227. Continued... continued... feedback on new forum

Although in theory a forum can have a policy to ban users who use a proxy, in practice it would be difficult unless they require that you use the same internet connection every time you post. You will be coming from behind some sort of proxy if you:

Post from work.
Post from a computer in a library.
Post using wi-fi from a cafe using your mobile device.
 
TOR makes it impossible to ban IP addresses, which is necessary for getting rid of trolls. The best thing your friend can do is to either use someone else's computer who won't mind being traced, or get a cheap computer to use just for this purpose and keep all personal information off of it and get an anonymous hotmail email account to register. It will be possible to trace this person to the general area in which they live, but not to them specifically except by court order depending on their nation's laws.

Hard to believe someone could still believe this based on the published activities of the NSA over the last few months.
 
Although in theory a forum can have a policy to ban users who use a proxy, in practice it would be difficult unless they require that you use the same internet connection every time you post. You will be coming from behind some sort of proxy if you:

Post from work.
Post from a computer in a library.
Post using wi-fi from a cafe using your mobile device.

So: Every time I post, does the system check if I'm using a constant IP address? I thought IP addresses could sometimes change even if you always post from the same computer in the same place.
 
It was recently posted by an admin that " Any person who uses an IP anonymizer will be permanently banned. There will be no exceptions."

Without a doubt that is one of the most draconian and community-killing rules I've come across. Not to mention being downright unfriendly. If the intent is to encourage open discourse among people, I suggest it be rescinded immediately. Beyond that, given the state of things to not be actively encouraging people to protect their privacy as much as possible seems almost like an assault on their civil liberties.The fact that a person values their anonymity doesn't mean that their thought, experiences, etc aren't of benefit to others. I doubt that this forum will attract many who are going to intentionally attempt to destabilize it. If it does get to that point, then it would make sense to consider such an approach.
 
It was recently posted by an admin that " Any person who uses an IP anonymizer will be permanently banned. There will be no exceptions."

Without a doubt that is one of the most draconian and community-killing rules I've come across. Not to mention being downright unfriendly. If the intent is to encourage open discourse among people, I suggest it be rescinded immediately. Beyond that, given the state of things to not be actively encouraging people to protect their privacy as much as possible seems almost like an assault on their civil liberties.The fact that a person values their anonymity doesn't mean that their thought, experiences, etc aren't of benefit to others. I doubt that this forum will attract many who are going to intentionally attempt to destabilize it. If it does get to that point, then it would make sense to consider such an approach.

Maybe you're right, but my purpose isn't to challenge the rule, only to understand it--and if action taken is so severe, it should definitely be stressed in the rules.
 
Hard to believe someone could still believe this based on the published activities of the NSA over the last few months.

Well, granted, but the NSA doesn't share that information with anyone else, so as long as it stays that way, this works for practical purposes.
 
It was recently posted by an admin that " Any person who uses an IP anonymizer will be permanently banned. There will be no exceptions."

Without a doubt that is one of the most draconian and community-killing rules I've come across. Not to mention being downright unfriendly. If the intent is to encourage open discourse among people, I suggest it be rescinded immediately. Beyond that, given the state of things to not be actively encouraging people to protect their privacy as much as possible seems almost like an assault on their civil liberties.The fact that a person values their anonymity doesn't mean that their thought, experiences, etc aren't of benefit to others. I doubt that this forum will attract many who are going to intentionally attempt to destabilize it. If it does get to that point, then it would make sense to consider such an approach.

Unfortunately, that's the way things are headed. The Huffington Post recently enacted similar rules. Trolling is a problem everywhere and the only way to combat it is to start holding people accountable. We didn't have this ability to be anonymous before the Internet, so it's questionable how much it has hurt our civil liberties.
 
Oh, interesting. I wasn't thinking of that. My goal would be to prevent the same person from posting under multiple accounts.

~~ Paul
That was my understanding too. But this was the first definition that came up. It certainly conjures some interesting and funny images in the mind.
 
