C0nc0rdance has put up a video berating me for shutting down my youtube comments. It might be more interesting if it weren’t so full of speculation about my motives…motives that I understand very well, while he doesn’t have a clue.
It’s simpler than he thinks. I set up my youtube account to have all comments sent directly to my email account; I read them all. And I was appalled.
Not at the fact that they were critical, but that they were so illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant. After a few months, I had enough: there was no reason to read them any further. I noticed a number of different phenomena. One was that very few of the commenters actually paid any attention to my videos; instead, they’d been dispatched there by thunderf00t or other critics, where they simply parroted their masters. Seriously, it got tedious seeing the same verbatim comments from people over and over again.
These commenters didn’t even read each others’ comments. There was little interaction, and again, I’d just see repeated strings of the same phrases over and over. Did they ever notice that the previous commenter had said exactly the same thing? Or that the previous ten commenters had all repeated the same bogus argument? No. If they aren’t reading each other, why should I read them?
What I was also seeing was further demonstration of the greater internet fuckwad theory. On youtube, there is no accountability, nearly universal anonymity, and amid the noise of neglected mindless commentary, there was nothing but straining to be the loudest and most shrill. There was virtually no attempt to engage or discuss.
C0nc0rdance has a comically inflated view of the quality of the youtube “community”. There’s a reason it has a reputation as the cesspit of the internet, and the comments are best ignored. He calls it a “populist paradise”, with discussion that is more varied and more interesting: I call it an open sewer that further dumbs down the discourse by encouraging the worst to shriek with no concern for quality. I shut my comments down precisely because C0nc0rdance is dead wrong — the “community” (rather, “mob”) was neither varied nor interesting.
His rationale for allowing youtube comments? A ludicrous comparison to blasphemy day — he had the gall to compare the frantic, noisy voices of nattering youtubers to people fighting against religious oppression. Sorry, but no. I’m not using force to silence critics — I assure you, they’re still just as loud. Just read C0nc0rdance’s comments to see a multitude of examples. Any attempt to claim that free speech has been suppressed by the fact that I insist on a little more accountability is ludicrous.
His only cause for asking me to open up comments, besides his grossly inflated opinion of the quality of youtube commenters, is that it does no harm to allow them. Wrong. By indulging idiots, by giving them free rein and never questioning the value of their so-called discussion, you contribute to the further poisoning of real discussion and also, as we can see beautifully demonstrated in C0nc0rdance’s case, diminish taste and expectations to the point where an otherwise intelligent person considers youtube comments a sterling example of smart conversation and the informative exchange of information.
He also seems to think I’m making a commercial decision — that I’m trying to channel youtube commenters to my monetized web site. Nonsense. I get almost 3 million hits a month. Redirecting a few angry whiners from youtube to my site is going to be a negligible addition. I am not a major youtube player where my readership there is going to be significant in number.
C0nc0rdance also tries to make a feeble case that somehow a completely unmoderated forum is superior to one that imposes a few minimal standards, and complains that gosh, people would have to register and subject themselves to the tyrannical hand of my vicious moderation policies. A pointless objection, again: it’s easy to register, and even creationists manage to do it; if it’s a hurdle to youtuber’s participation, then that’s another instance of those people failing to vault over a very tiny hurdle. There are also plenty of people here who routinely criticize me — heck, even the regulars here are often wagging their fingers at me — but they do it by actually trying to make a rational argument rather than parroting someone else or unthinkingly cussing me out.
So no, my final word: I will not ever on any of my future videos provide a venue for fools to delude themselves into thinking that vomiting up invective is clever. I will provide links to a thread on Pharyngula for discussion. If they really care enough to make a sustained and intelligent argument (something you can’t do on youtube), the comments on Pharyngula have no character limits and will actually get the attention of other commenters…which the infantile babblers of youtube probably consider a drawback, since they’re not actually used to getting arguments.
But hey, after this is posted I’ll go over to C0nc0rdance’s video and leave a link to this article. If past experience is any guide, none of his readers will have the guts or willingness to engage to even bother to come over here.
[Pops popcorn, cleans fact-gun]
Don’t be too disappointed if they don’t show up. I’ve encouraged them to come here before.
Once I thought about posting a comment to a YouTube video, but discovered I’m supposed to register to do so.
(I decided it wasn’t worth the effort)
PZ: Yeah, but one must be hopeful! (I always try to get into troll stomps at the beginning, I just can’t work my way into the middle of one)
[OT]
Someone who can’t distinguish between numerals and letters doesn’t inspire my confidence.
[oops]
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I’ve always really liked c0nc0rdance, and in fact his videos on evolution were the very first ones I ever watched as a curious creationist several years ago. I feel like his opinion on youtube comments might come in part from that debate, where it has often been pointed out that creationist videos are almost invariably comment censored while evolution videos are almost invariably open for comments.
Not that I disagree with PZs assessment of youtube comments in general, but I imagine that’s where he’s coming from. On Youtube closed comments are often a sign of a video that doesn’t want to give the other side an opportunity to give a rebuttal, so he may be projecting that (often true) observation onto PZ.
@ PZ Myers
Didnt you defend Rebbecca watson when Dawkins said her suffering was nothing compared to the one of the women in the middle east? Why would you change your stance when it comes to free speech? why is the youtuber’s free speech less important that anyone else’s? because it has less impact?
Only within atheist/Creationist circles. Outside of them it isn’t uncommon for news sources, professional pieces, art work, lectures, talks, ect to have closed comments.
@reliwhat
They were redirected here. Few took the offer.
reliwhat, how exactly is PZ impeding free speech by directing (and allowing) comments on this blog rather than on YouTube?
(You yourself have just written a comment here)
redpanda: Yes, but as PZ made quite clear here, comments on the YouTube videos are welcome here, in the appropriate fora.
reliwhat: Read this and learn something about free speech. Also, see my comment addressed to redpanda.
PZ and John Morales:
I’ve only posted one comment on a YouTube video (to compliment Shelley Segal on her wonderful music). A bit earlier, I left a comment to a nasty piece of work over at Ed Brayton’s blog. I was quite riled up after leaving it, and because it had much to do with TAA’s display of inhumanity over the tragic case of Amanda Todd, I was pretty close to venturing over to YouTube and leaving a comment to give him a piece of my mind. This post and the following comments have convinced me otherwise.
I abandoned my YT video-making some time ago. I, too, shut down comments on some, not all, of my vids at one time. I was accused of “censorship.”
If one wants to post something ONCE — do so. Clogging the comments with the same thing over is just being a pest.
I believe in freedom of the press, but not freedom of the pest.
What youtuber’s free speech has been compromised, and how? Be specific; I suspect you don’t understand what free speech means.
Oh gee, look at that. The same vile shitstain I left the comment for at Ed’s blog shows up here again. Reliwhat you’d do well to go lurk for a while, learn some basic humanity and come back in about 10 years. If you stay here too long, well, let’s just say my comments to you were mild compared to what you’re going to face if you stay at Pharyngula for long. But if you do stay, you may want a towel to polish that cross you hang yourself on.
+1
@john morales
To answer that question, you can push the idea to an extreme. Ask yoursef, how does disabling comments on youtube affect free speech? then ask yourself, what if we disable comments on more things? you would then come to the conclusion that, if we were to disable all comments, that would affect freespeech greatly.
@ A.R
the link doesnt work
@Tony
Reliwhat is intentionally trolling. He is not ignorant. I thought he was new but he’s actually in my files as an older offender from way before he showed up here this week.
I wish more YouTube channels took an option like this.
The real problem is that YouTube’s comment system is actively counterproductive to coherent discussion. Showing only the 10 or so most recent comments, plus two high-rated comments, pretty much shuts down any hope of a sustained discussion, to say nothing of the near-complete lack of moderation and the character limit barely big enough to contain a thesis statement, much less support it.
I’m not sure it even should be any different, though. At the end of the day, YouTube’s comment system isn’t designed to be a discussion forum, it isn’t designed as a discussion forum, and making it into a discussion forum would distract from YouTube’s purpose, which is to host videos. Leave discussion to applications, like this one, that are designed for it.
reliwhat: Try this
Oh, and the slippery slope fallacy? Try again.
Wow, that was poor editing. My second-to-last sentence should read “YouTube’s comment system isn’t designed to be a discussion forum, it isn’t intended as a discussion forum…”
@ pz myers
1. You’ve taken away an opportunity and a place to debate. Sure they could go somewhere else, and i guess that would negate the first act. But doesnt the act of taking away the first logical place to debate a video a step backward in free speech? Again, you could just make a link from you video to here, disable the comments here and make a link to another site where the comments weren’t disabled and say that you have not reduced free speech, but is it really honest?
2. I wouldnt go as far as saying i know exactly what free speech is, because freedom itself is an incredibly hard thing to understand. But i do know a thing or two.
No offense to anyone young, but this is literally a second grade writing level sentence. You have managed to say absolutely nothing.
@ Ing:intellectual
well sorry, i’m french. I only have college level writing in french.
C0nc0rdance only has such a bone on for free commenting because Youtube has a large amount of non-creationist commenters. If creationists were a huge force on YT and could swamp any video with their nonsense the way MRAs swamp videos by convicted feminists, he’d change his tune pretty fast.
@Reliwhat
It doesn’t’ mean anything in French either.
“I can’t say what something is because it’s complicated but I know some other things”
The thought is vacuous, there is no point. Have a point, it makes it so much easier for the listener
Reliwhat, I will make this fucking easy for you to understand. People who want to comment about a YouTube video can do it here. PZ even provides a link.
People who want to comment are not being prevented from doing so.
Fucking idiot. Reliwhat makes the warrior seem almost reasonable.
reliwhat:
1. That is not an answer to the question I asked, it’s merely a response.
2. Easy: not at all, when another venue for such speech is provided and advertised.
3. Then there are fewer fora for such speech, but nonetheless free speech is available inasmuch as anyone can still comment on whatever they wish on the remaining fora.
4. But PZ hasn’t disabled all comments* (as your own comment plainly demonstrates) and therefore your hypothetical question is not just not applicable, but spurious.
—
So, care to attempt to answer the question that was asked, instead of resorting to spurious counter-factual hypotheticals? :)
(Or you could just concede your original claim was specious)
—
* He’s merely redirected them to this place.
@sassafras
Youtube comments are still notorious for being crude and vacuous. It’s the internet equivalent to trying to communicate by leaving post-it notes for your roommate to find.
reliwhat: Actually, as was mentioned above, YouTube comments sections are not the most logical place for a cohesive, honest, reasoned discussion. In a logical world, all comments would be disabled on controversial videos, with commentors being sent to a forum or blog comments section-like venue.
@ A.R
1. I’ve read that post before, and i disagree with some of the statements he said.
2. It’s not a slippery slope argument. It’s more of a conviction argument. Having seen what a lack of free speech can cause, i would prefer going in the direction of more free speech than less. I consider free speech to be important, therefor, i put it higher in my priority list than, to stay relevant to pz’s post, not being annoyed. To make sure i’m clear, i don’t think that blocking comments on a youtube channel will lead to communist russia, i just feel that, if you do believe in free speech, you should be ready to make sacrifices for it.
@Reliwhat
Freespeech is a political right. You do not have the right to tag my house as part of artistic expression. You do not have the right to an audience. Grow the fuck up
@ing intellectual
Freespeech is a right indeed, but, it doesnt mean that one cannot encourage it if he thinks it’s important. If i made a videos as popular as pz does, i would keep the comments, not because i have to, but because i think it’s the right thing to do, morally.
reliwhat: Oh, I see that you are a classic free speech crusader. OK then. Where do you place your limit? Yelling fire? Hate speech? Child pornography? Do you even have a limit?
Sacrifices up to and including a comments section filled with insipid, unintelligent drivelers repeating the same, nonsensical attacks in an endless loop?
Reliwhat
Free speech means that you cannot be arrested or otherwise civilly or criminally punished for what you say. It does not mean that anyone at all is required to provide you a forum for your speech. So, if every single privately owned internet site shut down comments, it would not be a violation of anyone’s right to free speech.
How do you respond to the accusations that you raped and killed a 9 year old girl in 1991?
Reliwhat, you’re acting like PZ has some sort of obligation to provide and maintain a forum for debate. Why? Even if he didn’t provide a better forum here, I don’t see his free speech is contingent on allowing everyone else to counter it in his own house, so to speak.
