On the subject of feeding the trolls

[mooeypoo]

There is another point about radical thinkers and pseudoscience -- the mere DEBATE about it and the practice of spotting logical fallacies and arguments for and against it is good for *us* too, since it's a very good 'training' at logical thinking and at debating.

 

So we shouldn't just erase/throw out things quickly -- but we should find a way where the balance between good debates and troll preaches is kept.

 

I think overall we are in a good place. There's always room for improvement.

 

~moo

[iNow]

Could it be as simple as a change in the semantics of the forum title to ease the minds of those who are offended by this?

 

Something like... instead of Pseudoscience and Speculations... "Conjectures and Unsupported/Non-Mainstream Approaches."

 

 

Like Moo said... things work pretty well as is, and it seems that you're considering changing the site's infrastructure to appease a few fragile egos. I say, "Grow a spine, and if you don't like your posts to be put outside of the primary fora, then learn to support them better, address questions and criticisms, and be amenable to changing."

 

 

 

<in other words, you guys rock for trying, but try not to lose too much sleep over it>

[Royston]

Could it be as simple as a change in the semantics of the forum title to ease the minds of those who are offended by this?

 

The dispute usually arises when the thread is moved, (from physics for instance) to P&S, I doubt changing the title would make any difference. The semantic arguments follow afterwards.

 

Conjecture you say ?

Speculation you say ?

 

et.c

 

It doesn't matter how you colour it, it's the act of removing the idea from the home of accepted science, that gets their knickers in a twist.

Edited July 16, 2008 by Snail

[Mr Skeptic]

Could it be as simple as a change in the semantics of the forum title to ease the minds of those who are offended by this?

 

Maybe we should change the "trash bin" to "Threads Violating Forum Rules". That way, people who's threads get moved there don't feel as though their ideas are being judged pseudoscience, but rather that their method of discussion is being called into question -- which, after all, is usually the main problem. That would save a lot on the "but my idea must be true" or "I'm Galileo" etc that results from moving the thread to the "Pseudoscience" bin.

[Phi for All]

It doesn't matter how you colour it, it's the act of removing the idea from the home of accepted science, that gets their knickers in a twist.

Which is the really weird part, since you'd think that someone arguing against Theory X *knows* that they are outside accepted science. Why do they think they can fix science without using science?

 

Crackpots at SFN have some fundamental attributes everyone keeps pointing out:

1) They lack rigor and confuse "idea" with "theory" because of it,

2) They have trouble with certain concepts and, rather than work harder towards understanding, they just assume the concept is flawed and stop learning,

3) They never attribute a lack of math to a lack of understanding theories in physics,

4) They assume that any theory which is incomplete is attributable to lazy, hidebound adherence to accepted thinking and can only be completed by "thinking outside the box" (ironic that, given #1-3).

 

I know there are other criteria but these seem to be the ones we face the most in Speculations. How can we approach these "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" in a more helpful way?

[nstansbury]

Firstly, apologies to mooeypoo for somewhat hijacking her thread - it wasn't intentional!

 

Secondly, I've been very careful about never calling my idea a "Theory" only ever a "proposal". I fully accept you start from a position of untruth and earn any validity with solid science.

 

I'd also like to say it was never an ego thing about not being in a "mainstream" forum.

 

I'd be quite content being in a:

 

"This is sheer speculation forum, but the poster behind it isn't a total plank, suggesting the world is flat/Einstein is wrong et al and has at least a modicum of solid scientific knowledge behind their ideas, and genuinely wants to discuss and find any potential flaws in the idea so they can get on with their lives and/or refine and improve their knowledge or proposal"

 

 

But if you look at the sheer number of posts against say for example one of MotorDaddy's threads - some go into 6 pages based on repeated nonsense, yet my thread (as an example) got barely into 2 pages - and then fell of the first page list.

 

It's almost like the least intellectually worthy of discussion (IMO) are the one's at the top of the forum listing. How many of us click through to the 2nd/3rd page listing? I confess I've done it once - twice perhaps.

 

 

If the desire is to keep a combined PS & S forum my suggestion is this:

In the same way we can give a poster positive feedback points based on their posts, a thread can be given negative feedback points by other members. The default sorting of the forum is not "Most recent", but "Least Negative", with perhaps a colour coding to imply some sort of BS-o-meter

 

When you first start a new thread you have zero BS points, and you will drop or stay in place relative to the BS in other threads.

 

When a thread reaches x BS points it is automatically closed/deleted, the poster gets a warning as their BS points are used up.

 

That way the more BS points you have the more likely your thread is to slip off to the 2nd/3rd pages - it's still there but no censoring, and a troll can't hijack a top forum position by posting stuff that winds everyone up.

 

Additionally, the mods don't have to keep deciding when enough is enough

 

 

PS. I appreciate that using my thread as an example sounds somewhat arrogant, but I genuinely don't want [my ideas] to be associated with a MotorDaddy or NewScience.