Where did it go?

Let me put it differently.

I have X time to spend moderating ILP right now. I can spend it sending people links to articles they won’t read, or I can spend it targeting disruptive users and posts (there are of course many other ways to spend that time, but this is just to illustrate the point). Given the expected payoff of these options, how much of X should I spend doing each thing? How much of time that I have been spending doing the latter thing should I give up to doing the former thing?

I won’t speak for other mods, but for myself, if I’m being honest, I don’t spend my time here particularly efficiently if the goal is to maximize the quality of discussion. I spend most of the time I have for ILP on posting philosophy, because I enjoy discussing philosophy, playing cop sucks, and I can convince myself that contributing the supply of good faith discussion is a sort of moderation-by-example. But assuming I’ve overcome the preliminary hurdle of deciding to spend more time actively moderating in a more traditional sense, I am still faced with the question of how I should spend that additional time to maximize bang for buck.

You’re asking if doing what you suggest it possible, and I assert that that’s the wrong question. Rather, we should ask if it’s worthwhile given the opportunity cost of not engaging in other more effective modes of moderation. It does not seem so.

And so they do:

Sooo… Any attempt to provide educational resources is just a waste of administration’s valuable time. Got it. With that perspective, it explains why ILP has become a facebook wannabe. Good luck with that.

That’s a #3 colloquial definition which is a perversion from the literal meaning and further testament that moderators are misnomers.

The #1 definition is:

noun
a person or thing that moderates.

The definition of moderate is:

adjective
kept or keeping within reasonable or proper limits; not extreme, excessive, or intense.

verb (used with object)
to reduce the excessiveness of; make less violent, severe, intense, or rigorous.

verb (used without object)
to become less violent, severe, intense, or rigorous.

noun
a person who is moderate in opinion or opposed to extreme views and actions, especially in politics or religion.

So a moderator is someone who or something that is not extreme/excessive/intense and practices the action of reducing excessiveness/intensity of something.

Any other definition is a perversion from the literal meaning.

The British dictionary suggests a moderator is more likely to be a church minister or heavy water in nuclear reactors than a policeman of message boards.

British Dictionary definitions for moderator
moderator
noun

  1. a person or thing that moderates
  2. Presbyterian Church a minister appointed to preside over a Church court, synod, or general assembly
  3. a presiding officer at a public or legislative assembly
  4. a material, such as heavy water or graphite, used for slowing down neutrons in the cores of nuclear reactors so that they have more chance of inducing nuclear fission
  5. an examiner at Oxford or Cambridge Universities in first public examinations
  6. (in Britain and New Zealand) one who is responsible for consistency of standards in the grading of some educational assessments
  7. a person who monitors the conversations in an on-line chatroom for bad language, inappropriate content, etc

The #7 definition above is a cop

cop
[kop]
noun Informal.

  1. a police officer.
  2. a person who seeks to regulate a specified behavior, activity, practice, etc.

police
[puh-lees]
noun

  1. an organized civil force for maintaining order, preventing and detecting crime, and enforcing the laws.
  2. (used with a plural verb) members of such a force.
  3. the regulation and control of a community, especially for the maintenance of public order, safety, health, morals, etc.
  4. the department of the government concerned with this, especially with the maintenance of order.
  5. any body of people officially maintained or employed to keep order, enforce regulations, etc.
  6. people who seek to regulate a specified activity, practice, etc.

The difference between a cop and a moderator is the latter is only interested in the intensity and not the topic; the topic is irrelevant: his only job is to bring things back to center. However, a cop has no regard for intensity since his job is to blindly and mechanistically enforce prescribed rules.

So if moderators are to be cops, then they should be called cops. If they are to be called moderators, then they should be moderate and practice moderation. Otherwise it’s like pro-lifers in support of the death penalty; they shouldn’t be called pro-life if they are not.

It’s not a question of the value of my time, since that shows up on both sides of the equation. Rather, the issue is that I can only spend my time once, and so time spent on ineffective interventions means time not spent on effective interventions. Here, my best advisers tell me that spreading the Holy Weblink “wouldn’t change things very much”, so it does not seem a likely candidate for how I should spend my time.

