Learning to abandon long-held beliefs is not enjoyable, but it's worth it. Your ignorance becomes willful when you choose not to abandon positions despite information and evidence to the contrary. That is where the willfulness enters. I have never criticized you harshly simply for being wrong. I have attempted to persuade you with logic and information.

But what I think is the most telling of your willfulness is that the challenge is not coming across any particular divide. For example, it's not like atheists are lining up to support your position and theists are lining up against your position. Almost uniformly, when I'm challenging your position, there are several others from multiple perspectives and backgrounds who are doing the same with further argumentation and examples.

Basically, you put yourself in a position where the overwhelming majority of the forum is trying to persuade you of your wrongness, and yet you remain fully convinced of your rightness.

You have long showed an unwillingness to get outside of yourself to begin to bring in others' perspectives. You claim that you can make sense of religious scientists, but your description sounds nothing like what religious scientists sound like, and you won't even accept descriptions *from* religious scientists about what religious scientists think.

I'm not sorry this isn't a safe space for ignorance. And I'm even less sorry that this isn't a safe space for willful ignorance.

You're not seeking them out because they're unpleasant.....

+1

I care very little for your on-the-fly attempt at highbrow platitudes about moderation models. We have a specific pattern you have failed to adequately respond to.

I was surprised to see you repeatedly ignore one of the more core aspects of my posts. Let's quote - again - what the rules are:
Mightyboosh sets a pretty clear tone that is disrespected by Aaron. He is explicitly not looking for fights. He explicitly doesn't want insults and condescension. He should be left in peace, without his threads he tries to engage in perverted by acrimony he doesn't want. It shouldn't matter whether Aaron is right or wrong, as you question, about the usefulness of mockery in changing people's opinion, if it is nonetheless disrespecting the clear tone both modeled and requested by Mightyboosh.

Aaron HAS been the "clever defector" that has found a way to insult widely, for when pressed you always have a list of apologetics how those insults just don't quite qualify as the insults you need to lift a finger on. Instead of giving heightened scrutiny to Aaron's insults given how they disrespect the tone Mightyboosh clearly tries to set, you've been "easily manipulated" into permitting this toxic culture. Almost all your responses seem to exist in a world utterly devoid of context and treated entirely in isolation, despite the tone being set by Mightyboosh literaly being a core rule you have endorsed.

My goodness. Aaron's 3000+ word retroactive selective quoting of old arguments is a perfect example of how just plain weird his obsession gets.

I won't name names, but there is someone else ITT I can think of who seems obsessed about something.

Would you have preferred the unedited version to avoid selective quoting? Because that can happen...

I was asked to explain myself by a poster that isn't MB. Responding to that person now counts as part of my MB obsession? Okay.

I'm not sorry this isn't a safe space for ignorance.

I have granted you a full accounting of the posts in which I engaged MB directly in the most recent thread. You are free to do a full accounting of all the comments that you believe violate your understanding of the "tone" principle.

I will be amused by the results. After all, you've hinged your prototypical example by saying that the comparison to an anti-vaxxer is over the line. I can't imagine what other things offend your delicate sensibilities.

As just a general commentary of uke's ongoing complaints, there are two things I want to address:

1) "Obsession" -- He seems to think that I uniquely target MB. He's been using that for quite a while as some sort of attempt to make me feel shame for challenging MB's ideas. Unfortunately for him, there is ample evidence to demonstrate that this is just how I post. There is nothing particularly special about MB in that sense. If he really wanted to talk about "obsession" he might simply try to accuse me of spending too much time on the forum. I will bring up again that in the thread in which he raised the complaint, I had posted a massive *FOUR* times in a thread in which MB had been approaching 50 posts.

2) "Tone" -- It is true that I have a more abrasive posting style. But if you actually read what I write, I fully expect that you will find relatively few things that are "insults and condescension" by most standards of reading it. I'm not saying it won't be there. But the delusion that I'm just firing off insults at MB is false, and I fully welcome an analysis of it.

Since it's a slow edit, I'm going to have to make this a separate post.

The bolded is with regards specifically to MB, as the "tone" discussion regards MB's tone. There are certainly other posters where "insults and condescension" happen with a higher frequency, but those are bilateral actions.

You brought up a couple recent examples of what you thought was an ongoing pattern of abuse by Aaron. I explained why, in my opinion, those examples did not go against the rules governing the forum (including that of tone). You then said you were less interested in "apologetics" for those specific posts, and more concerned about my "fundamental mistake" of not including the prior history of interactions between posters in making moderation decisions. I then explained why I only include such considerations in a limited manner in my decisions, based on my general approach to moderation. You say you also care little about this explanation. Fine, but I don't really have much else to say then.

