@user1504: Hey, so coming from someone who has looked at the 10K tools (post moderator), there isn't a heckuva lot you can actually do as a 10K user and be really useful to a small site. :P
@ChrisGerig I am a diamond on another site - I have had comments from previous meta posts taken out of context before, so I have to beg to differ on that.
Shog9 just suspended me from the main site. Is this ok? He did so after I continued to endorse candidates, despite the fact that he disagrees with this. Is any moderator willing to reverse him? This is an example of independent mindedness that I am looking for from a mod. The site functions best when people act as individuals not as a herd. I do not expect to be welcome here in the future, but I suppose it was nice for the year or so. This is not just a problem with Larian, I see.
@RonMaimon To be fair, the odds of a moderator reversing an action by a community manager are somewhat low. It's happened before that site moderators and users came to us to challenge a decision we made, but let's be clear: we are not Physics.SE users. We are employees who oversee operations of every site on the entire network. If your goal is to have an independent 3rd party make objective decisions that aren't affected by internal affairs of the site's community, we are your best bet.
After an outraging case of a prominent user (Ron Maimon) being suspended for more than a month (i mean, seriously?) by simply endorsing some candidate over another, i've noticed that, also, his reputation is at 1? what is up with that?
I am horrified by the fact that Ron Maimon has been taken away from our Physics SE community. This is just a nightmare and I am considering leaving Stack Exchange too now.
Remember, you can't see if he has been warned or not :/
@Dilaton Maybe... but don't leave just because of Ron's suspension...
@Dilaton He has been suspended on various sites before, for similar behavior. He may be a great physicist, but if you want to participate on the network, you have to abide by the rules(The site is hosted by SE, after all). And he broke those rules, even when warned. Plus, it's only a month. He'll be back with his great answers later :)
However, I enjoyed it being here in our nice community, the site was great and helpful when trying to learn about cool physics. It would break my heart to leave this nice community since I had so much fun and here are so many nice and cool people.
@Dilaton Actually, I would say it's better than most of the Internet. The strict moderation helps keep most of the crap off
As well as restricting debates on the main.
If you look at, say, physicsforums, it's full of homework questions and arguments, and it's hard to even find the answer to a question in those looong threads
Some hours ago, there were some heated discussions in meta and in chat since Ron Maimon was worried about Larian LeQuella probably becoming a moderator of Physics SE. Our site got immediately flooded by moderators and people from other parts of the SE network, as he was trying to express his conc...
@Dilaton I think that David already made it clear that the reasons behind a suspension are private, though Ron has already revealed them partly. The posts were deleted on meta for this reason--meta's not the place to discuss this.
@annav Well I was fairly interested in astronomy once, but never really got into it. Casually browsing astronomy questions on Physics.SE, the terminology alone is daunting. There's a bit of a language barrier that I could possibly easily overcome if I actually decide to put some effort into it, but... well.. haven't tried it yet.
@YannisRizos I'll be waiting for your questions then :). Yes, life is getting tougher and tougher for the generations below mine, and mine is squeezed out of shape by taxes.
@Manishearth Do you know why is there so much emphasis on deleting things here in SE? I can understand locking some posts (to stop OT discussions) and hiding others "by default" (to prevent spam and gain relevance), but I don't see any benefit to the community in making them unavailable.
@mmc IIRC, only one meta post was deleted, and that was because it was pretty much like the others
@mmc The offensive chat messages were deleted as well (there was only one of these by Ron, and one by another guy)
[The deleted messages moved into this room were deleted as they weren't relevant--they were discussing whether or not to move messages into this room. After the move, they were irrelevant]
I really don't think this was done in any way to silence Ron's comments about Larian. If that were the case, then they did a pretty sloppy job :P .
2
If someone repeatedly attacks a user on a meta, regarding a resolved dispute on another site, and then promotes other candidates again and again, deleting some of the stuff seems reasonable (since it's repeated)
@mmc I think you still misunderstanding it. I was just saying he shouldn't feel influenced by that: a light-hearted suggestion, nothing more. And yes, policies are important, I'm a moderator, I agree with that.
