Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely

[rainbow]

You've totally missed my point. Please don't reply.

If you want people not to reply you have to make posts like mine. Watch and learn.

I've learnt nothing.

[rainbow]

Just forget I said anything.

The internet never forgets. Now grovel.

[Forty Two]

Agreed. I don't see a reason to comment on how someone's argument is stupid or idiotic. It's not a counterargument. It's really just a veiled personal attack, IMO, but that veil is an important one.

The reason it's important is that if you try to draw a line that includes commentary about lack of quality of a person's argument and prohibits "attacks" on that argument, it becomes much less clear of a line. Is it o.k. to call an argument stupid? How about ignorant? How about uninformed? It seems to make it far more grey.

As a matter of policy, allowing the attacks against the argument saves the moderators from endless debates over what is or is not an impermissible attack on the argument, and experience seems to show that things don't get as messy and riled up when attacks are made on arguments as opposed to literally against people. Attacking a person tends to piss them off and get them to respond in kind and it blows up. Of course, things sometimes blow up relative to attacks on arguments too, as no rule is perfect. But, the bottom line is, if people refrain from personal attacks, the forum tends to run fairly smoothly and people can have some leeway to have some fun without stuff erupting into battles and personal grudges all the time.

If a "clear line" is what's wanted, why not just ban all attacks on Thursdays to Sundays, and allow them on Mondays to Wednesdays?

Because then the purpose of the rule in the first place would be frustrated. It would defeat its own purpose. The purpose of the rule, as noted above, is to facilitate serious discussion while still allowing some fun, and discouraging nonproductive namecalling, flaming, dogpiling and such. If you can still namecall, flame and dogpile attack people on Mondays and Wednesdays, then the fights and nonsense continues. It's also arguably worse, because the jerks who want to make personal attacks will stack them late on Wednesdays, leaving the person attacked to sit and stew on it from Thursday to Monday, when they will be ready with responsive attacks, proportional or otherwise.

Not all rules are equal. I.e. just because we have a rule doesn't mean that ANY rule is just as good. If rules are based on experience and reason, then some rules will be more reasonable (make more sense) and will work pragmatically better based on experience. This may change over time.

Of course, people attacking people on Mondays to Wednesdays would really be just a veiled form of attack on Thursdays to Sundays, but that veil would be an important one.

What would be the important benefit to having a no personal attacks rule on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, but an "everything is fair game" rule on Mondays and Tuesdays? When I said the veil was important, I explained why. So, you've made the assertion that the veil is important with your proposed rule, so now explain why. Why is it reasonable? Why does it make sense? What is the pragmatic benefit of it, if any?

And of course it would save moderators from endless debates over what is or is not an impermissible attack. At least the forum would be guaranteed to be calm for 4 days a week. Why not implement it? No rule is perfect.

Because it allows the conduct that reason and experience has told the folks who run this forum reduce the enjoyability of the forum overall, reduce the quality of discussion, and limit the fun that can be had overall, whereas allowing personal attacks on people adds nothing to serious conversations and sucks the fun out of most threads.

Your right, no rule is perfect. However, not all rules are equally good.

Absurd? Agreed.

Yes.

But to me this "attack the argument not the person" rule is just as daft.

Just as? Just as? You just used an extreme example to make a point -- one you felt I and probably most everyone would see as absurd. It's absurd because it is not rational, and it is unlikely that it would serve the same purposes that the no personal attack rule generally serves.

The reality is, your proposed "different rules on different days" rule is, indeed, absurd, whereas the rule I proposed is based on reason and experience. It is at least internally consistent, and consistent with a goal/objective of facilitating serious discussions while allowing as wide a scope of fun and other commentary as possible. Whereas personal attacks inhibit serious discussion, and limit fun (for most people).

The fact is, anybody can construct a personal attack just by changing the grammatical object of the expletive, the scatological epithet, the gendered slur. Does changing the grammar round a bit, while keeping the same essential words, really transform a personal attack into an impersonal one?

