Negative Reputation

[Wesley]

How about a reputation renewal every month or so? There are some people with 100+ positive reputation and it would take a horribly wrong and offensive message to bring that back to 0, and same with people who have -30 or even lower would have to change drastically to change their methodology. That would also be time consuming to recover on neutral ground.

 

While I agree that downvotes should require some kind of feedback system: there should be a mulitple choice reason with the addition of "other" of course where you have to provide a quotation of what you found offensive and why.

 

But I think overall, if we reset everyone's reputation on some monthly or bi-monthly back to 0, the people who have a horrible rating can get the opportunity to start posting more philosophically. And anyone who has a super high reputation also has the incentive to just continue being awesome.

I think the reputation should stick some. There are people who have earned a positive or negative reputation and it should be reflected.

 

I could see cutting the current reputation in half every quarter or something. Resetting to 0 is pretty rough and especially with people who have earned a negative reputation it would obfuscate their past and possibly lead to them trolling more or doing the same arguments every period as people cannot see the past.

 

 

I've seen some of my post get down voted just because that person does not agree with my views, I'm not being abusive. I've noticed the same with other posts with views similar to mine in the same thread even. For now If I come across posts that I suspect have been down voted in this manner I just use my vote to at least make them neutral. I suggest we all do the same, and we can at least control those few individuals that use this feature as a way to censoring others.

I very much agree with this. I think more people should be voting what they think of posts. People can contribute to the community in a variety of ways and get a positive reputation even if they have one position or thread they get downvoted on. It provides feedback that can be very valuable.

 

Especially if you see a post that is -1 or -2 it would be very good for others to look it over and see if it is justified and "approve or disapprove" of the negative rating. If people vote more or ask why votes occurred we can work to make sure the reputation is appropriate. I do think individuals can be vengeful or irrational in a debate. However, I trust the collective judgment of people on here and if many people vote then it will provide a better picture as to what is going on.

[CrazyCanuck]

I don't take votes seriously.  People are naturally going to disagree. 

[Kevin Beal]

How about a reputation renewal every month or so? There are some people with 100+ positive reputation and it would take a horribly wrong and offensive message to bring that back to 0, and same with people who have -30 or even lower would have to change drastically to change their methodology. That would also be time consuming to recover on neutral ground.

I don't understand why you would want me to have 0 points again, but maybe that's my bias

 

People who have -30 pts are in all likelihood not going to reform themselves. Maybe we could have an appeal process, but just resetting their points almost completely defeats the purpose of the system.

 

Tell me that if you got so many downvotes that your posts were hidden, would you ever try and reform yourself to conform to those people who rejected you? If you think that you are right in your posts, then you'll see it as an injustice and you will resent the community that rejected you in that way. If you don't believe that you were right and the people who rejected you were just being honest then that is quite a drastic flip flop and I personally would be extremely suspicious of that sort of personality.

 

If you still want a chance at a reset from -30 to 0 then maybe we could have an appeal process and if their appeal is compelling then they get back to 0. That way we see how many times they attempted to reform and their success rate.

 

I also dislike the idea of my reputation points being reset because I want them. And I want lots more. I'm coming after you Wesley!

 

Or what about the idea that you can give your reputation points to other people? You build up cred and then if you want to dig someone out of a hole or if you think they are underrated / under appreciated, you can give them your points.

[Wesley]

I don't understand why you would want me to have 0 points again, but maybe that's my bias

 

People who have -30 pts are in all likelihood not going to reform themselves. Maybe we could have an appeal process, but just resetting their points almost completely defeats the purpose of the system.

 

Tell me that if you got so many downvotes that your posts were hidden, would you ever try and reform yourself to conform to those people who rejected you? If you think that you are right in your posts, then you'll see it as an injustice and you will resent the community that rejected you in that way. If you don't believe that you were right and the people who rejected you were just being honest then that is quite a drastic flip flop and I personally would be extremely suspicious of that sort of personality.

 

If you still want a chance at a reset from -30 to 0 then maybe we could have an appeal process and if their appeal is compelling then they get back to 0. That way we see how many times they attempted to reform and their success rate.