And while it’s quite charitable of you to volunteer my time on this quixotic attempt to fix the world, I note that you have every ability to send that link to whoever you choose. Put it in your signature, send it by PM, reply to particularly egregious sins against the University of New South Whales - Sydney’s Guide to Discussion Skills. I invite you to employ all the same means that I might employ to spread the Good News of Not Being A Dick On The Internet – unless you feel that would be a waste of your valuable time.

Yes. We are using the word for one of several accepted meanings, and the one that is most natural in context.

I feel like you’re making a critique of a practice and disguising it as a critique of language use.

Carleas,

Your response was predictable and expected. “I’m too busy, you do it.” Yes, I could do that, but it begs the question doesn’t it? ILP belongs to YOU, not me. You’re the guiding hand, not me.

You don’t get it. Stop digging.

He has decided what kind of guiding he wants to do.

This is not the first time this sort of discussion has taken place. Maybe it ought to be the last time.

I’m not recommending that “you do it”. I see no good reason why anyone should do it, because it “wouldn’t change things very much”. There are better ways to achieve the goals expressed here, and you should do those.

But if your goals are different, if spinning wheels matter intrinsically, or if signaling a desire to educate is a good-in-itself even if no actual education occurs, by all means have at it. Those aren’t my goals, and what you’re asking me to do does not achieve any goal anyone has stated in this thread, and it seems that you have acknowledged that.

So you’re on board with “pro-life” = “pro-death” because it’s accepted, therefore it must not be disingenuous? The definition for moderator that you’re using is synonymous with “cop” and completely redundant. The “moderator” label is a holdover from televised debates where moderators actually moderated rather than played the role of police, but the practice online has morphed from the old role of the moderator to that of a cop, which I feel is counterproductive and evidenced by your frustrations.

Well, it’s both functional and a potential George Carlin skit. You admitted yourself that the status quo is not working and that you don’t have time nor desire to “play cop”, so teach people to argue properly and pass the torch to some regulars in an effort to create a self-sustaining organism. You’re good with people, so teach people to be as you are.

Discussion moderator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[i]A discussion moderator or debate moderator is a person whose role is to act as a neutral participant in a debate or discussion, holds participants to time limits and tries to keep them from straying off the topic of the questions being raised in the debate. Sometimes moderators may ask questions intended to allow the debate participants to fully develop their argument in order to ensure the debate moves at pace.

In panel discussions commonly held at academic conferences, the moderator usually introduces the participants and solicits questions from the audience. On television and radio shows, a moderator will often take calls from people having differing views, and will use those calls as a starting point to ask questions of guests on the show. Perhaps the most prominent role of moderators is in political debates, which have become a common feature of election campaigns. The moderator may have complete control over which questions to ask, or may act as a filter by selecting questions from the audience.[/i] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_moderator

That seems less synonymous with a “cop” who lurks in the background handing out citations or executions.

Who is making that equivalence? I’m not familiar with it, and it doesn’t seem there is nearly as wide agreement on it as there is on the use of ‘moderator’ in the context of online forums.

I’ve been arguing online since the late 90s, and the word moderator has meant what we use it to mean here as long as I can remember. In fact, though I have no way of confirming this, I would bet that I learned the online meaning first, since I was getting into trouble on internet message boards before I was watching televised debates.

Moreover, the word ‘moderator’ is written into the fabric of the software this site runs on, and apparently in the sense in which we use it. There is a built in class of user called a “moderator”, certain built-in relationships between users and forums, built-in sets of permissions, etc. all labelled with the word ‘moderator’. That class of user, those relationships, those permission sets, have nothing to do with playing interviewer, they have to do with “approv[ing] or reject[ing] messages and uphold[ing] the terms of service”.

I’m not familiar enough with Carlin’s work to get this reference.

I appreciate you saying so, but I think this thread shows otherwise!

Thanks for this, Phyllo. One needs all of the helpful reminders one can receive, especially when one’s ego can get in the way and when one is not necessarily a philosopher, per se. lol

I’m glad that it got a generally positive reception. :smiley:

That’s true. And to the extent to which I am deficient in acquiring and then sustaining those skills, I am clearly open to legitimate criticism.

