Complaint Mainstream science criterion

[turin]

Can we remove the mainstream science criterion, or at least be much less strict about it. I have seen a few times now threads that I thought were interesting, but then disappointingly closed because they rubbed a mentor in a non-mainstream way. Is this forum to be restricted to mere factual reference?

 

[dx]

Can you link to a few of these closed threads? Just curious.

 

[turin]

I realize that these kinds of discussions are unpopular and frustrating, and that they have the potential to turn away some valuable people. But, there are others (myself included) who are disappointed. Here is the most recent one that I've seen, which prompted me to post here.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=350472

 

[DaveC426913]

This forum has a mandate to educate students with discussion about existing science theories. It cannot be all things to all people. There are plenty of fora out there that will welcome highly speculative threads.

 

[russ_watters]

I realize that these kinds of discussions are unpopular and frustrating, and that they have the potential to turn away some valuable people. But, there are others (myself included) who are disappointed. Here is the most recent one that I've seen, which prompted me to post here.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=350472

That thread was basically wrong-headed idle speculation and trolling. There isn't much to be gained from a discussion where the person driving the discussion is just pulling factually wrong claims out of the air and posting them without thought. From your first post:

Is this forum to be restricted to mere factual reference?

I'm not completely sure what you meant by that, but all discussions must, at least, be grounded in reality and logic. If you are asking that we allow pure, baseless idle speculation, sorry, but that isn't going to happen here.

 

[Shahin.Omar]

Ok, I came here to give a suggestion and found a thread that speaks about me, good to hear that.

Listen russ_watters you can abuse someone and make general comments about somebody without being specific about it, and then can be happy about it. But this is what the papal's do, they do not try to be specific and tell what exactly is wrong, they just brand a person heretic and excommunicate him.

Anyways, I think one additional purpose of such forum's is to make money or sell themselves. So what you can do, and do it very safely is start a new section by the name non-mainstream where those restrictions do not apply as much.

I suggest this because if you see the number of hits my thread got was really very high for those 3-4 days, it crossed over 1000 in just 4 days.

Think about it!

 

[Pengwuino]

Anyways, I think one additional purpose of such forum's is to make money or sell themselves. So what you can do, and do it very safely is start a new section by the name non-mainstream where those restrictions do not apply as much.

There is the independent research area which, if it still is around, gets (got) out of control with crackpottery.

 

[ZapperZ]

Ok, I came here to give a suggestion and found a thread that speaks about me, good to hear that.

Listen russ_watters you can abuse someone and make general comments about somebody without being specific about it, and then can be happy about it. But this is what the papal's do, they do not try to be specific and tell what exactly is wrong, they just brand a person heretic and excommunicate him.

Anyways, I think one additional purpose of such forum's is to make money or sell themselves. So what you can do, and do it very safely is start a new section by the name non-mainstream where those restrictions do not apply as much.

I suggest this because if you see the number of hits my thread got was really very high for those 3-4 days, it crossed over 1000 in just 4 days.

Think about it!

We HAD that, it was a disaster!

PF has had a "long" history in its evolution. Your suggestion isn't something we haven't tried before. Furthermore, there are so many other forums that cater to crackpottery ... er... non-mainstream posts. Knock yourself out there. Why pick the one few forums that simply don't welcome them? You did read the Rules when you signed up, so you should know fully well what you were getting yourself into, don't you?

This forum has a very high signal-to-noise ratio. It is the major selling point of this forum that made us popular in the first place.

Zz.

 

[arildno]

Ok, I came here to give a suggestion and found a thread that speaks about me, good to hear that.

Listen russ_watters you can abuse someone and make general comments about somebody without being specific about it, and then can be happy about it. But this is what the papal's do, they do not try to be specific and tell what exactly is wrong, they just brand a person heretic and excommunicate him.

First off:
Somehow, I think you could have done better with the mutual recriminations between the Shias and Sunnis in, for example, contemporary Yemen, rather than denounce how papal power was wielded centuries ago.