Are you providing such things? You could, you know, having your own free speech and all. This is the internet. You’re a big boy now. You can have your own blog and your own YouTube channel, and if you don’t play the stereo too loud I promise not to smoke in the broom closet.
reliwhat:
This is indicatory that you misunderstand the concept of free speech; either someone (you, in this case) can say whatever they wish (subject to consequences) or they cannot.
(Just for you: Liberté d’expression)
You do, do you?
(I take it you’ve created a blog for people to freely speak on it, given your commitment to sacrifice for this)
—
PS In English, the personal pronoun (“I”) is capitalised just like proper names are, and so are the names of countries (e.g. “Russia”).
(We’ll see if you can learn)
@reliwhat:
Free speech doesn’t guarantee you an audience. Nor is anyone obligated to pay for your speech.
This is c0nc0rdance. Apparently the only way I can post here is to disclose personal information as the system won’t permit registration through anything but my Google account.
I want to sincerely say thank you for responding to my video. I’m sorry that you don’t share my viewpoint on the value of unmoderated discussion, but I can see that you considered what I had to say. I wish you’d choose your words a little more charitably. There’s really no need for the vitriol when you are talking to allies. We can disagree without being uncivil.
I think our goals are ultimately different. I consider my mission on YouTube to be one of outreach. I try to reach the people where they are at with a message about critical thinking, evidence based medicine and skeptical examination. I engage with my debate opponents with reasoned arguments. I’ve tackled issues like HIV denialism by actually speaking with the denialists, correcting their misinformation with good science. It’s important to me that I can address with reasoned arguments even the really stupid questions. It’s part of being a consistently rational person. I try to take nothing for granted. I respond to my critics in the way I want them to respond to me.
YouTube, while it has its problems, is a sort of neutral ground for absolutely everyone; creationist, HIV or global warming denialist, race proponents, and so on. The only ground rules are based on reciprocity; the anonymous nature means no-one has credentials to fall back on. This is where we can engage with people who would never dream of stepping foot on a personal, moderated blog. Yes, it’s tripping over a very low hurdle, but it means that you simply will not engage with the vast majority of your critics. I think that’s a bad thing. You eliminate the probability of real engagement by offering the challenge on neutral ground, but forcing your opponents to play on your home court.
Yes, some YouTube comments are stupid. Some are offensive or mean or trolling. That’s true in every forum with an open microphone. If you don’t like it, I can recommend that you just don’t read the comments. Turn off the email feature. Being offended or annoyed doesn’t require that you disengage from the discussion by shutting down the entire forum. Doing so has a very serious consequence to you directly. It’s something that Christopher Hitchens said very beautifully, in a 2007 talk on Hate Speech laws proposed in Canada.
I think that’s exactly right, and brilliantly stated. I think a discussion works best when even the idiots are allowed their say. That’s because everyone is an idiot to someone who disagrees with them.
Of course you have your right to shut down the comments if you dislike them. Could you explain the reasoning behind shutting down the ratings as well? Surely that doesn’t go to your email or require that you read stupid or repetitive comments. Why not reinstate the ratings feature, so that at least you can gather feedback outside your circle of readers as to how the content is received?
My apologies for speculating about your motives, economic or otherwise, but I had little choice. The only stated reason (you personally disliked reading them) didn’t seem very compelling.
Don’t be quite so hard on YouTube, PZ. FreeThoughtBlogs has recruited very heavily from our community, admittedly with some mixed success (Zinnia Jones and AronRa are both smashing successes), but I think we’ve had a positive effect, reaching people who are fence sitters or even opponents of our causes. Your actions probably have a minimal effect on our community because you have a relatively small footprint there, but if the disabling of comments and ratings became a trend among a subset of atheists on YouTube, it would affect our perceived openness to debate and discussion.
p.s. For the record, I use the zeros because it sets my nickname apart from content, blogs and videos, on Bible concordance. The idea of “method concordance” is very important to what I do in my own research, but it also describes my approach to critical analysis. I take multiple lines of evidence, multiple authors or journal or viewpoints, and I attempt to synthesize them into a single analysis.
-C.
‘i just feel that, if you do believe in free speech, you should be ready to make sacrifices for it.’
The day you get arrested for saying ‘P. Z. is a doodyhead,’ I will be out there protesting on your behalf.
That you can’t say it in comments on youtube? Boo fucking hoo.
Maybe in a dream world, everyone would have time to open up all youtube comments and listen to all the abuse and garbageering in the world. In my view, FtBloggers do not have any obligation to do so. Trolls and abusers take their toll, and shutting down you tube comments is the lesser evil. You don’t owe them anything.
Lol wrong
Why?
@ feralboy12
Pz does not have a obligation to provide a forum debate
@ Ethanhobart
indeed, but i was not talking about free speech as a right, i meant free speech as a general idea, or as part of a philosophy.
@ A.R
free speech, and freedom in general is an excellent example of a philosophical dilemma. Where do you draw the line? that’s an excellent question. Philosopher have debated it for centuries. There’s one really good line in the video, a John stuart mill quote, i think it sums up pretty well my current opinion on free speech.
Try reading again, as this is what PZ said:
You did get the bit where it was not a place to debate… because there wasn’t any debating doing on, right?
A swimming pool with no water is just a fancy hole in the ground.
No, it doesn’t. Free speech really, actually doesn’t include PZ having to give anyone and everyone a forum to speak. If someone wants to start a discussion on a YouTube comment section, they are utterly free to create an account and do so. If they don’t get the sort of numbers PZ does, that’s not a lack of free speech, but a reflection of their level of talent and interest as compared to PZ’s.
Yes, it is, for the reasons discussed in the initial post, and the reasons I and other posters have mentioned.
Now, here’s the question – you could claim you don’t understand why free speech doesn’t entail PZ being required to provide a forum for commentary… but is that really honest?
marksheffield (a.k.a. c0nc0rdance):
Really.
That’s called the golden mean fallacy (argumentum ad temperantiam); what you should be doing is weighing relevance so as to filter out the noise whilst keeping the substance.
There are talented people producing YouTube videos. There are very few talented or intelligent people commenting on YouTube videos.
Hitchens is wrong and inapplicable. You recommend just not reading the comments? Then what is the point of the comments? To give the mob the illusion that their mindless cacophony matters?
And again, your bias is showing. You tube is not neutral ground. It is a venue that favors noisy morons.
A Government right, not a private property right. You have no free speech on private property, and any semi-intelligent person knows. Which leave you out.
If incoming traffic means more coin and this site isn’t doing as well as the scienceblogs site, an attempt to attract the youtube traffic into the blog would be a really attractive explanation for directing youtubers here imho; more solid than the idea that PZ wants the horde to debate dumb youtube commenters.
Dumb, de dumb dumb….
jose, are you suggesting that YouTubers don’t get revenue from their channels? :)
marksheffield: There is a fundamental difference in the nature of the comments PZ was receiving and that of those most YouTube atheists receive, likely due to Elevatorgate. Would you leave your comments sections open if you received nothing but repetitive, uninformed, parroting, and incredibly offensive attacks? I can assure you that I most certainly would not. And who says that the commentors who refuse to travel here to comment were going to contribute anything useful, or even original? There is, after all, nothing lost in ignoring all but the first to say the the same thing. Finally, I am quite surprised that with all of your experience with creationists, you have not heard of dislike bots.
I know what PZ means by “illiterate and repetitive”. I unsubscribed from Thunderf00t in the wake of the fit he threw on FtB, after posting dozens of comments arguing with his supporters on his channel. Which didn’t begin to stem the tide of inane, smug one-liners. Thing is, I was actually having fun knocking down some of the more intelligible arguments from among the endless stream of self-congratulatory anti-feminists. Some of those challenges resulted in a short back-and-forth that hopefully made someone think.
It eventually got tedious, but I wasn’t alone. Even now, you can see thoughtful criticisms of Thunderf00t on the first page of comments of some of his original “MISOGYNIST!” videos. I’d like to think that anyone stumbling onto this controversy for the first time, casually scrolling through the comments of one of those videos, would be driven away from Thunderf00t’s position, both by the incredibly crass, vapid comments of his supporters, and by the relatively thoughtful comments of his critics.
I’m not saying that PZ is underestimating youtube comments as a whole, and that it is actually an indispensably valuable forum. I don’t think it’s worth PZ’s time to get involved in youtube comments. But I don’t see what’s to be gained by disabling comments either. He’s already said that he probably won’t be able to get youtube commenters to come here. Can’t he just ignore the comments, but leave them open so that people like me can snipe at the stupidity at our leisure?
Is there anyone who really thinks there’s mad coin to be made in fucking blogging?
Reliwhat is such a supporter of free speech that he supports TAA’s right to mock a dead bullied teenaged girl. But he draws the line when he is the one being mocked.
Prove me wrong, fuckface.
I presume Reliwhat would be fine with people e-mailing his employer enmass claiming they have evidence that he’s a child molester, right? I mean free speech and sacrifices for the greater good and all
Errm, the science blogs site currently receives a tiny fraction of the traffic of the FtB site.
@ Nerd of redhead
I never said free speech was a private property right. It’s a conviction. A parallel could be made with anything one would deem moral, or right. You could tell a suffering person that he doesn’t have a private property right to medical attention, even tho he has a government right to medical attention. That doesnt mean that, if he were on my property, i would not do anything in my power to get him medical attention
@ Anri
“Now, here’s the question – you could claim you don’t understand why free speech doesn’t entail PZ being required to provide a forum for commentary… but is that really honest?”
I believe that free speech, as a right, should never obligate anyone to provide a forum for commentary.
First of all, poor argument, second, have you considered that, in this scenario, PZs YouTube videos are hi private property, and that he has decided to impose his view of free speech upon it? In which case, you have the right to say that his version of free speech is not the same as yours, and that you disagree with it, but, in the absence of true repression of speech (such as providing no forum for comments), you do not have the right to say that he is “decreasing Free Speech” (which is now a quantifiable entity apparently).
@ Janine
1. I do believe that TAA has the right to do what he did. I didn’t really take time to justify my position on that article, if i remember correctly, most of my comments were on the possible justifications for his behavior.
2. I did not draw the line at me being bullied by you. What happened was, since you were doing to me the exact same thing you blamed them of doing, to a lesser extend, sure, but still the same thing, i decided to make a parallel between the two situations to show how you were being hypocrite. You disagree with bullying, yet you dont hesitate to use it. It’s like killing murderers because you think that killing is bad.
No, any private property like this blog it is a privilege. A privilege which you abuse with your idiocy and fuckwittery. You have no “right” to be stupid here without consequences. Here your consequences are you are soundly refuted and treated more contemptuously than you you try to be.
Which you were wrong to do, and we showed that to you. If you don’t like consequences of your fuckwittery, go elsewhere. We don’t expect intelligence from you. That requires you to acknowledge you can and will be stupid.
@A.R
decreasing free speech metaphorically.
And yes, what you said is true. The videos are his private property, and he can indeed impose his view of free speech upon it. You are also right when you say that i can say that his version of free speech is not the same as mine. It is indeed on a philosophical level that i disagree with him. I believe that his view of free speech is wrong. Also, i do have the right to say he decreases free speech, because of free speech. This is basically what i’ve been saying from the start, i think he should give more importance to free speech, and i think that disabling the comments on youtube isnt the right thing to do.
@49
PZ, you color your descriptions of opponents as though that were an argument. A “mindless cacophany” is what someone calls all the voices they disagree with, whether it is an accurate description or not.
I can guarantee that every Republican or Tea Party member considers this group “noisy morons”. This reasoning, that I find my opponents beneath contempt and therefore see no reason to engage with them, undermines any discussion that could ever take place.
Christopher Hitchens, in that 2007 talk, was referring to the “proudest moment of his life” in that he publicly defended David Irving, the British historian who questions the historical accuracy of the Holocaust narrative. Consider that Hitch considered it important that a Holocaust denialist be allowed to speak, and more importantly, that he was heard by the people most offended by what he had to say. That’s the principle I’m referring to. It’s about engagement and debate with your critics as often as possible. You don’t have to, but listening to your opponent can have real benefits; benefits I covered in the video: integrity, reciprocity, a culture of free expression and diversity of views.
On a strictly strategic level, PZ, if your opponent is digging himself a hole of “stupid”, the last thing you want to do is to snatch away the shovel. Show that you are unafraid of giving your opponents an opportunity to have their say because you know what they are going to say and it will be irrational or unconvincing.
YouTube does have a “block” feature. If someone is getting problematic rather than simply critical, you can block their comments without disrupting the productive discussion. I’d guess it’s at least as easy as the banhammer here. Why not re-open the discussion and see if we can make it work?
