Mr. Arafat, Context, and Board Rules

About This Message Board
41

So in IOW Stink Fish Pot you didn’t read the context of the thread and you don’t feel you need to, but you know what happened.

IN THE FULL CONTEXT the

was only understandable as Honesty stating that if, for argument’s sake, the French report does claim that there was no evidence of polonium (which (s)he was not accepting since there were reports of the report but no publication of the actual document), then how do we know they were not pressured into saying so by Israeli powers that be?

Since pretty much everyone in the thread read it that way, including me, then whatever Honesty now claims was meant (which I still cannot parse out other than that meaning … can you?*) what was honestly understood the meaning was was what was presented. There was no fundamental change in the meaning.

As for Honesty being “… called a liar …” (happy that you have your obligatory before and after ellipses?), I believe that is aimed at me. Which I explicitly did not do. What I did do was point out an explicitly untrue statement that Honesty made, providing the exact post in which (s)he made a statement, and the exact post in which (s)he denied saying that and claimed to have said something else. I do believe that we are allowed to point out when posters are stating things that are clearly not truthful. That is not the same thing as saying that a poster is a liar, even if some would look at the facts presented and conclude that the poster did not make a simple error or mistake.

Again if a poster states “Proposition A” and it is then pointed out that Proposition A is wrong and the poster then states “I never said Proposition A. I said Proposition B.” it is allowable to point out that the latter is not a true statement and that indeed Proposition A was made. Doing that is not forbidden under the no calling other posters liars rules.

*I am very serious here. WTF is Honesty trying to say was actually meant? Set up a hypothetical that the truth is a negative result (i.e. no polonium poisoning, death by natural causes):

And then ask how do we know that the French did not only report that hypothetically true result because of Israeli pressure?

Huh?

Please. Read the complete post, it’s been linked to. Tell me what it possibly means other than suggesting that a negative (natural causes) result might not be believable because of the power that Israeli threats have over the French (and the Russians). That is not anti-Semitic; it is simply absurd. LHOD, Dissonance, Fotheringay-Phipps, many others, and I could only parse out that meaning. So far asked explicitly Honesty still has not offered up any other meaning. What other meaning do you think there is?

42

People have already said in this very thread that this call was kind of unfair. But please continue speaking for everyone. It’s so endearing.

43

Please CarnalK read the original post and tell me what was meant and how the portion selected for quotation changes what you understand was meant. I really am curious. Seriously. If there is some other meaning than suggesting that a negative result reported by the French and Russians be because of threats by the Israeli (or other country) I cannot figure out what it is.

Tell me what a) the meaning was with the preceding sentence and b) what the meaning was without it.

44

I also saw no “intent to deceive” - I understood Honesty’s remark quite clearly. Quoting it without the preceding line did not alter its meaning.

Seriously SFP, have you never seen an instance on the Dope where a poster made a statement, then tried to backtrack later after realizing its embarrassing implications?

45

Of course I have.

As I pointed out, I didn’t read the thread or posts in question, but was going by what the OP stated. Based on what he stated, it seemed to me that he felt he was misquoted, and the fact that he was misquoted caused him to be accused of being anti-Israel and anti-Semite. Folks here have said that they didn’t feel leaving something like “for arguments sake” out of a statement the author was making changed the meaning of what he was conveying. The author disagreed, and only the author knows his original intent.

If I have time, I will go back and read the posts in question just for completeness. But I stand by the fact that on the surface of it, leaving out part of a quote that fundamentally changes the meaning or intent of that quote is wrong. And without indicating missing words, it’s worse.

It would be the same as seeing a review by Roger Ebert about a movie that said “This movie is an incredible pile of dung!” , and change it to “This movie is incredible!” Even if I add ellipses in the sentence, the meaning can be changed. “This movie is (…) incredible (…)!”, however at least when I read the second altered sentence, I can see that words have been redacted.

DSeid - i don’t believe I used the word liar, and I don’t believe I pointed anything at you directly. I did quote a statement you made, but with all of the discussion, I can’t swear who did the editorial quoting of Honesty’s words. And it really doesn’t matter, since I’m attacking the action, not the poster.

However, as I said I will go back and read it if I have time. The point I was making was that Honesty was claiming he was misrepresented with the removal of the words “for argument’s sake” (or something similar). With that misrepresentation, he contends that he was called anti-Israel and anti-semetic, two things he denies. Now, I’ve been here long enough to know that when someone is accused of one or both of those things (and they seem to always be tossed in together even though they ARE two different things), the person accused is always put on the defensive and the thread (and their point) seems to get lost.

