Personal opinion from blog moderator :
The comments on the blog are becoming increasingly derogatory. Some commenters believe that ,as long as they avoid using certain words/ expressions ,somehow their comments are acceptable. No, they are not!
I always assumed that Labs employees have a certain level of logical and emotional intelligence that help them in debating others in a civil manner.
I stick to the rules posted in this blog but ,recently, I am convinced I need to filter the comments based on more than common bad words !
A while back, I did a poll to see if you want to end anonymous posting. There was an uproar !
A resounding NO.
I have a choice : doing away with anonymous posting or using my judgement to decide what comments to filter out .
I want constructive feedback. Your thoughts?
55 comments:
How about givig up your controlling mindset and letting people say what they want? Why is it a problem for you? Is free speech against your principles? I see your choices as 1) let it be what it (i.e., the posters) want it to be, or 2) give it up and close it down. I would be happy with either, but in between, no so much. You shouldn't have that much power over people's speech or ideas.
Well you already know the overall opinion about anonymous posting, and it's safe to assume that that opinion has not changed since you polled for it. Keeping anonymous posting, you can choose to either not moderate (open season for the nutjobs, you had that for years) or you can choose to moderate (what you are doing now, which has cleaned the place up significantly, if not perfectly).
Controlling mindset? Why would I be asking your opinion then?
Scooby 6:21 PM brings up a good point about.
You shouldn't have that much power over people's speech or ideas.
February 14, 2018 at 6:21 PM
What is weird is that control over my free speech and ideas does not just pertain a blog that you set up and operate, it must also mean that I have no free speech or ideas outside of your blog. For example I wanted to rant about Donald Trump fighting the free press, you stopped that. Now some may think I could go on the infinite number of political blogs and post about this but that fact you stopped the thread developing on Trump must somehow mean that my free speech was violated. Others think that since it is your blog you can apply the rules you like. The problem is that some think you have God like powers which means when you
do not allow something to be said on this blog it implies that free speech in the United States is over, in other words it is no just your blog it is the peoples blog. I am not sure I believe this but it is something to consider.
Scooby,
The screed and drivel in some of the recent posts detracts from comments on more serious topics, which now appear less often. Given the option to display fewer posts and have them be more relevant to the issues would be a net positive to the readers.
Thank you!
Thank you for your constructive feedback!
Scooby fails to understand the false dichotomy he hides behind. One option, that even school children once understood, is to simply ignore those words one finds offensive.
I stop any thread that dies not pertain to National Labs .Rule: stay on topic!
Scooby,
It seems like you're saying you care more about suppressing bad language and suppressing confrontation than promoting honest (not lying) discourse.
Maybe you should try no anonymous posting and see how many people create phony openID accounts to get around it.
9:12 needs to go find another site where no one has "god like powers" and he can rant about Donald Trump as much as he wants. Maybe someday he'll learn what the first amendment means and does not mean, but meanwhile I think most of the rest of us wish he would go away.
You are a rare person. If you are not offended when someone insults you. You are at a higher level than other people . However , this blog is for everyone, not just the thick skinned !
I can turn off anonymous and be able to track trolls ,habitual offenders and block them.
If you block them, won't the trolls just create a new phony account?
Great, exercise more censoring authority. Just what this country needs. If you do what you suggest, the blog will be populated by sincere, serious, thoughtful, absolutely boring, uninteresting people. Lots of careful thought by people who have not a clue about the real world. YAWN
So, you get excited to see blog readers engaging in name calling and going off topic? The blog may become boring but it never was meant to entertain you. You want entertaining blog? feel free to explore elsewhere. Oh, thank you for your feedback!
I recommend that you abolish anonymous postings and banish the obvious nut cases and Russian trolls.
The blog was much better before the new editor asserted his preferances. The strong contibutors left.
The last post illustrates the problem. The blog is not yours, Scooby. The ideas are each contibutors. You merely curate. Your appearance on the "Scooby show" coincides with a deep decline in content. Almost nothing on LLNL. Let it go.
Personally, I prefer the moderators to moderate the blog (Pun intended).
I looked up the word in the dictionary and here are the two definitions:
1)make or become less extreme, intense, rigorous, or violent.
2)(in academic and ecclesiastical contexts) preside over (a deliberative body) or at (a debate
I especially like the first one. I don't think the right to free speech gives anyone the right to insult another person who has a different opinion. I have read comments on this blog, which were hateful and vitriolic, and I doubt anyone would say those in an open discussion. It is only the knowledge of being anonymous, that let's people going off like this.
Here I bring the 1st amendment as a reminder:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I don't really see any congressional involvement here.