I don’t understand why this is so hard for so many to understand.
“Free speech” is something granted to people by the government of the state they live in. In all cases where free speech exists, there are conditions for its responsible use.
In short, the right to free speech is not universal and not absolute.
However, small privately-controlled corners of the internet like blogs and youtube channels aren’t states; they’re like peoples’ homes, businesses or private offices. The people who administer those spaces get to decide what behaviour they’ll accept. People who own/control websites are under no obligation to allow any and all behaviour, any more than I am under an obligation to allow fascists to hold a rally on my front lawn.
It is of course a valid point to criticise someone if they censor comments or shut down opportunities to respond to whatever points or arguments they’ve made. It is of course valid to accuse someone of hypocrisy if they do so after claiming to be all about free and reasoned argument. Case in point: the recent essay-debate betweel Kazim of The Atheist Experience blog and theo-pologist Stephen Feinstein. Feinstein recently posted his last word in the debate, answered a few of the comments he thought he could demolish easily, then closed comments completely. He did not offer an alternate avenue of response to his repeated claims of victory in the debate (all entirely unwarranted).
However, PZ hasn’t shut down all avenues of response. He’s closed youtube comments out of understandable distaste but opened an arguably much better avenue to his personal blog, where conversations are easier and there are no character limits. If youtube commenters were serious about engaging PZ’s arguments it would not take very long to sign in here and do so (they already signed up to youtube, is it really that inconvenient to do so here?).
The thing about youtube is this: if you have a lot of subscribers like Concordance or Thunderfoot, most of the comments on your channel will be supportive, but the general tone of a popular tuber’s comments section is no good reference point for the quality of youtube comments in general. It is also a fact that a popular youtuber can easily point their fans to a video they disagree with and say “sic ’em” (directly or otherwise), which I’ve seen too many times to count. It ends up as PZ described: a bunch of copy-paste abuse which is often irrelevant to the topic in the “offending” video and usually makes no effort to engage with said topic.
Self-styled free speech advocates seem to be falling over themselves to tar PZ as a censorious hypocrite, yet this blog is open for registration for them to come here and say so – and as I said it’s a much better venue for conversation than the woefully inadequate youtube threads. There is also, interestingly enough, at least one person in this thread already who wouldn’t even be here if their accusations had a shred of truth to them.
Finally: you’d have to be living under a rock not to have noticed the incoherent screeching mess youtube threads can so easily devolve into. Just look at any video dealing with evolution and see how quickly people start barking past each other like dogs in locked boxes. If I made the kind of videos that got any kind of appreciable attention I’d redirect potential commentators too.
@ nerd of redhead
“You have no “right” to be stupid here without consequences. Here your consequences are you are soundly refuted and treated more contemptuously than you you try to be.”
So basically, i get what i deserve. I’m so asking for it right? look at how i dress, im just begging to get treated contemptuously.
poor impulse control, or is someone pointing a gun to your head? because if the answer is “neither”, you’re just bullshitting, and of course you had a choice.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
well, it’s your time you’re wasting. just don’t demand the same inanity from others.
Not only philosophical, which you aren’t, but also legally. You are just a loudmouthed idjit who doesn’t want to be called on being stupid.
Except you are stupid and wrong. Free speech is a government concept, and not a private property concept. You cannot extrapolate your expectation to say what you want in the park to the blog. You know that. Anything else is you being dumb.
go drown in a well, you contemptuous fuck. you not having earned any respect here is NOT comparable to victim-blaming of sexual assault victims.
I’ll remember this the next time someone tries to worship St. Hitch. Christ what an asshole.
brilliant. now I’m fucking up my vocab. I meant either “contemptible” or “insolent”; or both.
@ Jadehawk
so, some kinds of bullying is acceptable?
@Nerd of redhead
Free speech is not only a right, it’s also an ideology. So we can disagree on an ideological level. Both of our definitions of free speech can be more constraining that the legal definition, and i can argue that mine is better and that he should adopt it, and he can argue that his is better and that i should adopt it. It doesnt have to be about the legal aspect of free speech. Also, you said “you don’t have the right to say…” i have the right to say what i want, you never specified that you meant on this site.
marksheffield:
I hate to speak for PZ, but have you considered the fact that he already moderates one blog, and cannot waste his time blocking ignoramuses on YouTube? And what would stop the FREESPEECHbots from complaining about him blocking commenters?
reliwhat: So you think that you have the right to force your version of free speech upon PZ because you don’t like his? Sounds awfully like a certain pair of Middle-Eastern religions…
@ A.R
I’m not forcing anything, im arguing. You know that thing people do when they want to find the best answer. You make your point, i make my point, we decide which point is the best. I mean, you must have heard of that before, i’m pretty sure it’s been around for a while.
Bullying would be if you left and we followed you to other fora and continued to mock you, and made websites dedicated to saying horrible things about you, and concocted lies about you and spread them in other fora in which you participate.
You showing up here and saying assholish things, and thus being called an asshole, is not bullying.
Feel free to test this hypothesis by fucking off and seeing if people follow you elsewhere for the express purpose of badmouthing you.
Then do it. Why is your ideology better? As far as I can tell, PZ believes that disabling comments on Youtube and directing them here is preferable because it will better allow people willing to provide actual comments to do so, without being drowned out by all the crap. How does allowing this crap improve ‘free speech’?
Frankly, reliwhat’s ability to drag the conversation down to a very stupid level is an excellent example of why it’s not necessary to give a platform to ALL voices if you want to foster free and open exchange of ideas.
reliwhat: I’m just going to ignore your asinine commentary, and rebut your point, specifically that by asserting that anything but your view on free speech is “morally wrong” (there go those Middle-Eastern religion references again. And yes, you really said that, see above), you essentially intend to halt all argument as to the validity of PZ’s view of free speech, and instead oppose your view as dogma to be adhered to or else. (Now why does that sound familiar?)
It sounds a lot like what happened to virtually all the Usenet newsgroups I used to hang out in before I discovered bloggging.
While I am a long term fan of C0nc0rdance & having watched his vid, I wonder how much content he has tried to pack into a single comment field. Probably he has done so but its been along time.
Most of us YT Atheists are thoroughly sick of the empty rhetoric by creationists repeated over & over. Its a shame some of us wont recognise it within our own ranks.
by way of example I provide the following for those with the patience.
_________________
Steve Shives uploaded a vid & in passing mentioned support for A+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uAR4nb3TLg
In the comments section I posted:
**
Apart from Matt Dillahunty & myself, you’re the only other youtuber willing to support Atheism + that I know of. I guess a lot of us are worried about the mob of trolls.
My interpretation, the + means addition, Positive (both as in Good & in test results) & an attempt to be internet chic by echoing Google+.
**
I wanted to say more but could not clearly with the space left.
I got the following response by smartarse001:
**
Atheism + is an attempt to politicise atheism. Its ridiculous and It will fail.
Atheists come from a broad spectrum of socio-political opinions.
HERDING CATS OR TEACHING DOGS CARD TRICKS WOULD BE EASIER.
**
for which he got 23 thumbs up despite A+ having very easy to find, well written FAQ covering this accusation.
My response to which I’m yet to receive a reply:
**
Well it would be nice if Religion was not a political issue but it is.
Accordingly Atheism is already a political issue whether we like it or not. And Atheists of whatever political leaning are entitled to coalesce according to their politics & call themselves what they want. This is nothing like herding a disparate group of individuals with incompatible politics. I sure as hell wish the Atheist Republicans would split from the GOP, I imagine policy discussions could improve.
**
I meant by the last bit, my hope is that Republicans both Atheist & Religious that support separation of church & state can decouple themselves from the Republican Party & support LGBT, sex & racial equality leaving them free to argue with us about their preferred economic policies.
I’ll stop here as I’m Off Topic.
Really? He’s whining about bullying now? What about those sacrifices?
reliwhat
You are not being bullied. You’re being dismissed as a contemptible fool. (This is what you do with fools on the internet. You dismiss them.)
You are free to leave at any time and never come back and never read a single harsh word from anyone here again, which is what distinguishes your current treatment from actual bullying. Seriously, just move the little mouse pointer up to the little ‘x’ at the top of the screen, and click once. You’re done! Free of the evil “FTBullies”! Did you do it? No? Still reading. *sigh*
Then I will explain further. We are not dumping insults on your facebook wall or your twitter feed. We are not emailing your friends and telling them all about the incredibly foolish things you’ve said. We are not forcing you to read a word of this, or going the least bit out of our way to make sure you have a chance to see it. It is completely your choice to read every single bit of this and if you stop reading and stop commenting here, you will never have to suffer the cruel pain of being called a mean name on the internet again. (At least, by us.) That is why nothing that anyone has ever said to you on FtB is ‘bullying’.
Also:
Did you really just say this, after making a dozen comments insisting that PZ should be obligated to do exactly that? Keep a forum for the commentary open against his desires? You are a hypocrite and a fool.
(And if you had closed your window when I told you to, you would not have had to suffer the awful pain of being called a hypocrite and a fool just now. Why did you ignore such useful advice?)
Frankly, I think reliwhatsit has already decided PZ is wrong and a hypocrite and has also decided that nothing will change their mind about that.
Clearly, reliwhat completely missed the part where PZ said part of the point of closing youtube comments was so that people who were serious about reasonable discussion could come here and engage in it – without a character limit, and where it’s easier to follow a conversation. If reliwhat had been paying attention, reliwhat would have seen that that is not a restriction on free speech, it’s an invitation to youtubers to have their say in a different venue. It’s not PZ kicking everyone out and shutting the door, it’s more like leaving a noisy club full of drunken shouting douchebags and going to a quiet wine bar up the road so you and a few others can hear each other talk.
Wouldn’t you rather have a conversation in a place where you’re not being drowned out by incessant, incoherent bellowing?
@sallystrange
“Bullying would be if you left and we followed you to other fora and continued to mock you, and made websites dedicated to saying horrible things about you, and concocted lies about you and spread them in other fora in which you participate. ”
So, every kid that got bullied at school doesnt fit your definition of bullying if they dont have a website dedicated to mocking them? classy.
@Jo
I believe my ideology is better because i think the negative repercussions of having more free speech are less damaging than the repercussions of having less free speech. Which is why i think that acting against free speech without an excellent reason, even if that act is more symbolic, is the wrong way to go. Here’s an example to make it a bit more clear (i’ll incorporate some of the argument from this comment section), Lets say some one posts a pro-atheist message on a billboard (like in the video), one could say, take it down because i disagree with it, i think it’s stupid and it shouldnt be there. That would be, in my opinion, an attack against free speech, even tho there would still be millions of way to pass that message, millions of forums.
you’re not being bullied; you’re being treated with the contempt you’ve earned.
This is not a clever comeback. It just reveals how stupid you are. In case you are wondering, no. You did not correctly interpret my comments. I was referring to online bullying only.
@reliwhat
I’m not convince that closing the youtube comments ‘reduces free speech’. Frankly, I’d argue that it ‘increases free speech’, in that people who actually want to contribute are not being drowned out by those that just want to make noise.
Using your example, it is more comparable to taking down the billboard in order to put it up in an area it is more likely to be noticed.
You have not demonstrated that your “ideology” (which is a system of ideas, but your ideas don’t seem very systematic) would result in an increase of free speech. How does one quantify free speech, anyway?
Oh, and bullying? No. I know English isn’t reliwhat’s first language, so perhaps some tolerance must be accorded.
However:
1. reliwhat made the decision to come here and impotently scold PZ
2. reliwhat made the decision to stay after it became clear that noone is buying what reliwhat is selling
3. reliwhat is free to leave at any time – and it’s probably very safe to say that if reliwhat does leave, that will be the last they hear from the Pharyngula commentators.
4. reliwhat acting like a martyr because they’re being called out for obtuse foolishness will not endear anyone to their cause
Shit-for-brains, you are a fucking liar. In no way have I acted like Amanda Todd’s bully. I am not following you about, blackmailing you and creating groups to hound you.
Calling you on you hypocrisy and calling you insulting names is not the fucking same.
You disgusting sack of runny shit.
reliwhat, remember: you decided to come here and noone is forcing you to stay. If you object to being insulted and called names, either leave or stop insulting other peoples’ intelligence and be honest and consistent with your arguments.
for your definition of “free speech” (AKA the demand that people open their private spaces to any disruptive asshole who feels like having a conversation in that private space), we already know this is false, since for example “safe spaces” would be impossible, and so would groups trying to amplify the voices of a minority.
