Split-The Angry Intellect-Plea to go easier on new members

[Ophiolite]

I'm not sure why you are being so hostile. You made a claim that members and staff are too harsh on newcomers. Fine. I think I speak for all of the mods when I say that we gladly welcome reasonable observations on these matters by members. The thing is, you haven't shown us a case of where this is true and I can't immediately think of a thread where your criticism would be applicable. All that is being asked of you is to provide some examples of where you are seeing the problem. We can't do that for you.

He is being hostile because he is frustrated by the failure of mods, forum experts and long term members, to stand up and clearly state "You are correct. We are harsh to new members more often than we should be, possibly a lot more often. We shall examine our behaviour in future and seek to be more welcoming and more understanding."

 

The fact that no one appears to be willing to do this means either there is no case to answer, or you are deluding yourselves.

 

I understand his frustration. I feel it to. I am currently enraged by the failure of others to recognise this simple, though unpalatable fact. Sufficiently enraged that my solution is to tell you all to go fuck yourselves, while I take a months sabbatical in the dim hope your attitudes will have changed when and if I return.

[swansont]

What I "was" saying by not wanting to reference other threads is, there are far too many examples and random threads to which I have seen this stuff go on.

 

I am not going to spend ages looking for all the examples and then stick them in here,

 

 

Surely if this is rampant as you claim, it should not take ages to find a few examples.

[hypervalent_iodine]

He is being hostile because he is frustrated by the failure of mods, forum experts and long term members, to stand up and clearly state "You are correct. We are harsh to new members more often than we should be, possibly a lot more often. We shall examine our behaviour in future and seek to be more welcoming and more understanding."

 

The fact that no one appears to be willing to do this means either there is no case to answer, or you are deluding yourselves.

 

I understand his frustration. I feel it to. I am currently enraged by the failure of others to recognise this simple, though unpalatable fact. Sufficiently enraged that my solution is to tell you all to go fuck yourselves, while I take a months sabbatical in the dim hope your attitudes will have changed when and if I return.

You don't seem to have really read what I wrote.

 

Since I have been a mod here, I know of a small handful of threads in the mod forum where we have examined the way that we interact with newer members. We are not shy of recognising potential faults in how we deal with members and trying to remedy those faults, and I am all for standing up and saying that we need to improve where appropriate. However, for us to move forward with this particular assessment, we need to be talking on a common ground. You both say there is a problem, yet no one else seems to agree. There is either a difference in what we consider harsh, or we have missed the examples that have led to this appraisal (or, as you say, we are deluding ourselves). In any case, it would be edifying for all involved if we had some specific examples to talk about.

 

I am sorry that this has you frustrated. I can see where you are coming from in your annoyances with this discussion, even if we don't necessarily agree on the main points. Some further questions regarding how you perceive moderator action with newer members, to help source out where you and TAI think we should make improvements:

 

1.) Do you see a problem with the type of language used, the length (or lack thereof) of mod posts, or both?

 

2.) Do you believe that action is taken too early or too late in Speculations threads by new members? (Ophiolite, I know you already answered this)

 

3.) Given your answer to 2.), what would your approach be to members clearly unfamiliar with how we expect them to be posting there?

 

4.) What are your opinions of the six pinned threads in the Speculations forum in relation to the OP?

 

 

I am going to take some time to review the Speculations forum and some of the old mod threads I mentioned.

[ajb]

I invite any new(ish) members who are reading this thread to please comment. This is your open chance to say something about your experiences here.

[geordief]

I wasn't going to comment but I can see I (and other newish posters) have been specifically asked to do so (by ajb).

 

Now I know that other members are more insightful into others' motives and abilities but this (in a general ,probably bland way) is how I see the situation.

 

I come first and foremost to hopefully learn something from the assembled community and realistically this can only be done one small step at a time (if I am lucky -sometimes I will learn nothing ,for various reasons)

 

Now I know that responders have their own reasons for responding to others' input but , for my part I welcome any reponse at all , even bad tempered so long as the end result is that I have an opportunity to learn something.*

 

There are other forums where there is no moderation and that is also fine but I prefer a moderated forum since that allows pipsqeaks the opportunity to have their voice heard provided the moderators are good people(I have a sad history in the education system of being at times a teacher's pet which may explain my attitude) .

 

So ,although I appreciate moderators , I also appreciate that they are human and do this in a voluntary capacity.

 

I don't know why Oph seems to think there is a huge problem on this site (he does say that it is widespread over the internet, mind you) but I do respect his opinion as I am familiar with his postings and know their genuineness of approach and application.

 

So basically I feel he sets the bar too high. I feel that if mods do err in terms of lack of patience with new posters ,then it is also incumbent on new posters to try and fit in with the environment as is.

 

*I wish I was in a position to actually impart helpful information and advice but unfortunately this is not often possible for a non scientist on a science forum.

