A fucking men!
Perceptions of sciforums moderation
- Thread starter James R
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A fucking men!
I guess the poster's own idea about what a moderator is like, as a person?
not tonight honey, i'm on the rag.
or the age old standby i've got a headache.
I mentioned this before in other threads about moderation on Sciforums. If you want consistancy, then by all means we can turn the language filter on. This means everytime you say a word thats entered into it, you'll get a load of asterixes (or what ever other characters are used) to come up.
The problem is though that people like to make out they are old enough to swear with reckless abandon and don't wan to have an automated censor, yet they complain if certain words aren't censored.
This is the problem, not so much the moderation but the fact that everyone wants it their way and aren't willing to make any compromises. We just get the complaints when it's not ruled in their favour.
The same way that implying all muslims are terrorists isn't hate speech.
Sure. It's not like we really have anything else to go by.
I think the best way to avoid bias is to try to put yourself in the shoes of others. That is, even if you don't agree with someone, try to understand why they disagree with you. Asking questions of the person can help. On some subjects, however, this isn't always possible, atleast not here.
Bah, best cure for a headache is good sex. It's the worst excuse on the planet imho. As for the other, it also helps in other ways to make but has an "ew" factor for most people.
yeah, never been with a guy who earned his red wings
This doesn't really do away with bias, but it can do away with your own opinion.
I agree that bias is hard to eliminate in general; however, the above approach doesn't have to do away with your opinion and I think that by attempting to see why people disagree with one's point of view, one is furthering one's chances of eliminating bias. As Aristotle once said: "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
There are some ideas that I personally don't even like to entertain; creationism generally falls under this heading. However, even with this one, another rule does apply; a friend of Voltaire's, as an epitome of his attitude, wrote:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
There are caveats to be sure, but I think that those are fairly good general rules.
Ever hear of rainbow kisses.
Why would you want to eliminate bias?
To truly eliminate bias, you would first need to be willing to give up any opinion, stance or view that you have.
I believe that we should define bias. From wikipedia:
Bias is a term used to describe a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result, especially when the tendency interferes with the ability to be impartial, unprejudiced, or objective.
Clearly, what we are looking for is to be 'impatial, unprejudiced, or objective'. It has been argued that objectivity may not be possible, true. However, I believe that the best way of being as objective as possible, is to follow the scientific method. From wikipedia's entry on objectivity (science):
"[A]n objective account is one which attempts to capture the nature of the object studied in a way that does not depend on any features of the particular subject who studies it. An objective account is, in this sense, impartial, one which could ideally be accepted by any subject, because it does not draw on any assumptions, prejudices, or values of particular subjects. This feature of objective accounts means that disputes can be contained to the object studied." (Gaukroger, 2001, p. 10785).
Science is mostly regarded objective in this sense and this objectivity in science is often attributed with the property of scientific measurement that can be tested independent from the individual scientist (the subject) who proposes them. It is thus intimately related to the aim of testability and reproducibility. To be properly considered objective, the results of measurement must be communicated from person-to-person, and then demonstrated for third parties, as an advance in understanding of the objective world. Such demonstrable knowledge would ordinarily confer demonstrable powers of prediction or technological construction.
You can never eliminate bias from an individual, but you can mitigate bias and inconsistency in the enforcement of rules.
As for why you would want to mitigate bias, well, isn't the reason obvious? Posters (rightfully) expect unbiased and consistent treatment across the board, something which unfortunately does not happen on this forum. Instead, moderators will over-monitor and over-moderate 'problem' posters who:
1. Offend their sensibilities.
2. Harbour beliefs that are considered politically incorrect or 'woo woo'.
3. Post in an abrasive manner.
4. Enter into personal disputes with the moderator in question.
5. Disagree with the moderation *gasp*.
Once you've been targeted, then you enter into a downwards spiral, where the more you're punished, the more you're stereotyped and overmoderated and harassed by the moderators. Naturally you'll complain, and then you'll be further targeted because you're a dissenter.
It's like beating a dog to make it less aggressive. The more you beat the dog, the more aggressive it becomes, and the more aggressive it becomes, the more you beat it.
Instead of engaging in self-introspection and adopting a responsive and conciliatory moderating policy, the moderation responds to complaints with knee jerk defensiveness (as Ophiolite so nicely put it), or outright attacking the complainant. It's the fault of the poster, never the moderation. "You're just whining. You're complaining to the wrong person. You bear a grudge against X and Y. If you don't like the fact that we can't enforce the rules properly, just fuck off, nobody forces you to post here."
It doesn't matter that you've obeyed the rules and taken the time to integrate yourself into the community and provide informative posts, you aren't deserving of dignified treatment when the rules aren't enforced in a fair manner, despite what was suggested when you first joined and took the effort to integrate.
I mean, for fuck's sake, it took the moderation 2+ years to finally admit that S.A.M was 'trolling' the forum to shit, and that was only after she started publicly expressing her dissatisfaction with the slanted fashion in which hate speech rules were enforced. And when she was booted, there was no apology from the moderating team, no "You were right guys, we fucked up, we should have taken your bazillions of complaints about S.A.M seriously." Nah, just a silent expulsion of an extremist who they propped up for god knows how long. Now that I think about it, the moderating policy on this forum resembles the U.S.A's foreign policy. Go figure.
Ben The Man isn't moderate. He applies the "this machine has rules, I am a machine, therefore (i will) -> apply rules; resistance is futile, you will be sent to the cesspool".
I would like to see this twat relegated to the dustbin of scientific endeavour; perhaps he's in it already which is why he's a mod at sciforums, the biggest scientific cesspool in the galaxy?
Hope you read this, you utter plonker, your sense of decorum is almost meaningless, you manky turd.
/feels better for inviting permaban on humble self
I would like to see this twat relegated to the dustbin of scientific endeavour; perhaps he's in it already which is why he's a mod at sciforums, the biggest scientific cesspool in the galaxy?
Hope you read this, you utter plonker, your sense of decorum is almost meaningless, you manky turd.
/feels better for inviting permaban on humble self
It's been said before and said again, as soon as threads that were designed to help appraise and better moderation here at sciforums are hijacked with just pure abuse they will be locked. A number of the posters complaining are sock puppets (newly created accounts) of people that are just upset they were originally banned for just being abusive and counter productive to this forum. (Such as Mountainhare and Reiku.)
I know you guys originally wanted to discuss what ever was on your mind, but you really are going the wrong way about it, if you intend to keep your personal gripes about moderators or the administration of this forum.
While some very valid comments have been made in this thread, I'm closing it indefinitely or until someone wades through this thread and gets it back on the topic.
I know you guys originally wanted to discuss what ever was on your mind, but you really are going the wrong way about it, if you intend to keep your personal gripes about moderators or the administration of this forum.
While some very valid comments have been made in this thread, I'm closing it indefinitely or until someone wades through this thread and gets it back on the topic.
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