Perhaps we could streamline this discussion somewhat by eliminating a couple of tangents. The first being the “free speech” tangent which involves the interrelation between government and speech. Not applicable here(and I think we agree YT’s TOS permits whatever setting one chooses). Second is the Hitchens example…more on that later,
The question isn’t freedom of speech, but what kind of a “contract” does PZ enter into, or desire to enter into when posting videos. He chooses to not enter into an unproductive, time-wasting and abusive atmosphere that accomplishes nothing rather than quixotically charging forward to somehow make it work. It’s His choice and it seems not only rational but unobjectionable.
And then the irrelevant Hitchen’s example. Not taking comments is analogous to defending objectionable public speech? Absurd. In your video COncOrdance, you say YouTube is like a billboard which, I think, in a clearer moment you would recognize is completely incorrect. A YouTube video is on a private site that you have to search out, you have to find the individual video, you have to click play. A Billboard is placed next to a tax-payer funded road (perhaps) down which a commuter, or a person going to a hospital or to visit granma must travel – very few of whom have as their object the perusal of billboards.
Hitchen’s actions might indeed be noble in defending the right of objectionable expression, but he didn’t defend that person’s right to come onto your lawn and do it, or into your living room. He said that the government ought not to decide what may or may not be said.
No one has the right to be heard, nor should everyone be guaranteed that they may buttonhole anyone they choose and force them to listen.
-S
dumb analogy. that would apply if someone else demanded PZ close the comments.
What you’re actually doing is insisting that other people get to tell me what to display on a billboard I own, and I have no right to tell any of them “no” or to decide for that billboard to no longer exist. which is bullshit.
I would still like to hear the reason for disabling the ratings. Was it because the viewers in YouTube are biased against PZ and the voting block there wouldn’t represent the real numbers?
I understand the arguments for disabling the commments and I support PZ’s right for doing it. However “mindless cacophony” argument doesn’t justify disabling the ratings.
I don’t understand what you mean by speech reliwhat.
If I decided not to put up a billboard frame because I didn’t want obnoxious advertisers putting up billboards, would that not be limiting free speech?
If I put up a billboard frame and kept it empty, despite many offers to fill it, would I not be limiting free speech?
I don’t see any functional difference between putting up a billboard frame in my yard while leaving it empty and PZ choosing to have a YouTube video without comments. I find your line of reasoning inane.
Billboards are banned in Vermont. If you want to advertise, you do it with small signs.
Has it affected the quantity of free speech in Vermont?
How would we even know?
It’s because PZ is universally despised, apart from his mindless clique of sycophantic followers, but like the dastardly tyrant he is, he tries to cover up this embarrassing fact.
Duh.
I’ve just followed the link from Concordance’s video and created an account just to post this comment. I’m not expecting any medals for that, but considering that I expect nothing but vitriol, the hurdle isn’t quite as small as you suggest.
So far, I’m not blown away by the level of intellectual discourse here. Most of the comments are as short, hostile, and as filled with group-think as any you would find on youtube. It would seem to me that Concordance isn’t the only one that has a grossly inflated estimation of his audience.
However, I didn’t come here to attack your audience. The reason for my visit is to point out that there is a certain irony to posting a link to this article in the comment section of youtube. The fact that Concordance allowed comments gave you the opportunity to reach his audience with your response. If he had followed your example, then you wouldn’t have had the same opportunity to respond to his critique. You benefited (if you consider people reading your response as a benefit) from the very forum that you were slamming.
another reason to *heart* Vermont
Actually Youtube turned off the ratings without asking him because they knew his loyal band of followers would bot the ratings unacceptably high.
Honestly the youtube comment section is just crap without even discussing the other commenters. The character limit the limited number of posts shown especially when you start replying to people. It’s just a big mess. The only worse place I can think of to try to have a conversation is maybe twitter. I’d much rather have some blog post or forum etc linked in. Then at least I can take as much room as I need to make my argument and probably have a lot more people see what I’m saying at the same time.
It won’t let me say /snark in :*(
Alright, last post of this series. That was too much bracket fail for one night.
Nice dodges on the rating question. Carry on!
Someone mentioned dislike bots. That seems a potentially reasonable explanation, given PZ reputation.
Irc, PZ has recently stated that we shouldn’t be in the business of dragging a person’s comments from one thread in to another. I too am repulsed by the line reliwhat has taken elsewhere, but I don’t think hir comments here are being honestly addressed by some. Xe’s being hammered for things said on other threads.
Considering this thread is specifically more likely to be viewed by outsiders who aren’t going to grok the context from which the disgust for reliwhat was born, might we consider only addressing exactly what xe’s said here and here only?
@101
Actually nothing has really changed. Instead of posting a link in the youtube video the link is posted on a blog post linked in the video. The people who read that post can then follow that link. It’s added maybe a mouse click to the process of seeing the link which assumes that pz’s link is visible from the first page of comments on youtube. Other wise the situation is pretty much identical (ok you might have to make a profile here as well).
Yet somehow you managed to!
If you have alternative theories, feel free to present them.
To those criticising deactivated ratings: This is the man who practically invented online poll-crashing, do you think he would be stupid enough to leave a nice, neat poll open for the thunderfappers to attack?
Well, considering I have nothing but contempt for people who preemptively whine about a hostile response when they’re being hostile towards their audience, I expect your wish for faux martyrdom will soon be satisfied.
#41
What’s a Google account?
“boohoo I can’t trivialize a discussion into a numbers game”.
youtube ratings are stupid, for the same reason that the comments are stupid. But there’s more.
– The vote total represents the view of the youtube community. The youtube community is a fucking cesspool.
– Worse, you can do them without even trying to come up with a good argument to justify the opinion and without expecting any repercusion. At least with comments you can expect someone with actual gray matter to call you out.
– Finally, they are terrible as a feedback system. Is a video voted down because it is vague? too offensive? Or because it touched a nerve? Or because a bunch of mosquitoes from some cesspool forum just found a link to the video? Or because the video is bad quality? Perhaps sound was too low? How can you tell?
Is the opinion of a guy who can’t bother doing more than just pressing a mouse click to justify the opinion really important?
Hobbes was right: the state of nature sucks balls, and the proof is right there on YouTube.
“If past experience is any guide, none of his readers will have the guts or willingness to engage to even bother to come over here.”
Ta-dah. I’m here. You’d get a more people joining if it was a little clearer how you sign up to this site. It’s a little hidden.
I agree with a lot of what you say about YouTube. People do keep repeating what has been said before and posters rarely read many other posts before posting themselves, and the quality of the discussion is often though not always quite low.
But there’s a reason for that. The area below YouTube videos is a comments section, not a debate forum. It’s just there for people to make a quick comment about the video. So it’s not surprising people will post similar things, because it’s rare for everyone to have a completely unique point of view or opinion on a video.
The way the comments section is designed purposefully restricts the ability to have deep discussions. It’s hard to follow who is talking to who, and there is a post length limit.
So please take YouTube comments as a comment section, and not people trying to have a deep discussion.
Relax, ignore the idiots to the best of your ability, and take fifty posts all saying pretty much the same thing as a rough poll saying position y is popular with x percent of viewers sharing this opinion.
This is worth repeating
from ethanhobart #36
The point of the video seems to be to slime pz with association fallacy. Only creationists and corporations ban comments and ratings? Why not twist the knife a bit and throw in pedophiles for good measure?
Hello PZ, I have come here from Concordance’s video, and right from the start I do not appreciate your condescending tone toward YouTube commenters, however I do understand your frustration with the lack of quality usually found in those comments. However I believe that generalizations and ad hominem attacks do not serve anyone, not on YouTube, not here, not anywhere. I want you to know that I mean no disrespect and my tone is not intended to be inflammatory at all. I am not a crony of Thunderfoot or any youtuber, or anyone for that matter. I am only interested in and honest discussion.
After reading your post I would like to point out some things I believe you got wrong and discuss some of your points and some of Concordances (who I will from now on refer to as Conc.). So here goes.
You write: “his rationale for allowing YouTube comments? A ludicrous comparison to blasphemy day — he had the gall to compare the frantic, noisy voices of nattering YouTubers to people fighting against religious oppression.” I believe you are incorrect in your interpretation to this part of the video.
Conc. said speaking about a conversation he had with you on twitter, “I asked him, I thought jokingly, for a blasphemy day miracle, to reinstate comments and ratings to honor the principle that no one has a right to never be exposed to offensive or even stupid speech.” He then goes on to compare the act of disabling comments to oppression of people by religious powers. Conc. was not comparing the Commenters on YouTube or there level of oppression to those honored day blasphemy day, but rather the act of silencing commentary in both situations. He was comparing YOU to those that oppress blasphemy.
I do agree with you that you have given a place for comments on your videos, I am writing this here after all, but have you considered that some YouTube commenters may not wish to sighn up for an account with someone who calls them generally “illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant.” This may account for the few people who jump over to this site.
You write: “C0nc0rdance also tries to make a feeble case that somehow a completely unmoderated forum is superior to one that imposes a few minimal standards, and complains that gosh, people would have to register and subject themselves to the tyrannical hand of my vicious moderation policies.” This also I believe is derived from a misunderstanding of the criticism.
Conc says: “PZ has every right to control his channel, if he wants to determine who can comment, then so be it.” He then goes on to put forth his reason for NOT censoring any commentary on your YouTube channel, that being the principle of free expression. He is talking about shutting down the comments not moderating them.
Finally, as any good skeptic knows, no claim should be taken to be true without evidence. So I wanted to look at your claim that the YouTube comments on your videos were “…so illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant.” and “…the previous ten commenters had all repeated the same bogus argument?” Or, in summation that they were mostly unintelligible and repetitive with no real substance.
Well as luck would have it I saw on Conc’s comments that Thunderfoot had saved and posted(on his blog) a great many comments from one of your videos in question. While this is definitely a “Dick” move on his part, it does afford me an opportunity to put your claims to the test. So I started reading the comments and putting them into four categories.
“For PZ” or comments that were unambiguously supporting of you or your positions.
“Against PZ” or comments that were unambiguously denouncing you, or your positions.
“In Poor taste” or comments that used excessive foul language, were crude, or did not make sense. “Neutral” or comments on topic but that were nether for or against PZ or his positions.
I began at the oldest and read the first 50 comments.
They fell into the aforementioned categories thusly:
For PZ: 5
Against PZ: 23
In Poor Taste: 11
Neutral: 11
So out of 50 comments, 22% were dismissible. The rest were quite intelligent and thoughtful. I found three different conversations imbedded in these comments that consisted of back and forth arguments about the nature of free thought and freedom of speech. The 22% that were in bad taste were usually short and vulgar. However few people seemed to be responding to these and there was even a negative comment about them imbedded in one “Against PZ” comments.
After this short examination of the comments I have come to the conclusion that Your claims may be overstated, and perhaps reactionary in nature. I concede that this “study” had a small and un representative sample size that could verywell have concealed the true nature of YouTube comments, but I think it deserves to be looked into more. Perhaps you will again go through some of those comments posted on Thunderfoots blog?
Thank you for your time.
Oh Madogoddess above, that is hilariously dumb XD
Oh wait, this is that thing called sarcasm, yes? Yes, it is XD
As someone who has read his site for more than 10 minutes, PZ has always had a great contempt for the ‘validity’ of internet polls. You can read over 5 fucking years of articles here and on Scienceblogs that showcase that contempt. They’re right there, and it might even be a tag.
Do I need to explain why someone with 0 respect for internet polls might disable an internet poll, or do you possess basic reasoning skills?
Not really, unless maybe he has a direct line to Concordance. What would be an actual irony would be engaging in a reasoned discussion on Youtube.
Well, you’re assuming that PZ is actually going to get a meaningful response to his audience. Which would require everyone rating his comment up, or being a video poster’s comment, because then his audience can read for an extended period.
With one dumbass and one potentially thoughtful poster following the links? No, I’d say this is an unevidenced statement at best.
curiouscat:
So far I see tone-trolling, sample bias, and reading comprehension issues. Oh, and I think you missed the point as to why PZ blocked comments and redirected: He was gatting almost nothing but stupid, insulting, insipid, and repetitive attacks in his comments. It is rather difficult for a useful comment to be seen if it is quickly buried in thunderfapper nonsense.
Hmm, I may have missed the [/b] tag there…
Wow, quite a revisionism.