We disagree on this issue. I get it. We've discussed this before and haven't changed our views. I'll explain my decisions and listen to what you have to say, but ultimately, I'll just make a decision and move on. If you think this is still worth continuing to pursue, ATF or Mat is the next step.

Okay.

I will. And it's entertaining to me that uke's obsession with me is way more stronger and more personal than anything I've got for MB.

I'll chime in that I think I have called MB that (or something similar) on a few occasions. I'm no stranger to derision, one of my worse traits as a debater.

Okay.

On a final personal note, for a long time I engaged meaningfully with Aaron. I cycled through quite a few strategies from explicitly asking him to limit his insults and condescension to me, to ignoring the insults but engaging nonetheless, and to responding in kind. Nothing worked. Maybe I should have done what Mightyboosh did. Or had more self control in not responding to his attacks. Or responded but extend my "no condescension back" periods even longer, as you always do. Ultimately, the unabatable toxity to me, Mightyboosh, and others, took most of the love of the forum from me. I certainly take a good sized dollup of blame for this too, but with Mightyboosh specifically somehow the just shear magnitude of the disrespect, it's utter bizareness, and it's continual presence across this forum clearly grates me in a way it doesn't others.

If I were 'willfully' ignorant, which I'm not, then what would be the point of debating with me? It seems pointless to try to convince someone of something when they are deliberately avoiding becoming more informed about that thing in order to remain unconvinced. It's actually the worst insult you could level at me, that and accusing me of lying which you've also done recently, because (aside from flying in the face of the evidence of how much my views have changed since I started posting here) it's an attack on my character, personal qualities and values that are hugely important to me. I'm honest, and I want to learn.

+1

I'm against the idea of censorship in principle, ignoring someone isn't my preferred option, but I haven't stopped anyone else from being able to engage with him and I've massively increased the enjoyment I get from posting here by stopping myself from being able to see his posts, be stressed out by them, and/or have to exert massive self control in order to be able to reply to them calmly.

This forum is a significant learning resource for me, I'm not going to stop posting here because of him, I'm not even aware of him most of the time, I've seen 'This message is hidden because Aaron W. is on your ignore list.' so many times now that it's just background noise. I'm not remotely curious about what he has to say anymore, and that's not some kind of passive aggressive attack that I hope he'll see, it's just so you know that whilst I 100% agree with your overall view about this, it's not bothering me personally. It's part of the deal I've made with myself and part of posting the way I do, I'm not blameless in this .

Indeed. That is the question.

This is, in fact, what often happens in conversations with you. At some point, everyone just gives up trying to convince you because they realize you simply aren't going to change your view despite all information and argumentation to attempt to persuade your perspective. Hence, willfully ignorant.

Then why do you *constantly* refuse knowledge and information provided to you? Why do you act as if you're the one *with* knowledge instead of acting as one that is *pursuing* knowledge? If you want to learn, then it's not about winning the argument.

Edit: See also your responses to lagtight.

--- Example 1 ---

--- Example 2 ---

Perhaps a lot of members don't care one way or the other, some might think it's funny, some like myself and uke_master find it bizarre and at least some level of abusive. I'd hope Aaron might see that his behaviour is not limited to two people (or even one). That a relentlessly negative tone can influence contributions to threads and the sub-forum itself. I know tone policing can be an oppressive way to limit what someone has to say, but within a group voluntarily sharing a similar interest and motivated by positive experiences within the group, it's not oppressive to bring up Wheaton's Law ("don't be a dick") if appropriate. I remember a crackdown on all the anti-Splendour commentary years ago for some not dissimilar reasons - so even Splendour received this sentiment!

Just what is the purpose in calling someone who is not listening as being "like the anti-vaxxer screaming at the medical community" (**).
(** Aaron's comment was quite uncharitable: iirc MB had been discussing views broadly held by theists and Aaron instead switched to views specifically held by experts (philosophers and theologians), which itself might be arguable.)

It cannot be for the benefit of MB. Is it useful to the gallery? I don't see how. Isn't it basically for Aaron's own amusement?

So this is another way of looking at the problem: 2p2 moderators will usually point out when someone is misusing the forums, as if it's their own personal blog. If you put aside replies that are corrections (obviously Ok), and even if you can put aside the lack of charity, condescension and put-downs (not-Ok, arguably), you're left with this peculiar monologue that serves no clear purpose toward the gallery. Aaron calls this a "running commentary".

A running commentary sounds like a blog post, doesn't it. This is frowned on in other subforums, where they are outed and deleted. As it stands in RGT, we are forced to sift through this running commentary when we're just trying to follow the thread. It's just as frustrating as some of the rabbit holes that these threads quite often do down.