 

I also dislike the idea of my reputation points being reset because I want them. And I want lots more. I'm coming after you Wesley!

 

Or what about the idea that you can give your reputation points to other people? You build up cred and then if you want to dig someone out of a hole or if you think they are underrated / under appreciated, you can give them your points.

I am not very good at this game. Every time you tell me you are coming after me, I have to vote up your post.

 

I have thought that it would be cool to "spend" positive reputation in order to "buy" extra votes for people.

 

Then I realized that anyone who posts somewhat regularly will have maybe a post or two a day. I can just go to all of their posts and upvote them up every day which would boost their rating if someone wanted to at no real cost.

 

I do like the idea of spending reputation to back someone else, though. I think it should be at a negative ratio. Like 5 points for 1 reputation. Also, it could place an entry onto their reputation page like "this user was backed by NAME for 5 reputation point boost" which in a sense would link the accounts. If I kept supporting troll accounts it would 1- be expensive and not very worthwhile because of the cost in reputation to the main account and 2- start to bring questions to my account as those accounts with negative rep are linked to mine.

 

I was working toward getting a nice rep for a while, but there is a point of, well I have 165 as of this post. what am I really going to do with 166? What happens if I have 1,600? I seems somewhat meaningless at some point. Spending points for bumping other's reputations, putting in podcast requests with votes to back the request, or adding more tiers in reputation would be ways to continue the ladder climb of reputation.

 

I have no idea how much time it is worth spending on the reputation system though. A lot of these changes seem cool to the handful of people who spend a bunch of time on the board, and otherwise don't mean much to many of the people involved in the broader conversation. I see lots of cool ways to develop the reputation into a massive sink-hole of time and resources for not a lot of gain. It is hard for me to make up my mind.

[Barry_diller]

It's pretty annoying that I have to click on a post to show unpopular peoples opinion

[MysterionMuffles]

An idea we came up with in the chat earlie today was to have a manditory feedback function for up AND down votes. UPB the Rep System! 

 

For either one of them, it should have three fields that are congruent with the feedback sandwhich I learned about in writing class. To give proper critiques one must:

 

- Give an initial positive note that is more of a surface compliment for now...

- The juicy part being the constructive criticism on where the person can improve goes here

- Top off the sandwhich with a more in depth positive note

Or hey how about the rep points being able to unlock premium podcasts? Lol that'd be too gamey and taxing actually, though fun in theory.

[Wesley]

An idea we came up with in the chat earlie today was to have a manditory feedback function for up AND down votes. UPB the Rep System! 

 

For either one of them, it should have three fields that are congruent with the feedback sandwhich I learned about in writing class. To give proper critiques one must:

 

- Give an initial positive note that is more of a surface compliment for now...

- The juicy part being the constructive criticism on where the person can improve goes here

- Top off the sandwhich with a more in depth positive note

Or hey how about the rep points being able to unlock premium podcasts? Lol that'd be too gamey and taxing actually, though fun in theory.

What if my post consists of something so bad or nonsensical that you cannot come up with good feedback for it?

 

Like I advocate abuse or am racist or something else that is horrible?

[Kevin Beal]

What if I don't want to give written feedback? I'm out of luck?

 

It's like those edit forms that won't validate until you describe what exactly you edited, except that everyone just types "sfgdzfhh" because they just want to make the edit and don't feel like explaining it.

[MysterionMuffles]

then you simply can't vote. If you type sdkfhklfhsdher it makes the vote invalid.

[Kevin Beal]

then you simply can't vote. If you type sdkfhklfhsdher it makes the vote invalid.

There's no way to validate that without human eyes. The more you try and validate programmatically according to conventions of grammar and syntax, the more actual legitimate feedback will fail validation and not let you through. That's why all fields of this type only check if it's empty (and sometimes the minimum character count).

 

(I do a lot of forms, interfaces and validation as part of my job).

