Fussy moderation in 'Sustainability & Environmental issues'

ei.sdraob

nesf wrote: »

It's a scientific consensus, you seem to have a problem with all consensuses, or at least that's how you're arguing.

Here we go again :rolleyes: I just said A and you took what i said and twisted it into something I havent said

I have a problem with certain "Green" policies being pushed on everyone based/derived on "consensus" not the "consensus" (or lack of) itself. I never participated in any global warming threads, but I do care about various often hypocritical policies based on the "omg we are all doomed, seas will rise, armageddon is coming" interpretation of climate change

Ludo

P. Breathnach wrote: »

In my opinion, and I am not relating this to the S&EI forum or anybody who posts in it, pseudo-scientists can be among the most persistent and evasive contributors to debate, and can wreak havoc. One needs the tools to remove them.

Did you just accuse all mods of being tools :eek:

nesf

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Here we go again :rolleyes: I just said A and you took what i said and twisted it into something I havent said

I have a problem with certain "Green" policies being pushed on everyone based/derived on "consensus" not the "consensus" (or lack of) itself. I never participated in any global warming threads, but I do care about various often hypocritical policies based on the "omg we are all doomed, seas will rise, armageddon is coming" interpretation of climate change

That post was addressed at easychair not you.

P. Breathnach

Ludo wrote: »

Did you just accuse all mods of being tools :eek:

Perhaps "instruments" might be a kinder word.

No doubt one of the instruments of this forum will be along soon to frown on this levity.

Overheal

nesf wrote: »

It's a scientific consensus, you seem to have a problem with all consensuses, or at least that's how you're arguing.

nesf wrote: »

You're getting into conspiracy theory land there. It's hard to publish papers that say smoking doesn't cause lung cancer, is this a problem for you?

I think the point being raised here is concensus can be challenged and Politics and Science do occasionally get strewn together. Look at Marijuana; it's legal status; and it's medicinal properties; and the existing pharmaceutical market.

Consensuses, in their own time, have claimed things like the earth was flat. Or that Pluto is a planet. Or that all life is carbon-based. It might be Hard to publish a paper saying smoking doesn't cause lung cancer, but if such a paper was to be published it would be allowed into discussion, for ridicule or other.

Either way SE&I has a Climate Change discussion Megathread now. And this thread is going in circles @_@

nesf

Overheal wrote: »

It might be Hard to publish a paper saying smoking doesn't cause lung cancer, but if such a paper was to be published it would be allowed into discussion, for ridicule or other.

That's kinda my point.

Ludo

nesf wrote: »

That's kinda my point.

And no-one is really questioning that...but one of the main "problems" appears to be a moderator questioning the validity of an claim in general discussion, as any normal user would, and when no source is produced or vague sources are mentioned he then switches into mod mode to demand a source. Hence the issue with having a mod who is heavily involved in the discussions on a forum this small who also needs to police it.
In fairness I can see how that would be off-putting to newish users or people who stumble in there.

Again, this is no fault of the moderator...he has a job to do. How to achieve that job in this context is not easy.

djpbarry

nesf wrote: »

How about keeping the forum as a place to discuss how the policy decisions due to climate change will affect people but lump all the science scepticism stuff into Environmental Science?

Perhaps, but the problem there is that the political angle is removed in Environmental Science (for the ES charter):

...what I will not support and what will be dealt with swiftly in this forum is the political nature of climate change.

I can understand the reasons for this, but should all the discussion of climate change be partitioned into science in one forum and political implications in another, I can see that making life pretty difficult for the moderators - a discussion on, for example, reform of the IPCC, wouldn't really fit into either forum and, even if it did, we'd be jumping in every few posts to tell people they're discussing science/politics in the wrong place.

EDIT: I've PM'd El Siglo to provide their opinion.

El Siglo

I haven't read too much from the thread here, but here's my two cents.