We made the decision to ban people who use anonymizers at the old Skeptiko because the worst trolls we ever got used them, but no one else did (or didn't seem to.) It was much easier to ban for this than to sit around for a few days reading their posts, trying to figure out their intentions. Since we also delete posts by banned members, the fewer there are, the less work there is.

The wrinkle about the US NSA is interesting, but maybe they need the kind of conversations we have here.

AP
 
maybe I can do this at the thread level, rather than forum?
ok, I've been playing around with another version of this that might be more workable. Moderators (Andy and I for now) will place a Mod+ designation on threads that we want to screen for "skeptical silliness". This will allow us to avoid the separate forums problem, and will leave in the hands of the moderators to keep some threads free of some of the unending silliness that comes from the mind=brain folks.

So, the final step in this process will be to flag dialog-draining posts with a red Mod+ flag (only Andy or I can issue, but anyone can suggest). If someone gets one these then we're asking them not to do anymore posting in the thread. But the real goal is to stop these keep these posts out of the Mod+ threads in the first place. We'll have to see how it goes... but I think it might be a move in the right direction.
 
This may be a little off-topic but the one rule I hope to see enforced is keeping the materialism vs consciousness debates, nay-saying and pseudo-skepticism in the BvS forum. I can only speak for myself but I'm enthusiastic about all discussions of the whats/hows/etc within greater realities. On the other hand I've had my fill of arguing with those who don't get it. I don't think everyone is, or most people are "supposed" to get it - yet. When that happens it will be the norm and sites like this won't be as important.

One thread that I see as already being about the above-mentioned debate is the "Is materialism dead?" thread. Based on my understanding of the rules and intent, it is more appropriate to the BvS forum.
see above... may be better than having separate forums.
 
If it's a question of my right to be here and you don't want to grant it, then just say so.

What you people are doing is trying to appear fair while being discriminatory. Stop! Just do what you want to do. Otherwise you look like a bunch of disingenuous dicks who won't admit that you want to wall off your belief system.


Then have the balls to enforce your beliefs about me by simply disallowing me from posting in Skeptiko.

~~ Paul
you get your wish :) pls take a week off from posting on the Skeptiko forum. send me an email if you want to come back.
 
ok, I've been playing around with another version of this that might be more workable. Moderators (Andy and I for now) will place a Mod+ designation on threads that we want to screen for "skeptical silliness". This will allow us to avoid the separate forums problem, and will leave in the hands of the moderators to keep some threads free of some of the unending silliness that comes from the mind=brain folks.

So, the final step in this process will be to flag dialog-draining posts with a red Mod+ flag (only Andy or I can issue, but anyone can suggest). If someone gets one these then we're asking them not to do anymore posting in the thread. But the real goal is to stop these keep these posts out of the Mod+ threads in the first place. We'll have to see how it goes... but I think it might be a move in the right direction.

That seems like it will be harder to moderate, but then again, I'm not a moderator. It's a difficult task and I hope it works out. We world class tightrope walking skeptics on this site.
 
ok, I've been playing around with another version of this that might be more workable. Moderators (Andy and I for now) will place a Mod+ designation on threads that we want to screen for "skeptical silliness". This will allow us to avoid the separate forums problem, and will leave in the hands of the moderators to keep some threads free of some of the unending silliness that comes from the mind=brain folks.

So, the final step in this process will be to flag dialog-draining posts with a red Mod+ flag (only Andy or I can issue, but anyone can suggest). If someone gets one these then we're asking them not to do anymore posting in the thread. But the real goal is to stop these keep these posts out of the Mod+ threads in the first place. We'll have to see how it goes... but I think it might be a move in the right direction.

This is probably a dumb question, but if two or more people are involved in one of these dialog-draining threads, who gets the red flag? Or will it just automatically be the "Associate"?

Please note, I'm not asking because I intend to get involved. I think it's a very good idea to separate these discussions, and to stay away from discussions which won't be what I am looking for.

Linda
 
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Also, I thought (mistakenly, I now realize) that this thread was a bit different from the other threads in this forum, with respect to whether "Associates" could participate openly. I apologize if I had any posts which stepped over the "Skeptiko Forum" line, in this thread.

Linda
 
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