Gravy
Downsitting Citizen
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2006
- Messages
- 17,078
I was motivated to write this post by several factors:
–After the podcast interview that Mercutio and I did, thinking again about the best way to approach these issues, and how to encourage debunkers to disengage from unproductive discussions.
–Seeing the virulent reactions of the local truther trolls to the thread about that podcast, and watching debunkers continue to engage with them long past the point where the truther inability or unwillingness to be rational is demonstrated.
–Turning down all interview requests related to the WTC 7 report and the 9/11 anniversary, and wondering, as I always do, if that's the right thing to do. These days I'm only interested in doing post-mortem examinations of the truth movement. Most media outlets are looking for current controversy or conflict. When does providing information outweigh giving attention to a dying movement of surpassing idiocy but successful methods? What control do I have over what is education and what is entertainment? In one case I initially accepted an invitation to be interviewed on a respected Toronto TV program on Sept. 9, then rejected it when it turned out they wanted a debate that merely dredged up long-debunked garbage: if flight 77 hit the Pentagon, cell phones, were the hijackers on the planes, etc. I turned down another interview request last week, for a TV documentary that's being produced for a channel known for its sensationalistic "reality" programming.
–Seeing debunkers here still spending time writing out the same arguments for the hundredth time, rather than pointing the truthers to the resources where their questions are answered in detail.
–Seeing the amount of time spent on threads that to me have little or no value, and that may distract from valuable discussions.
For most of this year I haven't thought much about truthers. Nearly all measurements (see one exception below) indicate that their movement has been moving backwards since it peaked in 2006. They certainly haven't moved a single step closer towards achieving their goal of a major new investigation, and we know they won't be conducting or funding a serious investigation themselves. A few additional indicators of the decline:
–Attendance at the big NYC Sept. 11 truther rally
2006: 1000+
2007: about 300
2008: 120-150 (truthers' estimates)
–Even after it was opened to discussion of all conspiracies, traffic at the largest 9/11 truther website has fallen drastically over the past year.
911blogger.com unique visits, Sept. 2007: 337,000
911blogger.com unique visits, Sept. 2008: 187,000
911blogger.com had fewer visits this September, the big month for truther attention, than in all but four other months in the past year. Overall, unique visits are down by 47% over last year.
–Steven E. Jones' craptastic Journal of 9/11 Stu
dies published 29 articles in 2007 and 6 to date in 2008. The "Scholars" websites get almost no traffic these days.
After it was obvious that the "truth" movement was in a tailspin through 2007, and after many of the most effective debunkers stopped or greatly reduced their posting here, I expected activity in this subforum to wane dramatically, despite growth in forum membership. Instead, activity here has increased. I've been wondering why that is, and what people are seeing when they do come here.
In part, I think the activity in this subforum is a testament to the success and reputation of the debunkers here. This has become the place on the internet to seek answers to many questions about 9/11. By far the largest conspiracy theory forum on the internet is abovetopsecret.com. It also has a 9/11 subforum. Here's how its activity compares with ours:
This is also a place where some truthers come to test their mettle against us. Who are they? When people are replying to a truther here, they are usually replying to one of ten people (I've omitted the WTC7 hole thread from the figures below, because most of the posts in it are old):
It would be the understatement of the year to call that an unimpressive bunch. If you've been regularly engaging with these folks, please switch on your mettle detector and ask yourself: "How much of my valuable time have they earned?"
Note that although there's been a lot of truther turnover since February, the number of truthers posting has increased (from 30 to 36). We may be seeing some rejects from other other forums, or orphans looking for a home after a favorite forum's 9/11 area has died.
In the summer of 2006, when 9/11 conspiracy theories were at their hottest, these were all the truther posters here: Christophera, brumsen, Childlike Empress, IronSnot, killtown, Mutton-Head, Submersible, Sal the Butcher, Sbrown, Sentinel (Paul Isaac Jr), Gordon Ross.
Only 52 threads, and most of them by people who are as capable of rational expression as my dish towel. Please ask yourself, "How much of my valuable time would I spend debating with Gravy's dish towel?"