The ES forum is mainly concerned with the "real" environmental sciences stuff; i.e. for people who want to talk about oil spillages, phosphorous pollution, sediments, lakes etc... they can go right ahead. The climate change stuff I'll tolerate but generally there hasn't been a whole load of that. What I've found is that any climate change discussions attract people who just want to troll or they're pseudoscientists talking rubbish, so I've come down hard from the outset; stick to the science, leave the conspiracies and nonsense to where they belong. I would see for example, reform of the IPCC as belonging not in ES, but in politics or somewhere else as it's an inherently political institution and reforming it as I would imagine would probably involve changing around scientists (retirements etc...) or control from the UN or something like that. However, if the IPCC has a new document (like 2001 or 2007) then I'd personally sticky a thread in ES to talk about it and it's scientific basis (e.g. sea-level change, carbon stocks etc...).

I hope that's kind of clarified the ES's standpoint?

nesf

Ludo wrote: »

And no-one is really questioning that...but one of the main "problems" appears to be a moderator questioning the validity of an claim in general discussion, as any normal user would, and when no source is produced or vague sources are mentioned he then switches into mod mode to demand a source. Hence the issue with having a mod who is heavily involved in the discussions on a forum this small who also needs to police it.
In fairness I can see how that would be off-putting to newish users or people who stumble in there.

Again, this is no fault of the moderator...he has a job to do. How to achieve that job in this context is not easy.

It's difficult with a small moderation team to separate modwork from being a poster. Most mods have at some point handed out a warning in a thread they were posting in. It's not really a problem unless it is perceived to be biased (which is generally false but people can be touchy about a mod moderating in a topic they're known to have an opinion on).

Scofflaw

Ludo wrote: »

And no-one is really questioning that...but one of the main "problems" appears to be a moderator questioning the validity of an claim in general discussion, as any normal user would, and when no source is produced or vague sources are mentioned he then switches into mod mode to demand a source. Hence the issue with having a mod who is heavily involved in the discussions on a forum this small who also needs to police it.
In fairness I can see how that would be off-putting to newish users or people who stumble in there.

Again, this is no fault of the moderator...he has a job to do. How to achieve that job in this context is not easy.

The funny thing is that we're being asked to do more or less exactly that in Politics - put our mod hats on and demand sources.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Ludo

Scofflaw wrote: »

The funny thing is that we're being asked to do more or less exactly that in Politics - put our mod hats on and demand sources.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Yep..and that is fine in a very busy forum like politics...but in a very quiet forum you may end up "debating" alone with a mod who suddenly puts on their mod hat and that doesn't look good ( as seemed to be the case in a thread linked to at the start of this thread). It is a perception thing.
That may not be considered important by some but when a new person comes along to a forum and that happens, they probably are not going ot come back...or they are gonna end up here.

Scofflaw

Ludo wrote: »

Yep..and that is fine in a very busy forum like politics...but in a very quiet forum you may end up "debating" alone with a mod who suddenly puts on their mod hat and that doesn't look good ( as seemed to be the case in a thread linked to at the start of this thread). It is a perception thing.
That may not be considered important by some but when a new person comes along to a forum and that happens, they probably are not going ot come back...or they are gonna end up here.

That's true.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Overheal

Scofflaw wrote: »

The funny thing is that we're being asked to do more or less exactly that in Politics - put our mod hats on and demand sources.

cordially,
Scofflaw

But in SEI it kinda looked to be the other extreme. Gotta find that point in the middle - the Moderate Center

SeanW

What exactly was the point of red-carding this post?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73527256&postcount=9

Overheal

SeanW wrote: »

What exactly was the point of red-carding this post?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73527256&postcount=9

I presume for discussing the moderation inside the thread. But imo it was inappropriate to pull /mod in the situation, re: the bold text.

K-9

SeanW wrote: »

What exactly was the point of red-carding this post?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73527256&postcount=9

Was this not raised and dealt with earlier.

Sigh!

Steve

God be with the days of feedback yore when DeV would have stepped in 200 posts ago and said <something awesome> and closed this goldfish simulation.

Overheal

Steve wrote: »

God be with the days of feedback yore when DeV would have stepped in 200 posts ago and said <something awesome> and closed this goldfish simulation.