 

There used to be a rule in the forums that said that you couldn't edit a post after a certain amount of time and when you made an edit, it had to give an explanation of the edit. I always typed "sgsaghah". Maybe JamesP has a record of all these edit descriptions and he could say whether or not it served it's purpose.

 

I can picture myself just saying something like "cool post" with my upvote which is just as meaningless as "sgasfgasdfg", really.

 

Like I mentioned before, I don't think that the problems people have with the reputation system are problems that can or should be solved technologically. Like statists believing that laws are there so they can stop trying to do something about the problem, we may find ourselves only making the problem worse.

 

Short terse descriptions like youtube comments don't usually communicate very much, and it seems to encourage hit and run kinds of aggressive stuff (which is probably a big reason behind the new youtube comment changes). People are likely to say as their feedback "your arguments are stupid and you're a jerk". You can't actually force real legitimate feedback. That's what the reply button is for

[MysterionMuffles]

Hm what about scrapping the feedback forms and instead allow people's names to appear on the voting scale when you hover your mouse over it?

That way if anyone has some personal beef, they can take their intellectual scraps through PM!

[PatrickC]

Perhaps the hidden posts of those past -30 could be lifted little higher perhaps, say to -45 before they get hidden. Just a thought.. But generally I think it's working pretty well for the most part. Without pointing out specific reps that have been unfairly treated, it's really difficult to gauge what might be happening on an individual level.

[Mike Fleming]

It's pretty annoying that I have to click on a post to show unpopular peoples opinion

 

This is what it comes down to for me.  If you don't like someone or think they are a troll there should be an ignore feature which allows you to turn off their posts.  A one-click simple and easy option.

 

If they are disruptive to the board, they should have a certain amount of warnings that eventually lead to a ban (temporary or permanent).

 

Or even you could have an option to say, "ignore all people with a reputation lower than x".  But it should be a personal setting.

 

The reality is that people with negative reputation are still allowed to participate in conversations.   It's like a soft form of censorship hiding their posts from everyone.  And the number itself will be pretty arbitrary whatever you pick.

 

I think the negative feature itself is not bad.  it's good to have a reputation system.  I just don't think the current global effects of it are warranted.  (Almost feels like totalitarianism   )

 

Maybe the reputation number could be made more prominent?

[FriendlyHacker]

If there are trolls on this board and they receive upvotes for trolling, does that not defeat the whole purpose of the feature?

 

Though I can't complain, websites are not a democracy, they are private property and I can't tell what people should be doing over their own private property.

 

Some people get pissed off and bitch about posts being deleted, accounts being blocked, these people don't realize that Admins can kick them out of their private property, with or without any reason.

[MysterionMuffles]

I still think simply allowing the names to pop up on the up or down votes to appear at the bottom of people's posts. I like how on Youtube, I can see the names of people upvote my comments so it's not just an arbitrary number that makes me feel awesome. It's an arbitrary number coupled with people's names that makes me feel awesome!

[Mike Fleming]

I still think simply allowing the names to pop up on the up or down votes to appear at the bottom of people's posts. I like how on Youtube, I can see the names of people upvote my comments so it's not just an arbitrary number that makes me feel awesome. It's an arbitrary number coupled with people's names that makes me feel awesome!

 

I upvoted this.  

[Lians]

If people up-voted troll comments, the reputation system would be the least of our worries. I'm yet to see anyone who was unjustly down-voted to the point of triggering a comment filter. I'd even propose a ban threshold for negative reputation when it comes to hardcore trolls who continue posting despite getting censored. They only waste server resources and emotional energy on the part of members.

[FriendlyHacker]

If people up-voted troll comments, the reputation system would be the least of our worries. I'm yet to see anyone who was unjustly down-voted to the point of triggering a comment filter. I'd even propose a ban threshold for negative reputation when it comes to hardcore trolls who continue posting despite getting censored. They only waste server resources and emotional energy on the part of members.

 

Let's say I'm an annoying troll and am very glad you mentioned this, because I can go around the forum and downvote each one of your posts. Even if there is a limit of how many downvotes you can do a day, would take a few days to get you banned, or a single day on multiple accounts.