@YannisRizos I don't think moderators are evil, I have been one :D (though not in SE). But I would like their actions here to be more transparent, having a "public audit trail", so to say.
@mmc Some things cannot be made public not because we like secrets (well, we like them), but because they are meant to protect the user's privacy. The suspended user can personally share the real reasons on Meta, but it must be done by the user.
We signed and agreed to the Moderator Agreement, we cannot go against it.
I know that. I just disagree with some SE policies but well... I cannot honestly say that Wikipedia is free from conflict :) Well, I need to go back to the real world. See you!
@ArnoldNeumaier I saw that, upvoted :). He is a good contributor to the community. BUT, if he shows complete disregard for the rules, even after repeated warnings, a ban in the only option :/
@Dilaton: They certainly won't change their poor decision if they are confronted with it in the terminology you are using. Instead, we should use inviting language that entices them to reconsider their action. They are ruining their site with such decisions, and if they think about it in a less heated atmosphere, they might realize this and change. — Arnold Neumaier13 mins ago
@ArnoldNeumaier And an SE employee actioned the ban this time (acc to Ron). That's harder to reverse, though you can email team@stackexchange.com asking for a reverse
@ArnoldNeumaier Your comment might be all that can be done. I have absolutely no idea if the suspension can be reversed, but it certainly doesn't help that the discussion looks like a battlefield.
As regards Ron's suspension, I have already sent a mail to the team.
Hello Team members, There was a discussion today 6:30 to 7:30 IST in the Physics Town Hall Chat where Ron, an amazing contributor of Physics.SE and a brainy guy dealing with quantum mechanics, string theory and QFT tags. Tod...
@JasonDavies Lotsa people were. Unfortunately, it was the only hour block with as many participants among the candidates. Best we could otherwise shoot for was only 2 or 3.
That's largely what the Town Hall Chat is for, after all. It's a record that people can review if they had some lingering concerns that they wanted to see. That's why we also will provide a comprehensive digest version that will condense all the Q&A together.
I'm withdrawing from the election. I entered initially because I was concerned that we didn't have enough candidates who had a history of participation in the site and an adequate background in physics. This is clearly no longer the case, so I don't need to be a candidate.
It should be prett...
@user1504 assuming that by successful, you mean having high traffic: I'm not sure about that. math.SE gets a lot of traffic. I would be convinced by the data.
MathOverflow remains where it is because it is majorly successful. And not simply just successful, they're actually really, really strong.
They get a lot of traffic, they get a lot of references, people use them, people find it helpful, they grant out a lot of their knowledge and do a whole lot.
@DavidZaslavsky: No I don't mean high traffic. Something more along the lines of quality x quantity of questions & answers, and vibrancy of community. These are difficult metrics to define precisely.
Anyways, I think physics has a lot of potential, but we've got a ways to go yet.
@user1504 ah, well in that case, if you study or use math at a research level, MO is naturally going to be considered more successful than any of the current SE2.0 academic sites, simply because of its scope.
@drake: To answer confrontation by confrontation succeeds rarely, unless there are well-established meta-rules that maintain order in confrontation. Thus in general it just escalates the matter. If SE takes a hard line (which it can), it will sacrifice the future contributions of those not in line with them in favor of a peaceful but irrelevant site. So we have nothing to gain form being confrontational.
But if they are more interested in relevant content and attractivity than in a strict enforcement of rules in special cases where they are not constructive, they will listen to those who show a way how the conflicting goals of wanting to be civil and wanting to keep those who only care about the science can be achieved without being too formal.
In the latter case, there is future to the site and to people like us inside, who want to have reason count more than emotions.
@DavidZaslavsky OK, I was not going to send the message to more people. I had already stopped.
@ArnoldNeumaier One has to defend what one thinks it is fair. I saw the discussion and Ron did say "it is not personal", if "you withdraw, I'll stop". I think his suspension is not fair and it is very bad for physics.
