Hypocrisy

[Ophiolite]

@ 121

 

 

 

 

Basically, my view is that the terms of the rules of behavior in these discussion fora are rather vague and that this is only partly due to the inherent nature of language itself. It's also partly due to the fact that vague terms allow the site's moderators and decision-makers to apply rules with a convenient arbitrariness that makes a comfortable seat for their own biases.

 

In short, they and those ((ETA) other members) who are reliably their silent or vocal supporters constitute what amounts to a de facto “in-group,” here with a self-protecting culture that perpetuates the biases. Those of the in-group will typically deny their its existence and their part in it, seeing themselves as “just like everyone else here,” but they defend what amounts to a little closed-shop rule which keeps those who are “in,” “in,” and keeps the rest—especially those who don't openly conform to dominant opinion here—on the back foot, second-guessing what is allowed and what is not allowed.

 

This does not mean that in the rules and their application there's a complete and total lack of any clear idea of what is not allowed. It means, rather, that there exists a double-standard of interpretation and application by which those who are seen as friendly and supportive get easier, less strict and more forgiving treatment in the supervision of the content of their comments, the rigor of their arguments and reasoning which others, not viewed as friendly and supportive are denied. It is very hard for me to escape the impression that if they're treated differently it is because they are not regarded as among the “in-group.”

 

Nor am I claiming that it's impossible to find any exceptions at all in a site the homepage of which cites, at this writing :

• 926,277 Total Posts
• 83,845 Total Members

. There are bound to be a relative few cases which serve as tokens to which the staff can point and claim that these (rather rare) examples prove that there isn't any such systematic bias or double-standard at work here. The point is that, even if taken all together, these cases fall very far short of demonstrating the typical practice. They demonstrate the atypical because they are not the same as what is usually done the great majority of the time.

 

I don't mean to suggest that the above completely exhaust all the aspects of my views on the topic but it presents the essentials as I see them.

Agreed.

[Klaynos]

The best advice I can give is for you to report posts that you think break the rules.

 

And at this point highlight when doing so when you think a double standard is being applied. This will allow us to try and understand what you're observing, understand how common it is and what we might be able to do about it. Without suitable examples it is difficult to really comment.

 

I don't have the time to read every post, but I do for the most part have the time to read every reported post.

[Phi for All]

Is it just me, or is "Hypocrisy" starting to sound like a pretty good title for this thread? From where I stand, it looks like someone is setting himself up to be an unquestioned authority about those who would set themselves up as unquestioned authorities. Seven pages of axe-grinding, which has enjoyed complete freedom since it has conformed to the rules the staff is supposed to enforce, and yet there is still no clear argument about the hypocrisy we've been perpetrating.

 

But now proximity1 is starting to bring this subject up in other threads, which IS breaking the rules about off-topic chatter. When we enforce the rules, I hope nobody will be such a hypocrite that they object on the grounds of censorship.

[proximity1]

 

@127

 

"I don't have the time to read every post, but I do for the most part have the time to read every reported post."

 

 

Of course you don't-- no more than I have time to track, log and classify every moderator-act of Swansont and present it tied up with a bow as irrefutable proof that this site's moderation fairly screems its biases--and, above all his biases. There are simply too many. It would be briefer work to just collect any valid-sized random sample of his interventions among newbies and among his in-group allies and make comparisons of disparaging terms he employs across the two samples--but I lack both the technology and the time for even that task.

 

 

However, it's the kind of work the social anthropologists I cited with the NYT article can do qnd that's why I recommended that they do some analysis of the practice here.

[Strange]

@ 123

 

Let's be clear: I am reporting on my personal anecdotally-based experience here in this site--though that experience goes beyond my own posts and includes what I consider biased treatment of others with whom I have nothing more in common than posting comments here.

 

 

So you have no evidence, just your personal belief. From several threads I have seen you participate in, it seems you think that any disagreement with you is part of this "conspiracy".

[dimreepr]

 

 

So you have no evidence, just your personal belief. From several threads I have seen you participate in, it seems you think that any disagreement with you is part of this "conspiracy".

 

 

Why else would any forum/internet site, that has nothing to gain, conspire?

Edited January 17, 2017 by dimreepr

[StringJunky]

track, log and classify every moderator-act of Swansont and present it tied up with a bow as irrefutable proof that this site's moderation fairly screems its biases--and, above all his biases.