I was upset when the other half of your post didn't include anything to do with cats

Steve

Overheal wrote: »

I was upset when the other half of your post didn't include anything to do with cats

Goldfish and cats in the same post is like crossing the streams.. bad things happen

Overheal

Steve wrote: »

Goldfish and cats in the same post is like crossing the streams.. bad things happen

http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/yy111/AllyRox1/cat-eyes-and-goldfish.png

Steve

Overheal wrote: »

http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/yy111/AllyRox1/cat-eyes-and-goldfish.png

Sometimes, the results are unexpected..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHruimvv4b8

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

What exactly was the point of red-carding this post?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73527256&postcount=9

I believe it came up earlier in the thread - it's essentially discussion of moderation. I accept Overheal's point above, but easychair could have made his/her objections known via PM rather than in-thread.

easychair

djpbarry wrote: »

I believe it came up earlier in the thread - it's essentially discussion of moderation. I accept Overheal's point above, but easychair could have made his/her objections known via PM rather than in-thread.

At the time, nothing in your post made me believe it was anything to do with moderation. reading it again now, nothing in your post indicates that you have decided to stop engaging in the discussion as a participant, and become a moderator. Saying that I found your post "aggressive" is no critising your moderation, it's merely saying that, at the time, i found your post to be unnecessarily aggressive.

Your moderation was not discussed, either essentially, or otherwise.

I say the above for reasons of accuracy, but really we're past that now, I hope.

easychair

Macha wrote: »

The issue of climate change and how much humans are contributing is a subject that comes up frequently in this forum.

The debate can take over other threads and so we are creating this megathread for all debate on climate change. All other threads started for this purpose will be locked.

Debate in all other threads will be based on the assumption that climate change is happening and that humans are contributing significantly.

Thanks to Macha for being so direct. In this thread, I have previously asked for clarity as to whether or not anyone who doesn't agree with the moderators views on climate change is allowed to participate in the various threads.

From this it's pretty clear that no participant in SEI is allowed to challenge the views and assumptions on climate change which disagrees with the moderators views and assumptions, except in one particular thread.

For me, that means that SEI is pointless. It may well be that there are those who want seemingly endless discussion about noise pollution from refrigerated vans, or whether or not Aldi had more or less recyclable packaging than Tesco, but thats not for me.

I hope that to impose such apparent censorship on all participants will not lead to sterile and pointless discussion, where every post must be in agreement with the moderators views, and no balance or questioning is allowed.

Only time will tell.

Overheal

easychair wrote: »

At the time, nothing in your post made me believe it was anything to do with moderation. reading it again now, nothing in your post indicates that you have decided to stop engaging in the discussion as a participant, and become a moderator. Saying that I found your post "aggressive" is no critising your moderation, it's merely saying that, at the time, i found your post to be unnecessarily aggressive.

Your moderation was not discussed, either essentially, or otherwise.

I say the above for reasons of accuracy, but really we're past that now, I hope.

Occassionally ending a post or statement with /mod will help for clarification.

Also in other forums I notice even when the moderator is dealing with one or two posters their mod will address the thread generally, not directly at the poster. Lowers the aggressive tone for all concerned in most (but not all) cases. Reminders that posters can PM for clarification don't go amiss in-thread either.

Macha

easychair wrote: »

Thanks to Macha for being so direct. In this thread, I have previously asked for clarity as to whether or not anyone who doesn't agree with the moderators views on climate change is allowed to participate in the various threads.

No one is restricting you from taking part in any thread but for very practical and logical reasons that have been discussed earlier in this thread, it makes sense to have every other thread discussed on the basis that humans contribute significantly to climate change.

Should, then, we allow threads based on the assumption that the theory of gravity should be ignored? Or any other scientific consensus? Having the mega thread acknowledges and facilitates debate on the scientific consensus of climate change but keeps it at a practical level.

easychair wrote: »

From this it's pretty clear that no participant in SEI is allowed to challenge the views and assumptions on climate change which disagrees with the moderators views and assumptions, except in one particular thread.

Pretty much.

easychair wrote: »

For me, that means that SEI is pointless. It may well be that there are those who want seemingly endless discussion about noise pollution from refrigerated vans, or whether or not Aldi had more or less recyclable packaging than Tesco, but thats not for me.

There is a hell of a lot more to the world's environmental problems than climate change. They may not interest you but they are out there and they are extremely important to other people.

easychair wrote: »

I hope that to impose such apparent censorship on all participants will not lead to sterile and pointless discussion, where every post must be in agreement with the moderators views, and no balance or questioning is allowed.