@ArnoldNeumaier One has to differentiate between personal attacks and comments on opinions, ideas or behaviour. The latter may be stupid, ridiculous, etc. What one has to respect and protect is the freedom to express them, but in strict sense "opinions" are not respectful.
In any case, moderators are making Ron an hero. It is not so smart their decision.
@drake. I do not defend by confrontation (one form of which is the boycott yoy recommended), which is more like beginning a war, but by calling to reason. Should it be hopeless, I can still leave the site and boycott it permanently. They might be surprised at what they'll lose in the end by keeping a hard line.
@YannisRizos rude on physics.SE? I do not remember something like that
@ArnoldNeumaier I think that in Dilaton's question about 15 people are voting who have no idea of who Ron is as a physicist. They probably do not like him from other SE sites
@annav That's a fair point, I think I remember him being warned (publicly) on Meta Physics once before, but I won't go looking for it. Also, just to not be misunderstood, I don't really have access to any private conversations between Ron and mods/SE.
@annav Hm, what I don't get is why is Ron's physics skills relevant? I've seen that "physicists are naturally more abrasive" argument thrown around quite a few times, and it simply isn't true, every scientific discipline has it's fair share of... mavericks.
Nothing special about physicists in that respect, and the argument that physicists deserve a bit more leniency when it comes to rudeness just because they are physicists doesn't really sound reasonable to me.
Opinions can be stupid and ridiculous. What one has to protect is the freedom to express whatever opinion or idea, but opinions are nor per se respectable.
@YannisRizos The lee way is not asked for social discussions, but for physics discussions. physics.SE is for physics discussions not for tea and cookies
@YannisRizos off hand I do not remember such in physics.SE . I have disagreed with him on global warming and did not carry the discussion to avoid direct confrontation.
@annav I thought he could...But apparently a suspension causes an automatic chat suspension if its on the parent site. Not sure what happens if the site is not a parent site
@Alenanno Check his chat profile, under moderation tools
@JamesCooper A couple of comments were deleted, the comment where Larian linked to the crackpot index is still there though. I don't see it as offensive or as specifically targeted at Ron though.
An hour or so ago I suggested an edit for this question about heat-conductance in diamonds. When I now browse to said question, I don’t see the block ‘your edit is being reviewed’ anymore, nor does it appear in the list of my suggestions where it definitely was listed half an hour ago.
What happ...
@drake: Thanks for the compliment. But I think some of the other candidates are equally qualified. Perhaps I can run next year, but I'm not going to muddy the waters by withdrawing and then unwithdrawing.
@annav: I'm sorry to cause you headaches. But I'm starting to become quite fond of 1504. Did you know that it's one of only two integers which are the product of a unit, the number 32, and the number 47?
I was just voting in community moderator elections over on Physics SE and looking through what I chose so far, and I think the layout is not very clear:
A green bar around a blue button; my eyes are good, and I can see it, but it's not very easy to spot when quickly scrolling through the page....
After an outraging case of a prominent user (Ron Maimon) being suspended for more than a month (i mean, seriously?) by simply endorsing some candidate over another, i've noticed that, also, his reputation is at 1? what is up with that?
To all candidates to moderator: what are you going to do regarding Ron's suspension?
As regards Ron's suspension, I have already sent a mail to the team.
Hello Team members, There was a discussion today 6:30 to 7:30 IST in the Physics Town Hall Chat where Ron, an amazing contributor of Physics.SE and a brainy guy dealing with quantum mechanics, string theory and QFT tags. Tod...
I'm withdrawing from the election. I entered initially because I was concerned that we didn't have enough candidates who had a history of participation in the site and an adequate background in physics. This is clearly no longer the case, so I don't need to be a candidate.
It should be prett...
I was just voting in community moderator elections over on Physics SE and looking through what I chose so far, and I think the layout is not very clear:
A green bar around a blue button; my eyes are good, and I can see it, but it's not very easy to spot when quickly scrolling through the page....