Secondly:
Your analogy is totally wrong, since PF and its staff has no means of coercion available OTHER THAN shutting an individual out of PF.
In contrast to what sort of powers the Pope possessed, and various religious communities still possess, along with most state authorities.

Thus, a PROPER analogy would have been:
Can a private individual shut somebody else out from his own home merely on basis that the guest is voicing views the house owner doesn't like?

Of course the house owner can do so!

You are free to go wherever you like, but individual sites possesses the right to kick you out of their home turf.

 

[jtbell]

There is the independent research area which, if it still is around, gets (got) out of control with crackpottery.

The Independent Research forum still exists. Look under General Physics. It doesn't get much traffic because it's moderated, with specific requirements for the format and contents of initial posts.

About three years ago (I think), the IR forum replaced a forum called "Theory Development" which was unmoderated and overrun with crackpottery. This is what Zz was referring to with his "We HAD that" statement.

 

[turin]

Why did you need to shut down the forum if it was already sequestered? Was it simply consuming too much physical bandwidth or storage space, and so causing the rest of the forums to suffer? It seems like, without a designated area, the crackpots are infecting all areas.

 

[Evo]

Why did you need to shut down the forum if it was already sequestered? Was it simply consuming too much physical bandwidth or storage space, and so causing the rest of the forums to suffer?

This forum doesn't host discussions on crackpot ideas or conspiracy theories. There are many, many places on the internet that do if you enjoy that type of thing.

 

[turin]

This forum doesn't host discussions on crackpot ideas or conspiracy theories.

Actually, it does. Just not for very long.

 

[arildno]

Why did you need to shut down the forum if it was already sequestered? Was it simply consuming too much physical bandwidth or storage space, and so causing the rest of the forums to suffer? It seems like, without a designated area, the crackpots are infecting all areas.

Totally wrong!

By not giving them ANY platform, they wail and scream, and then..LEAVE. For good.

Did you ever think they kept themselves within the designated area?

 

[turin]

Totally wrong!

By not giving them ANY platform, they wail and scream, and then..LEAVE. For good.

Did you ever think they kept themselves within the designated area?

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Your response is totally inappropriate. What, exactly, is "totally wrong"? Asking a question?

I appologize (insincerely) for not knowing the answer to my own question before I asked it.

 

[arildno]

It was a response to the your last assertion:

It seems like, without a designated area, the crackpots are infecting all areas.

Having a designated crackpot area attracts them in large numbers, making crackpottery more visible, not only in the designated area, but in many other sub-forums as well.

By refusing their "right to have their own place at PF" dissuades many of them from even visiting (much less commenting), so that their "attack strength" becomes minimized.

 

[Moonbear]

Why did you need to shut down the forum if it was already sequestered? Was it simply consuming too much physical bandwidth or storage space, and so causing the rest of the forums to suffer? It seems like, without a designated area, the crackpots are infecting all areas.

So, in your first post you were complaining that the rules against crackpottery are overly strict and should be relaxed, and now here you're complaining that the crackpots are infesting all areas of the forum. Do you see the logical inconsistency in those two arguments?

 

[Astronuc]

Why did you need to shut down the forum if it was already sequestered? Was it simply consuming too much physical bandwidth or storage space, and so causing the rest of the forums to suffer? It seems like, without a designated area, the crackpots are infecting all areas.

Crackpots come here with an agenda. Also, it appears that most do not read the PF guidelines, or if they do, simply disregard them.

IR is set up for independent (non-mainstream) research. A big problem is that most submitters do not bother to follow the submission guidelines, assuming that they even bother to read them in the first place.

We get a lot of ill-informed people there, who feel they understand physics or the ultimate reality, when in fact they express a poor understanding of basics.

It is way too much effort to monitor each and every post for misinformation of crackpots, so if we find a post or thread, it is shutdown pretty quickly.

And we certainly do not need a crackpot forum at PF.

 

[Redbelly98]

We are not trying to make money at PF. We are trying to teach and discuss the current knowledge of science, math, and technology. That is what attracts most of our members here.