[hypervalent_iodine]

Feel free to extend my questions to general responses to such threads.

I have looked at the following threads in Speculations.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/87675-hi-im-new-here-looking-for-more-info-on-geocentrism

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/93501-a-probabilistic-proof-of-the-existence-of-etraterrestrial-life/

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/93637-minimum-emf-wavelength/

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/93388-black-spring-theory/

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/93471-local-isotropic-length-transformation-hypothesis/

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/89968-seeking-help-of-mathematicians-lie-algebra-invariants-group-theory-to-complete-a-derivation/

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/93076-telekinesis-telepathy-and-their-impact-on-science/



In all of these examples, I think our members made a commendable effort to correct any flaws presented by the OP and ask questions about the science they presented, and I do not think that they were rude about it. In general, the posts by our pre-existing members has been well received by the newcomers and a couple of the threads were, by mere coincidence, excellent examples of what we hope to achieve by even having the Speculations section. Furthermore, I do not think any of them contained premature or unfair / harsh moderation. Is there any disagreement with those statements? Have I missed something, or are there other threads I should be looking at?


http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/93673-an-explanatory-attempt-of-our-universe/

This is probably an exception, but the member is not new and the post was not science. The member was given a chance to elaborate, but did not do so. At some point, we do have to draw a line with what we allow and what we do not.

[Phi for All]

I don't know why Oph seems to think there is a huge problem on this site (he does say that it is widespread over the internet, mind you) but I do respect his opinion as I am familiar with his postings and know their genuineness of approach and application.

 

And I don't know why Ophiolite keeps strawmanning the whole problem. I, too, respect his opinion, usually. I think the staff has sufficiently mentioned that we're human, we're volunteers, we're capable of mistakes, we can sometimes jump too hard on bad science, etc, etc, etc. I obviously can't talk to him about this, since he doesn't recognize that we've done this, and instead we get to fuck ourselves for a month.

 

Meanwhile, the REAL objection from staff remains unanswered. I, for one, don't appreciate the way The Angry Intellect gets to make accusations, hard accusations, without showing anything to support them. When does that become fair, or even scientific? I don't appreciate that Ophiolite thinks any of the staff should just roll over and say we're guilty of what the OP says, and allow him a summary judgement based on... his word alone. We've made mistakes, we know that. We'd just like to know which of our mistakes have prompted all this harsh judgement. Wasn't that clear?

 

As Hyper says, we talk extensively about moderation, and we're always looking for ways to be better about how we enforce the rules the site owners have put in place. The rules are the easiest part to enforce; they're pretty cut and dried. Any other moderation we do is to nudge discussions towards productivity, so they don't get mired in baseless claims, fallacious logic, or soapbox preaching. And frankly, we've been trying to step up the quality a bit this year. We want to attract people who want to talk about science, real science, mainstream science. We're always going to have the popsci crowd trying to overturn all the hardest parts of science so they can suddenly become the knowledgeable ones, and hopefully those folks will be open-minded enough to allow discussions here to broaden the accurate bits, and pare away the misunderstanding.

 

We want the site to have value, and rigor in enforcing our rules helps keep discussion productive. This isn't a site for everyone, and we want it to be a site where explanations are held to higher standards, where unsupported accusations, innuendo, and generalizations have no merit.

[Juno]

I invite any new(ish) members who are reading this thread to please comment. This is your open chance to say something about your experiences here.

Well, I joined the forum around three months ago, so I think I qualify By way of background, I'm very much an amateur - I'm studying maths and physics with the Open University in my spare time out of personal interest.

 

I haven't yet posted on the forum, but I have very much enjoyed reading and feel that I've learned a lot from being here already. What has really struck me in particular is the quality of the moderating, and the fact that the mission of the forum as somewhere to discuss science is so enthusiastically policed. As a science amateur, it's brilliant from my point of view to know that I can trust what I read here, because anything that's not rigorous or properly evidenced is immediately flagged as such. And I love the occasions where I read a post, think "that sounds dodgy to me", and have that backed up by the responses, because it allows me to check and refine my own critical thinking process.

 

Ultimately, if people don't like the way the site is run, they can go elsewhere. Clearly your current moderation policy is okay with the large number of posters who do stay here. If I think anyone should change how they approach the forum, it's people like The Angry Intellect who take such a hostile approach to people who are volunteers running what is, essentially, a free service. It's that kind of posting which makes the forum less welcoming to newbies, not the moderation.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Juno

[kisai]

I invite any new(ish) members who are reading this thread to please comment. This is your open chance to say something about your experiences here.

 

I am extremely grateful for the stricter rules on what constitutes scientific discussion and especially about the rule about not be allowed to use logical fallacies to back one's argument. The last forum I frequented became a haven for trolls because, by lauding free speech, a troll's remarks had the same value as an intelligent discussion. So the intelligent people left and the trolls stayed.

