Skeptic Project

"Matt, the point is how does having a moderation discussion section mean the moderation is bad?"

Because mods should be trustworthy enough to not need a section like that in the first place.

"If they ruled with the iron fist as you make out, they wouldn't have one."

I disagree. Its a safe outlet for dissent.

@anticultist:

What I am saying is that you made a claim but provide no evidence for it.

If you tell Brenton that people are banned for "questioning the movement" "all the time", how would you demonstrate that to him?

I asked and quickly you decided that "questioning the movement" is rather a lot more specific than that phrase implies. Therefore TO BE ACCURATE you need to say specifically what subjects posted there will get you banned. But don't blanketely say that people "questioning the movement" are banned, that's just not true. Now, do you plan to be accurate in your criticisms or not?

Like I said above ed

Feel free to chat with people who really care about this issue.

I have years of experience in there and I have moved on, and I just pull it apart now.

Thats just how it is now, you aren't going to get anything else from me that will say they are a good movement.

Although a few of their concepts are good, but they are concepts in use by other groups in history and presently, so its nothing original that would keep me interested in them.

Take care

@anticultist:

You "don't care"? You have a blog devoted to it and actively found this forum to promote it, but okay.

Look, I don't like making shit up about people I don't agree with. There plenty to dislike about Islam but I don't support what's know as the "Muslim Demographics" video either. (search on youtube) I believe Zeitgeist Part 1 on religion is generally correct but specifically very wrong, so I still think its stupid. I don't defend it just because I agree with some of its conclusions.

If you make shit up about truther's, Creationists, Global Warming denialists or exaggerate unfairly just to try and make them look worse I will have a problem with it since you're behaving a lot like them. It only makes you look dishonest and frankly I am on the side of logic and reason, so I don't care if someone agrees with me if they do so for stupid reasons. If someone tells me they are an atheist, this really means nothing until I find out WHY they are an atheist. If someone tells me they think truther's are stupid but then I find out its because they are patriotic Bush/Palin FOX News loving religious fundamentalists that think the Iraq was justified I know they probably aren't truther's for logical reasons.

You have to make sure you are as honest as possible, you make sure you do not make any claims you don't feel you can defend. You do not exaggerate or others will see that as a hit on your credibility. Anything less is simply making your own position look bad and its one of the many reasons I was disgusted at the truther's and conspiracy theorists for acting this way. In short, you undermine your position unless you change your act.

Anticultist:

I'm going to repeat my criticism I posted a few comments ago. When I said "making shit up", I also mean "needlessly exaggerating".

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"If you tell Brenton that people are banned for "questioning the movement" "all the time", how would you demonstrate that to him?

I asked and quickly you decided that "questioning the movement" is rather a lot more specific than that phrase implies. Therefore TO BE ACCURATE you need to say specifically what subjects posted there will get you banned. But don't blanketely say that people "questioning the movement" are banned, that's just not true. Now, do you plan to be accurate in your criticisms or not? "

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I'm sure you have some valid points here, but if you're going to present it then present it the way it actually is.

You don't have to do this, but this is what I'd expect to see.

And I never made shit up or exaggerated, so we can all move on.

I agree matt it is really stupid, cant believe were being drawn into a discussion about some moderators on a shit forum, who are shit at their roles :S

Matt, anticultist said that stuff not you. He said things like "plenty of users" have been banned for that reason, that he "see['s] admin['s] saying otherwise on their own forum all the time."

And yes anticultist you did exaggerate. It is false to claim people are banned for "questioning the movement". I gave you examples and you said I didn't say the right things, so instead of being so general why don't you tell me specifically what it is you feel people aren't allowed to say there? You alluded for actual subjects, so how about some actual examples? If you can't even convince me how would you expect anyone else to be?

ed you need to stop caring what I said, because I dont care what you say particularly that much, I am not going to sit and pick your sentences apart like some high school teacher.

Its plain and simple and I wont say this again to you.

I do not believe the TVP or the TZM is a good group, I believe they are incorrect on a lot of things, and their methods are debatable, I will not follow that movement, and I will question everything I see wrong about it, and neither you or anyone else can do anything about it. how I go about it is also my own business, if you dont like it fine, you have said your bit and I have heard you already so there is no need for you to repeat yourself post after post.

I am not trying to convince you or anyone else, if you wont even believe what I have said already, whats the point in attempting a big stupid dialogue about trivialities.

Now please could you stop addressing me so I can stop having to defend myself against your posts about me. Thanks

anticultist, I find it funny that you say you aren't trying to convince anyone and that you don't care about the movement, yet you made an entire blog about it didn't you? That is your blog, isn't it? You also came here promoting it as the first thing you wrote. You also said you were there in the Movement since the beginning with numerous different accounts to see how you were treated, yet you claim you don't care? Whatever you say!