Allowing personal theories ends up, in many cases, consuming members' time with trying to teach basic stuff to somebody who does not wish to learn or understand it. (And learning the basics is necessary before developing a new theory.) Our general membership finds this extremely annoying, so we don't allow it.

 

[arildno]

Furthermore, keeping the house clean increases the chances that people we want to visit PF choose to do so.

For example, professional engineers and other scientists will often have low tolerance for "garbage", and will keep away from sites they see allow garbage proliferation.

 

[turin]

To moonbear,
My statement that you quoted was not a complaint, it was an attempt at empathy. I do not understand the criteria for "crackpot", "troll", etc., so I suppose that I misused the terminology. I do not complain here about other people's non-mainstream viewpoints, and I maintain my complaint regarding the intolerance of non-mainstream viewpoints, sans contradiction.

To penguino, jtbell, astronuc,
I will take a peek at the IR forum. Thanks.

To all (esp. moderators),
I resign this discussion, reiterating my feedback one last time (in this thread) as a request rather than a complaint: a request to allow non-mainstream viewpoints. Thank you for your consideration.

 

[DaveC426913]

To all (esp. moderators),
I resign this discussion, reiterating my feedback one last time (in this thread) as a request rather than a complaint: a request to allow non-mainstream viewpoints. Thank you for your consideration.

I just do not understand why. It is directly contradictory to PF's goal. You are asking for PF to change its identity from that of a premiere source of reliable, established science on the web to ... something else.

Will you now go to the "First Christian's Forum" and ask them to create a subforum for Jewish issues?

 

[Moonbear]

To all (esp. moderators),
I resign this discussion, reiterating my feedback one last time (in this thread) as a request rather than a complaint: a request to allow non-mainstream viewpoints. Thank you for your consideration.

What people have been attempting to explain is that we have already tried that approach on this forum, and it was a miserable failure. People are not refuting your suggestion out of an unwillingness to consider new things, but because it is an old, tested approach, and we know what the results were and don't wish to repeat them.

 

[George Jones]

To all (esp. moderators),
I resign this discussion, reiterating my feedback one last time (in this thread) as a request rather than a complaint: a request to allow non-mainstream viewpoints. Thank you for your consideration.

How much time have you spent on sci.physics?

 

[Born2bwire]

Man, I would not want to encourage anymore crackpots coming here. They are bad enough as it is given the discouragement the forum projects toward them. Even in the short time I have been here I have grown tired of them quickly because, as stated previously, it is usually a problem of their personality than their ideas. Most are unwilling to concede to learning basic knowledge or promote a proper debate. It is all a waste of time.

Hell, I'm even getting people PMing me crackpot nonsense now.

 

[Integral]

What people have been attempting to explain is that we have already tried that approach on this forum, and it was a miserable failure. People are not refuting your suggestion out of an unwillingness to consider new things, but because it is an old, tested approach, and we know what the results were and don't wish to repeat them.

I wouldn't call it a failure, we had a lot of fun in the old "Theory Development" forum, and it helped grow the forums. Unfortunately, we all became tired of it for the exact reasons stated by B2b in a previous post. It was simply an unending repetitive discussion with a procession of crackpots one after the other. The more convoluted the language the bigger the cracks in the pot.

In those days we did not have nearly as large a active member base, so sometimes any discussion was better then none. But now there are a large number of highly qualified members who contribute on a regular basis and our membership is growing steadily. We can now be a little more picky about the discussions we permit and the members who post in them. Why would we want to open the floodgates to nutcases who do not know the basics but claim to hold the true knowledge?

 

[Evo]

Hell, I'm even getting people PMing me crackpot nonsense now.

Please forward any unwanted PM's to a mentor. If they are contacting you, they are probably bothering other members as well.

 

[FredGarvin]

I think the rise in Google and other search engines' effectiveness is another reason for us to be even more vigilant in stopping the "non-mainstream" posts. It seems now a days you can't post anything that is mainstream without seeing a zero post count new person show up and give their 2 cents worth.