That is a total exaggeration of the situation. And it isn't the SEI moderators' views on climate change that are deciding this but the moderator and Cmods.

themandan6611

when while this thread end ??? it has outlived its purpose

djpbarry grew a real set and did something not many would do (mucho respect), so let the thread die and lets see what happens in S&EI .

BryanF

Macha wrote: »

No one is restricting you from taking part in any thread but for very practical and logical reasons that have been discussed earlier in this thread, it makes sense to have every other thread discussed on the basis that humans contribute significantly to climate change.

Should, then, we allow threads based on the assumption that the theory of gravity should be ignored? Or any other scientific consensus? Having the mega thread acknowledges and facilitates debate on the scientific consensus of climate change but keeps it at a practical level.


Pretty much.


There is a hell of a lot more to the world's environmental problems than climate change. They may not interest you but they are out there and they are extremely important to other people.


That is a total exaggeration of the situation. And it isn't the SEI moderators' views on climate change that are deciding this but the moderator and Cmods.

thanks Macha, I think you summed up the entire issue of contention regarding the SEI in one post....this entire issue is based on maybe 3 posters...

Chloe Pink

A point in passing

Easychair post 358:
"For me, that means that SEI is pointless. It may well be that there are those who want seemingly endless discussion about noise pollution from refrigerated vans, or whether or not Aldi had more or less recyclable packaging than Tesco, but thats not for me."

Macha, post 358:
"There is a hell of a lot more to the world's environmental problems than climate change. They may not interest you but they are out there and they are extremely important to other people."

Like noise from wind turbines perhaps Macha (post 210)?


Posting and modding simultaneously

Anyway. It's good to see some changes and clarity in place re posting and hosting (interesting word) on the SEI forum.

Issue has been raised in this thread and on the SEI forum, with the situation that arises when a person is simultaneously a heavily involved poster and moderator in a discussion;

I note that in post 290 reference is made to cat-mod intervention to help in these scenarios:

P. Breathnach post 290:
"I am sure a cat-mod would step in if one mod were involved in a thread and the other mod were unavailable to deal with a problem post."

Nesf post 290
"The Cat Mods have already offered this to the Mods as an option."

Macha and djpbarry, I think this offer from the Cat Mods would definitely help to address these scenarios. What do you think?


Team work

Nesf post 341:
"It's difficult with a small moderation team to separate modwork from being a poster. Most mods have at some point handed out a warning in a thread they were posting in. It's not really a problem unless it is perceived to be biased (which is generally false but people can be touchy about a mod moderating in a topic they're known to have an opinion on)."

Yet you have offered a means of addressing such scenarios in post 290.


I would like to add that I struggle with the last words of your post above i.e. those in the brackets, as I feel it's only a “perception” that 'the “perceived bias” is “generally false”,' when it comes to the forum in question here. If you are writing about all of boards.ie then my apologies.
I am glad to see that you write that even if the bias is only “perceived bias”, it is still a problem i.e. your post states “It's not really a problem unless it is perceived to be biased”.

I make the point above because the perception has been raised, that those looking after the SEI forum support each other whatever is going on.
While I fully support the idea of 'supportive team work', there is a time and place to take a view from the outside. Whilst aknowledging that there is a problem with SEI, I feel that your post could be seen to diminish the problem and I find this counterproductive and a symptom of the 'overly supportive team work' problem raised (perceived or otherwise).


Polls

ei.sdraob post 329:
“by doing nothing you are showing your bias, why be a moderator if you do not wish to moderate? or as per thread title be "fussy"”

Nesf post 329:
"It's up to the mods whether they want to police polls heavily or not. In Politics they're policed heavily, in other forums they're not. Personally I think they should be policed but I'm not going to force Soc mods to tow the line here because I think it's a relatively minor point."

Macha and djpbarry, as “perceived” bias (or otherwise) has been raised as an issue in this thread and on the SEI forum, perhaps this minor bit of work on the odd occasion that polls are set up, would be worth doing. What do you think?


My apologies if I've missed any responses to my queries, there are a lot of posts to catch up with.