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Invitation to clean debates

Dear blog visitor,

I am inviting you to keep your comments on topic. You don't need to win an argument. What every sane person wants are informative and interesting comments. Having seen this blog evolve negatively, I can confirm that you will never win an argument in an anonymous fashion. I renew my call for improving our blog and making it a friendly place where educated people come to inform and debate, instead of regurgitate and denigrate.

I am obligated and committed to delete any useless, hateful,  off-topic,  obscene comment. Not to mention complains about said deletions! 

Cordially,
Scooby

Comments

Anonymous said…
Sounds reasonable Scooby, but what comments did some unknown "blog visitor" make to prompt your guidance? We may need an example even if edited. Otherwise we are kinda left in the dark as to what comment or comments were overboard. Thanks.
Anonymous said…

Seems like the blog has been pretty clean and fairly interesting. Maybe Scooby is getting rid of the real doozies but if you look at any of other online blogs including the many academic blogs where professors post the LLNL Blog is is beyond tame. It is amazing how nasty academics can get. They just had to close down comments on "Inside Higher Eduction" where every side was just throwing bombs, accusations and insults. I have not really seen anything like that on this blog. On the whole the NNSA and DOE labs in general have not been caught up in any of the craziness. Most people seem fairly calm,. I don't see looting in Livermore, the Oppenheimer statue is still up, l and have not seen crowds rushing the gates in Sandia. Maybe some things are getting out of hand at NTS but I doubt that. At Universities every day some dean, professor or student is fired, cancelled or has their acceptance revoked. There are endless open letters that you better sign or else and so on. We have nothing like that at the DOE labs. Heck even when it comes to Covid maybe 30 people in the whole complex have been diagnosed I guess there are not many party animals in the NNSA or they just use a fair amount of common sense to reduce risk.

We are fairly boring.
Anonymous said…
7/02/2020 7:27 PM

Well said !
Scooby said…
To:7/02/2020 5:17 pm
I filter out lots of insulting comments. I let in lots of borderline offensive ones.
I am not going to point out every single such comments. Otherwise, I will reading for a long time.
Blog rules are there for a reason.
It is simple :contribute, debate but don't insult, denigrate or get off topic.
Anonymous said…
From my perspective, the utility and interest in this blog is waning as two things happen:

1. LANL gripers continue to overwhelm the original purpose of this blog, and
2. The information and relevance to EITHER lab shrinks to withered appendages waiting to drop off the wethered goat of GOCO.

Want to be more relevant?

Then address more relevant topics.

Hating Trump, Bechtel, UC, Battelle, Mike, Thom, George, Parney, Bill, Bill’s imminent replacement is a waste of neurons.

And yet thwt’s wll we find here...
Anonymous said…
And yet thwt’s wll we find here...

7/07/2020 6:39 PM

Yep, great example of being relevant. In what language, I don't know.
GreggS said…
Having polite engaging conversations on this blog would be wonderful.

But there are a number of reality points that make the prospect of such conversations somewhat dim.

Firstly there is the lack of topics to discuss. Lab news, both good and bad seems scarce these days for whatever reason. Perhaps people just don't feel like posting what news there is anymore.

Second is the local troll population. They have been reined in, but some still manage to slip in the occasional snarky comment under the wire here and there. Not enough to truly disrupt the blog as a whole, it still has a strong wet-blanket effect to many who would post here. Scooby did draw the line on bad behavior and for the most part he seems to have gotten it right over what to allow vs what to reject. I've known Scooby for many years - he's got no secret agenda or any political leanings as far as the blog is concerned. Being a referee will never endear you to some folk, Scooby knows that yet continues to be as fair a moderator as you will find on the net.

Third - the audience. Sadly it's dwindled. I wish more would take an interest, but you cannot force people to participate. All you can do is keep the blog alive, someday there may be an uptick in usage.

Meanwhile - thank you Scooby for all your tireless work here.
Anonymous said…
The top post has a date of July 29, but the last comment is dated July 21?? The moderation of this blog is just weird.
Scooby said…
When I want a post to stay on top for a while, I give it a future date.
Anonymous said…
Yeah, just weird.
Anonymous said…
7/21/2020 6:37 AM forgot to mention that shortly after the turn of the century the formation of NNSA, punitive management at LANL, and privatization of both weapons design labs sent cultural shock waves through the design community, resulting in an online uproar enabled by multiple bloggers. This has slowly decayed with a few year half-life as the community has come to realize that the sky really isn't falling.
Anonymous said…
8:16, the sky might not be falling, but the Labs are a shadow of their former greatness.
Anonymous said…
The shock waves cleared out most of the remaining experience and wisdom.
There are only a few survivors from the design community left to know that the sky has fallen, and most of them exited awhile ago. The new kids are clueless through no fault of their own.

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