I think you are criticising his dry and, correctly, dispassionate manner when moderating. He's a scientist and his delivery is consistent with one. He's not a touchy-feely person that wraps everything akin to criticism in words laced with sugar to help the medicine go down. If you are pulling him down because he is "biased" towards the scientific method, everything that goes with it and expects others to follow it then he is guilty as charged. A majority of long-term members here are like-minded and in that regard we are a conspiracy and clique

Edited January 17, 2017 by StringJunky

[swansont]

In thread after thread of a non-science sort, secure in-group members hold forth ad libitem with nothing more beneath their high-wire act than anecdotal experience. And they're typically not called down for failing to present a raft of peer-reviewed data to back up their anecdotes. How about that!?

Thread after thread? Then it shouldn't be hard to point a couple of these out, seeing as they are so common.

 

True--I have certainly not done what it seems you'd like to require me to produce on demand: an annotated case file of examples which conclusively show to _your_ satisfaction that the bias I see as rife here exists. Tell me straight out if that is the sort of burden you're seeking to place me under. Otherwise, specifically, exactly how many examples do you require I submit?

One would be a good start. Except that you did give an example — the thread that initiated this whole discussion, and it turns out you did't even read it when you accused the staff (me, in particular) with hypocrisy and bias. And you still haven't shown that bias was an issue with that thread.

 

So I will have to ask for another. One hopes this time you can come up with one that shows the behavior you are complaining about.

 

And, please: lay it all out in advance; I am not going to enjoy completing a deliberately tedious and onerous homework assignment only to learn that I must then follow up with a subsequent set of demands.

Since all threads are different and nothing has been identified, there is no way to ask for details beforehand. And by excluding follow-ups as being unreasonable, you can declare that you've done what was asked even if you provided minimal information.

 

Sounds like a sucker bet. I'll pass.

 

If this were my professional work, I'd subpoena your entire record of moderating interventions and assign a staff of legal assistants to comb through it and compile from one hundred to five hundred of the most glaring examples of your biased judgements. Then, I'd call you to take the stand and testify under oath about that body of evidence.

 

If you were the sort of reasonable person I would so prefer you to show yourself to be, instead of acting like I'm just under nothing short of a prosecutor's burden to build and present a case beyond a reasonable doubt, you'd instead receive my comments alone as sufficient cause for you to undertake some simple and voluntary introspection about your fairness as a moderator.

All of the interventions are available for your perusal. And you aren't being asked for a case beyond reasonable doubt. This is a science discussion board, and you are being asked for evidence to support your claim.

 

But, in my best "University of TV crime drama" legalese, you are assuming facts not in evidence. You don't actually know if I reviewed the moderation to do this introspection. For all you know, I did that and decided that the action was completely fair and in keeping with the rules, and that other moderators reviewed it and had no problems with it. All you have done is see that I don't agree with you, and assume from that that I must be at fault. All you have done is present innuendo, which is not admissible (like hearsay). At this point I would ask the judge for a summary judgement and it would most likely be granted, or just say "The defense rests". You haven't made your case at all. Every point you tried to make was rebutted in cross-examination.

 

Instead, a fascinating defensiveness is what characterizes your responses. Are you so completely alien to the concept that you might actually be biased in your practice here that the suggestion of it fills you with only resentment and not the slightest idea that there could be something to it and that, to see it, you needn't have a full legal brief prepared?

You are, in fact, attacking me. Responses are going to be defensive.

 

Again: is your post @ 123 in your capacity as a moderator or something else? It's that kind of ambiguity I mean by a convenient double standard.

Asked and answered. How many times do I get to ask "Have you stopped beating your wife?" and then complain that you haven't responded with a "yes" or "no"?

 

ETA : IN this thread alone, for example, I had to restore the hyperlink to the New York Times article when a moderator deleted the link to the full article I'd included. That's an example of a candidate for a "Freudian slip"--even if inadvertently done.

Or, from another point of view, you were saved from violating copyright law and one of the rules of the site (Rule 2.2) for which you were not issued a warning point, or suspended. IOW, you were not subjected to the very kind of moderating you are now accusing the mods of engaging in. Seems to me if we were the horrible lot you say we are we would have used that as an excuse to shut the thread down, and possibly suspend you. But no, it was just edited with a note from the moderator saying what had happened.

