Community Suggestion Box

What about Peter Levenda? He has a relatively new book out (November 2014), though I am mainly interested in his Sinister Forces trilogy. His blog is here: http://peterlevenda.com (Hope that is okay to post, if not a mod can delete. He also has a wikipedia (I know) page.)
 
It doesn't matter. Alex doesn't care about the lowly, unimportant suggestions we common listeners have to offer. He'll now probably have Bernardo on for a third time just to passively spite you, demonstrating his contempt for the everyday average worker. So go on and continue this charade if you'd like. I for one have had enough.
Would you like a tissue?
 
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What needs fixing? What needs improving? Who absolutely must be invited to appear on Skeptiko? Let us hear from you :)

In case it got missed, I'm going to again plug George P. Hansen, author of "The Trickster and the Paranormal". I finally just finished his book, and it has profoundly added to my understanding in many ways. I highly recommend it! I hope you can get him on the show! :)

 
The Skeptiko forum seems quieter than it was a few years ago, is this the case? Admittedly much of the debate was Linda pretending not to understand what people were saying, but apart from a brief flurry after a new podcast, there isn't much discussion of the topics. Did I miss something in my absence?
 
The Skeptiko forum seems quieter than it was a few years ago, is this the case? Admittedly much of the debate was Linda pretending not to understand what people were saying, but apart from a brief flurry after a new podcast, there isn't much discussion of the topics. Did I miss something in my absence?
At the risk of upsetting Craig and then David, there has been too much moderation generally, and some of it wildly inconsistent. Even today, max got pulled up for making a comment about ignoring you... Larkin makes this sort of comment often, never censured.
 
At the risk of upsetting Craig and then David, there has been too much moderation generally, and some of it wildly inconsistent. Even today, max got pulled up for making a comment about ignoring you... Larkin makes this sort of comment often, never censured.
Right. Well I never flagged anyone, not even Linda when she was accusing people of using words, so Max's flounce barely registered. The site seemed to have more footfall and churn previously, whereas it's gone a bit Plato's cave.
 
Some time ago I took a voluntary time-out from the forum. It was already flagging at that time. I think that nowadays it has reached a state where there is a core membership who all more or less know one another's views on most topics, perhaps it's like a long marriage where the initial excitement has worn off.
 
Some time ago I took a voluntary time-out from the forum. It was already flagging at that time. I think that nowadays it has reached a state where there is a core membership who all more or less know one another's views on most topics, perhaps it's like a long marriage where the initial excitement has worn off.
There are a number of issues with sites associated with unusual phenomena. One is they instantly polarise opinions, another is they eventually exhaust peoples' contributions as you say, and there's also the thing where every phenomenon is treated equally so long as it's off-beat.

A case of the latter is the Fortean Times. It started out as a post-hippie mag run by a sci-fi fan and a former situationist and offered clippings and articles about weird stuff in a largely unmediated way, except for the occasional wry comment. At no point did the editors claim the reports were true or untrue, but included them as being within the bounds of possibility. Fort said he was not interested in singularities, but repeated phenomena, and content fell into a range of themes. I first came across it in the 70s and took it regularly from the 1980s. It was definitive lavatory reading, thoughtful and good fun. The original editors wanted to retire around the millennium and it was sold on to a bigger publisher, who in turn passed it to someone else.

The FT forum today is a parody of the original magazine. Moderators are openly materialistic and partial and subjects are largely treated as "true" (science based posts) or a comment on the unreliability of the human observer (everything else). Contributors are banned if they don't get it and the limits of discourse are uncompromisingly imposed. When I last looked, some time ago, it was sock puppet hell and mods indulged the status quo. It really is sad to see what happened to the old mag and I stopped taking it years ago. The treatment of all phenomena as worthy of note is a noble enterprise, but the old FT was largely free of debunking whereas the forum is a skeptics playground.

How you keep a site vital for proponents and dissenting opinion engaged, I don't know.
 
Perhaps these things simply have a life cycle. I sometimes peruse a website for former members of a religious group and it's been busy for more than 15 years. Alsorts of things are discussed on it. I guess these things have an ebb and flow. I'd say I peek in here a few times a day, I read a lot but don't tend to post unless I feel I have something to contribute.
 
At the risk of upsetting Craig and then David, there has been too much moderation generally, and some of it wildly inconsistent. Even today, max got pulled up for making a comment about ignoring you... Larkin makes this sort of comment often, never censured.

I am currently taking a self imposed break from the forum with this as the major catalyst for me doing so. I found out that people are all biased, even those that can't see it in themselves. I wouldn't ban anyone who shows at least somewhat of an interest in the subject(s) discussed here, and can engage in adult conversation, preferably with some degree of humour and not least, humility.
 
I've just read my last sentence, and FDRS sometimes didn't sound very adult, but I didn't care about that, at other times he'd provide very thoughtful and intelligent input to debates, and I was very sad to see him being finally barred. I thought and hoped he'd regenerate eternally as different forms of furniture or equine beasts.
 
I am currently taking a self imposed break from the forum with this as the major catalyst for me doing so. I found out that people are all biased, even those that can't see it in themselves. I wouldn't ban anyone who shows at least somewhat of an interest in the subject(s) discussed here, and can engage in adult conversation, preferably with some degree of humour and not least, humility.
Of course bias sounds like a negative quality. There is a positive way to consider the same trait, i.e. that of having a particular perspective which may serve to illuminate some aspect of a topic. In this sense there's no need to suggest that people are unable to see their own bias, rather that specific outlook is the very contribution which they are able to bring and the reason why they should be valued.
 
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