Yeah those topics should be locked. It's politics without saying it is.
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Jan 3, 2025
0
#24
Furthermore, I and other users have reported harassment there, but the site didn't respond.
Jan 3, 2025
0
#25
For whatever reason, the site doesn't have a report option for posts that violate the site's policy on politics and religion, otherwise those topics probably would have been reported hundreds of times by now. Incidentally, this inoffensive topic was locked in a matter of minutes, for being indecently guileless I suppose. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/god-loves-everybody
Wow. Terrible double standard. Thanks for showing me how bad it is. Why ban a posititive forum like that but not ban a controversial topic like climate change and evolution?
Jan 3, 2025
0
#27
I think it's like the frog in the pot of heating water. The two political threads have been around for a long time. There's a juridical principle that long-standing injustices have to be maintained, because changing them would undermine the whole system. No one complains about it, because they are intimidated.
What I'm confused about is that the site filter doesn't allow "censored" names but it does let, and I quote, "I'ma shoot this place up, bouta be a dead chat". That message was spammed in my club previously.
Jan 3, 2025
0
#29
Some people would kill to have that much activity in their club, and here you are getting it in spades. Some chats have all the luck...
It was my friend who posted it as well...
Neither do I.
shadowtanuki wrote:
Maybe if you are perceptive, you will be able to imagine how disingenuous users can leverage the site's rules against politics and religion in discussions about global warming (policies) and the origins of life to create mental distress in people who try to interact with them on those topics. It's pretty weak of the site, and people who participate in those discussions, to allow debate, but restrict what some, but not all, of the debaters are allowed to say.
The distress is all yours. Just don't be distressed by other people talking about science. Go about your business. It's that simple. Instead, you are so upset that you keep constantly trying to undermine the mods and staff and post topics you know will be closed down. If I were a mod you'd be banned for intentionally wasting the mod's time by now, but they are more lenient than I am.
Note that if people like you just stopped trying to equate religion and science, there would be nobody to take a ribbing on the science threads and those threads would return to their naturally quiet states. If you go through the thousands of pages, you will see this cycle over and over again. Some new poster wades in thinking they are the first person to ever argue about the fossil record, they get shown the error of their ways, politely (if they are polite) or snarkily (if they are snarky). But then they do not stop, they keep hammering away with an argument they cannot factually support, and eventually, as in all walks of life, this leads to frustration and ridicule.
Imagine a kid on the schoolyard saying "the sky is green" over and over. How long does it take before the entire class is not having it? Your last sentence is key. Nobody restricts what you can say. You can even mention religion or politics as a reason for something, and nobody will say boo, as long as you don't start soapboxing directly about it. Some threads do not allow you to keep saying the same arguments over and over if you cannot post support for it. That is their decision.
You can start a competing thread if you don't like it, and *if* your competing thread can manage to stay within the TOS and forum guidelines, it too can survive to reach 50,000 posts. That can be a tall order, because people that are not, shall we say, amenable to peaceful conversations will always show up for an anti-science or anti-government party, and then you will be hard pressed to not break the guidelines. Or, you can go to one of the many freeware messageboard sites and start a community and make up your own rules. What you can't do is petulantly complain repeatedly in a fashion that causes the mods or staff more work. Eventually, they'll have had enough of it.
As for the 2 specific threads in question, they invariably return to a quiet state with occasional discussion of new articles etc. as soon as the anti-establishment crusader types move on.
PennsylvanianDude wrote:
Wow. Terrible double standard. Thanks for showing me how bad it is. Why ban a posititive forum like that but not ban a controversial topic like climate change and evolution?
The answer is that it's disingenuous. Climate change and evolution are not "controversial" for the majority of the planet's population. Conversely, the thread you listed as "positive" was posted purely to get shut down so the OP could complain about it, and for no other reason.
shadowtanuki wrote:
Can something be done to make some deletions from the site's list of filtered words? I have lost several long posts because of using a word that no person with a healthy mind would possibly find offensive in the context. This egregious filter is just one of many ways that the site shows contempt for its users. We're mostly adults here, and if I want to talk about my favorite author Philip K. D*ck, then I'm going to do it, and I'm not going to let this go until I get an apology from a staff member.
You aren't likely to but I don't blame you. It's like a concentration camp but you COULD change your literary preferences! Have you read The Status Civilisation?
Jan 3, 2025
0
#36
It's not the filtering of the word I have an issue with, it's the automated warning / banning system. It's automated due to laziness / lack of investment on part of the site, but what it means is you can say an authors name and find yourself banned for a week, it's quite dumb. On the other hand, if I have to forgo saying an authors name to see the cesspool of the internet be cleaned up I actually don't mind that.