Dawkins didn’s say that. He instead chose to be condescending and also trivialized the whole deal. “Dear Muslima”.
If PZ sided with Rebecca Watson there it was not under the pretext of “free speech”. It was under the argument that Dawkins completely dropped the ball in that one and was clueless.
How on hell is PZ disturbing the youtubers’ free speech? What is exactly stopping the youtubers to comment in PZ’ blog? What is stopping the youtubers to make their own blog and address PZ? What is stopping the youtubers to comment in other blogs?
It is: Link.
[Reloads fact gun with logic hollowpoints for next wave of trolls.]
@20
That’s completely contrary to the facts. This reply to comment 20 will never be seen unless someone reads all the comments through 120. On YouTube if you click “show all comments” replies show up directly under the comment you’re replying to. Actual back, and forth conversations are completely self contained as opposed to being separated by (in this case for example) 100 comments.
@ideways
Your description of why youtube comments are the way they are seems correct.
So, it appears that Youtube comments are supposed to be useless and annoying. That’s the way Youtube (and presumably those who comment there often) prefer it.
curiouscat*:
IOW, PZ offers a place for people to comment on stuff.
<snicker>
It would, would it?
(Under what conditions, and why does it not do so yet?)
And the fact that PZ both posted a link and allows comments gave you the opportunity to reach his audience with your response.
(To what irony do you refer?)
But he has, in this very comment thread; your contention is evidentially false.
How so more than any other post PZ makes?
(You imagine there are more readers when PZ “slams” some forum than otherwise?)
—
* We all know the aphorism about felines and curiosity, no? ;)
We have our first false ad hom!!!!! the rest of the comment is so full of nonsense that I’m going to hand it off to the rest of the horde, as I need sleep.
@127
The advantage to this comment system is its super easy to see the new comments. I just refreshed my page and saw your comment at the bottom and read it. If you have a 100 comment post that you read at 90 comments its very hard to see what has been added and what you’ve read before. So its a trade off between connecting replies and making new comments easy to see.
If you don’t like a video, don’t watch it.
As if people posting videos were in an obligation to allow your comments. In fact, they are not. Youtube allows yout to disable comments. So in fact nope, video submitters are in no way supposed to give you a forum for opinions. youtube is happy enough receiving free video products.
@127
Right, so having to actually read what every one else to say about the subject is a burden. So long as you can pick off the weak quarry and isolate it, you have a conversation, got it. Thanks for the insight.
I don’t appreciate your inability to write your comment cleanly.
Hyperskepticism! Very well, I’ll humor you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys7-6_t7OEQ&feature=g-all-xit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHtvDA0W34I&feature=g-all-xit
Game, set, match.
Are you a dimwit? You can’t say “YOU’RE JUST LIKE AN OPPRESSOR” without there being an oppressed; the comparison necessitates that the commenters being on the same level of oppression.
Bzzzzzt, wrong. Free speech, what?
FREEZE PEACH
@michaeld
If C0nc0rdance had blocked comments to his videos, then PZ wouldn’t have been able to post a link to this blog in the comments.
I had never any interest in coming here before, but I was interested in his response when I saw his comment. I don’t know how many people did the same, but he had a greater opportunity to reach the people who watched that video with his opinions.
In choosing to block all comments to his videos, he has denied other people that same opportunity. Granted, most people don’t use the comments that way, but at least the opportunity is there.
[A. R pulls out canister grenade labeled “Tone Troll-Away”]
mikepaps #127
Welcome to Pharyngula.
There are many people here who read all the comments.
And remember them.
And bookmark them.
(be afraid)
And that would be terrible.
So this is going to boil down to the old debate between threaded comments or not. boring, you youtubers need to come with something better. I’ve avoided debates on YouTube because of the blatant stupidity, but I shall rejoice in seeing those guppies dumped in to this shark tank.
*saunters off toward the microwave popcorn and prepares to settle in for an entertaining 24 hours or so.
[OT + meta]
vexorian:
This is most stupid comment so far.
(How can one know one doesn’t like a video without watching it?)
But if he had provided an alternate venue (as PZ has done), it could have been posted there. People would have still seen it. Likewise, people can come here to post comments about the video, where people are more likely to see them because they will not be drowned out by the crap PZ gets on Youtube.
Threaded comments are not very relevant to this discussion. If PZ wanted to, he could easily migrate to disqus or something that allowed them.
arg (So no need of youtube for that)
Threaded comments = Evil. Most Pharyngula regulars prefer blockquoting and comment number references for clarity’s sake.
I suppose the “This” in the comment I am quoting is self-referential.
Dear John Morales, please behold the magic of context. This is my comment + context:
See? Once you add context you can easily tell (Assuming there is a functioning brain) that the phrase [If you don’t like a video, don’t watch it.] was meant to sound stupid. In an attempt to show how the other phrase I quoted was really stupid.
@146 : blockquouting is better, because after 500 comments the numbers get reset.
Why is allowing comments and/or ratings considered to be the default?
Non-threaded is clearly superior. Having to constantly check back in on previous conversations is tiresome, I like just being able to keep scrolling down. Ctrl-f is your friend.
AR-
i would like to point you to my comment #121, Now your tone and lack of seems to be exactly what PZ was referring to.
Tautologies are tautological.
Only because he already possesses a site where he can make a full argument. Unless you figure the blog post is under what, 300 characters?
Why the fuck should any of us care about ‘opportunities’ that aren’t really capitalized on?
curiouscat:
How exactly has PZ denied comments to his videos by posting a link to this blog on his videos, given what you’ve written above? :)
—
vexorian:
Nowhere near as stupid as your false equivalence between not liking YouTube comments and not liking specific videos.
(Tricky, this distinction between a category and specific instantiations, no?)
@thorlar
Your tone trolling isn’t going to get you far. Make an argument or stfu.
^ following that I will now go back and reread 121. It seemed inane my first time through it. I hope I find something worthwhile on my second try.
thorloar: No, I’m afraid that it is not. I actually read your comment, and responded in a manner that I deemed to be appropriate to the nature of the content thereof (Yes, we actually do that here). I have already addressed nearly everything you mention in my rebuttals to other commenters on this thread, so the fact that you would rehash them does not oblige me to repeat myself, instead, you should consider reading the thread before posting. (Yes, we do that here too.) As regards my remark on your false claim of the Ad hominem fallacy:
1. You were wrong, there was no Ad hominem in PZ’s remarks (remember, Insults ≠ Ad hominem)
2. We have something of a meme here regarding the Ad hominem fallacy fallacy.
[A. R pulls pin on Tone Troll-Away grenade and throws]
And so I am disappointed, 121 is just as tone trolling and useless as it was the first time I read it. You owe me 90 seconds of my life back.
Erikthebassist-(154), what, exactly strikes you as inane about my post?
If my writing skills have been inadequate in presenting my ideas i would like to clarify, if you have issues with my points. present them. As for tone trolling, I’m not sure if your being overly sensitive or I come across wrong, but i assure you i do not wish to troll.
thorloar: But you are. It’s called tone trolling.
It’s pretty rich for someone complaining about tone to call someone else ‘overly sensitive’.
Because it’s more convenient for you to ignore that way?
I think PZ is pretty generous in allowing this space to be used to respond. Many people seem to think that they are entitled not only to the right to free speech, but the right to comment in the forum of their choice (I am not sure why they need to comment on Youtube specifically aside from already having an account and being logged in, PZ has many of the same editorial controls there as he does here, he can delete their posts here just as he can delete them there). If they really wanted to debate, to comment, they could come here, but instead they want to be able to comment in a place of there own choosing. Or hell, they could set up their own blog somewhere, or their own Youtube channel and allow all the comments they wish and comment upon what PZ does. I have to wonder if they really believe that their free speech is being infringed upon or if they really just dislike the idea of having to go somewhere else, somewhere where others might criticise them in detail (after all, Youtube comments are not much better than tweets), where they cannot simply say what they want and have those comments disappear beyond the top page, rarely to be read again.
In the end it just looks like laziness to me.
Thorlar, you are tone trolling by complaining about tone. It’s an obvious attempt to dodge the argument. You then go on to talk about how PZ is so wrong about the quality of the Youtube discussion comment section, which is yes, inane. It’s boring, just like the comment section at most YouTube videos.
Idgaf if you find it otherwise, and its not pertinent to the discussion. PZ doesn’t have the time or wherewithal to deal with it, so he chooses not to. That’s his choice. If you want to come here and whine that he do otherwise, fine, but don’t expect us to give a flying goat fuck about it.
Other than whining that PZ has it all wrong about you tubers and tone trolling, you said nothing, not a god damned thing of value.
A.R- 155
Ad Mominem falicy-
Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A’s claim is false.
YouTube Commenters claim PZ should not have kicked thunderfoot out of FTB
PZ says all YouTube commenters are “illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant”
Therefor their claims are false.
If you see a problem with this, please, point it out.
The only Youtube videos I have ever seen that had interesting comments were videos where the number of viewers is fairly small and the comments are largely supplied by regular viewers. However, even in these cases they rarely appears to be much of a discussion. The comments are discrete units most of the time. People are simply not forced to acknowledge that previous comments were made, once a comment disappears beyond the first page it becomes invisible by most of the other users and unless someone happens to respond to it, giving it more exposure, it disappears.
First of all you can change the settings of your youtube account to not redirect messages to your email. So that deals with that ridiculous feint towards an excuse.
Secondly you are painting everyone who has a youtube account with a pretty wide brush. There are obviously many exceptions and I would even be willing to wager that the majority of the users on this site have also commented on youtube at some point, I know you have. Does that mean you count yourself among the “illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant” masses? YouTube is a very large site with a very broad range of people, the idea that it’s populated by some subset of people that you just would rather not deal with is a fantasy. I would say it’s really more representative of a general audience or the majority of the internet connected world anyway. It’s literally the third most popular website in the world. What you are really railing against in all your complaints here is the world outside of your little insular community. You obviously don’t know how to get along in that world, the world. Everything concordance said in his video is absolutely correct. Beyond that you and your attitude are an embarrassment to the banner of “free thought”.
Enjoy life hiding in your little corner of the internet surrounded by your fans. I doubt you’ll be attracting to many actual free thinkers if you keep this up though.
“You are a dumbass, and your argument is wrong because ” is not an ad hominem, you incompetent, arrogant asshat. It’s an insult. PZ insulted youtubers, but presented a seperate rationale for why the argument was wrong. Because it isn’t a violation of free speech, because he provides a platform at any rate…
You have to say “You are a dumbass,a nd therefore you are wrong” to actually commit ad hominem.
Thorloar (sorry apple apparently things thorlar is a word),
You can’t quantify the quality of the discussion at YouTube vs the quality here, it will always be a matter of opinion. This isn’t objective, so going back and applying your subjective opinion to a bunch of comments and then reporting back to us about the statistics of your subjective opinion is absofuckinguseless.
@fuckgoogle
Define “freethought.”
[OT]
thorloar, your ignorance is impressive.
An
fallacy refers to claiming an argument is false purely on the basis of some attribute of its proponent.
After reading fuckgoogle’s comment in 165 I am left to wonder, how strong is the correlation between those that misunderstood freethought back when TF was removed and those that now complain about their free speech being infringed upon when they cannot comment on Youtube videos. Somewhere near 1?
FLOUNCE < going to bed, I'll check back in tomorrow.
If you here at Pharyngula are so down on “tone trolling” (BTW, cute, which one of you put that on urban dictionary) what do you call PZ’s complaining about the comments on his videos, secondly if he and the rest of you think YouTube is such a horrible cesspool of unintelligent thought, why dose he post videos there?
How is that not “Tone Trolling”? You fanboys seem to be going every which direction, and with so much confidence. It is hard to keep track, this isn’t the only thing online.
PZ
What have you done‽‽‽
They dont’t noes how to <blockquote> nor what paragraphs are.
and spleling.
fuckg00gle:
fuckg00gle:
I quote PZ in the OP: “I set up my youtube account to have all comments sent directly to my email account; I read them all.”
You imagine that PZ setting his account to do X means he is unaware that he can set it otherwise, and that you’re informing him of this?
<snicker>
But (as the quote above indicates) PZ has a YouTube account.
(You imagine he’s painting himself with that “wide brush”?)
—
You consider yourself a fan? :)
(Think about it — if you can)
Now that’s a self defeating argument if there ever was one, unless you meant to say “It’s ONLY populated by some subset of people you would rather not deal with”.
Can you read for comprehension? He did that because he thought he’d get comments that were worth reading.
