Consumer Reports for the Paranormal

CFLarsen said:
I am putting myself out there, for you to attack, for you to destroy.


You're so brave...except when shanek tried to talk with you in person.

Why would I want to "attack" and "destroy" anybody?


I am inviting you, nay, challenging you to debate me at TAM4.


That's cute.

Perhaps you could you tell me what the point is of taking a bully seriously? I haven't figured that one out since grade school.


I know I will be at TAM4. Question is, will you?


No. I will not be.


Will you be there, Justin?


No. I will not be.


Can you face the music in a place where you cannot run away?


Why couldn't I run away?


Or will you run to Momma, crying "bully"? Yeah, it seems like it.

I won't hesitate to call you a bully when you act like one, as you are doing right now.

If you don't like it, don't act like one.
 
jzs said:
Perhaps you could you tell me what the point is of taking a bully seriously? I haven't figured that one out since grade school.

But...if you don't want to take bullies seriously by debating them in public, why would you want to do it here?

Because you can run away when it suits you?

jzs said:
No. I will not be.

Why not? Are you afraid?

jzs said:
Why couldn't I run away?

Well, technically, you could run away. However, it wouldn't look good, would it? Imagine that you and I were debating, and you would suddenly run away.

Nah. For one, there wouldn't be a Momma you could run to.

jzs said:
I won't hesitate to call you a bully when you act like one, as you are doing right now.

If you don't like it, don't act like one.

I can live with that, mainly because I understand why you refer to anyone who challenge you as a "bully".

Meet me at TAM4. Come on. Debate with me there. Not here, where you can run away whenever you feel like it. Face me.
 
To be fair, Claus, I don't think jzs' absence from TAM4 is evidence of anything, nor do I think construing it as such benefits your argument.

I, too, will most probably not be there, but it would be unfair for anyone to suggest either that I am staying away out of fear or that I could change my plans simply because someone wanted to debate me in person.

---

Slightly modified, though, I think the argument could be fairly applied to a failure to answer questions.
 
Garrette said:
To be fair, Claus, I don't think jzs' absence from TAM4 is evidence of anything, nor do I think construing it as such benefits your argument.

I, too, will most probably not be there, but it would be unfair for anyone to suggest either that I am staying away out of fear or that I could change my plans simply because someone wanted to debate me in person.

---

Slightly modified, though, I think the argument could be fairly applied to a failure to answer questions.

I have no problems extending my challenge to anytime I will be in the US.

Or, anytime jzs will be anywhere near Denmark.

He knows when and where I will be in the US. He is free to debate me there. Or anywhere I am, at any time.

The point is that he will not be able to slink away, like he always does here.
 
CFLarsen said:
But...if you don't want to take bullies seriously by debating them in public, why would you want to do it here?


What makes you think I take them seriously?


Because you can run away when it suits you?


as you did from shanek..?


Why not? Are you afraid?


As pointed out, your argument has fallacies.

Besides being a personal attack, me not being there is not evidence of anything. Will you be in my location come that time? Oooh, maybe that is evidence of you being afraid? :rolleyes: That is how juvenile your argument is.


Well, technically, you could run away. However, it wouldn't look good, would it?


Your bullying and posturing, on the other hand, looks spectacular. I don't think it will convince people of your claim that 'only evidence counts', nor convert many people to your cause. :)


Meet me at TAM4. Come on. Debate with me there. Not here, where you can run away whenever you feel like it. Face me.

You must enjoy bickering, as I've already answered that I won't be there, nor will I take your bullying as anything but unintelligent, desperate, posturing, from someone who is obviously intimidated.
 
CFLarsen said:

He knows when and where I will be in the US.


Umm no.

I have no idea when and where you will be in the US. :rolleyes:


The point is that he will not be able to slink away, like he always does here.

Like you did with shanek? Oops, forgot; another thing you refuse to talk about!

Ok, you're now officially a 'creationist' and I'm in 'Dawkins' mode.
 
Ok, first things first, Darat, a place here would be great. Anyone second this motion?


Next, CFLarsen: *sigh* ok...we know jzs is being rude at best and nonproductive at least. Quit feeding him. Talk about the subject at hand. Darat has an idea that can be useful, let's at least stay on topic. This is as bad as feeding Kumar or Jambo. Ad Homs on any side of the fence kill constructive debate. So, shall we move on? (If it helps we can just all agree that you're right...)

Garrette,
Good points, all. I wish jzs would address them, but let's not hold our breath, shall we? Darat had a good idea, and I would hate to see such an opportunity be lost in the shuffle. Have you noticed how interest from other posters has fallen? This is a bad thing. But it can be changed. I have hope that it is not too late.

Any takers?
 
I'd love to see the thread get back on track.


Re: the section of the forum where people can post reports, what mechanism can be put in place to stop the 'I predicted the capture of Bin Laden' or the 'They killed Terri!!', or the 'I'll kill a sky marshall' stuff that already floods the forum?
 
Hmm. I hadn't thought of that..
Perhaps a special registration is needed? I was on another thread that had a riddle that required a maturity test to read. Maybe we need something like that. No one who isn't serious about such things could post. Is this even possible, Darat? I'm asking you as you seem to be the person to ask.
 
A suggestion: both the The Fortean Times and The Anomalist have a news section on their front page, consisting of links to recent relevant media pieces. The FT one also has a form so that readers can provide their own links. No idea how easy it would be to set that up.

However, in addition, The Fortean Times messageboard has a subforum devoted entirely to Fortean news stories. It would presumably be fairly straightforward to set up a subforum for 'bad psychic' (or whatever) news stories here. No, it's not the same as an archive of physically scanned clippings or saved webpages, but it's better than nothing (and is less likely to present copyright problems), and would prevent stuff getting lost (e.g. the "Where's the Harm?" thread, which is probably languishing somewhere on page 32 of this forum). A subforum, rather than one large thread would also be easier to navigate and cross-reference.

To make it work, all it requires is a locked sticky thread setting out the purpose of the subforum at the top and a bit of extra moderation to remove inappropriate threads, and perhaps to merge similar stories into existing threads. No need for riddles or extra registration.
 
Ahh. I am relatively new to forums. This is the first I've ever been on, so I posed the question to the Admin. But if it can be done the way you say, then it would be good...Hrm...It would have to be heavily moderated by someone fair and dedicated. But I'm sure we could find a volunteer.....
 
Early morning, not quite awake suggestion. The code that runs this site, www.slashdot.org, is open source, meaning you can download it and it's free. I rather like the sites forum comment rating system. Would be interesting to make a site that tracked science, psuedo-sciene, and was a collection site for this kind of news. Like slashdot or fark do.

We don't really have a site that collects all the various skeptic site updates. At least I haven't seen one.
 
I'm quite limited what I can offer with the current software (however when we do and we will!) upgrade I have some modifications ready that will make this type of idea very workable and look quite nice.

There are a couple of ways we can keep a new area "clean", one is by forcing every post or thread to be Moderated before it is posted or simply enforce a much stricter rule of "on topic only" moderation of any posts or threads made, with simple deletion of any post or thread not entirely "on topic". Since it wouldn’t be meant to be a discussion section of the forum I don’t think this is a problem?

If anyone is interested in exploring this further can I suggest discussing it in Forum Management so we can have a serious discussion and leave the Members who aren’t interested in supporting and improving the forum to argue amongst themselves here?
 
Darat,

I, too, think a moderated thread (or somesuch) on this topic is a good idea. Thanks.


jzs,

Since I think such a thread would not be the appropriate place for the answers, will you please provide answers to my questions in this thread?

Thanks in advance.
 

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