The system of warnings is also not designed well (like most of this forum) - like if you're a user who spends significant time posting on this site you're going to accumulate warnings over time and eventually be banned just by accidentally saying words. I think I've been banned twice due to accidentally saying words I didn't consider taboo. And the message is like... "you were warned buddy" - yeah like 3 months ago I was warned about a different random word.
If you're going to automate a dirty word system like that then just automate the removal of the post, what you lazy / incompetents have done is automated injustices against your paying customers.
DiogenesDue wrote:
shadowtanuki wrote:
Maybe if you are perceptive, you will be able to imagine how disingenuous users can leverage the site's rules against politics and religion in discussions about global warming (policies) and the origins of life to create mental distress in people who try to interact with them on those topics. It's pretty weak of the site, and people who participate in those discussions, to allow debate, but restrict what some, but not all, of the debaters are allowed to say.
The distress is all yours. Just don't be distressed by other people talking about science. Go about your business. It's that simple. Instead, you are so upset that you keep constantly trying to undermine the mods and staff and post topics you know will be closed down. If I were a mod you'd be banned for intentionally wasting the mod's time by now, but they are more lenient than I am.
Note that if people like you just stopped trying to equate religion and science, there would be nobody to take a ribbing on the science threads and those threads would return to their naturally quiet states. If you go through the thousands of pages, you will see this cycle over and over again. Some new poster wades in thinking they are the first person to ever argue about the fossil record, they get shown the error of their ways, politely (if they are polite) or snarkily (if they are snarky). But then they do not stop, they keep hammering away with an argument they cannot factually support, and eventually, as in all walks of life, this leads to frustration and ridicule.
Imagine a kid on the schoolyard saying "the sky is green" over and over. How long does it take before the entire class is not having it? Your last sentence is key. Nobody restricts what you can say. You can even mention religion or politics as a reason for something, and nobody will say boo, as long as you don't start soapboxing directly about it. Some threads do not allow you to keep saying the same arguments over and over if you cannot post support for it. That is their decision.
You can start a competing thread if you don't like it, and *if* your competing thread can manage to stay within the TOS and forum guidelines, it too can survive to reach 50,000 posts. That can be a tall order, because people that are not, shall we say, amenable to peaceful conversations will always show up for an anti-science or anti-government party, and then you will be hard pressed to not break the guidelines. Or, you can go to one of the many freeware messageboard sites and start a community and make up your own rules. What you can't do is petulantly complain repeatedly in a fashion that causes the mods or staff more work. Eventually, they'll have had enough of it.
As for the 2 specific threads in question, they invariably return to a quiet state with occasional discussion of new articles etc. as soon as the anti-establishment crusader types move on.
Then why are you so distressed when other people disagree with you: enough for you to make personal attacks on them? Mostly, people disagree very politely and yet you're straight in there with all the anger and aggression. There's something VERY wrong with a site where the sort of attitude that you display is seen as acceptable. Many people have commented on it recently and pretty much all the time. I've seen you do it for ten years. Do you actually believe you're part of the Establishment? If so then Heaven help the Establishment! 
Jan 3, 2025
0
#38
DiogenesDue wrote:
shadowtanuki wrote:
Maybe if you are perceptive, you will be able to imagine how disingenuous users can leverage the site's rules against politics and religion in discussions about global warming (policies) and the origins of life to create mental distress in people who try to interact with them on those topics. It's pretty weak of the site, and people who participate in those discussions, to allow debate, but restrict what some, but not all, of the debaters are allowed to say.
The distress is all yours. Just don't be distressed by other people talking about science. Go about your business. It's that simple. Instead, you are so upset that you keep constantly trying to undermine the mods and staff and post topics you know will be closed down. If I were a mod you'd be banned for intentionally wasting the mod's time by now, but they are more lenient than I am.
Note that if people like you just stopped trying to equate religion and science, there would be nobody to take a ribbing on the science threads and those threads would return to their naturally quiet states. If you go through the thousands of pages, you will see this cycle over and over again. Some new poster wades in thinking they are the first person to ever argue about the fossil record, they get shown the error of their ways, politely (if they are polite) or snarkily (if they are snarky). But then they do not stop, they keep hammering away with an argument they cannot factually support, and eventually, as in all walks of life, this leads to frustration and ridicule.
Imagine a kid on the schoolyard saying "the sky is green" over and over. How long does it take before the entire class is not having it? Your last sentence is key. Nobody restricts what you can say. You can even mention religion or politics as a reason for something, and nobody will say boo, as long as you don't start soapboxing directly about it. Some threads do not allow you to keep saying the same arguments over and over if you cannot post support for it. That is their decision.