Are you saying this didn’t happen? Is it your contention that he wasn’t accused of these things and he wasn’t put on the defensive?

If i have misrepresented what Honesty has contended in this thread, my apologies. But if he wasn’t quoted correctly and completely WRT his POV, I believe that’s a problem.

And truthfully, I really don’t understand why he would make such a huge stink on this board if he truly didn’t feel he was misrepresented. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t. I just don’t understand it. To make a public declaration in a thread like this is not going to get a bunch of people to come into this thread to say “Honesty, please don’t go!” I’m certainly not doing that. That’s not really the way this board rolls.

46

The claim of being called a liar was made in the op, not by you SFP. And the claims that many posters were trolling him/her were made in the thread, mainly on the basis that they failed to find his/her arguments convincing.

Yes, a poster accused him/her of being anti-Israel (and later apologized for that).

The post that several people reacted to, and mocked, was the one noted in the op in which Honesty stated in a still “selected” but less truncated form

To the vast majority of us reading that quote, the quote that starts with “For argument’s sake …”, and the quote that starts with “What evidence is there …” all contain the same mockable bit and the bit that was being mocked does not alter its meaning in any of the versions. Honesty’s post being responded to was also IMMEDIATELY ABOVE the post quoting it. It was no effort to “backtrack” and read the post in context, no expectation that any reader did not just read the post being responded to in its full form.

Dissonance quoting the complete post immediately above his that he was responding to would have been stupid. Quoting the bit that captures what you are reacting to is probably not required but is good form.

Whether the complete post was not quoted, or either truncated version was, the reaction would have been the same. It reads, in context, as stating that IF the French and Russian labs conclude that death was due to natural causes, then how do we know it isn’t an Israeli interest driven cover-up? I still have not seen anyone offer any other way TO read it.

Yes, Honesty was stating that an international Israeli-interest (and Zionist is another word for that) conspiricy was potentially something that would have to be disproven as opposed to accepting that the Swiss team was mistaken and the French and Russians were both correct (if for argument’s sake (s)he accepted they exist). Yes, (s)he was mocked for that.

And in the immediately subsequent posts Honesty makes no bones backtracking from that meaning. In response to Jackmanni (who (s)he “selectively quotes” without ellipses) noting that accusing the Israelis of threatening the French and Russians seems odd, Honesty does not say that such is not what was meant, just that it is “low hanging fruit” that is not “outside the realm of possibility” and that while there is no evidence of it (s)he does not have the actual full French or Russian reports as evidence either. So there.

Yes, I for one began to lose patience with a poster who was clearly stating that results that say what I believe I will accept as true, other independent results that say something other than my extant conclusion I will both say don’t really exist but if they do exist are possibly because of Israeli interests conspiring by threats (an international Zionist conspiricy) to suppress the truth, prove they aren’t.

At that point mocking was the appropriate response.

(S)he was not in that section called anti-Israel and at no time was (s)he called anti-Semetic. It was merely pointed out that such was the claim just made, that if the French and the Russians were finding natural causes then threats from Israel and international Israeli interests need to be disproved.

Honesty’s claims that his/her meaning was distorted and that someone quoting a portion of the post directly above theirs in the response was an attempt to misrepresnt it, and that doing so without ellipses in front and in back is against the rules are simply false.

MAYBE before you jump in you should do just a little more than go by the op’s version of events alone? Even if the op’s version of reality fits your own preconception of it.

47

“How now! Arafat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!” [Makes a pass through the arras.].

48

Quote:
Originally Posted by Loach
Wasn’t that Ophelia’s father?

Interesting that you omitted “a rat”.

49

I do want to also note that by page one of that fiasco of a thread Honesty was already frustrated and trying to mock pretty much everyone else in the thread for not accepting as truth the premise that Arafat was poisoned, and by post 172, (s)he was characterizing the skeptical as demonstrating

Yet for the most part most other posters continued to behave fairly politlely. And as more information became available it the skeptical became more and more convinced that there was actually no case for polonium poisoning.

I did not understand Honesty’s behavior in that thread either and have no past experience with that poster that I can recall, but nothing of what (s)he said was misrrepresented. I think (s)he was somehow personally offended that others were (as it turns out appropriately) skeptical of what (s)he believed was incontrovertible proof that Arafat was poisoned by polonium. It was an odd experience.

Stay away or post again matters not to me.

50

No I didn’t! I just added FA.

51

Read the thread. Honesty made a gigantic arithmetical error earlier in the thread that was pretty embarrassing, especially for a poster who styles himself as a scientist of some sort. I get the feeling he wants a face-saving distraction for his exit, and is playing up the “How DARE You” factor for that reason.

That may even be why he wanted his account deleted instead of just not posting here anymore. Out of sight, out of mind, and if the mods would delete his posts Honesty would have an easier time talking himself into thinking the circumstances of his departure were other than they were.

Regards,
Shodan

52

Bolding mine.

DSeid,
Before I reply with what would be an appropriate response, can you please state for the record, what you are accusing me of?

53

You may be correct. I have started to read that thread, but it is 8 + pages long, so it will take me some time.

I am also taking side notes as i read.

One thing I need to make clear to all.

I have no idea of Honesty’s posting history or positions. I didn’t recognize his user name when I entered this thread. So, I have no idea if he has a history of any kind. As for DSeid, I recognized the name, but again, I have no recollection of any position or stance he has taken over the years on any topic.

If this thread is still open after I finish reading everything, I will post my conclusions.

54

Not accusing you of anything. Just referencing your post. Your post stated a +1 and +1 agreement that there was misrepresentation without having read any of the original in context supported by your (IMHO honestly debatable) preconception that (unless I misunderstood your post, always a possibility) on this board “intellectual honesty” goes out the window once there is any remote whiff of anything with even a hint of anti-Semitic or even anti-Israel scent.

If I misunderstood then I apologize but that’s how it read to me (and I am not going to quote your whole post and don’t dare select out a potion with or without ellipses in this context :)) and it sure seemed to me like you were quick to assume that Honesty was misrepresented and beat up in that manner at least partly because on this board behaving in that manner is something you personally percieve as the normal state of affairs.

Did I misunderstand? If so then please clarify.

55

Dex’s statement, (which is actually his rendering of a rule that I insisted upon in staff discussions), means that one may not alter the text of a quote in a way that differs from what would be permitted in accepted journalistic practices, (thus his, “Normal editorial rules apply”), so as to change the meaning of the original.

One may not change a word in a quotation.
One may not drop a word from a sentence without the use of ellipses or equivalent indicator.
One may not add a word to a sentence without using the editorial brackets to indicate a foreign insertion.

However, quoting an entire sentence hardly violates any of those rules. Quoting a paragraph while dropping one or more intervening sentences without ellipses could easily be a violation if the omitted sentence radically changed the meaning of the paragraph.* However, one need not quote an entire paragraph to respond to a single idea, (a sentence), within it.

The text to which you objected, however, did none of those things. Dissonance took issue with a particular statement within your larger paragraph and quoted it. This would indicate that that is the point he wished to address. If you felt that your “for argument’s sake” was necessary to indicate the hypothetical nature of your paragraph, a simple declaration that he had missed the point and that his response needed to acknowledge the hypothetical nature of your paragraph would have been sufficient. Declaring that he was breaking the rules when he clearly had not done so was a personal attack to which I responded.
It is always a potential problem that humans will misunderstand each other. Language is hardly a perfect method of communication. However, misunderstandings are better handled by pointing out the way in which a response appears to have missed an important fact or idea rather than immediately accusing one’s correspondent of dishonesty.

It is already the way that nearly everyone posts, today, and have since the first days of the SDMB. Quoting a lengthy text for the purpose of responding to a single line within that text is counterproductive. As long as the line is not changed, quoting a single line, (or a brief series of lines), is the preferred way to respond to a single idea in a longer text.

  • As an example, omitting the second sentence in the following paragraph, (particularly if done without ellipses so that a reader does not realize that other ideas were presented by the original author), does change the meaning of that text.
    “John is scary. When he was threatened by William, he feared for his life and responded with violence. His actions resulted in William being sent to the hospital.”
    to
    “John is scary. His actions resulted in William being sent to the hospital.”
    John may, indeed, be a scary person, but using the second paragraph as a quote greatly changes the meaning of the original author.
56

Be (all) that as it may, I would think that the key criterion to determine whether someone has been misquoted in a potentially egregious and/or misleading manner, is whether the quoted poster him/herself believes the omitted words alters the meaning of the (partially) quoted text.

And, indeed, in this instance, Honesty has unequivocally stated that he/she feels misquoted by the omission of the “For argument’s sake” and, in particular, that the intent and meaning of the passage was changed.

How can anyone presume to better understand the intent and meaning of a passage than the (partially or mis-) quoted poster his/herself? I believe it is disingenuous to claim otherwise as has been done repeatedly in this thread.