 

[proximity1]

 

@ 128 :

 

That suggests that you, who happen to be a moderator, have gone from thread to thread reading numerous--or all--of my recent posts. It's not that hard to do: the threads number about three and the posts number--today--something under a dozen I guess not counting this one. And I guess your doing that is just sheer coincidence--unrelated to the fact that I've been raising points critical of aspects of the site's operating habits, unrelated to my being part of what could arguably be called this "out-group" I've mentioned in the course of my argument in _this_ thread.

 

But your very recent reading of post after post of mine today across three threads wouldn't be a calculated act of surveillance because we know moderators here harbor no invidious bias against members of some hypothetical "out-group." So you must merely find my comments interesting--and not some potential source-material for a critical post which you had already formed some expectations of being able to present, given sufficient time following my posts.

 

We know that moderators don't just go looking for rule violations on the part of out-group members because there are none here--and no biases of motive or intent in finding and calling out violations, either. Everything moderators do here is done innocently. People alleging bias here are simply axe-grinders--unlike moderators, who never dream of doing such stuff.

 

Meanwhile, I was specifically challenged to show where there was clear evidence to support my claims or risk seeing the discussion closed--not because the topic itself is unwelcome but simply because, in fairness, the charge wasn't supported with good evidence.

 

How exactly I was supposed to collect this evidence without looking for it in both examples of in-group favoritism as well as out-group members getting attention, correction and warning for the same faults which go uncommented when in-group members commit them--that wasn't explained.

 

As I say, it occurs to me that there's a routine double standard applied here with out-group members held to impossible demands and expectations from which in-group members are excused.

[Strange]

@ 128 :

 

Please use the Big Button clearly labelled "Quote". It is tedious to keep having to search for the posts you are referring to.

 

I know it may be a terribly high-tech concept and difficult to master unless you are a Jedi with centuries of experience, but there is even a sticky about it:

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/82164-the-quote-function-a-tutorial-in-several-parts/

 

 

 

How exactly I was supposed to collect this evidence without looking for it in both examples of in-group favoritism as well as out-group members getting attention, correction and warning for the same faults which go uncommented when in-group members commit them--that wasn't explained.

 

If you don't have any evidence, you don't have much of a case, do you.

 

As you have failed to provide even a single example...

[Lord Antares]

In thread after thread of a non-science sort, secure in-group members hold forth ad libitem with nothing more beneath their high-wire act than anecdotal experience. And they're typically not called down for failing to present a raft of peer-reviewed data to back up their anecdotes. How about that!?

 

How is this true at all? I've never seen that happen. I've seen senior members post something that might not have been correct but they were questioned or corrected soon thereafter. If this is so prevalent, at least 1 or 2 examples would be enough.

 

Also, you may be mistaking the assertions and theories in the speculations forum with genuine questions and misconceptions in the other forums. In the speculations forum, you are required to provide evidence for your claims, since it's supposed to be a place for new theories that have not been formulated.

 

If that's the case, the senior members are posting replies which are known to be correct and accepted by a majority of the members, not making assumptions of their own. I think this is what you may be misunderstanding.

[Phi for All]

That suggests that you, who happen to be a moderator, have gone from thread to thread reading numerous--or all--of my recent posts. It's not that hard to do: the threads number about three and the posts number--today--something under a dozen I guess not counting this one. And I guess your doing that is just sheer coincidence--unrelated to the fact that I've been raising points critical of aspects of the site's operating habits, unrelated to my being part of what could arguably be called this "out-group" I've mentioned in the course of my argument in _this_ thread.

 

But your very recent reading of post after post of mine today across three threads wouldn't be a calculated act of surveillance because we know moderators here harbor no invidious bias against members of some hypothetical "out-group." So you must merely find my comments interesting--and not some potential source-material for a critical post which you had already formed some expectations of being able to present, given sufficient time following my posts.

 

We know that moderators don't just go looking for rule violations on the part of out-group members because there are none here--and no biases of motive or intent in finding and calling out violations, either. Everything moderators do here is done innocently. People alleging bias here are simply axe-grinders--unlike moderators, who never dream of doing such stuff.

 

Meanwhile, I was specifically challenged to show where there was clear evidence to support my claims or risk seeing the discussion closed--not because the topic itself is unwelcome but simply because, in fairness, the charge wasn't supported with good evidence.

 

How exactly I was supposed to collect this evidence without looking for it in both examples of in-group favoritism as well as out-group members getting attention, correction and warning for the same faults which go uncommented when in-group members commit them--that wasn't explained.

