Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Well, I went and checked out the idiots' forum and I was quite impressed. While most threads only have a few responses some have almost 85! :jaw-dropp

Considering it was the Politics and Current Events forum, and the Idiots cover the same current events the JREF does, I think the JREF has some stiff competition. How many threads in the current events section here get 50 responses never mind the heady 84 I saw in one thread there?

It's only a matter of time JREF... a matter of time.
 
Badger3k said:
As for the posting history, again I have to ask why I should care? I know nobody here in real life, and nobody here is more than an anonymous commenter.
Click to expand...

Good for you.

There are a large number of us who:
Have met each other in person.
Live close to each other and hang out periodically.
Attend local meetups together.
Chat frequently.
Share aspects of our lives in the Community subforum.
Know other members, even if we haven't met them, well enough to help each other out sometimes.

To you, everyone here is just pixels on a screen.
To many of us, we are individual and known personalities.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
To you, everyone here is just pixels on a screen.
To many of us, we are individual and known personalities.
Click to expand...

I have never met anyone who posts here, and it's very unlikely that I ever will. However, I try to remember that none of these posts are auto-generated - not even PixyMisa. There's a person behind all of them, and in most cases this forum is a very small part of their life. At least, I hope so.

There are people who've done harm to me in my life, and I have a degree of ill-will towards them. I don't feel this way towards people who have said mean things to me on the Internet. Feeling that way is to lose proportion. It's a symptom of the A+ problem, not a solution to it.
 
Mr. Scott said:
I've noticed moderation here has to do with following specific rules of conduct. Dissent from the JREF pary line has never been cause for banning. JREFers enjoy their unskeptical chew toys! A+ moderators seem to rely on their sixth sense that a participant is not on their side.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Over there, it's not enough for them to ban you. They have to take a parting shot in their banned list. They seem quite proud of it. I personally know a few people on that list and they have never been trolls - they just made the mistake of getting on the bad side of the staff over there. I'm an admin on a fairly small forum that is over three and a half years old and we've banned only one person. Heck, even when I was on staff at the old Richard Dawkins' forum, we didn't ban that many people in a year (unless you count spammers).

It also doesn't sit well with me that staff over there seems to act unilaterally on things like suspensions and bans. Personal feelings are allowed to override the rules. It's no way to run a forum.
 
Sciwoman said:
...Over there, it's not enough for them to ban you. They have to take a parting shot in their banned list. They seem quite proud of it....Personal feelings are allowed to override the rules. It's no way to run a forum.
Click to expand...

Rank amateurs.
 
carlitos said:
I didn't know what westprog was talking about with "parting shots," so I found their banned users list. Unbelievable. Trolling as moderation.
Click to expand...

The next thing you know they will be recording themselves talking into video cameras and posting the results on the internet for the world to see, if you can imagine something as strange at that happening. Is there no end to this madness? ;)
 
Last edited:
AlBell said:
If MRA has been previously defined I missed it. Any help on meaning, please?
Click to expand...

It refers to "Men's Rights Activists" and is used to dismiss without reason anyone who cares to make any statement at all in favour of men, for example commenting on the disparity in custody awards or a man's lack of influence in the abortion issue.

A lot of MRA stuff is whining, plain and simple. Which is fine, dismiss the whining. But sometimes you'll have genuine grievances (such as the aforementioned custody issue where by and large the mothers are automatically granted custody) and these too are summarily dismissed as being unimportant because "teh menz" have "privilege".

It's one more problem that comes from a black and white view of the world through the lense of a single issue.
 
carlitos said:
I didn't know what westprog was talking about with "parting shots," so I found their banned users list. Unbelievable. Trolling as moderation.
Click to expand...

Can you imagine being in a situation where people like that had power over you? Having one of them as a supervisor, say? Or a judge in some legal dispute?

They have it pretty well sewn up now. Speaking out against the immoderators means expulsion - so people either leave or bow the knee. Less and less dissent, more and more self-congratulation.
 
carlitos said:
I didn't know what westprog was talking about with "parting shots," so I found their banned users list. Unbelievable. Trolling as moderation.
Click to expand...

Yeah I took a look at this, one of them that was particularly interesting was this:

"Dude of Hagith: Insisted on sharing his supposed wisdom about rape and rape statistics. He was told to do some background reading first, but doubled-down instead."

He (or she) committed the cardinal sin of using statistics to demonstrate that Schrodinger's Rapist is a poor analogy. Never question the Matriarchy.
 
squealpiggy said:
Yeah I took a look at this, one of them that was particularly interesting was this:

"Dude of Hagith: Insisted on sharing his supposed wisdom about rape and rape statistics. He was told to do some background reading first, but doubled-down instead."

He (or she) committed the cardinal sin of using statistics to demonstrate that Schrodinger's Rapist is a poor analogy. Never question the Matriarchy.
Click to expand...

I found this one quite telling:

"empathnegative: Self described dissident who bravely claimed that A+ put emotion before reason."

I guess, "Called us on our BS," was too succinct.
 
carlitos said:
I didn't know what westprog was talking about with "parting shots," so I found their banned users list. Unbelievable. Trolling as moderation.
Click to expand...

This is both education and entertaining. Highly recommended reading! You know, I always want to read the "post that got him/her banned," but these summaries are great.

Reasons for banning include being creepy, violating Wheaton's Law*, whining, sharing "supposed" wisdom, make "gotcha" arguments, and bad-faith argumentation.

Their treatment of CFLarsen (Mr. "Evidence?" who used to post here) is fascinating and utterly unjustifiable.

*Wheaton's Law is blatantly sexist, as bad as banning a woman for being a c***. (I'm sure that's been womansplained away)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom