Which begs the question what the Pit moderator does? Just voraciously read all the threads in hopes that someone will wish death upon another poster?
Thanks again for your response.
Or, if you need the mod points, go fuck yourself with a carrot from Rosie O’Donnell’s vegetable drawer.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s a pretty easy job.
I dunno. That carrot thing sounds pretty brutal.
Nope. If it does not say Warning, then it might be a suggestion or even an admonition, but it is not a Warning.
No one got warned. I pointed out that if Sage Rat stepped too close to the insult line, then brazil84 would be likely to respond in kind and then the thread would deteriorate into a brawl. I was, therefore, suggesting that Sage Rat’s direct comments were not conducive to good harmony. It should not take many reviews of my Moderating in GD to see that that is a fairly common point I make: attack the bad information and the poor logic, but don’t make it personal.
Now the problem in this situation is that one poster very carefully plays a game of dancing around the topic to keep threads running forever. Unfortunately, while we have a rule “Don’t be a jerk,” we continually struggle with a clear set of guidelines to identify jerk behavior. Spamming and insults are clear violations. Trolling and similar activities are less easy to identify. One poster’s “troll” is another poster’s bold hero seeking truth.
I would really prefer that the TM would simply control themselves to ignore posters who are excessively irritating. However, until I see evidence (such as comments from the irritatant that he did something just to get a rise or posts that are clearly more and more outrageous), I am disinclined to go looking to ban posters simply because they are irritating.
On the other hand, I have no problem with pointing out, as a Mod, just what behavior is irritating with an eye to encouraging other posters to simply disengage–or even with a (faint) hope that the irritant will examine their styles of posting and shape up. (If you’d all ignore the irritants, then I would have less work.)
But if we ignore *this *particular irritant, his spew goes unchallenged. And I’m seeing from his pitting that challenging it might actually do some good given the number of lurkers commenting on jshore’s good work. But we shouldn’t sit back and let jshore do all the work, I’ve decided. A lot of his stupid “arguments” (culled hot from the blogosphere) don’t need jshore’s scientific weight to counter. You just need to like repetitive action.
I mean, it’s not like it’s the only tack to take in those arguments (compare intention, who isn’t quite as irritating), and also it’s not as if he confines it to one kind of thread, either. I say warn the fucker for debating in bad faith.
But…that’s like warning someone for being stupid, or for being incompetent. Isn’t that kind of pointless? People who debate badly don’t always do it because they’re deliberately trolling, trying to make waves–sometimes they do it because it’s the only way they know how. “The gods themselves”, stupidity, etc. So, what purpose would an official warning for “lousy debate tactics” serve?
Not “lousy” debate tactics, dishonest debate tactics. I think brazil84 is perfectly aware of what he’s doing. Everything he does is according to Exxon’s playbook.
Tom, although I think that criticism of Brazil84’s style of debate is justified, your comments were so tactlessly phrased as to be personally insulting if not malicious.
Sage Rat, if you hadn’t complained about the “warning,” I wouldn’t have read the original thread. As it was, I picked up a little information about simulations and predictions that was new and interesting to my very non-scientific mind. Thanks to you and the others who explained so carefully. I think you must be a teacher. Excellent analogies and more patience than I would have had.
I used exactly as much tact as the situation required.
If anyone takes offense, perhaps that poster should consider improving their manner of posting.
There is no malice involved.
There’s no such thing.
I’ve seen Tom do it before.
For the record, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying “you don’t know what you’re talking about” during a debate. Obviously I disagree with sage rat’s claim, which is part of the reason I said something similar about him.
What I find annoying though, is tomndebb’s habit of demeaning and belittling posters while wearing his moderator hat.
It’s pretty close to an insult to say “you typically argue in bad faith” for a regular poster. For a moderator, it is inexcusable.
I also take exception to tomndebb’s “suggestions.” It’s analagous to a police officer who goes into a coffee shop and asks for a free cup of coffee. Obviously the owner will feel obligated to comply even though he is under no formal obligation to do so.
Here’s something that tomndebb said to me in another thread:
The fact is that I did nothing wrong in that thread. tomndebb simply felt frustrated and decided to “flash his badge,” so to speak. Unethical and abusive.
But anyway, I get the message. As long as tomndebb is a moderator, it’s against board rules to go against the liberal dogma on the whole intelligence/IQ debate.
Thanks for that. While I enjoy posting and reading here, the primary thing I don’t enjoy is tomndebb’s regular “cheap shots.” In real life, I have regularly dealt with similar BS – people who skillfuly abuse others while presenting a different image. Claiming that they are just trying to help, or whatever.
However, in real life, I generally get paid to put up with that sort of BS.
Just to finish this thought, I’m pretty much outta here. Not 100% sure, but anyway, I’ll give it a shot.
I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone when I say, you’re a fucking failure, a genuine imbecile and a worthless contributor to this message board. Please never come back. 
Simply disagreeing isn’t a viable reason to contest someone in GD. Dismissing all explanations to your questions as made up is stupid and a worthless occupation if you really have any intention of debating.
Asking questions about things which you think are fishy is alright in the “normal sense”, but it’s pointless to do so if you’re going to disregard the answers you get back for no other reason than because it challenges your assumptions and/or you don’t understand what is being said. And you’ve always been quite frank in admitting that your only basis for argument is a priori assumptions and the feeling like you or any layperson should be able to understand what the science world is saying. But you have no particular justification for that belief, and maintain it for no other reason than because to do so would make you have to examine your positions and/or require effort on your part to actually learn something. You’d rather just coast by cackling as you point out things that you think are holes in arguments, and feeling smug as scientific gobbledeegook is trailed out in response, safe in the knowledge that being scientific gobbledeegook, it’s all false and made up and safe to ignore.
That’s a fucking worthless and time wasting frame of mind to enter a debate with. You accomplish nothing except your own amusement, and the behavior is nothing more than trolling. The only thing that saves you from being a troll is that you’re blissfully unaware that you’re the only person around for miles around who finds all that gobbledeegook to be nonsense.
Like I said in this thread, there are arguments to be made against AGW and the possible responses to it, but you’re the only person who thinks you’re successfully making any of them, and really you’re just getting in the way of people who could make coherent and reasonable arguments against those.
So this pitting he visits, but his own, oh no…
Like you don’t get paid for posting here :dubious:
I guess the AEI Obfuscation Fund must be running low…
Well, see, this is the point people are trying to make: there’s a good reason not to say “you don’t know what you’re talking about” during a debate, and they would like you to understand that.
The reason is that telling someone, “You don’t know what you’re talking about” is basically the same thing as saying, “You are ignorant.” And telling someone “you are ignorant” is a personal remark, like saying “you are ugly” or “you are poor”, and personal remarks have no place in a debate. A personal remark in a debate serves only to sidetrack the debate onto personalities–the person who has been told he is ignorant gets his attention shifted to countering that accusation, instead of staying on topic, which is the debate itself.
So telling someone “you don’t know what you’re talking about” only serves to slow the debate, and is exasperating to onlookers, as well as insulting to the person who’s just been told he’s ignorant. What’s he supposed to say, “No, I’m not”? That’s pointless, because there’s no way he can prove to you, the accuser, that he does so know what he’s talking about neener neener. Personal remarks in a debate are juvenile, and all the adults participating resent the person who keeps making them.
So that’s the reason not to tell someone “You don’t know what you’re talking about” in Great Debates.
Tease.