I believe that as philosophers, any-and-everybody on this forum should have a right to personal moderation of their own threads.
The reason that this should be so is firstly for philosophical integrity. This is a philosophy forum. The point of it is to discuss, engage, and/or inquiry into philosophical interests. Yet, posters are left to the devices of moderators to moderate every little thing, and then whether the moderator is a good judge or not is an after-effect. Moderators can be good ones, or bad ones, but their time is best spend moderating a forum in general, making sure it is not extremely this-way-or-that. ILP does fine, but where it does not do fine is in the area of philosophical integrity. Too many times a thread may be derailed or put to death by a lack of seriousness that may or may not be intended by the creator of the thread. How can this problem be stopped?
It can be stopped by the personal moderation of any individual who creates a thread. He/she should have the “innate right” to moderate and censor his own thread, because it is his own thought. And where he wants to take it should also be at his discretion, not at the micromanagement of moderators. For example, if I made a thread and somebody were posting generally well and began to diverge from the topic, then I should be able to outright censor his post or delete it entirely. Now, this moderation should be open to the public. If some fucking idiot wants to bother me with his idiocy, then any thread of his that I may censor or delete should be exposed to everybody within the thread, for example, This post has been censored by the OP.
This will allow everybody to see what (or more importantly whom) is being censored and for what reasons – namely that they are destroying the discussion at hand. Some OPs may be constricted in their topic, and some may be open. This should be up to the author of the thread.
So ILP, please, let us moderate ourselves as a devotion to the pursuit of philosophy. Let us take it upon or own selves to be responsible for the contents of our own threads. I made the thread, therefore I [b]own[/b] it. If I cannot control it myself, then others may steal my ownership at their (often idiotic) discretion.
I’m sorry, realunoriginal, but I am with Smears on this one.
In the event that anybody disagrees with the opinions of the creator of the thread, then the creator could theoretically delete any and all opposing posts, or edit the posts of other users to deliberately take statements that are made out of context.
We should all be left to our own devices when it comes to what we post. I usually try to avoid posting in the philosophy forums unless I feel I have something legitimate to contribute, or unless the thread has already been lead astray and my posts does no additional damage.
RU, could you please post some links to posts in threads of yours you would like to see censored? you have brought this topic up before I think, but I’m unclear about what sort of posts in your threads you don’t like. Links please. (Why not start a blog, then you don’t have to worry about other’s opinions poisoning your articles?)
When this happens, why not just post something like,
“Hey fags, don’t derail my thread with your silly digressions!”
Your OP is a nice argument, but there is no should in the matter one way or the other; though I do agree with the principal,
I’m not sure that your suggested application of this rule is a necessary inference. If anything, it means (to me) that each and every poster should moderate himself himself, not the OP. That’s my understanding of your maxim.
As to you 'own’ing the thread - did you pay for the bandwidth? Did you design the website? Did you devote time to getting other posters here? Did you invent the words you’re using, or teach them to yourself? Do the ideas belong to you?
My guess is that the answer to all these questions is ‘no’. In fact, I know the answer to all these questions is ‘no’.
So in what way can you claim ownership of a thread?
Theft is a natural result of the belief in private property. Put simply, if a thread is mutually owned by everyone, no one can steal it.
That’s all-and-well, except that it gives the OP no power to regulate his own posts.
And if he censors or deletes posts, then he should give reason for it with due cause at his own discretion. Then, discussions must be built around trust between contributors and acknowledgment that some posters should not be taken seriously while others are, and in proper place. If a poster makes a thread, then don’t join it if you fear being censored or deleted. It’s that simple. Post where you want to. Create threads where you want to.
I come here to converse with others, not myself. My problem is that I can’t converse the way I want to, nor do I want to conform to the mediocrity around here. I want to teach others how to be smart if it’s not already apparent within them, but I can’t do that as it stands right now. One idiot is all it takes to ruin a thread, like TheZeus, GTC, sometimes Smears, etc. etc. etc.
It doesn’t work. I’ve tried before. Idiocy is incessant.
It has to start somewhere, where else should it start except with an individual?
The bandwidth, website, time, other posters, words, teachings, ideas, etc. etc. etc. are all designed for me to make a post here. I have the right to determine how I want to see my ideas displayed, as do all others. Moderators should not be baby-sitters, but they must be around here in order for people to engage philosophy.
This shit needs to end now…
My words – my form – my thread.
I don’t see any apples. The barrels are empty. Somebody must have “stolen” them.
In other words, you want to talk and you want others to listen and go “Yes master. Yes master. You are so wise master. Yes master.”
The problem is, you don’t actually know that much, and you never will if you insist on always teaching and never learning. Moreover, when you teach, you rarely say anything concrete enough to actually have meaning, and when you do say something meaningful, it’s always so obviously false that it is psychologically painful - it hurts, it hurts me - to consider than someone can be ignorant enough (not stupid, you have the capacity for learning in you, you’re just ignorant) not to see all the things that are horribly glaringly wrong with it. Like white supremacy, for example. Or your misogyny.
How can anyone take your ideas seriously? They’re most often one-liners, and when they are fleshed out they’re so wordy and wrong that it hurts to think about them. I’m not kidding. I can handle a thread where a guy starts from correct premises and makes one little mistake by forgetting something, and ends up coming to the wrong conclusion. But in yours, you start from wild weird-ass premises that bear no resemblance to the real world, go on this magical sleigh ride of disconnected voodoo logic, and come out with the most distasteful conclusion you could possibly come up with. And the worst part is, all the while you’re acting like you’re bloody Nietszche for figuring it out, and we’re all third-graders for not seeing what you see. It’s seriously painful.
What the hell does any of that mean? Seriously, can you explain what that means? No. No you can’t, because it doesn’t mean anything. It is so unclear as to be meaningless. You’re essentially talking to yourself, because you’re the only person who you want to understand what you write.
No. I’m staying right here until you stop being an idiot. If you’re allowed to diminish ILP by posting your lunacy, I’m allowed to sit here and heckle you for it.
Another example, “disproof of the law of identity”.
How could anyone be so misguided as to think that they can prove that A != A?
I mean, come on! 1 != 1, that’s what you’re saying. You’re saying that cat doesn’t equal cat, that “my dog is black” isn’t the same as “my dog is black”. That the most basic premise of all logical thought is wrong, when you can’t even say something is wrong without using logic. And then you complain that no one understands you. Well, no shit, sherlock, I wonder why.
Your thoughts are quite tangled, and reading your mind is sometimes like walking through a hall of crooked mirrors. It would be helpful if you identified your premises to the reader, your reached conclusion based on these premises, and present the extra information that you use as support as extra information (maybe even put it aside in parentheses). I often do not read your threads because I do not have the time to untangle your thoughts. As long as your thoughts flow coherently from premises people will listen to you, but once you loose your coherency you’re in dada-land… .
Mine too, it would certainly cut down on ILP’s itinerant bandwidth problems.