 

[jim mcnamara]

....

Hell, I'm even getting people PMing me crackpot nonsense now.

I got a bad one today from a poster with 0 posts, plugging a blog.

In all honesty, for me, it is really hard to tell uneducated/miseducated from propagandist.
Considering the effort I have to put into researching some topics to give decent answers, I don't bother with 80% of the posts I could answer.

 

[Evo]

I got a bad one today from a poster with 0 posts, plugging a blog.

In all honesty, for me, it is really hard to tell uneducated/miseducated from propagandist.
Considering the effort I have to put into researching some topics to give decent answers, I don't bother with 80% of the posts I could answer.

Forward the PM to me, or at least the member name. They usually harrass a large number of members.

 

[Born2bwire]

Please forward any unwanted PM's to a mentor. If they are contacting you, they are probably bothering other members as well.

Will do in the future. I didn't previously because by the time I had read the PM the sender had been obviously dealt with.

 

[jim mcnamara]

Yes - the problem child had been disusered in my case too.

 

[turin]

How much time have you spent on sci.physics?

Zero (unless you count the time that I spent just now to find out what it is; I assume you're talking about the groups.google.com/group subfolder).

 

[Evo]

Yes - the problem child had been disusered in my case too.

It still is a good idea to let us know just in case they turn up again as a sockpupput, we'll be aware of their activities then.

 

[MacLaddy]

As a new member of the forum, and preparing to begin in my own academic adventures, I think I can understand where the OP is coming from; as well as the moderators of the forum.

There have been a few times that I would of liked to ask a question that could have potentially been crackpottery, but I didn't do so in fear that a PF Lightning Bolt would slash a strike through the center of my name. However, it doesn't dispel my curiosity in the subject as I can not get a decent answer elsewhere, or not one that isn't biased, or fed with even more crackpottery.

I think a lot of people come to this forum to have there questions answered, and then they argue and do not accept the answer. In that case, I agree completely with the strict controls. However, sometimes I feel the mod's come down rather hard on people that are new to the forums, and the subjects in general, and are just looking for an academic evaluation of their interest.

Just my thoughts though... *Don't Strike me down*

 

[arildno]

Crackpots are NOT the same as HTBIAPs (having totally bogus ideas about physics, "hattybiaps", colloquially)

A crackpot is a hattybiap convinced of having proven everybody else wrong, and that there is a large conspiracy out there to silence him.

Hattybiaps are welcome at PF!

 

[MacLaddy]

That sounds familiar... I wonder if someone has called me that before.

Oh well. Perhaps I can change MacLaddy to Hattybiaps. Has a nice ring to it I think.

 

[arildno]

Thanks, I made it up right now. It's my poetic vein, I think. Or perhaps the wine?

 

[DaveC426913]

HTBIAPs (having totally bogus ideas about physics, "hattybiaps", colloquially)

In five years on this board, I've never come across that term.

 

[MacLaddy]

Does that make the moderators Madtapbiap?
(Moderating and dispelling totally and preposterously bogus ideas about physics)


My poetic vein seems to have dried up. Perhaps you can spare some of that wine?

 

[arildno]

Does that make the moderators Madtapbiap?
(Moderating and dispelling totally and preposterously bogus ideas about physics)


My poetic vein seems to have dried up. Perhaps you can spare some of that wine?

Gulp. It's gone..

 

[mikelepore]

The policy of having a list of "closed subjects" on the rules page seems too strict to me. Even within the guideline that you are not sponsoring a forum for spreading crackpot ideas, there remain valid purposes for mentioning each crackpot idea. For example, a discussion about: If someone in the news media were to ask a scientist to comment on this or that crackpot belief, how could the scientist best answer it, for maximum public educational benefit? If a teacher wants to develop a lesson plan which includes the correction of certain misconceptions, including this crackpot belief, what would be a good approach? What place does this belief hold in the history of the transmission of rumors and popular fallacies, crowd psychology, the anthropological fact of myth-making, etc.? But it seems that the rules here don't permit any discussion of certain beliefs, simply because they have been debunked.