You don't agree with them, you believe they are "incorrect on a lot of things, and their methods are debatable", that's fine and I also agree with you. There is a lot of things wrong with it. But the fact remains that people are not banned for "questioning the movement." You were the one that claimed it has happened to plenty of users, yet you refuse to provide any evidence of that. Talk specifics, retract or rephrase, or just keep saying you can say whatever you like and people like me can't do anything about it... Quite right, you can, but don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

Quite frankly you are acting just like a truther or Zeitgeist apologists as far as I'm concerned and your attitude is starting to piss me off as much as theirs do. You just refuse to accept that poor arguments are poor simply because they agree with your predetermined conclusions.

Before you say it, yes I know you "don't care" what I think and you "don't care" about the Zeitgeist. Well, whatever.

And Matt,

Yes they could and should crack down on CT's. Its hard for them to do it when Peter is a Conspiracy Theorist and is even going to re-release a new ZG1: "Directors Cut", then say that no one else is allowed to talk about conspiracy theories? That wouldn't go down well :D

Still, they do crack down occasionally such as here:
http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=99999&func=view&catid=231&id=230114

It was then started again by big time truther "funhouse":
http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=99999&func=view&catid=231&id=230347

It was again locked.

IOW, I agree with you. But it also means they would need to get Peter to get rid of the Zeitgeist movies, say they are nothing to do with the movement in big disclaimers or if they are going to keep Addendum, it would require a serious reedit. Without that, it would be hard for them to crack down on CTs. It all stems from Peter as far as I can see.

@anticultist,

Ed's applying the same scrutiny to your claims as he does anyone else's. You're taking this way too personally. I don't care if you have a personal axe to grind against PJ and that silly message board, I find it entertaining. But Ed sees it differently and he has a right to that perspective.

You haven't told me what specifically will get you banned, I'm not saying nothing will I'm saying you claimed that questioning the movement gets you banned. That is false, regardless if this is true or not. You claimed plenty of users have been banned for this reason, as far as I can tell that is also false. Specifically on certain subjects you may be right, I guess you can't see the difference.

>
>if he doesnt want to then his claims about not being banned are subjective
>

You're the one making the claim. You claimed plenty of users have already been banned for it. You now want me to go waste my time on a forum where I've been extremely critical of them since the start and run into PJ several times personally about this and never been warned for it, to somehow prove you wrong. I don't really have the time right now, as I said you made the claim since you wont prove it then its currently also "subjective" then isn't it?

"I have given you the subjects to read in the links, if you want to pretend I havent attempted to show you the subjects, then you are being evasive or at worst dishonest."

Your blog talks about SUBJECTS, but you said earlier that plenty of people have been banned for "questioning the movement". You were the one that made the claim and you claimed multiple examples of this happening, so why can't you actually give me any?

The sad thing is you may well be right about certain subjects being off limits, but you made specific claims that were wrong. Even if I did go there and get warned/banned for talking about (whatever subject), you'd STILL be wrong, since "questioning the movement" is way too general. People are not banned just for "questioning the movement", its like someone saying that all truthers are anti-semities. A lot of them are, but a lot of them are certainly not. It is wrong therefore to say that all truthers' are anti-semities.

I am free to pester you since you made the claim and I feel like arguing against poor logic whoever is making it. If your only defence is to tell me to go try it myself then you are essentially admitting you didn't really have plenty of examples of this happening and that you just believe it.

The thing about exaggerating is that it harms your credibility. There was once point where I thought the JREF were exaggerating about how wrong truther's were, surely they couldn't be wrong about EVERYTHING, right? Well they were right in the end, but for a while I wasn't sure if I could trust them because I thought they were exaggerating. But you really ARE exaggerating here. Apparently you don't care about your own credibility, well that certainly is your choice.

@anticultist,

This is what skeptics do. Just retract the statement. Admitting error is the first step towards ZM recovery.

Anticultist when you say that people are banned for questioning the movement I KNOW that isn't true since I am one of those people. Therefore, if anyone else is to look at your claim they may also know you are wrong and then think what else you are exaggerating, or worse, lying about.

So what specific subjects are off limits to talk about on the forums? If you refuse to be specific and just point to the blog, then you are basically saying ANY subject on your blog is off limits. So if someone talked about ANY of the subjects and didn't get banned or warned this would disprove your point even further. That's why you should be specific. So which subjects do you think you cannot talk about on the forums? Do you have any examples of people that have been banned for that reason?