 

As I say, it occurs to me that there's a routine double standard applied here with out-group members held to impossible demands and expectations from which in-group members are excused.

 

Or... or, it could be that we use functions like View New Content (and Quote, Multiquote), that show recent threads we haven't read. That I couldn't possibly have come across your recent posts without some sort of agenda is an argument from incredulity, and it's trivially false. I follow a limited number of threads, and I update myself when a new post is added. I read the discussions and follow along as best I can, and when someone breaks the rules, I can point that out if I'm not involved. If I'm part of the discussion, I use the Report function instead.

 

As far as impossible demands, I don't know where that's coming from. You may be asked to support something unsupportable, but is that the fault of the staff, or science, or is it your fault for guessing without building a case and asserting it as true?

[swansont]

@ 128 :

 

That suggests that you, who happen to be a moderator, have gone from thread to thread reading numerous--or all--of my recent posts. It's not that hard to do: the threads number about three and the posts number--today--something under a dozen I guess not counting this one. And I guess your doing that is just sheer coincidence--unrelated to the fact that I've been raising points critical of aspects of the site's operating habits, unrelated to my being part of what could arguably be called this "out-group" I've mentioned in the course of my argument in _this_ thread.

How does anything I wrote suggest that? I've been following this thread, because I'm involved in it. The "recent posts" list puts a star next to the titles of threads in which I've posted. In addition, I have "Notify me when someone quotes my posts" turned on, since a lot of people have figured out how to use the quote function.

 

But across three threads? No, I didn't do that.

 

Though now I'm curious. (pause)

 

OK, I see now that you have posted things in another thread, calling my attention to them. Until just a moment ago, I had not seen them. You are just assuming that I am reading these things.

 

But your very recent reading of post after post of mine today across three threads wouldn't be a calculated act of surveillance because we know moderators here harbor no invidious bias against members of some hypothetical "out-group." So you must merely find my comments interesting--and not some potential source-material for a critical post which you had already formed some expectations of being able to present, given sufficient time following my posts.

As I said, I tend to read threads I'm involved in. Any notions of a "calculated act of surveillance" is all in your head. As I wrote above, until just now I hadn't visited your other recent thread after the first post (4 days ago). Wasn't really interested in it.

 

We know that moderators don't just go looking for rule violations on the part of out-group members because there are none here--and no biases of motive or intent in finding and calling out violations, either. Everything moderators do here is done innocently. People alleging bias here are simply axe-grinders--unlike moderators, who never dream of doing such stuff.

Straw man arguments aren't particularly compelling, or clever. Just intellectually dishonest.

 

Once you show up on the radar from rules violations or other warning signs, moderators do tend to pay closer attention to you, and I defy you to make a case that that is unfair.

 

Meanwhile, I was specifically challenged to show where there was clear evidence to support my claims or risk seeing the discussion closed--not because the topic itself is unwelcome but simply because, in fairness, the charge wasn't supported with good evidence.

That's how we roll. If you want to see other threads where we have done precisely that, just go to speculations and look for threads that have been locked, and look at the last post. Shouldn't take too many until you see that comment. (I hope you don't want me to provide you with actual links, though. With all this complaining about how providing evidence is such a huge burden and all...)

 

How exactly I was supposed to collect this evidence without looking for it in both examples of in-group favoritism as well as out-group members getting attention, correction and warning for the same faults which go uncommented when in-group members commit them--that wasn't explained.

 

As I say, it occurs to me that there's a routine double standard applied here with out-group members held to impossible demands and expectations from which in-group members are excused.

You don't see the contradiction you've presented in these two sentences? The double-standard is routine, you say, but pointing to specific examples is somehow beyond your capabilities.

 

Which is it? Commonplace, or so hard to find that looking would be a burden?

 

Other people are not exempt from these standards. The thing is, they generally provide supporting evidence for their claims as a matter of normal discussion. Your in-group/out-group designation thus far seems to be people who follow the norms of science discussion (and the rules) vs people who don't. And yes, we expect people to follow these norms, as well as the rules. And I don't give a rat's ass if you think that expectation is unfair.

[MigL]

in-groups ?

Cliques ?

Am I back in high-school ?

And more importantly, will there be a 'rumble' after class ?

 

But seriously, of course swansont is biased. So is Phi, and every other moderator and member of this forum. Including you, Proximity1.