Under what grounds would you say that? Because it’s popular? You’d have to establish that the commentariat is representative of the ‘majority of the internet connected world’.
…
…..
No, wait, I was wrong, that’s what a self-defeating argument if ever there was one.
How anyone says that to a happily married dude with a stable, decent job, I’ll never know.*
I’ve definitely seen he repels the people most likely to identify with free thinker.
Of course, so many people who identify with that in particular are ignorant asshats who think they actually can be entirely free of societal influences, so…**
*That’s bolded and italicized because I found it interesting. You unintentionally put up a contrast; youtube is ‘that world’, as in a seperate world, in which case I would agree with you; PZ is clearly not a fan of the world of youtube, and for good reason, I think. You then referred to it as ‘the world’ as if it were the only world, or the only one that counts. Which, well, lulz.
**Yes, I mean the asshats who think they’re not even a tiny bit racist/sexist/ableist/etc.
curiouscat @101:
Really?
What is this
if not the beginning of an attack on your part?
Well, let’s take a look at your attack on the various posters here, starting with the notion that the comments are short.
What relevance does the length of the comment have to do with the substance of what the individual is conveying?
Second, who determines what short is and how? Are you the one determining it? How are you judging which comments are short and which aren’t-number of words? Number of paragraphs? Amount of punctuation?
As to hostile, well that I can understand and I agree. However, have you actually paid attention to *why* they’re hostile? We have one commenter (primarily) reliwhat who has consistently refused to argue effectively or consistently. Xe has displayed tremendous ignorance with regard to free speech, yet still comments on the subject, as if xe knows the topic well. Even worse, various posters have tried to engage and educate hir, to no avail. Willfull ignorance is not a virtue. It’s certain to be met with contempt ’round these parts. True, some of the hostile comments do not directly relate to this thread. Some of my comments to hir for instance, aren’t polite. However, I’ve encountered hir elsewhere and xe has displayed abhorrent behavior multiple times (through the defense of The Amazing Atheist’s comments in the wake of Amanda Todd’s suicide; as well as drawing parallels between hir persecution complex and the bullying Ms Todd faced that led to her suicide). Thus, many of my comments to reliwhat contain invective. I find the hostility to be completely warranted given reliwhat’s pattern of behavior here and in other threads.
Finally, your claim that the comments here are as much group think as those found on YouTube videos is patently ridiculous, if for no other reason than the vast majority of the commenters found here have already critically assessed alternative views and found them lacking. In case you are unaware what group think is:
If you think the commenters here are trying to minimize conflict, you’d be wrong.
Most of the commenters have been trying to engage reliwhat individually. The Horde, contrary to asinine opinions, doesn’t sit around en masse waiting for religiturds, atheist libertarian assholes and climate change deniers to attack in masse with one united front. There is no group decision making. This is a loose knit group of people who ::SHOCK:: happen to agree with one another about a variety of topics *and* choose to post about whatever the heck they choose to.
Do come back when you have a better grasp of what you think you’re talking about.
@sallystrange
“Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds opinions should be formed on the basis of logic, reason and empiricism and not authority, tradition, or other dogmas”
That’s just copy and pasted from the wikipedia. You have some kind of point you were trying to make? If so please expound.
thorloar #172
PZ said
His complaint was to do with the substance of the comments, not the tone. I have not read the comments, but based on that it is not tone trolling.
ah fuck you people, i tried. Look at the comments on Thunderfoot’s blog, then look here. PZ called for people to come here and comment, it is clear why now. He wants his fanboys to back him up. Its all goddam sad. PZ really is more like a creationist than i could have thought. I thought Thunderfoot was an ass, shit.
169- google it you fucksatain
167- of course it was a subjective look, but by giving you the place i started, how i categorized the remarks, and what i found, you could have gone and looked at them yourself and had some kind of intelligent thing to say about my analysis, apparently your to lazy.
you remind me of the South Park episode on WOW. i imagin a bunch of fat,m pizza faced fanboys just waiting to attack anyone who disagrees with your man crush PZ. Sorry if any of you are women.
Complaining about contentless, regurgitated objections is not complaining solely about the tone in opposition to content, you ignoramus.
Excuse me, I must go take a wicked laugh.
Arg, this thing ate my comment. At least it was short.
thorloar,
It is clear you still do not understand the concept of tone trolling (also, it existed long before this blog, so your little dig shows your ignorance as well as your pettiness). The complaints here have not been about how youtube comments are written, about the actual tone of the statements, but directly about the content, or lack thereof, of the comments. This is not what is meant by tone trolling.
Because complaining about content is different to complaining about tone. Saying a comment is “illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant” is complaining about the content of a post, not its tone.
People who don’t comment also use Youtube. It is a high quality venue for hosting videos (I find that videos on Youtube buffer faster than videos on other sites), so it is good for hosting a video which is then linked to here, for us to watch.
As for comment 169, from wikipedia:
An ad hominem (Latin for “to the man”), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or unrelated belief of the person supporting it.
So, pretty much what 169 said it was.
172:
PZ was complaining not just about the tone of the comments he was receiving, but of the content – or lack thereof. Most people without an overly-thin skin can handle a bit of sailor-talk or plain old invective during a robust discussion, but if there’s nothing underneath the insults, no actual depth to the comment beyond an intent to offend, no information or idea or argument or rebuttal being conveyed, it’s reasonable to ignore such comments.
Tone-trolling is not the same thing: tone-trolling is complaining about the tone while specifically ignoring the content. Which is what you’re being accused of (as well as misusing the term “ad hominem” – a favourite go-to phrase of many who get all grandmothery about four-letter words whilst ignoring every other word used).
I think it’s entirely reasonable – and not tone-trolling at all – to avoid any place where the majority of the conversation there is light on content and heavy on invective.
wel u shur told us
Uo HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO
*Gasp*
http://www.endlessvideo.com/watch?v=gFmGNqji4u0&start=0m10s&end=0m12s
Ah, and in comment 179, thorloar shows his true fucking colours.
You, sir/madam, have lost all credibility. Don’t let the e-door hit you in the e-ass on the way out.
[meta]
thorloar:
I grant that perhaps you tried, but you certainly failed.
(What was it you tried to do, again?)
You are the same individual that previously wrote “I want you to know that I mean no disrespect and my tone is not intended to be inflammatory at all.”, no?
(Your efforts hardly evince your putative intent)
Wrong; you have indeed thought it (and even expressed it!).
<snicker>
Didn’t take you long to revert to the mean, did it? :)
thorloar #179
I dont understand. How is PZ asking people from Thunderfoot’s blog getting his fanboys to back him up.
Wouldn’t that just mean proportionally less fanboys to do the backing up?
oops we’re all™ in agreement…
fanboyz!!!
sockpuppets!!‽!
erik:
While you’re up, can you grab the cheddar cheese and butter for the popcorn? I’m off to the liquor store. You pass the popcorn. I’ll pass the Courvoisier.
Koshka
It means PZ is luring the poor, innocent youtoobers here to our dank dungeon where WeTheFanboys™ (lurking in the shadows, as we are) can leap out and comment at them.
Travis-181
go to urban dictionary, it mentions this blog specifically, so yeah, someone from here put that in, or look the other results, see how many time this blog comes up.
I didn’t say he was complaining about JUST the tone. But that was part of it wasn’t it?
I would like one of you to go over to TF’s blog and pick out some “idiotic” comments, just copy and past them here, so i can see what you are all talking about. Maybe I’m just to dumb to get it, but i have a sneaking suspicion that confirmation bias,group think, and leader worship is the MO around here.
@vexorian
I find your arguments good regarding my ratings question. Thanks!
[meta]
thorloar:
Maybe?
Maybe?
<snicker>
188 koshka
i refered to the YOUTUBE comments on thunder foots blog, he saved them before PZ erased them. about 500 of them.
I was imploring you to compare the level of discourse in those comments to the level here. I think its about the same. Less cliquey but about the same in bad arguments and idiocy.
191- yes why else would PZ NEED to shut down the comments on youtube? he could leave it up for the fanboyz to laugh at, ridicule, shit as an example. But no hi closed it, and the ratings. he doesn’t like them i guess, but don’t use YouTube as a soapbox unless you can take the criticism in that forum.
thorloar
I call ‘troll’.
…yes, you did, by saying he was tone trolling XD
Not compared to substance.
Not that I said anything like that, but let’s see here.
…Yeah this is a commentariat I can totally see caring about.
‘maybe’.
Again, laughing my ass off, personally.
thorloar,
I appologise, when I read what you had written I thought you were simply referring to the concept of a tone troll, that it was the invention of this blog, implying that someone from this blog conveniently put the definition there.
I am curious, where do you see tone being criticised? Can you quote the section of text that refers to tone? Looking back at the original post I see PZ says “Not at the fact that they were critical, but that they were so illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant.” and “One was that very few of the commenters actually paid any attention to my videos” or “These commenters didn’t even read each others’ comments. There was little interaction, and again, I’d just see repeated strings of the same phrases over and over. Did they ever notice that the previous commenter had said exactly the same thing?”
None of these are critical of the tone, but the content or that the quality of the content was very low for the most part.
Can you please point out exactly where you see the tone argument being made?
Why is allowing comments and/or ratings considered to be the default?
Because it’s the FREEZE PEACH version.
-look up tone troll and the first four results all mention this blog specifically with this in the fifth:
The raisin date is for the people, on mass, to have freeze peach?
@Rutee Katreya
That’s exactly what I meant to say in fact. I guess that clears that up.
The point isn’t why he did it in the first place but rather that it’s an easy problem to remedy without closing the video to comments altogether.
Yes on the grounds that it’s extremely popular, that’s exactly my argument and it’s a perfectly valid one.
That’s not what I meant by “get along”, I met he’s not comfortable outside his circle. He’s not able cope with engagements with people who don’t share his worldview.
I’d have to ask for more detail to get into any kind of specific discussion on what you mean here. I’m sure everyone on the planet thinks of themselves as a freethinker to some extent. Anyone who thinks that’s a positive attribute anyway. I don’t really feel like getting into whether all those that do are living up to the title fully. I do think it’s worth discussing it in PZ Meyers case however as he has been so audacious to integrate the term into the URL of his website here and doesn’t exactly seem to be living up to it very well.
As I stated in my initial post, I meant it’s representative of a larger group of people with a wider array of opinions and behaviors (yes including asshats) but yeah that’s THE world for you. It’s certainly much more representative than the isolated community to which he has chosen to retreat to.
Still not really clear on what you are talking about here, and again not a tangent I’m all that interested in delving into at the moment.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tone%20police
I’ve seen it used by a number of non-atheists, most of whom don’t frequent pharyngula, as well. I only see one entry for “tone troll”, and yes, it references Pharyngula, and seems to be by Amphiox, but I sincerely doubt it’s just a Pharyngula thing (Unless I spread it tot hose other places, which seems unlikely).
And I guaran-damn-tee you that a bunch of ‘spiritual, but not religious’ folks, pantheists, and christians don’t come to Pharyngula to steal useful terms…
Then again, women seem to be invisible to this asshat. I suppose I should be grateful.
reliwhat
You misunderstand something fundemental to free speech. You have the right to say whatever you like, but you do not have the right to make other people say it.
That means nobody has the right to force somebody else to provide a platform for their views – and thus free speech would mean that PZ has the right to not open comments on his videos.
travis, i took Cesspool or cesspit to be a comment on the tone of the comments like ones that say: PZ is a fat version of an ewok with shitty ideals.
if that’s not what he was referring to than i was wrong, but then its worse than i thought, hes not just a whiny bitch, but a pompus asshole too.
I think that your problem is that PZ posits weak arguments (in this stupid atheism infighting shit at least) backed up with insults and little else, and when people point this out you accuse them of Tone trolling or not being able to handle a little dirty play.
Disallowing comments and especially ratings generally puts up a big red flag, when you don’t know the uploader. But if an alternate forum for debating is given, then boo-fucking-hoo. Besides that, all those idiots already have their own youtube channels. Even in the same platform, they’re not being silenced in any way. What the fuck is so hard to understand about that?
No, no, no, this is all wrong.
To debate the YouTube commenter, you must first understand the YouTube commenter. Become the YouTube commenter.
Allow me to demonstrate:
no u lol
So no, you can’t read for comprehension. The core problem is the comments were worthless, not that he got asshattery in his email box.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/09/20/i-get-email-22/
He’s rather used to asshattery in the email box.