The top ten non-truther posters here, based on the front page threads, post about as much as the top 10 truthers do. But more than 200 other non-truthers have joined in (not including people who posted only once):
By comparison, in June, 2006, when these issues were erupting hot and heavy, about 110 non-truthers posted more than once in the main 9/11 thread.
So, that's nearly twice the people participating as when these were hot issues, when many truther questions were new and in the process of being investigated and addressed.
In the summer of 2006, conspiracy theories – the hottest topic in the JREF forums – were given their own subforum.
By my count, 75% (119) of those 158 threads are about truther personalities or are "calling out" threads (directed to individuals or to "truthers" in general), asking questions that the thread starter likely knows will not receive rational answers.
I've considered the idea that it's important to report on everything the truthers do. But the majority of these threads consist of "Dumb truther did/said something dumb." That's not news. It's what we expect of them. And this isn't like the case of civil rights organizations that track underground hate groups. The truthers still clinging to their sinking ship are openly, proudly, stupid. We're not going to see a surprise resurgence of an underground truth movement. And since these people don't seem to have much shame, posting these things to shame them doesn't seem to make sense. I doubt that many of them are aware of these posts anyway.
Below, I've listed the most viewed threads that were started recently, then separated the threads that I think primarily present new information from those that I think were rehashing old arguments or were otherwise unnecessary. That's an arbitrary decision, and no doubt some people would disagree with my choices. For example, I omitted the CIT thread because, although the media attention they received was new, IMO these people are either in this for personal attention or are mentally ill (or both) and should not be rewarded with additional attention from us. You may have noticed how they and Pilots for Truth have repeatedly begged to be allowed back in here and begged us to join their forums. I included the thread about my podcast in the "necessary" group, because I do think its worthwhile to perform post-mortem examinations of these attempts at historical revisionism. I also think that thread perfectly supported the points we made in that interview. I reduced the number of views to what I imagine they might be if bickering with trolls was reduced to a minimum and the thread was allowed to slide off the first page more quickly.
The purpose of this exercise is to give a general sense of how much time is wasted on just a few threads that we could do without.
Example 1
On Oct. 2, roundhead, a recent member who as of this writing is serving his sixth suspension, started a thread titled "9/11 Photo that Kills Anti Science Debunkers." The OP consisted of a photo only, one we've all seen. When pressed to say something about the photo, to no one's surprise this was his entire basis of argument:
Example 2
Also on Oct. 2, Ultima1, an obsessive poster (95 per day at my last count) who is here because he was banned from ATS (that must take some doing), started the thread "NSA document flight 93 intercepted comming [sic] soon." The gist of the OP is that he's going to post some evidence that flight 93 was intercepted by the military – when he receives the evidence, that is.
To me, the proper response to such a claim is, "Okey-dokey, glad to look at it when you get it." What more is needed? What happened instead? 48 different people spent their time on this nonsense, resulting in a thread with 319 replies and 4,103 views to date. 67 of those replies came from Ultima1, in which he said, as far as I can tell, nothing.
Example 3
On October 3, Bobert started the thread "The only group NOT ACCUSED by truthers of being in on it!" The OP consists of a photo of dwarves in costumes. The first reply came from the prolific Ultima1: "Where has anyone accused anyone of "being in on it" ?"
38 different people rose to that ridiculous bait, resulting in 176 replies and 1,711 views. Most of the replies were in response to Ultima1's 37 posts.
That's 693 replies and 8,256 views for those three threads, as of October 7. Let's assume that each of those 8,256 visits lasts one minute (the average may be much more than that, and I'm counting replies as views). If it were your job to spend that much time with those threads, and you worked 8 hour days with no breaks at all except 45 minutes for lunch, 5 days a week, you'd finally be done with those three threads at the end of your fourth week.
Example 4
The most popular thread here has been Christophera's "Realistice" thread, which continued for about eight months after he made clear his history of mental illness: 11,132 posts and 272,154 visits. If you were assigned to spend that much time with that thread, the full-time job would take at least 2.5 years, and perhaps 5 or 10 years or more: I don't know how long the average visit lasts. Not our finest hour.