[LuckyNumber23]

Judging arguments on their own while disregarding the people putting them forth is called science.

[Lians]

Let's say I'm an annoying troll and am very glad you mentioned this, because I can go around the forum and downvote each one of your posts. Even if there is a limit of how many downvotes you can do a day, would take a few days to get you banned, or a single day on multiple accounts.

 

I don't know what kind of constraints exist right now, but you can just limit the total down-vote quota per person. That way, the threshold limit can be reached only if a bunch of people "complain" about you. The information of who down-votes is there, and you can always request an investigation if you notice something fishy. The system doesn't have to be automatic. It can just compile a list of offenders and notify the moderation team for further review.

 

As you probably know, software can't fix human problems, but it can certainly gather useful information. To me, that's the whole purpose of the reputation system.

[FriendlyHacker]

I don't know what kind of constraints exist right now, but you can just limit the total down-vote quota per person. That way, the threshold limit can be reached only if a bunch of people "complain" about you. The information of who down-votes is there, and you can always request an investigation if you notice something fishy. The system doesn't have to be automatic. It can just compile a list of offenders and notify the moderation team for further review.

 

As you probably know, software can't fix human problems, but it can certainly gather useful information. To me, that's the whole purpose of the reputation system.

 

Or, hear me out on this, how about there is no downvote feature, and nobody has to waste any time with it? Isn't that brilliant?Because, you know, there is the report button already and any bad post can be reported anyway.

[cynicist]

Based on how the rep system works, I would have assumed that negative votes were for things like spam. Instead, it seems like people get downvoted a lot simply for (stubbornly and irrationally) arguing for unpopular views. 

 

I thought the purpose was to downvote posts you thought were irrational, badly argued, unhelpful, or that you disagreed with, just as a way to measure the response of people who feel strongly but don't have anything they want to add in text. Sometimes I don't have the energy to make a long drawn out reply, counter every tired argument, and other times my thoughts have already been posted. I like the rep counter for individual posts as a reflection of the sentiment of visitors to the thread, but I'm not sure how I feel about total reputation. (if someone is abusive or spammy they shouldn't have posting rights anyway, not to mention a report button exists already so using reputation for that purpose would be redundant)

 

I think most of the problems with the reputation system have more to do with different interpretations of what it is supposed to be used for. Personally I like FriendlyHacker even if I disagree with a lot of his posts, because he seems to be genuine and a nice guy, but I'd like to be able to show my disagreement without posting and without preventing his posts from being seen, or him from being blocked/banned/whatever. Am I just misunderstanding the purpose of the system or is there any way this change can be made?

 

 

As for free will-determinism, I don't see how anyone can say it's resolved when it is still so contentious here and in society at large.  And why should people like myself who didn't get a chance to contribute our thoughts now be censored?   Although, it seems to me that in reality it isn't censored, it's just that some people wish it was.  That should get me at least one downvote.     I'm going for the red!!

 

That topic is not supposed to be allowed on the forums anyway, see here. 

What if I don't want to give written feedback? I'm out of luck?

 

It's like those edit forms that won't validate until you describe what exactly you edited, except that everyone just types "sfgdzfhh" because they just want to make the edit and don't feel like explaining it.

 

That's how I look at it. Requiring a reason for a vote is counterproductive, because if someone wanted to type out a response then wouldn't they do that instead of clicking the arrows in the first place?

[ThomasDoubts]

Do people in "the real world" not establish a poor reputation?  I don't see why it would be a problem for that to happen here. 

 

For anyone that's been downvoted, what is the problem?  If you believe you were downvoted without good reason, you must be concerned that the collective will not upvote to negate/surpass your downvote.  If you believe the collective is downvoting without good reason, you must be concerned that the board, generally speaking, does not evaluate arguments on the basis of reason and evidence. 

 

If you accept that board members, generally speaking, embrace reason and evidence, then downvotes indicate you have not embraced reason and evidence, or have applied the principals incorrectly/insufficiently.  Votes are simply a measure of what the community thinks.  Why would you be concerned with the community at large downvoting you, on the basis of reason and evidence?  They must have a collective blindspot of sorts, I presume, which wouldn't be unprecidented in human history...   On the other hand, you could be just making bad arguments.  I think, often times, we hesitate to fully consider the latter. 