Yes, as this is a written word communication forum only, so the text is all important. If I say that your argument is shit, then that is characteristically different than calling you a piece of shit. Experience has shown that a member's reactions to each are generally different. Someone will respond to "your argument is shit" by asking why, or pointing out that no reasoned argument showing that the argument was shit has been provided, or some other similar response. However, a member who has been told he or she is a piece of shit is likely to respond by calling the namecaller other names in retaliation, and otherwise getting far more upset about it than if his argument was attacked. Also ,making a namecaller go through the work of reworking sentences to hide the personal attack is itself an exercise in tempering the attack -- a good number of people will think it over andreconsider whether the personal attack is necessary, and they will soften the approach a bit.

No of course it doesn't. But the rule sticks. It sticks on all atheistic forums I've known, in fact it sticks throughout most moderated forums on the internet. And to argue against it is like arguing against the virgin birth in the Roman Catholic Church. It is to blaspheme: to insult that which, as Dev said, is holy and sacred.

It doesn't seem that way here. People are openly discussing the rule, and nobody is being labeled a heretic or blashphemer or anything of the kind. You're not, for example, being treated poorly over it. And, if you really were in favor of allowing all personal attacks, what possible reason could you have for raising an objection to being called a heretic or blasphemer anyway?

Maybe the reason the rule "sticks" is that it makes sense.

There's a good reason for that. Both the virgin birth and the "attack the argument not the person" rule come from the same commitment to different types of dualism.

Well, no, the Virgin Birth is an article of faith, which is based neither on reason or experience. On this forum, the personal attack rule is based on reason (what makes rational sense in terms of the forum's goal, and the logical furtherance of those goals), and pragmatic experience (what works for the forum over time). The Virgin Birth is not supported by reason or pragmatic experience.

The virgin birth comes from the idea that there are two realms of reality: the realm of God and the realm of man, and the conception of Jesus was a rare moment of crossover between the two. Attack the argument not the person is based in the dualism of the physical versus the conceptual. The physical is real, so the argument goes, and the conceptual is abstract, and therefore not real. The physical can be hurt, the abstract cannot. Therefore an idea, which exists in the abstract world, cannot be hurt, and it is not possible to hurt a person just because you attack their idea.

The personal attack rule does not come from the notion of the physical being real and the conceptual abstract. The personal attack rule comes from pragmatic experience (an acknowledgment of the behavior and reactions of people in actual use of the forum, and the effect personal attacks have on discussion and enjoyment of the forum) and also a reasoned, balanced approach to rulemaking based on the furtherance of the forum's goals of expanding and facilitating discussion/fun while limiting as much as possible non-substantive and un-fun posts which detract from the forum's goals.

Concepts are real -- arguments are real -- as is the physical. These things are real. That doesn't make them the same thing, requiring equal treatment. We don't treat apples the same as oranges, even though they are both real.

If you agree with that construction, or if you at least think it's expedient, then the forum can work, of a fashion, like an old tram creeping along on approximately serviceable tracks. But what happened to the atheism? It sped away, on a much better vehicle. All that was left was a few old codgers farting loudly and spitting at each other on a crappy old tram, with some undistinguished moderators clumsily participating in the farce.

As stated above, I don't agree with that construction, which really doesn't make sense.

Good moderation actually does involve some work.

Who said it didn't? Good rules aid in moderation better than bad ones. Clear rules help moderators make decisions which are and appear to be fair.

Every disagreement on every forum has its own unique context. Some mental energy needs to be deployed making judgements about what actually happened.

Likewise, the more subjective judgments are involved in decisions as to what happened (who intended what, and who means what when they say what -- who is on the side of right, and who is the troll, etc.), the more room there is for disagreement. The more likely it becomes that one person will be permitted to say X, while another person will be punished for saying the exact same thing. When you have such disparate treatment for the same verbiage, based on a nuanced argument of someone's perceived "intent" and "posting history" and other complex factors, then experience shows that it breeds discontent and disharmony. It makes it look like some people get to do as they please, because their motives are pure, while others are held on a tight leash, because their motives have been judged impure. An extreme example to make that point is Atheism Plus, where their forum would allow the grossest forms of personal attacks, if the recipient was deemed a "tone troll" or someone who is "just asking questions" or someone who is otherwise not seriously on board with the goals and aims of Atheism Plus -- yet, even polite discourse from undesirables was punished. And, the moderators there thought it all made perfect sense in their own judgment, because they would say that clearly the rulebreaker's intent and motive were bad, and the posting history revealed their sin to be real.