And I like the "stay on topic". Just look at most of the topics. It starts with someone posting , and after a few posts the insults start.
So I agree completely with February 15, 2018 at 3:59 AM, and reduce the number of namecalling or off topic comments as much as you can.
New editor? What is his name?
What do you suggest ? Would you like to be an LLNL contributor ?
Is it possible that we actually have Russian bots posting? How would test this?
We can tell where comments are coming from. We don't know if someone posting from Russia is really Russian.
The blog may become boring but it never was meant to entertain you. You want entertaining blog? feel free to explore elsewhere. Oh, thank you for your feedback!
February 15, 2018 at 7:52 PM
So you own this blog and all particpants shall conform to your wshes. Got it. No entertainment here, just move along. Just out of curiousity, what is the minimum level of blog participation you'd be happy with?
2/16 5:14PM: I dont own the blog. I run it. You seem to think the rules are to satisfy my wishes. I view running the blog as a service. No judging. No minimum blog participation. Just decency, ok?
Isn't funny that as soon as I ask if someone would like to contribute to the improvement of th e blog, they never come back?
We've had this kind of problem on technical mailing lists even where there is no anonymity. We chose to ban people and if a thread is too off-topic it's stopped. Don't like it? Start your own mailing list.
This blog has gotten pretty hard to read. I think you need to exercise editorial control. There should be no ad-hominem attacks, no insulting language, and it should be about LLNL or the tri-labs, nothing more.
I think requests for anonymity should be considered only when a post could put someone's job in peril. There's no other reason for a post to be anonymous. You could give people a simple option: if they want to be anonymous, the posts will be moderated. That might help.
This is my first time back in a long time and I'm interested to see that this is the first topic. That should tell you something.
Yes .More effort is needed to create new names. It is expected to be a deterrent .
Call it censoring , filtering, cleaning etc. .
The goal is to have intelligent debate and no insults.
Thank you for your constructive feedback .Making sure the comments come only from LLNL ,LANL and Sandia is outside of my skill level .How would you that?
Most forums use vBulletin, XenForo, SMF, or similar software that requires posters to register and create a profile. The username can be totally random, so anonymity is still protected, especially if you register with a throw-away email address, but that way posters can be suspended or banned, their posts can be deleted, and other posters can ignore them and never see their posts. Downside is, it costs real money, and it takes a lot of time to set up. But it would solve the problems without compromising anonymity, and wouldn't require individual scrutiny of every single post by a moderator.
Thank you for your candid feedback ! Your comment is the kind of comment this blog needs !
As a Google blogger blog owner ,my capabilities are more limited than most people think .
I think you are a hopeful person Scooby and I would encourage you to maintain that perspective in your life. With that said, the community on this blog is mostly LANL. It is composed of UC trolls, Bechtel trolls, and a few people actually trying to speak the truth and have an intellectual conversation. I do not think you will get to the utopia you are hoping for so either:
a) give up on moderation (let the trolls rule)
b) end anonymity (most trolls hate sunlight)
I do not believe there are any better options.
Thank you February 17, 2018 at 2:26 PM
I am headed to b.
>b) end anonymity
I think the blog should be shut down so I say go with option b.
I tried "b" one time and I was blistered by friends, enemies, and frienemies ! Someone is always offended when we try to have an intelligent conversation about political or technical matters. So anonymous is important. Otherwise quit this blog. It's not relevant to LLNL anymore anyway. A discussion on physics gets heated because certain individuals consider themselves to be the "gods of physics, or gods of ICF" and so any discussion is considered treason. Likewise, for Lab politics because who are we, the "peasants", questioning the >$250k/yr club.
There will always be angry people. They thrive in anonymity .Thank you for your valued feedback .
When people identify themselves, they are more considerate, polite etc . .
At the very least ,we can track and block them .Only the serious will continue using the blog . No problem here because I am not interested in high volume. This is not a commercial enterprise.
The blog should be:??
Interesting?
Full of ideas?
Provacative?
Lively?
Controversial?
Diverse in opinion?
Educational?
A place for real news?
A whistleblower forum?
Fun?
Loss of anonyminity will kill most of that.
Using a free instant email addy with a fake name will not harm anonyminiminity, either.
Loss of anonyminity will kill most of that.