 

If there is some sort of viral, emotional or abusive downvoting going on, I haven't noticed it.

[Guest Exceptionalist]

Some people get pissed off and bitch about posts being deleted, accounts being blocked, these people don't realize that Admins can kick them out of their private property, with or without any reason.

 

 

That doesn't take into account that moderaters or admins aren't usally the site owner and have their own prejudices and biases. They acting in behalf of the site owner according to a given set of rulez, which can be interpreted in their favour.

 

Do people in "the real world" not establish a poor reputation?  I don't see why it would be a problem for that to happen here. 

 

 

If you wanna be more than a bunch of hyper emotional and hype sensitive sheeple, there should be a different standard, especially if the focus is the quality of reasoning.

 

If you accept that board members, generally speaking, embrace reason and evidence, then downvotes indicate you have not embraced reason and evidence, or have applied the principals incorrectly/insufficiently.  Votes are simply a measure of what the community thinks.

 

 

 

You can embrace this illusion, but ...

Votes are a measure what individuals think and feel, because only individuals can act. It says exactly nothing about the quality of the post, because that would require a way more precise method to determine.

 

If there is some sort of viral, emotional or abusive downvoting going on, I haven't noticed it.

 

 

Which says precisely nothing at all, because you couldn't distinguish between an emotional knee-jerk response, a disagreement in conclusion or method. 

[ThomasDoubts]

 

If you wanna be more than a bunch of hyper emotional and hype sensitive sheeple, there should be a different standard, especially if the focus is the quality of reasoning.

 

I have no idea what you mean by this. 

 

 

You can embrace this illusion, but ...

Votes are a measure what individuals think and feel, because only individuals can act. It says exactly nothing about the quality of the post, because that would require a way more precise method to determine.

 

In what way is what I described an illusion.  Of course, individuals act, not groups.  The precise method must surely be reason and evidence, would you agree? 

 

 

Which says precisely nothing at all, because you couldn't distinguish between an emotional knee-jerk response, a disagreement in conclusion or method. 

 

I can't distinguish with certainty, but I can make educated guesses.  If someone gets downvoted for saying something abusive, or advocating abuse, I can guess why they were downvoted.  I don't know unless the downvoter justifies the downvote to my satisfaction, but I'm not clueless either.  Of course these same things could be said about upvoting (disagreement->agreement); is it your position that we shouldn't have a reputation system at all? 

[Mike Fleming]

 

 

That topic is not supposed to be allowed on the forums anyway, see here. 

 

Not wanting to drag this off topic but I've indicated before that this is BS.  There is no rational basis for the topic not to be discussed.

 

 If atheism, which we atheists understand as being a slam dunk resolved, can continue to be discussed, then what reason do we have for determinism not being able to be discussed, regardless if the host thinks it is resolved (in his case, in favour of free will ) or not?   It has a lot of the flavour of religious people not wanting atheism to be discussed.   I think it would be helpful if this was cleared up by the people in charge here.  If the topic is to be banned, can we at least have the reason why?

[cynicist]

Not wanting to drag this off topic but I've indicated before that this is BS.  There is no rational basis for the topic not to be discussed.

 

 If atheism, which we atheists understand as being a slam dunk resolved, can continue to be discussed, then what reason do we have for determinism not being able to be discussed, regardless if the host thinks it is resolved (in his case, in favour of free will ) or not?   It has a lot of the flavour of religious people not wanting atheism to be discussed.   I think it would be helpful if this was cleared up by the people in charge here.  If the topic is to be banned, can we at least have the reason why?

 

Hard determinism is unfalsifiable so it's not really a philosophical matter. As Stefan as said in the past, if human behavior was directly causal you could just demonstrate that by predicting someone's behavior or mathematically calculating what someone is going to do just like you can with the effect of gravity on objects. Arguing about hard determinism is literally equivalent to debating whether everything we perceive is sent to us by alien overlords from a separate dimension. We can't disprove it and even if it were true it would have zero practical consequences for us, so spending time on it is rather pointless.