Paradoxically, this might encourage more moderators to commit to a worthwhile job and raise the enthusaism levels of forum members.

Moderators work for free, and so it needs to be understood that they aren't going to be spending hours pouring over individual complaints to ferret out whether Exi5tentialist should be allowed to call Forty Two an asshole or not, based on context, intent, motive and posting history. And, when is it appropriate to call someone names? Is it ever?

Babyish rules are intellectually weak and inevitably invite hypocrisy.

Rules that lack clarity and are difficult to interpret invite inconsistent application, actual disparate treatment, and apparent disparate treatment. When a rule is based on factors such as intent and motive, and nuanced interpretation of posts, then it invites hypocritical and inconsistent judgments, where a moderator may see one "attack" as benign because the target of the attack is someone that is disliked, whereas the same verbiage would be considered worthy of prohibition because the target is liked.

I think pragmatic experience has shown that the potential for disparate treatment, and the bad feelings and endless arguments that ensue over such disparate treatment, is worse than going with a clear, bright line rule that is more easily followed and more easily enforced.

It's not just about the moderators -- it's about the members being on reasonable notice of what is prohibited and what is permitted. A member generally wants to know what they can and can't say, and they also want to have an expectation that they will not be more restricted than anyone else. They want equal treatment. Rules which are difficult to enforce and difficult to follow in advance of a complaint, invite disparate application of the rules which is generally considered unfair.

There has to be some sense of proportionality and that is ultimately a subjective judgement. Seth is a significant contributor who has invested a huge amount of time on this forum. Suspending him over trivialities is disproportionate, lazy and stupid.

He came back here a few days ago, and the first thing he did was call the moderator vulgar names and directed profanity at the moderator. This was after he had been suspended for similar conduct, and it was after he had been warned repeatedly. If he opposed something, he could easily tell, in advance, what he was not permitted to say -- he could have said "my suspension was total bullshit, and here's why it was total bullshit," and he could have explained his position. Coming back on and namecalling the moderators and others is something he knew full well was against the rules. There was no grey area -- no question he was in violation.

I want to know why he was so upset that he deliberately used the kind of language at the start of this discussion that was most likely to provoke the use of a stupid rule.

he could have explained that instead of namecalling, and he can explain that when his suspension is lifted. He's always been free to do so.

If possible I'd like some help understanding the background, and whether there is any way his upset can be assuaged.

The forum isn't really about assuaging the feelings of individual members. There would have been no problem at all had he just not resorted to a personal attack. He is well aware of the rules, having been on this forum for years. The forum gives far more leeway than most other discussion boards as to what is permissible, so the scope of what he's permitted to say is far broader here than, say, on Ratskep.

Ratskep does a lot of so-called "nuanced application" of rules. While they don't admit it, the result is that some members there get to say what they please, and launch attacks against others, whereas non-preferred members have to sit and take it and are not permitted to respond in kind. That's why so many people leave Ratskep with the view that Ratskep is unfair in its moderation.

This discussion would be better concentrating on that rather some silly old fart of a rule founded in idiocy.

That might be true, if anyone really cared why Seth's feelings got hurt. Not just Seth -- any member. Nobody really cares, or should care, why another member's feelings need to be assuaged. I mean, this is a discussion forum. Someone said something not against you personally, but against your argument, and your feelings are hurt and need assuaging? Your feelings are your business. What the forum is concerned about is what I noted above: (a) facilitating serious discussion as much as practical, and maximizing the fun we can all have here, while (b) limiting only those things, with rules narrowly tailored, that have the practical effect of inhibiting serious discussion and reducing the level of enjoyment for the members at-large. Your, mine, or Seth's "feelings" and whether they need to be "assuaged" are largely irrelevant. I mean, some people might care, but the forum rules aren't going to be geared toward assuaging individual member feelings. That would be impractical.

So if anyone can provide any background, and/or links, that explains Seth's outburst a bit I'd be really interested.