But my focus here is always on the distinction between those things/relationships for which “the truth” is in fact applicable objectively, and those things/relationships which may well be embodied subjectively/subjunctively in but points of view for mere mortals in a No God world.

All I can do then is to ask those who do claim to have acquired the necessary skills, to bring them out into the world of conflicting human behaviors; such that we might explore any possible limitations in regards to the tools philosophers use in their search for the truth.

I care about the extent to which anyone who claims that what they think they know is true or false about God and religion is something that they can in turn demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to think they know is true or false about them too.

What else is there? The rest revolves around faith.

What particular truth in what particular context? Isn’t that where I always take the exchanges?

So, is there a postmodern mathematics? a postmodern science? a post modern set of empirical facts? a post-modern logic?

Again: What particular “reality” is being discussed?

In other words, outside of you and I and everyone else here, there is this a-historical, a-cultural, a-experiential thing that is Communism or abortion.

And the “reality and truth” about them [for now] still revolves around the manner in which you think about them.

And that at least offers some measure of comfort for you. Others may not share your own moral narrative or political agenda about them but to the extent that they don’t is the extent to which they are further removed from that “reality and truth”.

And we just continue to “get” this is different ways.

Yes there is. The truth in climate science is whatever you want it to be. Sociology and psychology are driven by politics and fads. Look at anything involving race or gender. Look at science posted by big agro and big pharma.

Look at Youtube and you will get get all sorts of truths about science, medicine and math. The place is full of geniuses.

Or just look at the gibberish posted in the Science forum on this site. Sadly James is no longer posting his highly entertaining nonsense. :frowning:

You can’t even get a count of the dead in Puerto Rico without Trump denying it and some people believing him. How is that for math?

I don’t think that those can be “other words” for what I wrote.

I think all knowledge comes from experience or is logically derived from experience - either my experience or the experience of others or a combination of both. So why would I write that some truth is a-experiential???

I wrote the exact opposite. I wrote that I need to alter my thinking as required by an external reality.

That’s what I’m asking on a forum. Should I be thinking differently about X? Am I doing something wrong? Does this still work? Did this ever work?

Pro-life has been equivalent to pro-death before the internet was around.

Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that “moderator” in the online context ever had any meaning other than it does now, but the label originated from the offline usage of it while the actual duties of a mod became that of a cop instead of a moderator. Do you see what I mean? The name was transferred from offline, but the duties changed.

I’m not suggesting a name change, but to recognize that the duties of a moderator in the most literal and original sense of the word is to moderate intense situations. I’m not picking on ILP, but mostly other forums and speaking generally. For instance the physics forums mod posted a warning to me publicly on the thread about offtopic conversations, so I replied to it and he hassled me about replying to his message, so I replied again saying he should have pm’d me instead of posting on the thread if he didn’t want the thread cluttered with his own offtopic nonsense. The point is instead of striving to moderate the situation, he continued to escalate into a battle of wills and it didn’t have to be that way. I gave him a piece of my mind then left because I knew where it was inevitably going. Too many of those guys have Napoleon complexes and some forums have “trophy cases” to show off their banned members. Acting in that fashion is a perversion of the meaning of the word moderator, like a school is no longer a place of leisure as the original meaning of the word implied, but a place of work. Mods are rarely moderate (adj) and they almost never moderate (verb), but escalate; they should be called escalators! :wink:

Carlin was a self-proclaimed wordsmith who professionally joked about the silliness of the English language and how words are perverted for political reasons:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc[/youtube]

Well, you concede points and have a sense of fairness and equity that’s unique among forum-people. You don’t see it about yourself? Surely I’m not the only one to notice. Lao Tzu said “To lead people, walk behind them.” and you either do it innately or have learned somewhere along the way. I’ll point it out the next time I see you do it.

Well, there’s the part where science becomes more and more sophisticated in understanding the natural world. We go from the abacus to the latest computers. That’s a “postmodern” leap of sorts.

Obviously, the tricky thing about the science of climate change is that the predictions are still off in the future. “By the year 2050…”. That sort of thing.