We are, after all, human ( except Strange, he's an alien ) and our 'biases' are part of our character.

And so we have this understanding...

I won't point out their biases if they ignore mine.

[Mordred]

I'm certainly biased on "show me real science". If I don't see that I will certainly comment. Though I don't care what theory one chooses to believe in if its based on real science. Nothing wrong with model development if done properly.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Mordred

[rangerx]

How exactly I was supposed to collect this evidence without looking for it in both examples of in-group favoritism as well as out-group members getting attention, correction and warning for the same faults which go uncommented when in-group members commit them--that wasn't explained.

 

As I say, it occurs to me that there's a routine double standard applied here with out-group members held to impossible demands and expectations from which in-group members are excused.

 

You need to bring evidence first. Not maybe later. Telling us how many goals you scored before the game starts doesn't win the trophy, just because you say so.

 

In the science game, experts in their respective fields are the referees, not the fans. When you cheat, you get a penalty. Too many penalties, you're ejected from the game. Ejected from too many games, you're banned.

 

Any functionally cognitive juvenile knows those rules. Any adult that doesn't is just an embarrassment to themselves and everyone surrounding them.

 

There are no participation awards in science for ineptitude. Just failure.

[Ten oz]

@ proximity1 you don't find any irony in the fact that you a thread you started to complain that mods overly censor members has now gone 8 pages?

[Mordred]

lol

[Ophiolite]

Two points.

 

1. Proximity is an aggressive, argumentative prat.

2. However, his fundamental thesis is valid. There is an elite within the membership who tend to overlook behaviour in fellow members of that elite that they would not tolerate in others. This is such basic and typical behaviour and is certainly present here that it routinely astounds me that almost none of the elite are aware of it. (Or are willing to acknowledge it.)

[Arete]

However, his fundamental thesis is valid. There is an elite within the membership who tend to overlook behaviour in fellow members of that elite that they would not tolerate in others. This is such basic and typical behaviour and is certainly present here that it routinely astounds me that almost none of the elite are aware of it. (Or are willing to acknowledge it.)

 

In my experience of online forums (and human social groups in general) is that long standing members are given more leeway than newer members. It often comes with a cost - benefit style analysis of the poster's behavior. If they are generally useful, entertaining and genial, but prone to the occasional inappropriate outburst they might be tolerable, but if a new poster is inappropriate from the get go, it's easier to dismiss them entirely.

 

There's also the factor that it's easier to overlook inappropriateness when the person is saying something you agree with, than if it's something you disagree with.

[Phi for All]

Two points.

 

1. Proximity is an aggressive, argumentative prat.

2. However, his fundamental thesis is valid. There is an elite within the membership who tend to overlook behaviour in fellow members of that elite that they would not tolerate in others. This is such basic and typical behaviour and is certainly present here that it routinely astounds me that almost none of the elite are aware of it. (Or are willing to acknowledge it.)

 

So he's got a point and people are 8 pages of unhappy with the hypocritical way the volunteer moderators run the site for the administrators. I acknowledge my behavior is subject to biases, and I've worked hard over the last decade with the staff to help set up the rules to reduce judgement calls that are influenced by bias. What do you suggest we do to change all this unhappiness, Ophiolite, because I sure didn't see anything reasonable from proximity1?

[proximity1]

@ proximity1 you don't find any irony in the fact that you a thread you started to complain that mods overly censor members has now gone 8 pages?

 

No, I don't. The pretense from the site's moderators and its favored clique that, in effect, "we just don't get it" is laughably transparent in its disingenuousness. These people are quite intelligent. They get it. Pretending to be astonished at allegations of bias are ridiculous from such smart people. Throughout the thread, any disinterested reader can follow their various tactics-- from calls for a thorough exampled case-like dossier of proofs (when the evidence is literally reeking) to calls for "if you don't like it here, just leave," are those of people who are practiced in deflection, double-talk, resort to their own self-serving double-standards.

 

Nothing is more predictable than that they'd make a pretentious show of their "tolerance" by allowing this thread to go on for a while. But that didn't preclude their moving it and peppering it with moderator thinly-veiled threats--all the usual treatment that out-group members can expect to get here.

[Strange]

 

Throughout the thread, any disinterested reader can follow their various tactics-- from calls for a thorough exampled case-like dossier of proofs (when the evidence is literally reeking) to calls for "if you don't like it here, just leave," are those of people who are practiced in deflection, double-talk, resort to their own self-serving double-standards.

