Is it fair for moderators to be promoting politics here?

[MSimon]

Let me second Diogenes. We get into some vicious arguments on my blog. Really ugly. The stuff done here is rather tame by comparison.

And yet we still like each other. Why let politics come between friends? And I do consider Master D a friend.

I have never understood why some people can't handle political differences.

I always liked what Patton had to say (aproximately): If every one agrees someone isn't thinking.

[pfrit]

In general I like the way that the site is run. The only change that I would make is to add a new News forum that was tightly fusion focused that was not allowed to drift. That way there would be a "fun" news forum and a "Polywell" news forum. Perhaps if we just fell into the habit of posting items in the news forum with thread rules that forbid thread drift for polywell/hard fusion news. If someone posts a news thread about something like time travelling birds, that is certainly news, but can drift where it wants, but if they post a thread about new polywell news, the mods could delete any thread drift posts with impunity.

No deletions. The most that could be done is a move. And I don't think I have ever done a move. Mostly the people on a thread handle topic moderation on their own.

Perhaps we should move this thread into

Like: "Why don't we move this to General."

If there is anything like general agreement I could tighten up the news section. But as Chris has said. With so little news coming out there is not much to talk about except when a newbie joins and needs help.

So news is anything fission or fusion related. But I'm not too fussy. I moderate here like I do on my own blog. Very, very, loose. Joe might do things a little different, but he has a day job. If he even posts once a month these days it is special.

My only contact with Joe is to give him a heads up if some one is having trouble signing up. We used to get a lot of pron spam (I miss it) but Joe fixed it so that that hasn't happened in about a year. That was instant deletion (after I made sure - heh). I was much more useful then.

Any way these days I visit Fred Lapides who has very tasteful stuff. We used to get the very crudest crap. Which was interesting but not appealing.

I tend to think that if you state at the begining of a thread that all off-topic posts will be deleted, than the mods should delete the off-topic posts (at least when the thread creator wants the mod to do it). That would allow thread creators to force on-topic threads. Not hard to do once the community got used to the difference between truly open threads and narrow focused threads. There should be some way to control thread hijacking. Not that there have been many news items that would benefit from this distinction lately...

Maybe we should move this whole thread to Administration. It would seem to belong there.

[MSimon]

OK. Going to Admin. The topic will be "Deletions".

[evaitl]

I am just curious if anyone else has an objection to MSimons constant right wing politics being spouted all over the general forum here. ...Hijacking threads to promote your political agenda belongs on the myspace news and politics forum

Just hijack it back, then! At least he's got something to spout. I'm always happy to see either pitch, from anyone, and I'll judge a response, or otherwise, on the merit of the spouting rant.

Agree. This is one of the more interesting places I've found on the web. It has smart, technical folks who can disagree without normally getting whiny about it or taking things personally. A couple of the most respected posters here, chrismb and Art Carlson, seem to spend most of their time bringing reality back to some of the more "over enthusiastic" ideas that folks are coming up with.

Perhaps because I have about the same background (ex navy nuke), I don't even notice MSimon's politics and I'm usually quite interested in hearing what he has to say. I've never seen him be abusive and have difficulty understanding the complaint as anything other than an attempt to squash views that UncleMatt disagrees with.

[Skipjack]

This is one of the situations where I am on Msimon's side.
Sorry UncleMatt.

I am friend of freedom of thought and speech. In fact, one of the things I love about the US is that despite all the political correctness shit eminating from there, one can still say whatever one wants. This is not possible in other democracies.
E.g. in Austria, you can get imprisoned for saying (bullshit, but nevertheless) that Hitler was a great man and that he did not gas 6 million jews. Now of course whoever said that would be an idiot, but freedom of speech is freedom of speech. You cant say that in public in Austria, ergo we have no freedom of speech.

When it comes to politics, me and Msimon tend to butt heads more often than not (though have agreed on some things occasionally). Anyway, despite the heated discussions sometimes, I do welcome the opportunity to say my opinion. So why shouldnt he say his?
It would become troublesome if he abused his rights as a moderator by banning political posts that do not contribute to his own agenda. But to the best of my knowledge he has not done this. So I am fine with Msimon posting his personal political opinion. I hope in return he is fine with me (sometimes quite loudly) voicing my own opinion, even if it contrary to his.

[MirariNefas]

Sometimes it does get a bit annoying. It hijacks threads, and the constant, usually unprovoked bashing seems a little immature. BecauseMSimon also happens to be a prominent supporter of Polywell, I expect that his vociferous nature may be turning off others who might otherwise become interested in this topic.

That said, this has nothing to do with anyone's "moderator" status. And there are certainly people who rant more and worse. MSimon is generally polite enough and it isn't fair to ask him to be someone else or to put a sock in it because his views are contentious. He's happy annoying people, and that's his right.

[TallDave]

Shrug. You can spout your left-wing politics all over, or just ignore the political stuff if you want. I do sometimes. It pretty much stays in General, occasionally spilling into News.

We're fortunate to have bright people from all the spectrum here.

Are you claiming your posts were moderated out of existence or altered to make you look bad? If not, I don't see what beef you really have.