[Klaynos]

Sometimes I see posts that I feel are a little too harsh too early in a thread.

 

Sometimes those posts are by moderators. Sometimes on reflection I realise I've made those posts.

 

So I would certainly agree with Ophiolite on that.

 

But (as Ophiolite also has said) these are not the most common responses I see and I would put them down to crackpot wearyness of the membership.

 

Do we need to drastically change or drop our standards? No.

 

Do we occasionally need to think "is there a more productive way to make my point"? Perhaps.

 

On a non science forum I sometimes read there was recently a science thread started, I was looking forward to it when I saw it. Sadly it just reinforced my belief that we require the rules were have here.

[The Angry Intellect]

"we"

[Klaynos]

"we"

Care to elaborate?

[ajb]

"we"

I would take "we" in this context to actually mean all members. We can all do with being more polite and understanding to new members. Generally I think new members are treated quite well. However, none of this should mean that we let standards slip or drastically change the rules.

[Klaynos]

I would take "we" in this context to actually mean all members. We can all do with being more polite and understanding to new members. Generally I think new members are treated quite well. However, none of this should mean that we let standards slip or drastically change the rules.

That's what I was going for, the community we. Sorry if it wasn't very clear.

[swansont]

Some of this thread has the vibe of someone complaining that the sushi restaurant they're in should serve hamburgers, not require that they wait for the host/hostess to seat them, and should have a buffet. And because they don't that the restaurant is being rude to the clientele.

[iNow]

I'd settle for a bit more intellect and a bit less angry, myself.

Though, I'm admittedly neutral on The.

[Robittybob1]

Some of this thread has the vibe of someone complaining that the sushi restaurant they're in should serve hamburgers, not require that they wait for the host/hostess to seat them, and should have a buffet. And because they don't that the restaurant is being rude to the clientele.

But isn't it a bit more like that the menu was offering this and then being told later it can't be done? We order but the dish is not up to expectations and the bill gets higher the more you argue.

 

I read that there are people who are reading the forum but not posting, (whether they are registered or not doesn't matter I think you can still read it if you aren't registered) who appreciate the scientific value of what we discuss. That was quite encouraging but we don't want no discussion at all and just links back to Wikipedia.

It takes a lot of effort to give to the forum, look at Janus or others who are so correct in what they say, taking 30 minutes of their day to knock up a post.

It is the effort to post that needs to be appreciated too. OK I might be wrong or right in some of the things I say but debate the point. If you only want good science you might as well just read Wikipedia and watch YouTube.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Robittybob1

[studiot]

I'd settle for a bit more intellect and a bit less angry, myself.

Though, I'm admittedly neutral on The.

 

+1

[Robittybob1]

 

+1

You've given points to a post that doesn't even seem to make sense!

What does the last sentence even mean "Though, I'm admittedly neutral on The."?

 

PS: I see it has 3 points and I still can't understand what is being said.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Robittybob1

[imatfaal]

This split was occasioned by a post by "The" "Angry" "Intellect" - is that enough of a clue?

[Robittybob1]

This split was occasioned by a post by "The" "Angry" "Intellect" - is that enough of a clue?

So they are neutral wrt The Angry Intellect. That hardly deserves a plus 1.

So it must be the prior statement "I'd settle for a bit more intellect and a bit less angry, myself."

well I'll say the same if it gets me rep points.

 

I'd settle for a bit more intellect and a bit less angry too!

[Phi for All]

So they are neutral wrt The Angry Intellect. That hardly deserves a plus 1.

So it must be the prior statement "I'd settle for a bit more intellect and a bit less angry, myself."

well I'll say the same if it gets me rep points.

 

I'd settle for a bit more intellect and a bit less angry too!

 

I'd settle for a bit less pointless analysis of so many posts. If it adds nothing, maybe it shouldn't be posted.

[Robittybob1]

 

I'd settle for a bit less pointless analysis of so many posts. If it adds nothing, maybe it shouldn't be posted.

Exactly I came back on to the forum to discuss science, no more pointless analysis. I agree fully.

[swansont]

But isn't it a bit more like that the menu was offering this and then being told later it can't be done? We order but the dish is not up to expectations and the bill gets higher the more you argue.

Where and when has this forum had a "menu offering" of free-for-all discussions, discussing crackpottery, and insulting people?

[zapatos]

I remember very clearly feeling under attack early in my life here. It was not by the mods but by a handful of long time members, and it was almost entirely in the religion section. Many still behave that way toward newcomers. Well, not newcomers so much as people who are inexperienced in debate and formal logic. I also very clearly remember observing that behavior toward several new members over the years. Some people have poor soft skills so I learned early on who I should simply ignore. I think part of the problem here is that some long time members don't remember what it is like to be new and inexperienced here. It can be rather intimidating.

 

That being said, for the most part I find this to be the best site I visit on the internet and simply accept that no matter where you go, you are going to experience some difficulties. C'est la vie.