 

 

You have been asked for one example. One. You have not been able to provide even that level of support.

[proximity1]

 

You have been asked for one example. One. You have not been able to provide even that level of support.

 

I've cited numerous examples in threads of a non-science topic (Politics, for example), noting about various comments from the in-group's members the kind of shoddy reasoning which is quickly censored when moderators find a newbie posting (even in a non-science area) comments of which the moderator simply doesn't approve. There may indeed by flaws in the reasoning--the fact is that these kinds of flaws are common here in non-science threads from the mutually-supporting in-group. They simply are ignored, left to stand.

 

And when I noted them, I got called down for--guess what!?--that's right: rule violation.

 

I'm expected--epxlicitly called on- to have a prepared a clear case in advance, full of examples. Well, that's not because this is what's routinely done here by all in all areas of discussion. It's because my thesis is sensitive and the in-group members don't like it. Again, their opinions in non-science discussions are not subjected to the sort of hostile scruntiny that Tom O'Neil received for venturing into a theory about the VM. While I didn't find his arguments particularly compelling, I saw no reason to come down on him in the way that was done.

 

I could have mounted a stronger defense of his position--without regard for the congency of his arguments on the VM--but I didn't bother.

 

What O'Neil actually sought and asked for was some specific assistance from a person competent in programming who might help him run a statistically-based analysis of his ideas and see if the results bear out. In short, he was looking help in advancing a test of his theory. According to his critics here, such a test should have certainly shown that there was no valid correlation going on. And I happen to agree with that expectation. But it's no good reason to have given him such rude short-shrift. That he was trying to find a developer for a testing program should have been allowable without prejudice as to the theory's merits per se.

 

Again, no less preposterous things are maintained here and they're maintained by members in good standing and who enjoy the favor of all the right people here so they get nothing like the severe treatment that O'Neil got.

 

I've been answered with ad hominem arguments, begging the question, diversions from the point, name-calling, hyperbole and none of it has drawn any correction from a moderator. The occasions when another member has even dared to timidly take my views in this matter as having even a possibiltiy of some, however partial, validity are fascinating in their rareness. It speaks of a community which either has a coincidental herd-mentality or which lives under a certain accepted intimidation as "well, that's how we roll here." Don't make no waves, don't rock no boats.

 

In O'Neil's case, there's a clear bias at work in the way he was treated--and that's something apart from the merits or lack of them in his theory.

 

What's going on is a stubborn, wilfull self-serving blindness.

 

 

 

So he's got a point and people are 8 pages of unhappy with the hypocritical way the volunteer moderators run the site for the administrators. I acknowledge my behavior is subject to biases, and I've worked hard over the last decade with the staff to help set up the rules to reduce judgement calls that are influenced by bias. What do you suggest we do to change all this unhappiness, Ophiolite, because I sure didn't see anything reasonable from proximity1?

 

 

This comes as no surprise to me. However, it comes some 140 posts into this thread. Moreover, despite all that effort, which I don't doubt in the least, the moderating practices remain utterly opaque. A regular participant like Tom could have no idea that his effort would be so roundly squashed.

 

Yes, several of you posed questions and made critiques of the flaws. I don't object to that. What I object to is a so complete and summary dismissal of his effort to enlist some programmer's help. No one here bothered to disprove his theory. Instead, the fact that it wasn't liked was entirely sufficient to shut down his appeal. Had he been allowed to find that programming help, the statistics should have done your work for you-- he'd have seen, on testing the expectations, that they don't bear out.

 

This crusader-attitude here where a non-science topic is concerned is really clearly biased in my view and I've given examples of how it isn't consistent. You don't like it, but, yes, as for "one example," you've got several.

 

Try being just a tiny bit more honest with yourself.

 

I would say what's most lacking, obviously, is even a start at some genuine transparency. The moderating processes are utterly unaccountable to the readership. That this may be a common feature at many sites doesn't make it any the more just in principle.

Edited January 19, 2017 by proximity1

[DrP]

To play advocate - in O'Neil's case, his 'theory' was full of holes. He wasn't asking for help, he was claiming he had cracked the code... which he hadn't. How can anyone help him if he has zip to start with. He was unable to explain HOW he had 'deciphered any of it' only gave claims to have deciphered some of it and did not say how.... how are we supposed to respond to this?

Edited January 19, 2017 by DrP