Put another way, Christophera's one delusional thread received almost as many visits as all 89 of my threads, and three-and-a-half times more than all of R.Mackey's. (I'm not suggesting that all of my threads are worth reading: they aren't. But all of R.Mackey's are. And people can certainly view Christophera's threads as well as ours, if they've got the time. But keeping a useless thread alive, with lots of replies indicated, ensures that people will pointlessly spend time on it.)
–In recent months, 50% of the threads in the "Abandon All Hope" dustbin have come from the 9/11 Conspiracies subforum alone. A year ago it was 37%. In the summer and fall of 2006 it was 23%.
–In the past three months, 38% of forum suspensions or bannings have come from this subforum (It could be a bit more or less: I don't know if pomeroo's suspensions resulted from his posts in politics or here.)
First, let me make it clear that I greatly admire the contributions of dozens and dozens of rationalists who have taken the time to shed light on the events of 9/11 here. If I've enumerated any sins in this post, I confess to being guilty of them all, as well as to often not following the recommendations I make below. I'm not interested in being an internet sheriff, and I don't think 9/11 discussions should be constrained to certain topics or types of threads. Also, I know that some debunkers do this for entertainment, and it's not my place to ask them to stop (but I wish they would).
That said, I do think this forum would greatly benefit if many people showed better judgment in who they engage with and what they post about. That would have the positive side effect of allowing the more educational threads to stand out from what is now a sea of noise, redundancy, and bickering. Since this subforum isn't arranged by topic, these days if a new visitor finds what he or she came here to seek, it's probably by accident. Let's not add to the clutter.
I've seen the argument that it's good to keep truthers occupied here: they may learn something, lurkers get to see their deliberate ignorance, and otherwise they might be spreading that ignorance elsewhere. I think that's only true if truthers and skeptics are engaged in productive discussions. More often than not, that's not the case. This isn't a babysitting service, and since truther activity has drastically declined outside of this forum, I think there is little chance that these few trolls will successfully spread their nonsense to the general public. They're not the ones making videos, running websites, and writing books.
Tonight I received a PM from a forum member that began, "Gravy, there's no evidence that a bunch of Al Qaeda dwelling from [sic] caves in Afghanistan managed to outsmart the strongest defense system in the world." It got worse from there. I let him know that they didn't live in caves and told him the answers to his questions could be found at my website. He replied with another PM, asking for sources for statements I'd made about William Rodriguez in the podcast thread. He'd somehow missed my links to my Rodrigez paper in those posts. I again referred him to my site and told him I welcomed any constructive criticism after he'd done his homework. Done.
Thanks for reading. Your comments are most welcome.
Mark
...
–After the podcast interview that Mercutio and I did, thinking again about the best way to approach these issues, and how to encourage debunkers to disengage from unproductive discussions.
–Seeing the virulent reactions of the local truther trolls to the thread about that podcast, and watching debunkers continue to engage with them long past the point where the truther inability or unwillingness to be rational is demonstrated.
–Turning down all interview requests related to the WTC 7 report and the 9/11 anniversary, and wondering, as I always do, if that's the right thing to do. These days I'm only interested in doing post-mortem examinations of the truth movement. Most media outlets are looking for current controversy or conflict. When does providing information outweigh giving attention to a dying movement of surpassing idiocy but successful methods? What control do I have over what is education and what is entertainment? In one case I initially accepted an invitation to be interviewed on a respected Toronto TV program on Sept. 9, then rejected it when it turned out they wanted a debate that merely dredged up long-debunked garbage: if flight 77 hit the Pentagon, cell phones, were the hijackers on the planes, etc. I turned down another interview request last week, for a TV documentary that's being produced for a channel known for its sensationalistic "reality" programming.
–Seeing debunkers here still spending time writing out the same arguments for the hundredth time, rather than pointing the truthers to the resources where their questions are answered in detail.
–Seeing the amount of time spent on threads that to me have little or no value, and that may distract from valuable discussions.
The decline of the 9/11 "truth" movement
For most of this year I haven't thought much about truthers. Nearly all measurements (see one exception below) indicate that their movement has been moving backwards since it peaked in 2006. They certainly haven't moved a single step closer towards achieving their goal of a major new investigation, and we know they won't be conducting or funding a serious investigation themselves. A few additional indicators of the decline:
–Attendance at the big NYC Sept. 11 truther rally
2006: 1000+
2007: about 300
2008: 120-150 (truthers' estimates)
–Even after it was opened to discussion of all conspiracies, traffic at the largest 9/11 truther website has fallen drastically over the past year.