But sets of facts can be accumulated; then discussed and debated. And [ultimately] there is going to be a set of facts that does unfold. The future will be what it is. In other words, only that which it could have been given the facts involved.

With “in fact” dire consequences around the globe or “in fact” no dire consequences around the globe.

Same with race and gender and all the rest of it. There are inherent genetic facts and considerably more problematic memetic interpretations of what the facts tell us. But what ought we to do with respect to burning fossil fuels and reacting to those of another race or another gender or another sexual orientation?

What are the “facts” here but [in my view] existential contraptions entangled – ineffably? inextricably? – in dasein.

Sure, if someone here can offer me an argument that pins down once and for all how rational men and women are obligated to think about these things ethically, I’ll take that into consideration.

Indicating yet again just how crucial it becomes for some to invent the Gods.

Directly or indirectly, that hurricane killed a particular number of people. How many? Only God knows.

And, if no God, cue the exchange of political prejudices.

Did Trump do the “right thing” in responding to that particular disaster? Given all the people that did die, can it be reasonably argued that his behavior here was…immoral?

Again, I’m puzzeled by this. What are you trying to tell me here that I must be missing?

There are things that we can know that transcend particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts. Things that transcend what we think we know when what we think we know is not in fact true. We can know truths embedded in mathematics and science and natural laws and the rules of language. No matter what experience anyone has in whatever context there are still actual facts intertwined in human interactions that revolve around things like Communism and abortion.

But what I assume that you assume here is there will be/can be no interpretation of the “external reality” that is ever likely to convince you to become a Communist yourself.

Communism as a historical phenomenon is [in my view] embedded existentially in a particuar sets of political prejudices embedded in a particular set of experiences.

Then it comes down to those who insist that their own experiences have enabled them to pin down what Communism really is.

What they say it is. And if others don’t say the same thing then they are wrong.

And they are wrong, right?

After all, if you don’t insist that they are then you are acknowledging that given a different set of assumptions and a different set of experiences, they are able to convince themselves in turn that you are wrong.

So what’s crucial here [for the objectivists] is this: that somebody must in fact be either right or wrong.

I merely embed this frame of mind [psychologically] in this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296

A-experiential means separate from experience.

Science is entirely based on experience. We only claim there are natural laws because we observe them. If we didn’t observe gravity then there would be no natural law of gravity. Same goes for rules of language … we notice certain rules to it.

Mathematics need not match any physical reality. It only needs to be consistent. It’s constructed that way. We observe which mathematical constructs are in sync with reality and which are not.

IOW, I have no idea what you mean by “transcend particular … experiential context”.

If you have never seen ice, then you don’t know the natural laws governing ice formation. You are ignorant of the experiential truth. You will learn about it when someone, who has studied ice formation, tells you about it.

If I thought that society would be better under communism, then I would be a communist.

I already covered this in another thread. Not all assumptions are the same … some are invalid, some poor, some could be good or bad, some are good. Some reasoning is invalid, some is poor, some could be good or bad, some is good.
People are wrong when their assumptions or reasoning are wrong.

Okay, so knowledge and therefore truth is based entirely on experience.

Several problems arise.

Experiences are complicated and human senses are limited. It’s possible to be mistaken or confused about what is being experienced.
For example, there is a highway where cars “roll uphill”. One could think that one is experiencing a “reverse gravity”. A closer investigation with measuring tools shows that there is actually slight downward slope.
The other day I saw broken branch on the ground, which at first impression looked like a big spider.

When one does not experience something personally, then one is relying on the descriptions of other people. These descriptions can be unclear, ambiguous and by necessity only pass on a small fraction of an experience.

Furthermore, some people outright lie.

Error and deception cloud the truth.

The difference between science and something like politics is that science does not an evaluation statement to an experience.

Science does not say “this is good” or “this is bad”. Politics does. It’s an extra statement on top of the statements about an experience.

That evaluation statement is based on goals and wants. So you are going to get a lot of different evaluations coming from different people.

(Then along came postmodern science and the evaluations started to be added to science as well. :imp: )