You can start a competing thread if you don't like it, and *if* your competing thread can manage to stay within the TOS and forum guidelines, it too can survive to reach 50,000 posts. That can be a tall order, because people that are not, shall we say, amenable to peaceful conversations will always show up for an anti-science or anti-government party, and then you will be hard pressed to not break the guidelines. Or, you can go to one of the many freeware messageboard sites and start a community and make up your own rules. What you can't do is petulantly complain repeatedly in a fashion that causes the mods or staff more work. Eventually, they'll have had enough of it.
As for the 2 specific threads in question, they invariably return to a quiet state with occasional discussion of new articles etc. as soon as the anti-establishment crusader types move on.
If your aim is to explain the origin of life (what the person you're responding to was actually talking about) you need to talk chemical evolution, not biological evolution (i.e. the fossil record) - and that actually does become a very speculative conversation. What you're essentially arguing is that the universe itself is designed in such a way that life emerges from non-living matter... and you better be careful or your argument starts to closely resemble a design argument.
Though honestly, to even talk chemical evolution you first need to explain the existence of matter, and the universe itself, i.e. the very occurrence of the big bang or whatever other cosmic event you think was at the origin.
Like so many pseudo-skeptics you seem to overestimate how strongly the science actually makes the case for naive materialism.
Btw - are we talking religion right now? Because this conversation is about science, but it sure seems to be hinting at a difference in religious worldview... are you arguing in favor of atheism or agnosticism - do we consider that a form of religious belief that's also subject to censorship then...? But again, every topic can be related to religion or politics in some way, it's a ridiculous rule, no one knows how to interpret it - obviously thought up by dimwits (is that a censored word? let's see).
Seriously though guys - there's two things you can do to get around this fecal matter:
a) use odd insults like duncery, buffoonery, wooden-headed, dimwit, etc.
b) just out science the supposed "scientists" you run into - it's actually very easy to do. Because pseudo-skeptics don't actually understand science, for them science is more of a form of dogma, and it's easy to penetrate that.
ibrust wrote:
DiogenesDue wrote:
shadowtanuki wrote:
Maybe if you are perceptive, you will be able to imagine how disingenuous users can leverage the site's rules against politics and religion in discussions about global warming (policies) and the origins of life to create mental distress in people who try to interact with them on those topics. It's pretty weak of the site, and people who participate in those discussions, to allow debate, but restrict what some, but not all, of the debaters are allowed to say.
The distress is all yours. Just don't be distressed by other people talking about science. Go about your business. It's that simple. Instead, you are so upset that you keep constantly trying to undermine the mods and staff and post topics you know will be closed down. If I were a mod you'd be banned for intentionally wasting the mod's time by now, but they are more lenient than I am.
Note that if people like you just stopped trying to equate religion and science, there would be nobody to take a ribbing on the science threads and those threads would return to their naturally quiet states. If you go through the thousands of pages, you will see this cycle over and over again. Some new poster wades in thinking they are the first person to ever argue about the fossil record, they get shown the error of their ways, politely (if they are polite) or snarkily (if they are snarky). But then they do not stop, they keep hammering away with an argument they cannot factually support, and eventually, as in all walks of life, this leads to frustration and ridicule.
Imagine a kid on the schoolyard saying "the sky is green" over and over. How long does it take before the entire class is not having it? Your last sentence is key. Nobody restricts what you can say. You can even mention religion or politics as a reason for something, and nobody will say boo, as long as you don't start soapboxing directly about it. Some threads do not allow you to keep saying the same arguments over and over if you cannot post support for it. That is their decision.
You can start a competing thread if you don't like it, and *if* your competing thread can manage to stay within the TOS and forum guidelines, it too can survive to reach 50,000 posts. That can be a tall order, because people that are not, shall we say, amenable to peaceful conversations will always show up for an anti-science or anti-government party, and then you will be hard pressed to not break the guidelines. Or, you can go to one of the many freeware messageboard sites and start a community and make up your own rules. What you can't do is petulantly complain repeatedly in a fashion that causes the mods or staff more work. Eventually, they'll have had enough of it.
As for the 2 specific threads in question, they invariably return to a quiet state with occasional discussion of new articles etc. as soon as the anti-establishment crusader types move on.
If your aim is to explain the origin of life (what the person you're responding to was actually talking about) you need to talk chemical evolution, not biological evolution (i.e. the fossil record) - and that actually does become a very speculative conversation. What you're essentially arguing is that the universe itself is designed in such a way that life emerges from non-living matter... and you better be careful or your argument starts to closely resemble a design argument.
