analogy is still helpful. It isn't just at EvC Forum that the interpretation and application of the law varies according to who's doing the interpreting. This is pretty much the way things are everywhere.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi WjThe point isn't that you can't call someone a liar, it's that you can't do it in an inflammatory way that distracts attention away from the topic. In most circumstances actually coming straight out and saying, "You're a liar," and any of many variations and synonyms, falls within the inflammatory and distracting category.You're only alternative is to carefully describe the evidence that someone is knowingly engaging in misrepresentations. If other people want to conclude in their own minds, "That guy's a liar," that's their business.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I like the general thrust of this idea, but am unsure how best to proceed. I'm not yet happy with the forums in the Social/Religious issues category, and so I'm open to proposals. What forums are missing from this category? What forums that are already in this category should be renamed or modified in their focus? Should any forums be eliminated?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director