911blogger.com unique visits, Sept. 2007: 337,000
911blogger.com unique visits, Sept. 2008: 187,000
911blogger.com had fewer visits this September, the big month for truther attention, than in all but four other months in the past year. Overall, unique visits are down by 47% over last year.
–Steven E. Jones' craptastic Journal of 9/11 Stu
dies published 29 articles in 2007 and 6 to date in 2008. The "Scholars" websites get almost no traffic these days.But in one place on the internet, it's still 2006 for the "truth" movement
Last week I saw the JREF forum "tag cloud" for the first time:
After it was obvious that the "truth" movement was in a tailspin through 2007, and after many of the most effective debunkers stopped or greatly reduced their posting here, I expected activity in this subforum to wane dramatically, despite growth in forum membership. Instead, activity here has increased. I've been wondering why that is, and what people are seeing when they do come here.
In part, I think the activity in this subforum is a testament to the success and reputation of the debunkers here. This has become the place on the internet to seek answers to many questions about 9/11. By far the largest conspiracy theory forum on the internet is abovetopsecret.com. It also has a 9/11 subforum. Here's how its activity compares with ours:
Who are the truthers posting here?
This is also a place where some truthers come to test their mettle against us. Who are they? When people are replying to a truther here, they are usually replying to one of ten people (I've omitted the WTC7 hole thread from the figures below, because most of the posts in it are old):
It would be the understatement of the year to call that an unimpressive bunch. If you've been regularly engaging with these folks, please switch on your mettle detector and ask yourself: "How much of my valuable time have they earned?"
Note that although there's been a lot of truther turnover since February, the number of truthers posting has increased (from 30 to 36). We may be seeing some rejects from other other forums, or orphans looking for a home after a favorite forum's 9/11 area has died.
In the summer of 2006, when 9/11 conspiracy theories were at their hottest, these were all the truther posters here: Christophera, brumsen, Childlike Empress, IronSnot, killtown, Mutton-Head, Submersible, Sal the Butcher, Sbrown, Sentinel (Paul Isaac Jr), Gordon Ross.
What truthers are starting threads?
Only 52 threads, and most of them by people who are as capable of rational expression as my dish towel. Please ask yourself, "How much of my valuable time would I spend debating with Gravy's dish towel?"
Who are the non-truthers posting here?
The top ten non-truther posters here, based on the front page threads, post about as much as the top 10 truthers do. But more than 200 other non-truthers have joined in (not including people who posted only once):
By comparison, in June, 2006, when these issues were erupting hot and heavy, about 110 non-truthers posted more than once in the main 9/11 thread.
So, that's nearly twice the people participating as when these were hot issues, when many truther questions were new and in the process of being investigated and addressed.
In the summer of 2006, conspiracy theories – the hottest topic in the JREF forums – were given their own subforum.
New 9/11 threads started
August 2006: 136
August 2008: 175
What types of threads are the non-truthers starting?
August 2006: 136
August 2008: 175
What types of threads are the non-truthers starting?
By my count, 75% (119) of those 158 threads are about truther personalities or are "calling out" threads (directed to individuals or to "truthers" in general), asking questions that the thread starter likely knows will not receive rational answers.
I've considered the idea that it's important to report on everything the truthers do. But the majority of these threads consist of "Dumb truther did/said something dumb." That's not news. It's what we expect of them. And this isn't like the case of civil rights organizations that track underground hate groups. The truthers still clinging to their sinking ship are openly, proudly, stupid. We're not going to see a surprise resurgence of an underground truth movement. And since these people don't seem to have much shame, posting these things to shame them doesn't seem to make sense. I doubt that many of them are aware of these posts anyway.
In contrast, this list.
(Please don't give me grief if you're not on it.
I made this after a quick perusal of the recent posters.)
(Please don't give me grief if you're not on it.
I made this after a quick perusal of the recent posters.)
