[Aaron]

Hate posts are NOT tolerated.

Our Moderators are directed to delete without comment ALL hate posts.
(As I'm about to do with last night's latest batch of nonsense, unless some enterprising Mod beats me to it.)

I personally forward repeated hate posts to our branch FBI office, along with the technical details collected about these posters.

Tesla, magnet energy and other related "fantasy energy schemes" are more difficult to moderate. This includes captured alien technology, government conspiracy theories, and other "fringe" topics.

It's tempting to create a new forum titled "I didn't bother to read previous threads covering these topics".

These topics are a recurring theme, and I simply don't read them.

While these posts are of very limited utility, we hesitate to remove them even though they are most often the result of Trolling (See related posts about Trolls if you are not familiar with this practice).

As this website mainstreams, we can fully expect more of the same... I guarantee it.

Keep in mind how you felt after learning about peak aspects of depletion theory. I found lifeaftertheoilcrash first, like many here, and was disturbed by the "logic" of Matt's arguments. This prompted a "peakoil feeding frenzy" on my part, as I'm sure it has for many here.

So by the time they arrive here, three pots of coffee later, bleary eyed and shell-shocked by the serious science material you found on POT, (Peak Oil Theory), it's hardly surprising that many "grasp for straws", including any semi-plausible new or suppressed energy technology.

I appeal to our regular members for patience with these newcomers, despite the frustration of being "lured" into yet another panic-induced thread.

We are currently implementing an "Encyclopedia" section where you can direct posters for detailed information on these topics.

I also remind everyone, that there is a substantial & growing body of threads with very valuable information, which greatly outweigh these "less productive threads".

I have personally read almost every post on this forum. That might seem near to impossible, but if you look into our thread history, it will be obvious that this claim is accurate, and I am currently the #1 poster (in volume) on this site.

I invite all our members to join me on PeakSpeak, along with our Moderators, and see for yourself. It's one thing to make these statements behind the protective shield of a text forum, and quite another to engage in "real-time" voice discussions. BTW - Modems work just fine with this VoiceIP technology.

Thanks again to everyone for contributing here...

* - A special thanks to BackStop for his/her responses to my arguments in the Brute Force Seismology thread, as well as our other posters who engage in thoughtful disagreement with me, as well as our Moderators. We are committed to hosting a forum where arguments stand or fall based on their own merits.

[Specop_007]

Can I still call people stinkin hippies??

[rowante]

Eric's History of Perpetual Motion and Free Energy Machines

May be of use for the encyclopedia.

[duff_beer_dragon]

007 was John Dee's number

http://www.sacredcow.com/allnew/forum/m ... 11837.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120669/boa ... 4#12317044

[k_semler]

How to get perpetual motion and free energy:

Hook up a coubustion engine that is smaller than an electron, while fueling it with a full gas tank that is twice as large as the Universe, that expands 10% faster than the rate of the universal expansion. You must also own the electric company for free energy.

[MrGresham]

I'm just starting to do my reading here, and I realize now the danger of beginning to spout on something or ask questions, and then find it covered elsewhere. I'll be exploring the Search function next.

When I read, late at night, bleary-eyed, I have a tendency to go longer into any thread, until several screens later, at the bottom I realize these people were just indulging their momentary "Power to Post", that megalo feeling of hitting the Post button and seeing your words instantly pop up On The Internet ("Honey come see what I just wrote!") And I really haven't gotten much out of it.

Perhaps after the feeling has worn off, a day or so later, someone in Modland could PM the writers in that thread, and ask if it could be boiled down to the one or two or three items that conveyed useful content, or eliminated entirely?

(Or sent to a "Retired Thread" over-category?)

Not censor, because often I don't know what I'm thinking until I get it all out, and also have the interaction with others that sparks THEIR creative thoughts. And that's what we want here.

But days after many a thread has "gone cold", it's still hanging around in its Forum list, just begging to be axed.

Then new people would not have to wade through all of our coffee-inspired morning thought-blitzes, or evening second-glass-of-Merlot mental jazz creations.

We are trying to make something happen here, with limited resources and little political power to throw behind our best results, and so we need to make each of the Forums the most useful TOOL it can be.

[duff_beer_dragon]

Back when I was informed that Hicks had died, some idiot in my Psychology class at Glasgow Uni. posted it over the pegasus e-mail, I remember thinking,

'hmmmm now they've killed him to use him as a sort-of dead saviour jesus figure - probably years later than when what he is saying is in fact relevant, so it's just like all the repeat-loops in history before -

kill whoever tells the truth at the right time,

then use them as your mascot and jesus-figure later on'

As far as I'm concerned, that stupid moron that 'knew' he was dead and broadcast it, killed him.

I reckon if whoever that was didn't come back from where she was to where I was, then Counts of the Netherworld would have turned up on Channel 4 as was planned, and everything would be different by now and good, instead of rubbish.

I wince at people who nowadays look at Bill's ten-years-ago humor, and think it still applies in exactly that way now. Maybe he was wanting to avoid somethings that are happening now? It's still funny of course, but - well it's just possible his soul moved someplace else, you know?

[Falconoffury]

What's so bad about conspiracy theories and new energy topics? The government is obviously conspiring to cover up facts and awareness about peak oil. I like to research other topics that the government may be hiding from the people. I feel that if I keep these discussions on the open forum (which I have mostly done so far) then there should be no need to moderate them.

[backstop]

Aaron - my thanks for the compliment on my part in the Brute Force Seismology thread - it was based simply on the recognition that discussion is by far the most creative option since it seeks the highest common factor of two or more minds. By contrast, debate tends merely to harden a single mind's delusion of 'winning' an argument.

That said, while I welcome the deletion of propagandas of hate, I have problems with the reality of widespread ignorance/callous indifference by which genocide actually occurs.

So, if I sound passionate in responding to the denial of the climate issue and to goals of maintaining US energy supply at the cost of the climate, it is because I know both of the millions suffering and dying due to unstable weather impacts on subsistence farming, and to the scope, quality and consensus of the science urging radical global action asap.

You're plainly right about the coming increase in site traffic, and I welcome the launch of an Encyclopedia. However, the Archive of cold threads is already of a daunting scale to find the signal among the noise, and it's expanding by the day. Thus I think there's a case for evolving the site's structure to raise both its function and its credibility to attract more specialist posters and so raise the useful info-flow.

To this end, here are a few suggestions that I hope may be of interest.

1/. Launch 4 new Energy Forums for Fossil, Renewable, Sustainable, and "Speculative" options.

The first three would both focus efforts in those subjects and start to clarify their relative significance. The last would be a place for moderators to shift "Biogas from Alpha Centauri" -type threads.

2/. While the archive of old threads should of course be kept entire, for it to be useful we need to develop a condensed version of the best of it for practical reference, which is updated as first rate new materials appear (and as cogent arguments are made to include particular old threads).

3/. Reproducing the thread title at the foot of the page would help to maintain new posts' focus on the thread. (I'm at least as guilty of meandering off topic as anyone else - a reminder would help minimize this).

4/. Trolls and drizzlers are a sink of peoples' time, of bandwidth and of the site's credibility, and should therefore be discouraged, particularly as increased general traffic will raise their number and impact.

Given that most are simply seeking attention, if they don't get it here then they'll probably go elsewhere. Since simply banning them is not appropriate, the provision of an "Ignore" button would allow each member to make their own choices and thereby greatly reduce the problem.
_____________________________________________


No doubt others will have other suggestions to make, but I hope these may be of some use.

regards,

Backstop