 

[Wallace]

I'm just echoing what has been said many times already (here and elsewhere) but mikelepore, the reason the rules are in place is because it makes PF the kind of place the people who run it want it to be. If you want a different sort of forum, make one (or post on one that is closer to your desires). The list of closed topics to me reads like a list of bollocks that I'd hate to have to endlessly refute, so it's far easier to simply blacklist obviously useless topics. It's not like any of these are marginal or debateable, they are unredeemable non-sense.

I came to PF and I stick around precisely because of the way its run and the rules and guidelines that are in place ( and the adept way they are put into practice by the staff).

 

[DaveC426913]

I came to PF and I stick around precisely because of the way its run and the rules and guidelines that are in place ( and the adept way they are put into practice by the staff).

And this is the reason many people stay - professionals that are experts in their field and valuable contributors - who could otherwise not take the forum seriously and would go elsewhere.

 

[JasonRox]

I never read the PF guidelines. I just follow a simple rule of like... "Don't be an idiot."

I don't follow any Physics forums or anything right now, but when I did, it was clear many people didn't know of the concept "Ask and learn."

People would ask questions out of curiousity, and then disregard ANY reasonable answer. And then after a few pages of arguments about the OP ignoring any intelligent answer, the OP will POST his answer to HIS OWN QUESTION while admitting he's not an expert in the OP. And then claim their is a conspiracy that moderators don't accept their theory. And then they reference books like "A Brief History of Time", or "Science of Star Wars".

That my friend is a crackpot.

 

[n!kofeyn]

What about this https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=288393"? I myself am a huge fan of Tesla and have done quite a bit of research looking for any mention of Tesla's theory of gravity, but have not been able to find any further evidence of any such theory existing. However, at the time I first came across this post, I could have learned something of some value. This person posted a quite sane and legitimate question and was immediately shut down. Why couldn't this have been a discussion, where someone of knowledge could have given the poster a thoughtful and respectful answer? For example, it is most likely that Tesla included this theory in his released statement, but didn't have a fully developed theory. It is likely however that he may have some decent thoughts about gravity, especially considering the fact that he was also a brief student of Ernst Mach, an influential thinker on Einstein. Instead, the poster asked a question in a very decent manner and was basically told to shut up and go away by a person who was obviously not very well knowledgeable on the subject, other than the fact that we would have heard about it by now. This is a disturbing response when speaking of Tesla, because despite his highly revolutionary and well founded contributions, I haven't seen a reference to him in any textbook other than the use of Tesla units to denote magnetic field strength.

Just because PF allows a thread on a slightly fringe topic doesn't mean it's supporting crackpots. If a person hears something about a so-called fringe theory, asks a question about it, and then is shut down, how has that helped explain away these fringe theories? Instead, in my opinion, this further supports a person's idea that a fringe theory is correct against mainstream science because it is flatly ignored.

I have seen instances of where a supposed expert on PF went off on such tangents and self-indulged responses that he may as well been considered a crank in the context of the thread, but is instead seemingly worshiped.

Although, I do understand there are some instances, such as the user Nigel, in which the poster is incorrigible.

 

[ZapperZ]

What about this https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=288393"? I myself am a huge fan of Tesla and have done quite a bit of research looking for any mention of Tesla's theory of gravity, but have not been able to find any further evidence of any such theory existing. However, at the time I first came across this post, I could have learned something of some value. This person posted a quite sane and legitimate question and was immediately shut down. Why couldn't this have been a discussion, where someone of knowledge could have given the poster a thoughtful and respectful answer? For example, it is most likely that Tesla included this theory in his released statement, but didn't have a fully developed theory. It is likely however that he may have some decent thoughts about gravity, especially considering the fact that he was also a brief student of Ernst Mach, an influential thinker on Einstein. Instead, the poster asked a question in a very decent manner and was basically told to shut up and go away by a person who was obviously not very well knowledgeable on the subject, other than the fact that we would have heard about it by now. This is a disturbing response when speaking of Tesla, because despite his highly revolutionary and well founded contributions, I haven't seen a reference to him in any textbook other than the use of Tesla units to denote magnetic field strength.