[PatrickC]

If atheism, which we atheists understand as being a slam dunk resolved, can continue to be discussed, then what reason do we have for determinism not being able to be discussed, regardless if the host thinks it is resolved (in his case, in favour of free will ) or not?   It has a lot of the flavour of religious people not wanting atheism to be discussed.   I think it would be helpful if this was cleared up by the people in charge here.  If the topic is to be banned, can we at least have the reason why?

 

Until there is a good argument, that counters the free will one, then fair enough. The trouble is, the board keeps getting the same old tired arguments. If it were my board, I'd probably demand the same reasoning as Stef. It's been fairly droll having to read the same arguments once again recently on a number of threads. Research Stefan's or the boards arguments fully, which has changed on points here and there, then forward it. This isn't about censorship. It's about a good argument.

[RuralRon]

I read this entire thread, and also read others from a search on reputation. I see alot of good points being made about the rep system. I am not yet a donator, so my opinion may not be of much value on this topic. But generally it seems like a good system. I think a sticky is in order for it though. I asked Micheal about the rep system some time ago and didn't get a reply, at least not until after my question was already answered by someone else.

 

His time is valuable and he was probably busy with more important things. No problem MMD

 

This discussion and my own experience just highlights the need for a sticky. I'll volunteer to write it, and do the research about it from what I can gather from the posts about reputation here on the forum, but the sticky needs to reflect what the board owner desires, not my opinion or even an aggregate of posts about it. And I'm not sure looking at this on other forums would have value here.

 

So if one of the staff can provide the definitive intent for the reputation system, what the threshold is for hiding posts, how members are banned and how (or if) that is related to the rep system and any other input about the rep system Stef / staff feels should be in a sticky I will go to work on it.

 

Since I'm not a donator I'd like to help if I can by doing this. It's not much but it's something I'll offer.

 

Lastly, I feel I must put in a brief comment about closed discussions. PatrickC and Mike Flemming among others were discussing such a topic, and Robert included a link to why it was closed. Although I feel Mike's comparison with atheism is on point, rational and is generally excellent, Stef is the owner of this board and it is his money being spent so he is the final arbiter of what is or is not allowed here. So I cannot disagree with him on the philosophical grounds of ownership or property rights. 

 

I do disagree with him on philosophical grounds of inconsistency and application of the principle of anarchy. IMO this is censorship. People are certainly free to PM Stefan or contact Micheal to schedule a call in to the show (better have something new!), but Stef has decided to stop discussion of this topic and has given his reason for doing so. Is this censorship limited to public posts or are PMs subject to this restriction as well? Stef is declaring he is not open to input about this topic. His mind is closed about it. I may get downvotes for saying this but I see this as a bit hypocritical.

 

Nevertheless, I still must conclude it is Stef's choice to make, and I sympathize with the difficulty of weighing the practical application of resources and principles in making that choice.

[JamesP]

I created a post in the Technical Issues forum, a sticky titled Reputation System.

[thelizardking52]

It's probably unfounded paranoia, but I've gotten more downvotes since posting in this thread than all of the time this feature has been on the boards.

 

I must admit that it would be nice to hear an explanation for the votes. Or to see if it's like one guy who has a grudge or something.

 

I think I wasn't completely right when I said that negative votes are a learning opportunity. It helps me see how I react to negative criticism, but it doesn't help very much to see what exactly I said that prompted the vote. I can come up with a story that it's because I wasn't [x] enough or that it's just some petty person, but it would be nice to know what prompted it.

 

It is interesting to me how much the votes affect me, when maybe they shouldn't. I want to be liked and to know that something I've said is helpful to someone. But at the same time, it's text based, relatively short posts where you get a very incomplete picture of a person, and there's often a lot of it up for interpretation.

 

The votes do offer me some credibility since I have a decent amount of them, as does the PK badge (I assume), and that gives me a little extra confidence that what I'm saying is going to be taken seriously. And isn't that what everyone wants? To be taken seriously?