And FWIW, threads started by a range of posters, along with their overall posts-to-threads started ratio:
Below, I've listed the most viewed threads that were started recently, then separated the threads that I think primarily present new information from those that I think were rehashing old arguments or were otherwise unnecessary. That's an arbitrary decision, and no doubt some people would disagree with my choices. For example, I omitted the CIT thread because, although the media attention they received was new, IMO these people are either in this for personal attention or are mentally ill (or both) and should not be rewarded with additional attention from us. You may have noticed how they and Pilots for Truth have repeatedly begged to be allowed back in here and begged us to join their forums. I included the thread about my podcast in the "necessary" group, because I do think its worthwhile to perform post-mortem examinations of these attempts at historical revisionism. I also think that thread perfectly supported the points we made in that interview. I reduced the number of views to what I imagine they might be if bickering with trolls was reduced to a minimum and the thread was allowed to slide off the first page more quickly.
The purpose of this exercise is to give a general sense of how much time is wasted on just a few threads that we could do without.
It's come to this?
Example 1
On Oct. 2, roundhead, a recent member who as of this writing is serving his sixth suspension, started a thread titled "9/11 Photo that Kills Anti Science Debunkers." The OP consisted of a photo only, one we've all seen. When pressed to say something about the photo, to no one's surprise this was his entire basis of argument:
Yet 53 different people thought this troll's post was worth spending time on, resulting in 198 replies and 2,712 views to date.
Example 2
Also on Oct. 2, Ultima1, an obsessive poster (95 per day at my last count) who is here because he was banned from ATS (that must take some doing), started the thread "NSA document flight 93 intercepted comming [sic] soon." The gist of the OP is that he's going to post some evidence that flight 93 was intercepted by the military – when he receives the evidence, that is.
To me, the proper response to such a claim is, "Okey-dokey, glad to look at it when you get it." What more is needed? What happened instead? 48 different people spent their time on this nonsense, resulting in a thread with 319 replies and 4,103 views to date. 67 of those replies came from Ultima1, in which he said, as far as I can tell, nothing.
Example 3
On October 3, Bobert started the thread "The only group NOT ACCUSED by truthers of being in on it!" The OP consists of a photo of dwarves in costumes. The first reply came from the prolific Ultima1: "Where has anyone accused anyone of "being in on it" ?"
38 different people rose to that ridiculous bait, resulting in 176 replies and 1,711 views. Most of the replies were in response to Ultima1's 37 posts.
That's 693 replies and 8,256 views for those three threads, as of October 7. Let's assume that each of those 8,256 visits lasts one minute (the average may be much more than that, and I'm counting replies as views). If it were your job to spend that much time with those threads, and you worked 8 hour days with no breaks at all except 45 minutes for lunch, 5 days a week, you'd finally be done with those three threads at the end of your fourth week.
Example 4
The most popular thread here has been Christophera's "Realistice" thread, which continued for about eight months after he made clear his history of mental illness: 11,132 posts and 272,154 visits. If you were assigned to spend that much time with that thread, the full-time job would take at least 2.5 years, and perhaps 5 or 10 years or more: I don't know how long the average visit lasts. Not our finest hour.
Put another way, Christophera's one delusional thread received almost as many visits as all 89 of my threads, and three-and-a-half times more than all of R.Mackey's. (I'm not suggesting that all of my threads are worth reading: they aren't. But all of R.Mackey's are. And people can certainly view Christophera's threads as well as ours, if they've got the time. But keeping a useless thread alive, with lots of replies indicated, ensures that people will pointlessly spend time on it.)
Please keep this in mind
Hundreds of people are spending thousands of hours on needless 9/11 threads here. And once those threads fall off the front page, few people will ever see them again.
The level of discourse
–In recent months, 50% of the threads in the "Abandon All Hope" dustbin have come from the 9/11 Conspiracies subforum alone. A year ago it was 37%. In the summer and fall of 2006 it was 23%.
–In the past three months, 38% of forum suspensions or bannings have come from this subforum (It could be a bit more or less: I don't know if pomeroo's suspensions resulted from his posts in politics or here.)