Though honestly, to even talk chemical evolution you first need to explain the existence of matter, and the universe itself, i.e. the very occurrence of the big bang or whatever other cosmic event you think was at the origin.
Like so many pseudo-skeptics you seem to overestimate how strongly the science actually makes the case for naive materialism.
Btw - are we talking religion right now? Because this conversation is about science, but it sure seems to be hinting at a difference in religious worldview... are you arguing in favor of atheism or agnosticism - do we consider that a form of religious belief that's also subject to censorship then...? But again, every topic can be related to religion or politics in some way, it's a ridiculous rule, no one knows how to interpret it - obviously thought up by dimwits (is that a censored word? let's see).
Seriously though guys - there's two things you can do to get around this fecal matter:
a) use odd insults like duncery, buffoonery, wooden-headed, dimwit, etc.
b) just out science the supposed "scientists" you run into - it's actually very easy to do. Because pseudo-skeptics don't actually understand science, for them science is more of a form of dogma, and it's easy to penetrate that.
This is good. I was giving the chemical evolution argument a few years ago, It's ekselent that others can do it too! My spelling's getting worse though.
Optimissed wrote:
Then why are you so distressed when other people disagree with you: enough for you to make personal attacks on them? Mostly, people disagree very politely and yet you're straight in there with all the anger and aggression. There's something VERY wrong with a site where the sort of attitude that you display is seen as acceptable. Many people have commented on it recently and pretty much all the time. I've seen you do it for ten years. Do you actually believe you're part of the Establishment? If so then Heaven help the Establishment!
ibrust wrote:
If your aim is to explain the origin of life (what the person you're responding to was actually talking about) you need to talk chemical evolution, not biological evolution (i.e. the fossil record) - and that actually does become a very speculative conversation. What you're essentially arguing is that the universe itself is designed in such a way that life emerges from non-living matter... and you better be careful or your argument starts to closely resemble a design argument.
Though honestly, to even talk chemical evolution you first need to explain the existence of matter, and the universe itself, i.e. the very occurrence of the big bang or whatever other cosmic event you think was at the origin.
Like so many pseudo-skeptics you seem to overestimate how strongly the science actually makes the case for naive materialism.
Btw - are we talking religion right now? Because this conversation is about science, but it sure seems to be hinting at a difference in religious worldview... are you arguing in favor of atheism or agnosticism - do we consider that a form of religious belief that's also subject to censorship then...? But again, every topic can be related to religion or politics in some way, it's a ridiculous rule, no one knows how to interpret it - obviously thought up by dimwits (is that a censored word? let's see).
Seriously though guys - there's two things you can do to get around this fecal matter:
a) use odd insults like duncery, buffoonery, wooden-headed, dimwit, etc.
b) just out science the supposed "scientists" you run into - it's actually very easy to do. Because pseudo-skeptics don't actually understand science, for them science is more of a form of dogma, and it's easy to penetrate that.
Thanks to both of you for the excellent examples...this is why we can't have nice things.
Speaking to Shadowtanuki...this is how it goes. I oppose your viewpoint in a pointed fashion based on your prior posts and expressed motivations, and two strident posters show up, one to personally attack me from the get-go, hypocritically since he's accusing me of it, and the other to make a bunch of arguments about evolution in opposition to my apparent beliefs...when I didn't actually say a word about evolution beyond a casual reference identifying the most generalized complaint naysayers have about it, and even then only to make a point unrelated to the science of evolution. In both cases, the sting of past engagements connects me to them in their minds.
You are doing the same thing by going on about free speech to the mods. In all three cases, it stems from a sense of entitlement to post anything you want, coupled with a feeling that you are smarter than the average bear and people *need* to hear your opinions to better themselves or something. This leads to grudges, which leads to more conflict. There's maybe a dozen or two of these type of posters at any given time on the forums. They are largely interchangeable. In a mass, they are like gnats flying around a picnic table.
You're pretty smart. Smarter than Optimissed. I can't speak about ibrust, we haven't had enough interaction. You also have an ethical code and some integrity to stand behind it. You could be a force for "good" on the forums. It seems like that is what you think you are trying to do here, but it's been contorted into something else.
Because I'm tired of the disingenuousness of some, and the sincere lack of understanding on the part of others, I might not be able to comment any more in this thread, if my point is seriously misunderstood or continuously belittled. I have enough experience with this site and its users to not expect too much profitable from this discussion, so if you feel like drawing me into an argument, don't bother.