Maybe someone can. Certainly, you can click on his screen name and see his posts, in order. You can track back his conversation and see exactly what happened. But, really, calling someone names is against the rules, Seth knew that and knew it well, and he chose to proceed forward in making those personal attacks.

Heck, it may sound silly for a fancy restaurant to not want you to wear shorts to dinner there. But, if they post the rule, no short pants, and you insist on wearing short pants, nobody is really going to think you ill-treated when the restaurant asks you to leave unless you put on long pants. The rule may seem arbitrary to you, but the restaurant has found through experience that people dress nicer, creating a more enjoyable dining environment for everyone, when they require long pants. Sure, someone might wear some silly pants that are considered "long" and which may well be less attractive than a nice pair of shorts, but the restaurant has competing interests at play when making rules. They can't have the rule be too complicated or unclear, or people won't know what they're allowed to wear, and then the decision on whether shorts or pants comply with the rule is going to depend on the individual interpretation of the maitre D. So, when one person is kicked out for shorts, but another person is allowed in because the maitre d thinks the shorts are nicer than the guy's who was kicked out, there is going to be a customer who believes he was treated unfairly. At least if they're both kicked out for violation of a bright line rule, then they can't say they weren't warned and everyone was treated equivalently.

[rainbow]

Not all rules are equal.

Rulist!

[Brian Peacock]

I've wondered since I was invited here how long it would be before the liberal fascists took over this forum and started their leftist political pogrom against any speech or expression to the right of Josef Stalin.

Now I know.

Your suspensions have not been because of your political views, but because of your personal attacks on others.

You're a fucking liar. Howcum rEv and Feck have not been suspended for their repeated and despicable personal attacks? Because they are leftists, of course.

This includes generalised attacks such as referring to members of the forum as "liberal fascists". This is a warning that any similar post will incur a lengthy suspension.

Ipse dixit quod erat demonstrandum

Oh, and I wasn't referring to "members," I was referring specifically and explicitly to YOU, you liberal fascist fuck.

Now, where in the FUA is that section about "generalized attacks?" Oh, wait, that's in the RatSkep FUA, not the Ratz FUA, which means you're just making shit up now. And we all know exactly why you are doing so. Don't bother denying it. I also noted that nobody raised any objection to your high-handed, autocratic, liberal fascist abuse of your position as a moderator, which is an utter travesty that should be resolved by kicking your sorry ass right off of the forum. But hey, that's just my opinion. I'm sure the other liberal fascist fucks here will be celebrating soon. Fine by me.

So, you and the rest of the liberal fascist fucks on this site can all go fuck yourselves because this is no longer a forum worthy of my respect or participation, so you can deactivate my account permanently and bore yourselves to death in yet another liberal fascist echo chamber.

I'll find another venue to contribute to. It's your loss, not mine. I was spending way too much time trying to educate fuckwits like you anyway. It's a complete waste of time because you're simply too fucking stupid to understand anything other than the Marxist propaganda swirling around in your microcephalic Zika-infected brains.

But, it was fun up until now. How sad that nobody even bothered to object to your liberal fascism and abuse of power. Not at all unexpected, just sad.

Whoa! I just had massive deja-vu that I've said this before...oh, wait, I HAVE said it before....

You are what you write. You're not entitled to denigrate others just because your political views say it's ok - neither am I, or anyone else. Understanding this is all part of learning to be a grownup and getting on with others in a world that doesn't adhere or conform to our particular personal ideals.

This is a primarily a social venue, and an extremely laid back and tolerant one at that, and yet in that other members' personal, political, or moral credentials are neither measured, authorised, or endorsed according to your personal criteria - so when you say things like every member other than yourself is a raving bigot, or a liar, or a fascist, or a Marxist, or a religious fundamentalist, or a terrorist sympathiser, or an apologist for genocide, etc, on nothing but the self-declated basis that not sharing your views is evidence that you're right and they're wrong, then why would you ever expect other people to play along with such a self-defeating thesis?

I suspect you've never played well with others and always resented and blamed those others for it, so if you're going to flounce out do yourself and everyone else a favour and do it properly.

[Strontium Dog]

Maybe folk should strive to cut the personalisations out altogether, irrespective of whether they are technically within the rules or without. That's how I would always try to operate.