Just because PF allows a thread on a slightly fringe topic doesn't mean it's supporting crackpots. If a person hears something about a so-called fringe theory, asks a question about it, and then is shut down, how has that helped explain away these fringe theories? Instead, in my opinion, this further supports a person's idea that a fringe theory is correct against mainstream science because it is flatly ignored.

I have seen instances of where a supposed expert on PF went off on such tangents and self-indulged responses that he may as well been considered a crank in the context of the thread, but is instead seemingly worshiped.

Although, I do understand there are some instances, such as the user Nigel, in which the poster is incorrigible.

Here's the problem. A thread on some marginally fringe topic may start off fine, but we have seen WAY to many instances where not only did it deteriorate very quickly, but topics like that tend to attract other crackpots to the forum. I've lost count on how many times I've seen thread in which, after just the first post, I could have predicted that it will go south very quickly.

PF cannot be everything to everyone. That is very clear. I'm sure we will be deprived of budding geniuses who want to tackle the various problems in physics that we simply will not cater too. That, I'm sure, is our loss. But for what we aim to do, we darn well intend to do it as best we can. Having been on the 'net for a very many years (since 1987), I can easily tell you that this is one of, if not THE, best physics discussion from that I've been a part of.

Zz.

 

[russ_watters]

...and for that thread in particular, how can you have a reasonable discussion of something that doesn't exist?!

 

[MacLaddy]

PF cannot be everything to everyone. That is very clear. I'm sure we will be deprived of budding geniuses who want to tackle the various problems in physics that we simply will not cater too. That, I'm sure, is our loss. But for what we aim to do, we darn well intend to do it as best we can. Having been on the 'net for a very many years (since 1987), I can easily tell you that this is one of, if not THE, best physics discussion from that I've been a part of.

Zz.

Now don't get me wrong, I very much appreciate the services offered by this site; and the knowledge I come away with. However, that whole statement above seems to contradict what I believe this site is about. To me this site is about a community of people who love to learn, and in some cases, love to teach.

With that being said, I do have to wonder about the direction that this website is heading. While the direction of the "Science Education" forum seems to be sound, I feel that the rest of the boards are becoming more and more private. Each forum having a group of individuals that maintain the board to their own personal standards...

I feel that much of this website is becoming "a private club for members."

Anyhow, just my two cents. (or 8, but who's counting). I understand completely that the founders of the board, and the staff who maintains it, have every imaginable right to operate this website as they see fit; and I truly appreciate the opportunity to be a part of it.

Someday, when I know what I'm talking about, I will actually try to contribute something helpful... In the meantime I'll continue to absorb what information I can, and probably spout off random bits of nothingness here and there.

Mac

 

[ZapperZ]

The rules of the forum just didn't spring over night, and none of us here, contrary to the beliefs of some of the members, are not psychotic enough to come up with the rules out of thin air. The forum has evolved for several years, and practically ALL of the variations of openness, everything-goes policy, etc. have been tried at one point or another. In fact, the strict rules that we currently have here are MORE WORK for the moderators/mentors than you can ever imagine. We can either take the easy way out and simply let anything goes and let the signal-to-noise ratio suffer, or we can take the hard way and demand quality of posts, very low signal-to-noise ratio, and a LOT of work for us. We chose the latter even if to the detriment for many of the mentors who inevitably have and will suffer from burn-out periodically from trying to maintain the standard.

As far as the various forums resembling a members only forum, other than making some generalized, superficial criticism, maybe you should show your evidence (after all, this being a science forum, that's what we demand and expect). Show evidence that (i) there is a "members only" attitude and (ii) that this is prevalent and common throughout PF. Until I see valid evidence of what you meant, it is difficult for any of us not only to comment, but also to take appropriate actions.

Zz.