57

Just to be clear Karl -

You believe that in this case, a post immediately below the post it was responding to, with a portion selected as portion to respond to, is a potentially egregious and/or midsleading posting because the quoted says so, even when no one, including the quoted, can tell us what different meaning would be had with the preceding sentence or paragraph included, no one in the thread read it as anything else, and the post was right above it for reference and was just read by all in the thread?

The actual statement and the actual words quoted do not matter, all that matters is that the quoted states that his/her meaning was not accuratey conveyed and that is enough to say that rules were broken? I am misquoted if I say I am misquoted, end of story.

To believe other than that is disingenuous? Really?

So if I quote you as follows

And you said my leaving out the “Be (all) that as it may,” changed the meaning, I am, by definition, breaking the quoting rules, because you say so?

Really?

58

You may think that if you wish. I have no intention of trying to Moderate threads in which any poster can make the claim that any quote that omits any portion that the original poster deems “necessary” is an infraction of the rules.

The way to handle situations in which one poster believes that a selected quote does not accurately convey his or her meaning is for the poster to present an argument for his or her position.
As regard rules, we will continue to follow the guidelines set forth, that prohibit changing text while permitting editing using standard editorial guidelines as followed in print media that indicate where changes have been made. We will not prohibit quoting a single complete sentence in order to respond to the specific idea conveyed by that sentence.

59

I have had people paraphrase me in ways I considered inaccurate, Sometimes in. ways I was pretty sure we’re deliberately dishonest. In all cases, I figure it’s better form to try at least once to rephrase the misunderstood post to clarify the problem with the paraphrase or misquote. If only as a rhetorical device, it’s what should be done.

60

Tomndebb,

This is amazing to me. Did i read this right? You are putting the onus of responsibility on the person who was either misquoted, quoted out of context, or quoted incompletely to prove that they were indeed quoted incorrectly?

That is not good policy. In fact, it seems “made up”, in order to explain your “interesting” moderation in the thread this particular discussion refers to.

I understand that a person can quote a sentence out of a paragraph without quoting the entire paragraph. However, as far as I’ve been here, the common practice has been to indicate that words were removed from the quoted text, either for brevity reasons, or to make the quote more easily understood, or whatever. But to not identify where words were eliminated, and to just put the words you want in between quotes and attribute it to another poster is wrong. It is dishonest, and furthermore, when it goes unchallenged and unmoderated, it causes the person who has been misquoted to spend time backtracking to defend him/herself on some point they have already covered.

If you think removing (within the same sentnce, by the way) the words “for arguments sake”, without indicating that words have been omitted with a (…) or at least a <snip> is ok, then you should prepare the mods in GD to all be prepared to face selective quoting by every poster on every topic. This policy will certainly make for a much more lively GD, but no real debate will occur.

I (painfully) read all 8 pages of the linked to thread. And I also read almost all of the linked articles, studies, etc. in their entiretly, including the wikipedia articles, which I am willing to bet most others did not. That thread is an embarrassment for this board on so many levels, and the worst part of that thread was the moderation. The name calling, back-biting and implied insults were all over that thread, but no one seemed to mind.

However, your moderation post was ridiculous, and indicated to me that you clearly did not read that entire thread. If you had, you would have understood why Honesty made that post. To admonish him alone with a “back off” and call him on a spelling error (seriously, is that really what a mod should focus on or sink to?), makes it very difficult for a non-participant in that thread, like me, to conclude that you are an unbiased participant. And hey, if all you were was a reader/participant, I don’t care what your bias is… But it is not fine to be biased when you are wearing your mod hat. IMO, you were out of line with that particular admonishment.

Like it or not, Honesty was correct in identifying what was done to his text. “For argument’s sake” was removed, as was another sentence, I believe. To someone skimming that thread, they might not have seen Honesty’s original posting, and felt that Dissonance was quoting him accurately. He was not.

There is a simple way to solve this problem. And that is to follow the guidelines that have been established on this board for as long as i can remember. However, if it is your contention that those protocols are unnecessary, then I would urge anyone who participates in GD (any forum actually, but especially GD) to bookmark your post in this thread and refer to it whenever someone claims that another poster has misquoted them. Because according to you, (…) and <snip> are both unnecessary if the quoter feels that including the excluded part really didn’t change the meaning of what was quoted. And even more important, it’s not even necessary for the wuoter to show that words have been removed, according to you, that’s not a violation of the rules. Ok, good to know.