Only if you assume the commentariat is representative of the user base, for one. I’ve seen a lot of people who use youtube, who just avoid the fuck out of its comments, because those comments are a cesspool. You can watch videos without leaving comments, you know.
As much as I despise ‘hard’ science nerds pretending biology, geology, and cosmology are the only things attacked by the popular culture, you do realize that the dude pretty clearly has to as he teaches, yanno, biology, right?
I don’t think the title is a good thing, so we’re clearly not on the same wavelength.
Which is, again, you asserting that the commentariat of youtube actually is representative of the world…
Are you an idiot? This argument only makes sense if he doesn’t invite those people to comment on his blog, and if he actually restricts himself from the world at large, rather than, you know, venturing out into it (which he does, at conventions, speaking engagements, etc).
You’re assuming he’s somehow made himself safe from criticism, and that that’s his goal, rather than just cutting out contentless, idiotic blather.
thorloar:
One cannot (definitionally) posit an argument, one can only propose it, nor are arguments either weak or strong, but rather valid or invalid.
(You confuse arguments with premises no less than with conclusions)
—
PS: I suppose you will imagine I am making some sort of ad hominem fallacy when I note that your literacy is sadly lacking, though it is far superior to your reasoning skill.
@John Morales
I would imagine he is aware which is why it’s such a silly thing to begin to complain about. It’s really a minor issue, I used the word feint for a reason.
That was kind of my whole point there. What are you missing?
No I do not and due to that fact it’s unlikely I’ll be ever making the effort to comeback to this website after this one conversation. That’s probably how it goes with the majority of his detractors. Again that’s kind of the whole point. By moving all discussion here he’s distanced himself from other viewpoints but just that much more. By the nature of youtube you get a much more varied audience because they aren’t necessarily on the site just to hear from you.
The video made by Concordance presents an extremely cogent, considerate, and logical appraisal of the issues at hand. Furthermore, his behavior on this very blog has been exemplary in that he has been patient, consistent, and made an earnest attempt to explain his perspective in some detail.
After reading the responses to him I have concluded that his points have not been satisfactorily addressed.
In particular, I find PZ’s own response to consist largely of dismissive statements that don’t substantively address the content expressed in either Concordance’s video or subsequent comments here. In the event someone would like for me to be specific, here is one example:
“Hitchens is wrong and inapplicable.”
One cannot in good faith simply declare a cogent and well articulated sentiment to be “wrong” without presenting a case for why it is wrong. It is this type of behavior that is symptomatic of a perceptual problem when it comes to who needs to back up their claims and who doesn’t need to. Just to be clear, everyone needs to back up their claims, but the only one who has presented support for his ideas appears to be Concordance in this case.
When it comes to PZ’s argument above I will simply quote Hitchens posthumously and say “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”.
It is kind of ironic to me that Hitchens perspective is so easily defended even when he himself is not here to do so personally. I guess his arguments are so sound he can effectively win debates from the grave.
As a final note, I’ve looked through the youtube comments PZ eliminated because he was “appalled”. Needless to say, after reading several of them I cannot declare the youtube comments to be of lower quality than the typical level of discourse to be found here. Furthermore, one of PZ’s main complaints was the lack of interaction, but I can’t help but notice that in the comments available for scrutiny PZ himself doesn’t interact with anyone. He could have chosen to interact with those commenting, but he opted not to in preference of complaining that others weren’t interacting enough for his tastes.
In light of the evidence available I find PZ’s criticisms here to be lacking on all counts. I believe PZ would do well to more carefully consider the possibility that Concordance is right on this one.
Concordance is widely considered to be one of the more reasonable, even tempered, and considerate youtube atheists. Treating his arguments dismissively and refusing to engage in a good faith conversation with him by disregarding his opinion as “comical” will only further tarnish PZ’s own reputation which amongst some circles isn’t much better than his own opinion of those who comment at youtube.
Oh wait, the most recent “I get email” post is one that *might* be a little kid. Well, look at the other “I get email” posts, it’s a rather simple search to do.
@ Ing:Intellectual Terrorist “Starting Tonight, People will Whine”
Ing bullying someone in one place makes you a bully. Whether you bully them outside of that place or can’t be bothered to or not.
You bullied reliwhat here & made hir feel unwelcome on this thread – and probably FTB generally – that makes you a bully.
The way you did that was fucking disgusting and abhorrent.
It also fits apattern of behaviour I have noticed and suffered fromyou before.
I think you, Ing, are a fucking shitstain asswipe douchecanoe and think a lot of people will agree with me on that many from first hand experience whether they have the courage to speak out against you or not.
Take a long hard look in the mirror and rethink your approach and abuse of others please.
Oh & where’s my apology as well as the apology you owe reliwaht and others for your persistant, appalling abusive bullying of them you bully?
knighttyme,
Hitchens was only applicable if the argument that PZ is stifling the precious free speech of those youtube idiots is true. Care to point out how it is true?
thorloar:
Example of Tone Trolling:
“I have much to say on this topic, but I’ll comment when people stop engaging in petty insults and become more civil in their discourse.”
NOT an example of Tone Trolling:
“The quality of the comments on my YouTube video is exceedingly poor and the limitations placed on the number of characters doesn’t allow for effective discussion. I think it’s best to shut down the comments and provide people with a link to my blog for any discussion of my video.”
One of these is not like the other.
One of these is talking about the TONE of the comments.
The other refers to the QUALITY of the comments.
Did you even click on the link A.R. provided you back @159? I did. It was funny as hell. Then you get a nice long list of sites you can click on to learn what tone trolling is. It’s not hard to grasp. The important thing about a comment is not the civility, it’s the substance. Is that comprehensible to you?
(this was my first lesson at Pharyngula almost 2 years ago-provided to me by Aquaria)
Ha, missed this.
Why don’t you take your blatantly fake pretensions of politeness and shove them up your ass.
Evolution is widely considered to be wrong by t he US public. Do you not understand why argumentum ad populum is *dumb*?
…AHAHAHAHAHA
Oh yes, yes that’s it exactly. Okay, worshipper of assholes, you’ve now obligated me to shoot him down.
Yes, whatever would I do with less inane blather in my life? Or less racist asshattery, or sexist asshattery? I AM IMPRISONED BY MY CHOICE TO MINIMIZE TERRIBLE THINGS.
Only if you assume that that voice carries inherent value due to being a dissenter. And I have no reason to make that assumption.
It’d be pretty rough to say this is as bad as the comments on the bieber video or the stratosphere jump video on the front page. Wanna try that? Or do you just mean that the level of on Concordance’s videos?
Concordance made a lot of assertions without evidence, and yet only PZ has to bring evidence? You don’t understand what that phrase means, do you?
Fuck off, you racist, arrogant asshole.
Context for other folks info :
Ing previously abusively bullyingly and totally wrongly called me a Nazi (among other such “pleasantries”) on another thread when I was making arguments in support of Israel and the Jewish people more generally.
Go figure.
Ing not only instantly lost that discussion by Godwin but has been doubling down and digging deeper ever since.
Reference here because xe has been so keen to bring across reliwhat’s alledged errors from another thread (which I admit I haven’t read – some of us have lives and other things we do in RL and thus have time constraints.) so “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” as the aphorism goes.
SteveoR:
I think if you want to address this perception of being bullied, you should take it elsewhere, such as the Thunderdome.
fuckg00gle:
You would imagine, would you? Under what conditions would you imagine this, and why do you not do so now? :)
More to the point, it was no complaint that he made, but an assertion of opinion, to which you otiosely responded with its corollary as if it were not evident (as I noted).
Nothing; what you are missing is that he’s not referring to those who have YouTube accounts, but rather to the commenter base there in general.
(You really think he was deriding himself unintentionally?)
So, you’re not a fan (rather, an admitted detractor) yet you’re here because he posted links to this place.
How does that square with him supposedly “hiding in [his] little corner of the internet surrounded by [his] fans”?
(You imagine one hides by putting up signposts to a public (and popular) space?)
@219. Rutee Katreya (A sockpuppet of “Ing” whoever that is perhaps?)
And that, ladies and gentleman is an example of why this blg is so much better than youtube qucommenst eh?
How erudite and so well supported with facts and not just purely abusive of those who happen to disagree with you on just one or two issues this is – er, NOT!
For teh record I know I’m actually none of those things and calling me those name swon’t make iany of them true so , inthespirit of “debate” here :
Fuck you too Rutee Katreya! Or do can I call you Ing?
fuckg00gle (#203)
Right. And abortions happen because women are irresponsible about using birth control. Except that, in reality, abortions are a way for women to be responsible about prevent unwanted births. Same deal with PZ directing YouTube commenters to his blog; it’s a way of engaging those who disagree with him.
What you can’t seem to grasp is that if PZ didn’t want engagement, he’d stick to keeping the YouTube comments open as those are largely devoid of content with which to engage. And whatever you might care to assert about the breadth of potential representation on YouTube, PZ has to make decisions based on the actual commentariat there.
are you drunk?
StevoR, you’re trying a little too hard to gain sympathy from people who don’t know you. And the fact that it’s off-topic makes it even more pathetic.
Sure, why not? Saying stupid, wrong shit’s never stopped you before, have a fucking ball.
What facts do you want? You’re a racist, stupid asshole, and you’ve made these traits abundantly clear. We can take about facts at your next spewing of racist asshattery, but right now, other shit is happening. Go fuck off.
*Talk about facts, as in, demonstrating them. Even I don’t operate well on just caffeine XD
Typo corrected version since we can’t fucking edit here :
PS. This sort of thing is why many other internet sites and blogs and people online consider *pharngula* a cesspit.
Incidentally I am not one of those people – I often enjoy commenting and reading here however this sort of vile Over The Top abuse over minor political and other disagreements makes it hard to argue against them doesn’t it?
My city newspaper fills up section after section with their articles and their stupid advertising. Hardly any room is left for the letters to the editor. If they really cared about free speech, they’d print every letter. The fact that they don’t, I think, shows where their true priorities are.
What I find most amusing about this entire idiotic fight about youtube comments (really, think about that for a minute..a fight about whether or not YOUTUBE COMMENTS are worthwhile) is that large portions of the internet-atheist community feel that they are entitled to make people listen to their drivel.
And…not only do they feel entitled to have people listen to their drivel, they apparently think themselves intellectual equals of anyone and everyone simply because they’ve figured out how to create a youtube account.
There’s a reason busy scientists don’t spend their time debating every yahoo with a theory about aliens/gods/creation/etc, and that’s because not everyone’s opinions or ideas are equally worth consideration. The bulk (all?) of youtube comments and comments in similar media aren’t worth the ATP that was consumed typing them up. The internet has given people a false sense of intellectual equality, just like the US media has given people the false idea that two legitimate sides exist on issues of human origins/evolution and global warming.
I’ll still be watching Concordance’s videos – but I think his disdain for PZ stems from a very emotional place. If he were behaving rationally he’d have realized that wasting his time creating a nit-picky drama-video is beneath him. He should stick to videos about science, since he comes off sounding rather high-school-gossipy in videos like this latest.
Said in response to your own comment. Are you trying to parody yourself?
I don’t really care about the opinion of anyone who thinks poorly of telling people when they’re being racist assholes, though.
‘minor political disagreements’ like “The middle east should be the subject of constant pre-emptive assaults, so they learn their place.” And ‘over the top abuse’ like calling you a racist asshole. No, it really doesn’t make that hard to argue.
@Rutee Katreya :
I would think Ing / Rutee, that a good reason for why not might be because sockpuppeting is supposed to be banned here but maybe that’s one rule – like apparently others – you think is only for people other than you?
Thanks for that self-defeating confirmation though I guess. Wonder what will happen to you now if the blog rule is applied consistently? Shall prove interesting.
Jebus, but when will the internet be rid of this stupid ‘you lose because you said the magic word!’ meme? How did this ever become a thing with people who fancy themselves to be thinkers?
How illiterate are you? I just told you that like the rest of the stupid shit you say, you were wrong about this too. Or are you just that incapable of considering that maybe you’re in error?
Didn’t I just tell you to go fuck off and stop being a racist asshole? Madogoddess fucking dammit, I do not have the energy for your stupid shit right now, go fuck off and be a fucking racist asshole on some other fucking site. Do everyone a favor.
Andyo,
My position when it comes to Hitchens comment isn’t that it is applicable or that it is even correct.
My position is that the case made by him cannot be dismissed with a simple statement like “wrong”.
One has to explain why something is wrong to have presented an actual argument.
