Vorkosigan

Having seen you in action on many lists, I assume you were fully capable of handing the poster his head without my help, or anyone else's.

The forum is welcome to all sorts of personalities who are willing to comply with its posting rules, Jeff, regardless of their level of personal arrogance and ignorance.

Vorkosigan

jgibson000

They don't seem to think so. And for those without mouths, they certainly do speak often and loudly, even if it is only to sound the same note.

Well, I'll take that as saying that if Gibson is here, we must be good because he only joins good lists, and send you my thanks for the compliment (despite the truncated way you address me).

But be aware that your assumption about why I am here might be a good example of an engagement with the fallacy of bifurcation since it by no means the only possible explanation for my joining up. After all, I have been known to look in on lists that do have horrendous reputations -- and not because I think they are good, but because of a simple desire on my part to see what's happening upon the fringes.

What is it I'm supposed to be looking at?

Jeffrey Gibson

jgibson000

I'll take that as a compliment and send you my thanks. But from my vantage point, the issue isn't what I'm capable of doing in response to ill informed and badly agrued claims. It's how earnestly **you** as owners of a list that is purportedly dedicated to "crap detection" are really commited to solid and informed discourse and to not promoting or becoming a party to/facilitator of nonsense, anti-intellectualism, and crank scholarship (in both the skeptic and believer's camps), let alone the hate campaign that under-lies a lot of the reductionist messages that are posted here.


Perhaps you'd be kind enough to point me to these rules. I can't seem to find them.

Jeffrey

Toto

Let me also welcome you to the II boards.

This is an open forum which is only moderated for personal insults, copyright violations, and other rule violations. Otherwise, we allow all sorts of nonsense to be posted (I'm surprised you are not as upset over the opening post in this thread), and rely on the process of debate to catch and correct errors (that "eternal sifting and winnowing by which the truth is found. . ") We assume that the readers will be able to judge whose claims to knowledge are baseless and which claims are backed up with evidence and good arguments.

If you search this forum for threads with Mithras in the title, you will find that several of the moderators of this forum and a few others have spent some time trying to correct the usual misinformation on Mithras, doing such a good job that we had put the matter to rest until this thread popped up (moved to this forum from GRD).

A few examples:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=107356

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=101605

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=98781

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=92493

Toto

"Hate campaign"? What evidence do you have of this?

Look at the top of the page and click on "forum rules"

Roger Pearse

No offence, but I really can't understand how such a question can be sincere. Can you explain it to me?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

John A. Broussard

If you just want to complain rather than dealing with the substance of the OP, that's fine with me. I can skip your postings very easily.

On the other hand, if you want your complaint given serious consideration, go to IIBB at the top left hand of the page, click on it, then click on IIDB Problems & Complaints, then post your complaint.

If you have problems following the above directions, I'll be happy to further clarify for you.

Best.

Toto

I'm not clear what qualifies as a hate campaign or what we are supposed to do about it. In America, where Dr. Gibson works, "hate speech" is generally reserved for race-based hatred or comparable irrational hatred of "the other" that is best analyzed by psychotherapists. Perhaps it is different in Britain?

I think Holocaust Denial qualifies as a "hate campaign" since it usually is associated with a racial hatred of Jews, but Deniers still have free speech rights in American.

Do you think that the Seventh Day Adventist who wrote the above misinformation about Mithras is engaged in a hate campaign? Is Acharya S engaged in a hate campaign? Do Christians think that all atheists are motivated by hatred of Christianity? Might atheists then think that all Christians are motivated by hatred of reason?

How does labelling any of this a "hate campaign" help?

jgibson000

Yes, this is true of what hate speech is "reserverd for". But that's irrelevant to the issue at hand. I did not say that ayone here was employing "hate speech". I said that they were engaged in a hate campaign -- an attempt to prejudice and to turn people against, if not to despise, a group simply for being that particular group. There is a difference. One can -- and often does --do this without using words that the Supreme Court has labeled "hate speech". Just look at what Anne Koulter or (closer to home) Kuchinsky often does.

But this isn't a free speech issue. The issue is whether your moderation practices and what you allow to be posted here, especially when it is crank scholarship" and sneeringly uses ad hominem and misrepresentation to make its case, is consistent with the "mission" that Richard Carrier says this and your sister lists were founded to carry out.

No, I don't, even leaving aside the matter of how you are here engaging in what you now ask above and below in the fallacy of presumption known as the complex question (see: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQ...ll_complex.htm ).

And if he is, so are all the posters here who have towed the same uninformed line.


I think that anyone whose primary means of disproving a case with which they disagree is to resort, as A. does, to conspiracy theories and claims of cover ups to explain why it is that scholars whose conclusions they disagree with have come to those conclusions and/or to denigrate and impugn the honesty and integrity of the scholars whose conclusions they dispute is enaged in a hate campaign.

You know the answer to that yourself. Some do. And in some instances with some atheists, they'd be right. But not **all** do of **all** atheists.

**Might** they? Unlesss you think that all atheist are always utterly rational, of course they might. The real question is: Would they be justified in doing so?. In some instances, yes. There certainly is an anti intellectual stream in some forms of Christianity. But would they be justified in claiming that all Christians are motivated (to do what, by the way? by a "hatred" of reason? Oh please. The question is as silly as the language it is couched in is loaded.

Help what?

How does continually allowing people who have consistently demonstrated that they do not possess the knowledge they lay claim to, who consistenly employ fallacious methods of argumentation, and whose have no actual familiarity with the guild they criticize, to post further the "mission" thar Richard Carrier has claimed this foum is dedicated to carrying out?

Jeffrey

Toto

Dear Dr. Gibson: I asked some highly rhetorical questions, which you (mis)interpreted as literal questions. I asked a simple question that you labeled a complex question. I don't think we're getting anywhere.

Could you give me a specific quote from Richard Carrier on the "mission" of this forum?

Could you explain how this is not a free speech issue? This forum allows people to post ill-informed and nonsensical claims, and relies on open discussion and the free market place of ideas to sift out what is worthwhile. I don't think you will find threads where crank scholarship has gone unchallenged for long. If so, let me know.

If this were a dedicated scholarly forum, we would have different rules and policies, and some of the posters would be asked to leave (and would complain about censorship). But it's not.

For the record, I would prefer to reserve the term "hate campaign" for a campaign based on real hatred, not a misinformed attempt at propaganda. Otherwise, the term will lose its meaning.

And a discussion of moderation policies is beyond the scope of this forum. You may raise the issue in the Problems and Complaints Forum or the IIDB Conferernce Room, if you want a public discussion of the issue. But I can assure you that what you are proposing would require a major change in the stated mission and policies of this board.