Yes, but you're ugly and your mother dresses you funny.

The blue spandex matches my eyes. All three of them. So there.

[Exi5tentialist]

Thanks Forty-Two that's a sterling defence of the "attack the idea, not the person" rule but it falls down on this:

The personal attack rule does not come from the notion of the physical being real and the conceptual abstract. The personal attack rule comes from pragmatic experience (an acknowledgment of the behavior and reactions of people in actual use of the forum, and the effect personal attacks have on discussion and enjoyment of the forum) and also a reasoned, balanced approach to rulemaking based on the furtherance of the forum's goals of expanding and facilitating discussion/fun while limiting as much as possible non-substantive and un-fun posts which detract from the forum's goals.

Basically that says it's justified by experience. Therefore it is subjective, which the rule itself fails to acknowledge because it presents itself as an objective rule based on grammar alone. That just feels like a big contradiction which opens itself up to terrible levels of inconsistency.

Also I am not in favour of allowing personal attacks, as implied. I am saying that looking after each other as people requires that we shouldn't give carte blanche to personal attacks being re-framed as attacks on "ideas". Foul language is still foul language even if it refers to an idea. And that can still hurt the person. People need to be reminded of this. The rule is not as simple as some people like to make out.

Seth's opening remarks in this thread look to me like an expression of unhappinness based on considerable anger. I've already tried looking up the thread using his username but it hasn't clarified much for me. I'll keep looking, but I think failing to acknowledge somebody's feelings of frustration and rage, and taking steps to try and find a way of helping them overcome that, is I think inhumane, mean and uncaring. It reminds me of religious and protestant models of the family where the subordinate members are told to keep their feelings to themselves and accept the authority of their betters.

I don't like it.

[Exi5tentialist]

Also

Concepts are real -- arguments are real -- as is the physical. These things are real. That doesn't make them the same thing, requiring equal treatment. We don't treat apples the same as oranges, even though they are both real.

Ok so if they are not the same thing, what exactly is it that makes them different? If they are both real, why does attacking one and not the other matter? What is it about a person that makes it different from an idea?

An extreme example to make that point is Atheism Plus, where their forum would allow the grossest forms of personal attacks, if the recipient was deemed a "tone troll" or someone who is "just asking questions" or someone who is otherwise not seriously on board with the goals and aims of Atheism Plus -- yet, even polite discourse from undesirables was punished. And, the moderators there thought it all made perfect sense in their own judgment, because they would say that clearly the rulebreaker's intent and motive were bad, and the posting history revealed their sin to be real.

See I don't think that was the problem with Atheism Plus. The reason why Atheism Plus failed is the same reason people feel aggrieved by Ratskep and Rationalia: pure authoritarianism. In my mind Atheism Plus is in the same category as all the others. Actually I understood their arguments about tone trolling although I disagreed with their JAQ analogy which I thought was just gratuitous indecency. It made sense up to the point where the few remaining moderators acquired disproportionate power over everyone else at the behest of a diminishing secret elite which was very exclusive and not open to a pluralism of ideas. It's just like a lot of other forums in that regard.

[pErvinalia]

Seth's opening remarks in this thread look to me like an expression of unhappinness based on considerable anger. I've already tried looking up the thread using his username but it hasn't clarified much for me. I'll keep looking, but I think failing to acknowledge somebody's feelings of frustration and rage, and taking steps to try and find a way of helping them overcome that, is I think inhumane, mean and uncaring.

That pretty much sums up Seth himself. So care factor = 0.

[Hermit]

Thanks Forty-Two that's a sterling defence of the "attack the idea, not the person" rule but it falls down on this:

The personal attack rule does not come from the notion of the physical being real and the conceptual abstract. The personal attack rule comes from pragmatic experience (an acknowledgment of the behavior and reactions of people in actual use of the forum, and the effect personal attacks have on discussion and enjoyment of the forum) and also a reasoned, balanced approach to rulemaking based on the furtherance of the forum's goals of expanding and facilitating discussion/fun while limiting as much as possible non-substantive and un-fun posts which detract from the forum's goals.