That is the point. Many people over the years have wanted this and the other blogs to be shut down. Even if there is lots of
fluff or "lively ideas" there has been plenty of truth. The labs have been privatized to make money, not necessarly to serve the nation. These same groups who want to make money off the labs also need to control the narrative about how well the labs are doing or not doing. Their interests will not always align with the that of the lab workforce of the role of the service to the labs to the nation. I happen to think the blogs may be been very helpful in getting a true picture out to DOE, Congress and the American people about the state of the labs, in fact I know few folks at DOE who have even stated this. In the very least what happens is that people off the record say whats going on to the DOE and a few DOE folks look at the blog to get another source that could help confirm what is being said. But I will give Scooby credit for keeping this blog going for so long, he is not being paid and it his time.
Of course for all I know most of the posters are Russian bots and the whole thing as a big scam to get Trump elected.
Perhaps this would be a good moment to reflect on how the original LANL Blog, lanl-the-real-story, came into existence.
2004. Nanos's reign of terror was in full swing. He had publicly proclaimed that the Enemy was "butthead" scientists and that he would "save" LANL from them. People on the ground could see that an evil scam was being perpetrated, but they could get no support from the powers that be. Both UC and DOE had signaled their full support for Nanos' actions. Doug Roberts and a few other Brave Souls had first tried to have their opinions published in the LANL's official Readers’ Forum. Yet, those opinions were not allowed to appear, censored by Nanos and his minions. Instructively, the excuse given by the censors was precisely the need to keep the Readers' Forum "clean", as a crusade against comments deemed “mean-spirited” or “incendiary.” The Readers' Forum was surely "clean" at that time, too clean and empty in fact. So Doug started his legendary blog. The rest is history.
“My attempt has been to try to provide a truly unbiased, uncensored blog for people at the lab to express themselves,” Roberts said. “If Pete Nanos himself were to send a post to the blog I would have it up within 39 seconds.”
You can read the historical account, for example, here .
Sure, discussions on Doug's Blog were opinionated, passionate, but never "unclean". And in the end the Blog made a real difference: UC had to no choice but to let Nanos go. It accomplished what nothing else could do at the time. History was changed.
Scooby, who's your hero in this story: Doug Roberts or Kevin Roark?
P.S. Incidentally, the article quotes an anonymous LANL scientist saying, "I fear (the laboratory) is in a death spiral from which it may not recover for years, if ever." So true ...
Censor. You have made a fatal mistake. This blog was a effective anonymous community. Credible in part because of the content and in part because of the truth (hard as it is to tolerate) of freedom of expression. Now this moderated junk is only yours. It has no honesty except what is acceptable to the censor. Which is not honesty. You have failed the essentialfreedom test. You are not and cannot be responsible for the free open expessions of others. You can say the blog is "mine", "I'll do what I like", but that choice kills it. You have failed as moderator.
Thank you for your feedback. The blog was never credible or effective as you say .I have always .moderated it, nothing new. I never claimed to own your freedom and never claimed the blog is mine .The blog belongs to all contributors . If the blog is failing , as you claim, is because you failed to make intelligent contributions to it.
Remember ,you have the option to start your own blog, volunteer to help make this blog better ,or shut up and don't let the door hit you in ..
February 19, 2018 at 9:51 PM
Sorry not buying it, almost every post I have submitted has been approved. When they have not been it is because I may have used some bad language or I did not submit it as I thought I have. I suspect that your issue may be that you are actually having problems submitting and you think you have submitted but did not. I a can tell because there has been several cases of "why has my post been censored" followed by confused Scooby implying he did not remember censoring a post because you never actually submitted it the first place. Trust me it has happened to me as well. I just don't see this heavy hand of Scooby as you claim.
Hear, hear!
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This blog is for people like you who appreciate intelligent debate .I appreciate your defending me. I do not recall every comment I filter out. So , when someone asks why their comment or post was deleted, I have no clue. It also makes it look like I am deleting them because I don't agree with them .Untrue. This blog will continue to exist for the few that appreciate it , not for those that don't.
I will continue applying the rules.
Hear what ? You are an example of useless input.
So you admit you make decisions about what input is "useful." Not your place. Really, if you want truthfulness and honesty, leave the blog alone. Why do you care????
This blog is monetized, right? You wrote that you do not own it, so who owns the blog? And who gets the revenues?
Yes, this blog is monetized and produces a whopping revenue of about $130 every 3 months or so.
Any problem with that? I do own the blog because I created but it is not mine! What else you going to ask me: how much time do I spend on it? Warning future inquiries will not be published.
Yes. I have a problem with you writing on Feb 16 "I don't own the blog" and on Feb 20 "I do own the blog." And I have a problem with the increasingly rude tone of your replies. And I have a problem with this blog being monetized.
Reading this thread, why do I get the feeling that LLNL - The True Story is on path to join LANL - The Real Story in shutting down?
You know you have an option don't you? It is to stay away from this blog .It would not hurt anyone's feelings.
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