Conclusions and suggestions
First, let me make it clear that I greatly admire the contributions of dozens and dozens of rationalists who have taken the time to shed light on the events of 9/11 here. If I've enumerated any sins in this post, I confess to being guilty of them all, as well as to often not following the recommendations I make below. I'm not interested in being an internet sheriff, and I don't think 9/11 discussions should be constrained to certain topics or types of threads. Also, I know that some debunkers do this for entertainment, and it's not my place to ask them to stop (but I wish they would).
That said, I do think this forum would greatly benefit if many people showed better judgment in who they engage with and what they post about. That would have the positive side effect of allowing the more educational threads to stand out from what is now a sea of noise, redundancy, and bickering. Since this subforum isn't arranged by topic, these days if a new visitor finds what he or she came here to seek, it's probably by accident. Let's not add to the clutter.
I've seen the argument that it's good to keep truthers occupied here: they may learn something, lurkers get to see their deliberate ignorance, and otherwise they might be spreading that ignorance elsewhere. I think that's only true if truthers and skeptics are engaged in productive discussions. More often than not, that's not the case. This isn't a babysitting service, and since truther activity has drastically declined outside of this forum, I think there is little chance that these few trolls will successfully spread their nonsense to the general public. They're not the ones making videos, running websites, and writing books.
Take a break.
Truthers have presented exactly nothing to support their claims. Remember that, take pride in the fact that we've both helped accelerate their decline and helped educate countless people about 9/11, and enjoy some time away from this subforum. Between April, 2006 and February, 2008 I rarely missed a day posting here. When I returned after taking a few days off, I was fairly shocked by what I'd been choosing to participate in, and ended my participation a few days later. I don't miss it at all.
Keep the big picture in mind.
See the first sentence of my previous suggestion. Do the truthers bring anything worth debating?
You're not a fish, so don't rise to bait.
The only one who benefits from engaging with a troll is the troll. If you think it will be a helpful reminder, download my Truther Response Flow Chart (link below) and post it next to your monitor. That's not meant to sound condescending. I wish I'd done it for myself in 2006. The chart also has links to several debunking sites as a reminder not to rehash issues that are effectively dealt with elsewhere. It's so easy to get caught up with hammering away and forget that the barn is already built.
Enter Admiral Stockdale mode (circa 1992)
Stockdale's opening questions during the 1992 Vice Presidential debate were humorous and entirely appropriate. What was he doing there? Before starting a thread or post, ask yourself, "What is my goal here? Am I more likely to be helping extinguish this conspiracy theory or will I be prolonging it by adding fuel? Do I have something essential to add to this discussion? Is it necessary to give this truther attention? Am I enabling the negative behavior of an ineducable person? Am I asking questions that have already been answered or that I know won't be answered?"
Message from the Department of Redundancy Department: use the great resources at your disposal
Why take the time to make the same argument to a truther for the hundredth time if the issue has been dealt with effectively and that discussion/paper/video is readily available? You've done your homework. In fact – and please don't forget this – you've done their homework also. The least they can do is read it. It's still 2006 for the truth movement here. Let's make it 2008.
Tonight I received a PM from a forum member that began, "Gravy, there's no evidence that a bunch of Al Qaeda dwelling from [sic] caves in Afghanistan managed to outsmart the strongest defense system in the world." It got worse from there. I let him know that they didn't live in caves and told him the answers to his questions could be found at my website. He replied with another PM, asking for sources for statements I'd made about William Rodriguez in the podcast thread. He'd somehow missed my links to my Rodrigez paper in those posts. I again referred him to my site and told him I welcomed any constructive criticism after he'd done his homework. Done.
Set a positive example
If it's your intention to "argue for the lurkers," be conscious to set a positive example. Endless bickering over the same points with the same people isn't educational for anyone. Whenever I let my temper or sarcasm get the best of me, which is often, I try to remind myself that it's happening out of frustration that I'm not as capable as people like Myriad, Dave Rogers, R.Mackey and others who let the facts and logic, not their emotions, do the talking.
Walk away...
We often can't think of any way to reach a truther. Those cases are usually quickly apparent. And as the remaining truthers become more entrenched in their beliefs, they're only going to be harder to reach. Discontinuing a debate that's going nowhere neither invalidates your arguments nor is evidence that 9/11 was an inside job.
...to the beach
You've earned it!
You've earned it!
Thanks for reading. Your comments are most welcome.
Mark
...