Basically that says it's justified by experience. Therefore it is subjective, which the rule itself fails to acknowledge because it presents itself as an objective rule based on grammar alone. That just feels like a big contradiction which opens itself up to terrible levels of inconsistency.

Also I am not in favour of allowing personal attacks, as implied. I am saying that looking after each other as people requires that we shouldn't give carte blanche to personal attacks being re-framed as attacks on "ideas". Foul language is still foul language even if it refers to an idea. And that can still hurt the person. People need to be reminded of this. The rule is not as simple as some people like to make out.

Seth's opening remarks in this thread look to me like an expression of unhappinness based on considerable anger. I've already tried looking up the thread using his username but it hasn't clarified much for me. I'll keep looking, but I think failing to acknowledge somebody's feelings of frustration and rage, and taking steps to try and find a way of helping them overcome that, is I think inhumane, mean and uncaring. It reminds me of religious and protestant models of the family where the subordinate members are told to keep their feelings to themselves and accept the authority of their betters.

I don't like it.

Justification on the ground of experience will just have to do until someone comes up a criterion by which we can justify something objectively. Good luck with finding it.

If people feel personally offended by ideas being mercilessly and uncharitably torn apart, it's their problem. It makes sense to me not to conflate a direct and brutal attack on an idea with a direct and brutal attack on my character. There are too many intelligent people honestly who entertain one totally screwy, obnoxious or even harmful idea or another to confuse the two. For instance, I love listening to Bill Maher. Not only are his satirical monologues very funny, they are also incisive and intelligent, except when it comes to his take on inoculation. I think he is profoundly mistaken to support the dangerous stance by the anti-vaccination movement. The fact that he nevertheless agrees with it does not make him a stupid, lying bastard in my eyes. I merely regard his support as mistaken.

Now to indirect personal attacks: It is one thing to describe, say, Marxism as the most pernicious and destructive idea ever and opine that it should be wiped from the face of the earth. Fine. It's altogether a different matter to at best call all Marxists and sympathisers of socialism, at best, useful idiots while accusing half the forum's members of being Marxists and sympathisers of socialism. Not at all fine.

On a vaguely related note I think accusing each other of either lying or being liars is also unacceptable behaviour in a discussion forum and should be stepped on in away which has regrettably not happened yet. Similarly, so are comments that someone is incapable of logic or reason. They all are aspersions on someone's character rather than the argument he/she advances.

[JimC]

Hermit wrote:

On a vaguely related note I think accusing each other of either lying or being liars is also unacceptable behaviour in a discussion forum and should be stepped on in away which has regrettably not happened yet. Similarly, so are comments that someone is incapable of logic or reason. They all are aspersions on someone's character rather than the argument he/she advances.

I agree that a bald "you lie" or "you are a liar" are in fact PAs, but ones that have not been penalised as yet. That could change...

Alternatives:

"Giving you the benefit of the doubt, you may be telling the truth as you see it, but..."

"The contents of your post are devoid of logic and reason"

(I should save that one as a script...)

[rainbow]

Maybe folk should strive to cut the personalisations out altogether, irrespective of whether they are technically within the rules or without. That's how I would always try to operate.

Yes, but you're ugly and your mother dresses you funny.

The blue spandex matches my eyes. All three of them. So there.

I must admit that it suits you.

...on the other hand anything would be an improvement.

[rainbow]

They all are aspersions on someone's character rather than the argument he/she advances.

Posters on this forum lack character, so where is the problem?

[Hermit]

They all are aspersions on someone's character rather than the argument he/she advances.

Posters on this forum lack character, so where is the problem?

The problem is that pointing out perceived or real "lack of character" is against Teh Rulez in this forum. If you don't like this simple fact? Go to forums like Talk Rational where there is no such rule.

[Brian Peacock]

It's not just a matter of teh rulz though Hermy - consistently defining people into some nominal group (Marxists, feminazis, fundamentalists, whatever) and then lambasting them on the basis of that presumed group-membership is a dishonest cheep shot no matter how it's phrased, classic ad-homming, and it amounts to a goodly portion of some member's discursive 'tactics', particularly when their ideas were backed up against the wall with their pants down.