Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 02:09:58 04/03/00
Go up one level in this thread
On April 03, 2000 at 04:14:49, Michael Cummings wrote: >On April 02, 2000 at 18:13:08, Derrick Williams wrote: > >> >> >> IT takes a tremendous amount of effort to refrain from using four letter words >>when discussing the present moderators and there abuse of power. Take for >>instance my post titled "Why I think Crafty plays Lousy Chess",,, This message >>was deleted shortly after I posted it. The reason given by the moderators was >>that it was an allegeded obvious Troll!! Obvious to Whom and Why?? Are the >>moderators claiming to be able to read my mind and tell me what I am thinking?? >>What my intentions are?? Why is expressing a negative opinion taken as a >>troll??? Does everything said about crafty have to be Good?? >>The truth is that I simply expressed an unpopular opinion, somehow this has been >>equated with abuse. It is now a Crime in CCC to say anything bad about crafty. >>There is a difference between stating a opinion such as "Crafty plays Lousy >>chess" as opposed to a personal attack which would Read The Programmer of >>Crafty is a Lunatic". So why was my post deleted, No abusive words were used. >>ONLY AN OPINION WAS EXPRESSED. > >I think making the statement is okay, as long as you back it up with some hard >facts when making a statement like that. > >You cannot just want to rip into something without cause, other than your >opinion. Opinions are great, as long as they are fully back up with some >evidence to match your statement. > >How would you like it if I called you a moron and really had no other opinion >that from what I saw you post that I have seen on here. > >What I wrote is an opinion which is not wanted here, nor is there anything to >back up my statement, other than opinion. I think that saying that some random chess program sucks is a fine thing to do, although not a particularly useful thing to do, as long as the guy doesn't launch a campaign. If there are reasons given, the post could be helpful, and if there are no reasons given, nobody will consider it credible. I think the "campaign" distinction is very useful. If I say some random stupid thing, nobody is particularly hurt by it, but if I say the same thing constantly, it may be possible for a reasonable person to determine with fair enough accuracy that my intent is to annoy someone in specific, in a manner similar to a personal attack. "Crafty sucks" isn't an attack on Bob, but a demonstrated willingness to state that Crafty sucks, at every opportunity, in order to annoy Bob or other members, is. Additionally, I want to try to help make sure that CCC doesn't become a place where posts are deleted simply because they are factually incorrect, so I take issue with your contention that opinions need to be backed up with fact. Imagine the following case. An argument happens here about a controversial topic. Someone holds an unpopular viewpoint, and expresses it. This bothers someone with a contrary viewpoint, because they think the viewpoint is factually incorrect, and rather than arguing against the viewpoint they complain to the moderators. One or more moderators happen to agree that the viewpoint is factually incorrect, and the post is deleted. I think that this case can happen, and I believe that it has happened in the past, or at least almost happened, in particular about a year ago there was a post by Vincent about killer books that was either deleted or almost deleted, because the moderators thought that his contentions had been disproven some time previously. I think that if there is an issue that people want to argue about, they should argue about it, rather than trying to get their arguing partner's posts deleted. Please, let's not start deleting posts where people claim that 2+2=5, unless it becomes clear that they are doing it just to wreck the atmosphere of CCC. This post should not be taken as an attack on current moderation, since I don't know what was in the posts that were deleted, and in any case this is the new moderators' six months, not mine, thank goodness. I simply take issue with some stuff you said. Note that I haven't asked that your post be deleted, even though you are wrong. bruce
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