-


The following are some of those results following a quick search (not scientific, though not because of unfalsifiability *wink*). Remember that these comments are knowingly directed at someone ignoring them. There are indeed replies that include corrections but even these replies often include condescension etc, which is intellectually unnecessary if a reply is only meant to correct a "fact"). Otherwise I did not cherry-pick to get the following results, it was from a handful of posts I grabbed out of curiosity.


https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=133

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=168

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=167

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=191


An aside, this very topic came up (from mid-2015):

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=204

The purpose was to characterize the level of argumentation being provided. The precise statement has been provided in full. I have no further commentary to add other than to repeat that the analogy seems apt. You may consider it uncharitable, but I don't think that denies the content of the accusation.

It depends on the specific comment, but it's worth noting that comments I have made find their way into the conversation. I think it's also useful at providing summary information about the direction of the conversation.

At some level, isn't that the majority of posting? Would anyone post if they don't receive any type of benefit from it? But I would say that challenging ideas and arguments is of benefit to people who read the thread.

Suppose for a moment that MB *didn't* have me blocked and simply chose not to respond. What does it change? Would it be possible to discern in a reasonable way that one post is valid because it's not blocked, but an identical post would be if it's blocked? From a practical standpoint, that's an impossible moderating standard.

Also, as I've noted several times before, I post in a manner that is minimally disruptive to the reader in the sense that I post as if I'm responding to any other type of post. It's essentially impossible to tell whether the person I'm responding to has me blocked or not because of that consistency. Again, Uke had to *ASK* whether I was still blocked before he began his crusade.

No, it doesn't. Not at all. If you took my posts and just dumped them into a blog on their own, it would make no sense. Comments within a thread about content contained in the thread is what posting is about.

I'm not pulling things away from the thread but rather drawing deeper attention to things that are in the thread itself. Also, these thoughts to make their way back into the conversation.

You may find rabbit holes frustrating, but the evolution of threads and topics follows that pattern all the time. I don't think there's any standard that threads must be on one topic and only one topic. (This statement is relevant to the comments below.)

Again, this is irrelevant as far as any type of moderation standard is concerned.

---

I'll take a little time to address the first of the examples. My approach is to click the thread, and then click the referring quote thread and see where it takes me.

133 (me) <- 131 (MB) <- 129 (uke) <- 111 (MB) <- 110 (OrP)

I'm amused at this one because in the context, uke is going after MB for his complaining about on-topicness. His sarcasm level is quite high in the thread.

Anyway, as to the content:

#110:
#111:
#129: For context here, uke is complaining about MB because MB had previously railed against people going on tangents in threads, and here in this thread he is not on the original topic. In the subsequent post from MB, only the first part is actually quoted.
#131: Emphasis mine.
#131: Here's where I enter in to make a comment about the flow of the conversation. Trump and Evangelicals are mentioned in 129, 111, 110, and in many other places in the thread in general. Trump is deeply a part of the conversation. MB is arguing that there's a religious component to Trump's rise was "thanks mainly to religion." But suddenly he's pulling a hard right and saying that this really isn't about Trump.
What's *really* ironic about this particular choice is that when you follow the trail backwards, it's a clear example of how something I said was brought into the broader conversation. Let me continue the thread backwards:

133 (me) <- 131 (MB) <- 129 (uke) <- 111 (MB) <- 110 (OrP) <- 107 (Ace upmy Slv) <- 106* (Me) <- 105 (Ace upmy Slv) <- 104 (me) <- 102 (Ace upmy Slv) <- 101 (me) <- 98/95** (MB)

* I was not linked in the quote, but the quote is clearly contextualized as being a response to me
** The link jumps to 95, but I took a quote from 98 and that was where the chain began.

So in this example, I'm adding to the conversation, producing distinct threads of thought and conversation, and it's also linking back up to MB indirectly.

I would like to propose a Froggle containment thread. The majority of his posts are straight copy-paste jobs from various websites, many of which do not appear to have particular merit insofar as the conversation is concerned.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...rchid=58534724

I second that. Froggle's posts are rarely ever addressing any topic at hand and seems mostly aimed at trying to spike page rankings.

Froggle's posts are often off-topic and so can be moderated as such, so I see no reason to have a separate containment thread for them. Please report if you think they are interfering with the flow of the thread.

In honor of Fixuposts' retirement from the RGT, let us all remember and reflect upon the quality of content contained in his first and third posts in this forum (the second post was plagiarized content and so I will not repeat it):

As true today as when it was written.

Lagtight, are you interested?

Sure, let's rumble!