[Betruger]

I am just curious if anyone else has an objection to MSimons constant right wing politics being spouted all over the general forum here. Aren't mods supposed to be neutral and objective? MSimon is anything BUT that. Hijacking threads to promote your political agenda belongs on the myspace news and politics forum, not on a website that is supposed to be centered on polywell and technology.

Thoughts?

Comments?

Keep your politics OUT of this thread please!

BFD! This isn't some starchy corporate forum. MSimon is a user like everyone else. If you don't like it, don't read it. If you get hot and bothered by people freely talking about anything and everything, the issue's yours.

"Fair"... Like there's something fair about stifling discussion among people like those who post here.

[choff]

We've got a long wait in front of us for news WB8, so it's only natural to discuss other subjects, especially with everything else that happens in the world. If I might suggest, perhaps we could use a humour section just to balance things out a little.

[BenTC]

I am just curious if anyone else has an objection to MSimons constant right wing politics being spouted all over the general forum here.

The General Forum is chartered as "Discuss life, the universe, and everything with other members of this site. Get to know your fellow polywell enthusiasts." Politics exposes people's core beliefs and is probably well within the scope of General Forum. The gap between opposing views can generate interesting discussion. I don't how long you've been reading the site before you joined up recently, but I notice a lot of your activity has been in "Eat that GW believers!" and "F-22 production termination is premature." These subjects are provocative to political views - and not much related to the Polywell. The other forums are much cleaner in this regard.

Aren't mods supposed to be neutral and objective?

Only in so far as they exercise their moderation-powers, and I haven't noticed anything untoward. Otherwise, moderators are people too. By the nature of this site, there is a collection of smart people with strong egos. This is an advantage when trying to advance technology different from conventional fusion, but they are not necessarily going to fall in line with consensus views.

[Betruger]

He probably picked it up from the couple of other guys ragging on MSimon. Shubedube and a couple of other posters that check in every other month to repeat that same "MSimon still spamming right wing rhetoric" complaint.

[UncleMatt]

I am just curious if anyone else has an objection to MSimons constant right wing politics being spouted all over the general forum here. Aren't mods supposed to be neutral and objective? MSimon is anything BUT that. Hijacking threads to promote your political agenda belongs on the myspace news and politics forum, not on a website that is supposed to be centered on polywell and technology.

Thoughts?

Comments?

Keep your politics OUT of this thread please!

BFD! This isn't some starchy corporate forum. MSimon is a user like everyone else. If you don't like it, don't read it. If you get hot and bothered by people freely talking about anything and everything, the issue's yours.

"Fair"... Like there's something fair about stifling discussion among people like those who post here.

When thread after thread is hijacked to promote a moderator's political stance, there is a problem. I enjoy this site as well as everyone else, I am just tired of thread after thread after thread being hijacked by someone who is supposed to be moderating and not promoting a political agenda.

I am all for free speech, but this is NOT a politics forum. I encourage MSimon to take his politics to places like the myspace News and Politics forum. He will find plenty of people to expose to his politics there, where it is appropriate to do so.

[UncleMatt]

He probably picked it up from the couple of other guys ragging on MSimon. Shubedube and a couple of other posters that check in every other month to repeat that same "MSimon still spamming right wing rhetoric" complaint.

Ni, I "picked it up" from the inappropriate thread jacking that MSimon likes to constantly engage in to promote his politics. The proof of this is posted for all to see, and its not very defendable.

Wouldn't it be better to have a site where we focus on the subject matter and not on things like politics? There are plenty of sites for that kind of thing, I guess the people who read THIS forum will have to decide if they want the polywell forum to degrade into shouting matches and food fights over politics, or if they want to discuss science and technology...

[KitemanSA]

Ni, I "picked it up" from the inappropriate thread jacking that MSimon likes to constantly engage in to promote his politics. The proof of this is posted for all to see, and its not very defendable.

UM,
Would you please, for my education, direct me to as many specific instances of thread-jacking as you are willing to take the time to compile? I ask in that I am not sure what you define as thread-jacking and would like to carry on a comprehensible discussion on that topic with you.
Thank you.

[MSimon]

Let me just say that I consider all the regulars here my friends.

And newbies: stick around a while, get used to the place, you will become a friend too.

And just to give some around here some idea.

I once had the stupid idea that you could capture energy from induced charge without continuous circuit current flow. (It is still in the archives some where if you want to look - I don't remember the exact topic - something about "energy collection" I think) I argued the idea for a week and so well that I almost had some people who knew better convinced. And then I figured it out.

So just because you think you aren't making headway with me - don't give up. If I can be convinced I will change my mind.

Consider your conversations with me design reviews. The really good ones rake every aspect of the design over the coals. I love them. Giving and receiving. And I am never (so far) bitter about being wrong. I love being corrected. Every one of those guys who worked on me deserves a vote of thanks.

Any way we are neural networks. They are best at recognizing patterns. When you change your mind it is best to have no attachment to the previous line of thinking. It reduces the chances of future error. It allows the potentials of the network come closest to optimum.

===

And a note on politics: I was at one time a communist. At least philosophically. So don't think I haven't given my positions a lot of thought.