When Shutting Up isn't Cowardice

This thread has more life than i would have thought. I kinda sorta agree with the idea of an ignore button. It would tend, thoughl, to fracture discussion, as some people would see what others were ignoring, and a few might respond to it--and you'd still have the disruption, which is what it is all about.

One thing that does work, though not all the time, is to accurately and effectively refute what another member is presenting. In one recent thread, a member was making a contention which was based on what that member wanted to believe, as opposed to what the member could substantiate with off-site references. I insisted that member was wrong, because the situation actually was far different than the member was describing, and found information off-site to support what i had written. That member did not subsequently respond. That doesn't mean that the member in question thought i was right, necessarily, and the member in question might simply have had no further interest in the thread of discussion.

But it leads me to point out something no one else has pointed out here, and that is that this is still assumed to be a knowledge site. I hate Hitler threads--i hate them because i have never yet seen a one which presented any original ideas, and because the man was scum who doesn't merit the attention he gets. Garden variety tinpot dictators are a dime a dozen in history, and Hitler never showed any skill other than gutter politics; he wasn't even as good at what he did as a great many others throughout history. So, i largely ignore the Hitler threads, unless i drop by to ridicule the fascination people have for him, or to point out what a thorough-going loser he was. But when people come here to try to make out that he was a military genius (an all too common claim), then i feel that i should respond seriously to point out that this is definitely not so.

So, what to do when a troll shows up and starts filling the site with misinformation? I think that one is then obliged to attempt to dispell the false information, while also not responding directly to the troll. Attack the idea and ignore the troll. Not easy to do, i know.

But if you're ignoring someone, and they're peddling the old "history is written by the victors" horsiepoop, you won't know it, and won't be able to challenge that. Obviously, i'm obsessed with history--but there are any number of topics to which the same situation applies. Our Farmerman does yoeman's service in attacking the anti-evolution propagandists. If he just put them on ignore, how many students would read the cow flops which pass for science by the propagandists, and never hear a dissenting voice?

It probably is useful to ignore the trolls, but as Phoenix points out, it must be total. At the same time, the foul notions they often drop off here should not be left to fester. We may ignore the trolls, but we should not ignore egregious false information they leave. That largely doesn't effect the Political forum, of course, where opinion rules and reliable information is usually the red-eared step child.

Or alternatively, God is a farmerman..

nimh wrote:

Or alternatively, God is a farmerman..

I have no truck with gods who demand big "g".


Farmerman is my idea of perfection in confronting nonsense.......simple, calm refutations with heaps of knowledge behind them.

I think he's the intelligent designer but he's embarrassed by his boo-boos and is peddling this evolution crap to cover.

I was googling around, trying to find out if you'd posted (anywhere) your personal voting preferences (based on finn's question)

ehBeth wrote:

I was googling around, trying to find out if you'd posted (anywhere) your personal voting preferences (based on finn's question)

I posted my voting preference for a dozen countries or so in this thread: What would you vote if you lived in ...?; Germany is here, Belgium here; Spain, Greece, Italy and France here; and I covered Central & Eastern Europe roughly here.

Loved that thread, btw.

Still impressed you found me back anywhere with Google though, I never can - the National Institute of Mental Health keeps getting in the way!

O woe Nimh, and his thusly shadowed life!!!!!

I never can - the National Institute of Mental Health keeps getting in the way!