 

That would explain some of my own feelings about it, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's probably the most common reaction for people on the boards to negative votes: triggering that resentment about not being taken seriously, either because of a family history, or public school or whatever it was.

 

I have a desire for people to explain their dislike to me and even a little desire to get them back somehow, and downvote their posts or something. I have the capacity for sadism myself and don't feel 100% on some of the votes (positive or negative) that I've made. So there's a blind spot for me that is prime for projection.

 

And if it's difficult for me to deal with this kind of feedback, then it's probably the same for others. And just like I have a sadistic side, so might others.

 

Is it really just me?

 

 

 I appreciate your direct and open honesty.

 

I once gave you a down vote when I agreed with you to make a point that no one really knows the true reason for an up or down vote in the first place ( interestingly it's the one post I've been most down voted for but my belief as to why that is, is that I was misunderstood and that it was my fault for failing to express myself clearly).

 

All we can really do is speculate as to what may be the reason for the vote and feel that we are justified in our view or virtuous in an up vote, or we may feel wrong/beaten/ or misunderstood etc. etc. in a down vote. It's still only speculation on our part unless the voting system requires we provide explanation. 

 

Part of me says "who cares" because in the end it doesn't make much difference.  However, I don't like the idea of censoring people with too many down votes though and I'll explain why.  If I am a regular user on this board and I see a guy who has lots of down votes I will likely already be aware of him and it should me MY choice whether I will censor that person's comment or not, rather than an automatic censorship. I understand the comment can still be viewed but the idea of censoring it at all I am at odds with. Bad ideas don't need censorship to be rejected by smart people.  I like to think that most of us here are smart people, but maybe I am wrong.

 

I think if society is screwed up we should not look for the approval from society. I also think this particular community, if it is virtuous, is a good place to measure one's online behaviour thru the voting system. I also believe it should be anonymous votes and not required to explain the reason for the vote as that will take away incentive to freely vote one way or another.  One jerk downvoting everyone isn't gonna be able to dominate the final voting results and I doubt there's lots of jerks lurking around to do this. 

 

Not wanting to drag this off topic but I've indicated before that this is BS.  There is no rational basis for the topic not to be discussed.

 

 If atheism, which we atheists understand as being a slam dunk resolved, can continue to be discussed, then what reason do we have for determinism not being able to be discussed, regardless if the host thinks it is resolved (in his case, in favour of free will ) or not?   It has a lot of the flavour of religious people not wanting atheism to be discussed.   I think it would be helpful if this was cleared up by the people in charge here.  If the topic is to be banned, can we at least have the reason why?

I find the stance on determinism to lack reason and to argue for it is counter to your entire argument. For you have no choice in the matter, of convincing others to agree to its principles, if you believe it.  

 

I wouldn't censor the topic myself but it is Stefan's site and he does have the choice to do so...

[AustinJames]

I love the reputation system, just the way it is.  If you think capitalism is a good system, then you must agree that the reputation system will provide the community with content of the highest possible quality.  To think capitalism is good, but the reputation system is bad, is a logical contradiction.

[NigelW]

I would prefer that if people see me in a thread with someone who has been a troll that they tell me that I am wasting my time.

[AustinJames]

I would prefer that if people see me in a thread with someone who has been a troll that they tell me that I am wasting my time.

 

It is nice when this happens.  I have received several personal messages informing me of a trollish user's past behavior.  Now that I've had some time on the forums, I try to watch other people's backs as well.  Rest assured, I will let you know if I think you're wasting your time.

[jacbot]

yeah, there is this jewish guy who got banned, (of course it was the Gaza/Isreal debate thread where he aquired -26 votedowns)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI9uN4WbOPs#t=13

 

He told me his account is blocked now and he cant make more posts. ,.., maybe for other reasons then his position in this thread, I read his posts ,i didnt find it trolling , he defended his opinion without any personal attacks.

 

Anyway,.., the website is Stefs private property and he can do what he wants.., he can take this feedback any which way.