It isn’t so much that PZ is necessarily incorrect in his belief, it is that he did not present his rational to Concordance such that anyone can investigate his reasoning on the subject.
Surely you can agree that this is a reasonable position to take. That if you believe someone is wrong about something they have said, it is your responsibility to explain why they are wrong and not simple say something like this:
“Hitchens is wrong and inapplicable.”
That is not an argument. That is a dismissive statement that has no place in a good faith discussion.
PZ has a duty like anyone else to back himself up when he disagrees with someone. Just saying they are “wrong” is an insufficient response.
I’d be happy to give credit for any good points made by PZ on this subject, but he didn’t bother to make any points in his “refutation”. See the problem?
@Rutee Katreya
I’m aware of what the core of his complaint was that’s why I referred to it as a feint in my original comment. I comprehended exactly what he was saying, I just took an extra step to counter something which he was only indirectly whining about. It’s you who seems to have failed to comprehend what I was saying.
I would imagine most of those people avoid engaging in comments on most websites. It’s obviously only a minority of people who comment on any site period. The point is that the commenters on youtube are drawn from a much larger and more varied pool of potential commenters than commenters elsewhere.
I doubt that many people are standing up in the middle of his classes and challenging him and even if they were we would be talking about shit on the intellectual level of people telling you the world is flat. He obviously comfortable making that one creationism v evolution argument, he’s made a career of it. I’m talking about engaging in more complex discussions about things he may not have all the answers too and people questioning him on other beliefs that may not be so logically cut and dry. He’s clearly not comfortable with it.
You don’t think free thought is a good thing? lol, what are you pro mind control? whatever though…
Making people go through the extra hassle of coming over to this site will obviously filter out some number of users. I mean isn’t that his whole intention?? Speaking at conventions of people who all agree with you about the stuff you all agree about is hardly broadening.
He’s just added an extra layer of insulation, most people browsing the website of PZ Meyers are likely to agree with PZ Meyers about a lot of things. He’s cutting out more than just contentless idiotic banter. As I said to another poster, I won’t likely be returning to this forum beyond this discussion.
Because they are fucking liars, that is how.
You know what else doesn’t have a place in a good faith discussion? Insisting that all voices are equal, have value, and are good because of their innate goodness as a voice of dissent. Because it’s a fucking fairy song, and one that some of us are tired of fucking hearing. Granted, PZ is probably not, but still.
Is that why you chose not to comment on the blog post as a whole? So you could avoid doing that very thing you just said you’d be happy to do?
StevoR, you drunk?
[meta]
fuckg00gle, who is this PZ Meyers to whom you refer?
(Maybe you should embrace Google, or at least read the byline ;) )
You managed to misinterpret both Rutee and Wikipedia! Bravo!
@232. Rutee Katreya / Ing :
No, learn to comprehend something for once if you can – it was a response to your unsupported unwarranted and bullying abuse of me in comment #219 by “Rutee Katreya” (a.k.a. Ing) posted on the 18th October 2012 at 3:00 am.
What if you are mistaken and the person you accuse of being a “racist asshole” is nothing of the sort? That ever occur to you Ing?
@225. nms – 18 October 2012 at 3:09 am “are you drunk?”
My state of sobriety or otherwise would be relevant to the actual argument and logic of what I’m writing how exactly?
It would justifies Ing “Ruttee’s” constant pattern of bullying behaviour *how* ya reckon?
@226. andyo
I’m not asking for sympathy just an apology and for a sockpuppetting bully who has been making people’s lives miserable here to stop bullying.
Sheesh. Off topic? Yeah, maybe I guess except Rutee-Ing’s behaviour has come up here once again and this is a constant fucking pattern on Pharynula so for once I”ll fucking well point it out. If exposing Ing’s sockpuppeting means xe’s gone then I’m happy!
Feel free to ignore this sub-discussion not directly involving or relevant to you and go back to the topic if you want, I can’t stop you and have no desire to do so anyhow.
knighttyme:
You don’t think he provided a rationale?
I here helpfully emphasise it:
See, the proposition is that C0nc0rdance’s suppositions are wrong, and he explains the reason why (a.k.a. rationale).
(You might care to argue that PZ is wrong about his own motives and basis, but to claim he’s provided no rationale is palpably false)
Rutee Says:
“Do you not understand why argumentum ad populum is *dumb*?”
Of course I understand why that is a fallacy. Do you? Because you seem to have missed some critical things.
In order for my statement to constitute a fallacious argument I would have to have suggested that Concordance is right because he is popular. I have said no such thing and never would say such a thing.
I have merely expressed that he is an individual held in high esteem by a multitude of people because of how level headed he tends to be and how careful he is to engage in discussions with others with a high degree of respect. He really seems to be one of those people who treats others how he would like to be treated.
I am permitted to offer a compliment to someone without it being part of a fallacious argument. That you seem to be irritated by the fact that I commended Concordance is rather odd to me. A compliment to one person is an insult to no one else.
The remainder of your response is filled with similar problems in identifying the meaning behind anything I said so I won’t bother responding to it until you have correctly identified and addressed my points. In fact, most of your quotes are not even things I said, so I’m not sure how to respond.
I’m not in the habit of engaging in conversation with those who resort to straw manning me.
If on the other hand you are aware that you are addressing multiple individuals, it would be helpful to explicitly differentiate when you are addressing different people.
In particular, I don’t feel it is appropriate to be lumped in with someone you regard as a “racist, arrogant asshole” when nothing I’ve said fits that description. Saying something that inflammatory to someone seems to demand a special focus, don’t you think?
Writing isn’t your strong suit is it? The feint is the diversionary tactic, not the primary thrust (of the argument in this case).
But he wasn’t really whining about that, you ignorant asshat. He was complaining about the fact that youtube commenters are fucking stupid, a rule you are apparently not trying to be an exception to.
I’ll grant he’s not in the South and all, but what makes you so sure it hasn’t? I’ve seen plenty of smug students do this type of shit.
Look, I consider flat-earthers roughly on par with the bulk of youtube commenters, and at any rate, who cares if they’re rock stupid? You said he had to be isolated from criticism, and I am telling you it is not so. He has gone in depth on some of the shit he’s had to say, *in class*, on the matter. You didn’t say that all that criticism had to be well thought out. Some of it isn’t, like Concordance whining about FREE SPEECH.
Oh lord, those conventions do not all agree with him, but yes, you are indeed ignorant, I appreciate the confirmation.
Look, chump, it will indeed weed people out; people who can’t be bothered to come here and leave an in-depth comment. And I’d have to say, mission mostly accomplished. I rarely see an influx of youtubers, no matter how much license they’re given to comment here. But those people aren’t actually restricted, and this community isn’t really meaningfully isolated. That was the part that marked you for a fool.
No, I think the people who most frequently identify as ‘free thinkers’ are assholes. Not because they are atheists, even loud atheists; because identifying with the term ‘free thinker’, in my experience, sends a huge red flag for incoming racism, sexism, heterosexism, and the like. These are people who typically think they’re immune to their environments and haven’t absorbed racist thoughts, all the while spewing jackassery like StevOR has done us the ‘pleasure’ of demonstrating.
Most bloggers on this network are better than normal about that, IME, and that’s all well and good, but it’s certainly not the norm for people who identify as ‘free thinkers’ in my experience. It’s like I disagree with the people who run the network that the name choice was a good one or something, I know. Oh wait, I’m supposed to have my PZ-worshipping fanatic hat on or some shit.
By not accepting Youtube comments? Statement assumes facts not in evidence.
Thorloar, #163,
No, that’s the ad hominem fallacy. The ad mominem fallacy is:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A’s mother.
Therefore A’s claim is false.
[/tongue in cheek]
Louis
P.S. I HAD to get that in, I’m only at #163, so if someone else has done it between there and now I claim independent co-discovery and we shall have to share the Shit Joke Nobel. ;-)
Hey Concordance, great videos. But I note you’re defending a comments system with writing far longer than anything it could actually support itself.
And ratings are a part of that vile binary trend that wants to wreck nuanced thinking, turn people into search weighting economists. The defense people use “If it’s irrelevant why not leave it?” works both ways.
There’s a discernible Youtube Pride in all this, especially since the TF farrago, with some people having been there so long and developing a little group (many of whom fighting their hosts the whole time). You’ve got people like PZ walking in and using it just like a service, not paying respect to the tacit values and traditions that have been established since the old days.
But it is just a service.
It’s one of the sillier trends of this age (I’ve seen Facebook Pride from people when privacy concerns and so on are brought up for yehova’s sake). Gosh, if you’re worried about excessive logging-in being a dis incentive to discussion your disagreement is not with PZ but the entire internet since about 2003. That was about where widespread, open, real discussion ended, if you ask me. Old usenet, forums and Live Journal was where it was at. Since then the whole net has been trying to keep it brief and keep out the idiots and spammers. Blogs, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter represent the strangulation of speech not its enabling, compared to the old old days. Everybody moved on of course, keeping up with the latest stuff. But it is rather sad to watch people attempt to cram proper discussion into systems as services patently not designed for it just because it’s where it’s at.
I submit that you have forgotten what a barrier to free discussion Youtube is itself, because you are used to it and have interacted fruitfully with people who are also used to it for quite some time.
Me, I think you can never go home again. So what PZ is doing is just as good, even better, than many other choices in this fractious age.
Damn. Preview is not working for me and I knew I was risking that blockquote failure. Not that it’s worth saying twice, but I hate leaving things a mess, so here goes:
Jesus fuck, Stevo. Have you been hitting yourself with the stupid stick tonight?
Ing and Rutee are two separate persons. Are you so self-centered and conceited that you are forced to assume there can be at maximum one person in the whole world who doesn’t love you? IF it appears there are more than one, the reason is because it’s really just one person sockpuppetting to make it look like that? Really? Really? Goddamn, that’s dumb of you.
Or drunk of you.
I sure wouldn’t want to have your hangover tomorrow.
Er, StevoR, are you seriously saying that Rutee and Ing are the same person?
Because they’re not. They’ve both been regulars here for years.
John Morales,
You have not taken the time to understand the context of my argument. Please take a moment to better see what was under discussion before jumping to wild conclusions.
In particular, my response to Andyo was specifically referencing PZ’s dismissal of Hitchens argument for which PZ presents zero explanation. You are discussing a completely different set of statements and hence are taking me out of context.
I understand that discussions like this can be rushed, but I implore you to take some extra time so as to avoid tossing straw men at me.
@A. Noyd
You are making two separate and contradictory arguments here. You are saying that the youtube commentors will come here and engage with him and then you are saying he valid in closing down the comments on his youtube channel because no one there is worth engaging with. You must see how ridiculous that is. The plain fact is that his policy is designed to eliminate some of the feedback generated by his videos. You seem to admit this but somehow assert that it will only effect some worthless form of comment. There is nothing magical that allows only worthwhile things to be typed into the box on this website and not others. It does add an additional barrier of hassle though that will tend to keep people away who aren’t already involved with this site or because they don’t hold him in high opinion aren’t interested in becoming so.
@234.musubk :
There’s a reason for Godwin’s Law you know :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
@235. Rutee Katreya :
Actually you admitted it openly yourself in comment #227 18th October 2012 at 3:14 am. I suggested you were a sockpuppet of Ing and you agreed that you were. Mockingly perhaps but nonetheless you admitted it rather than denying it.
Are you backpedalling now in hope of avoiding the banhammer, Ing/ Ruttee / whoever you really are?
@250. Setár, genderqueer Elf-Sheriff of Atheism+
So? Sockpuppets can be regulars too if they go undetected long enough.
Besides as I’ve noted Ing / Rutee admitted that themselves confirming exactly what I suggested.
You know damn well that Rutee is replying to multiple people, this is pathetic.
[OT]
hotshoe,
When you’re nesting blockquotes (especially with mixed nesting), it’s definitely worth previewing; here’s a suggestion: when I can’t do that on one site, I go to another where the preview does work (and, of course, where the HTML is handled similarly) to preview and then post it on the intended site.
(It does take a bit of care, I admit)
Godwin’s Law only states that the probability approaches 1. It’s the corollary that declares that an automatic victory. And there’s an exception to that corollary for when the comparison is truly legitimate. Like calling for fucking genocide.
You are a dumbass, of the highest caliber.
StevoR,
Can I talk to you over in thunderdome?
Moirakearney, #231,
I’ll go along with that based on what I’ve seen so far. :-)
Louis
Technically, I vanished for a long while and am only intermittent now.
Rock solid.
But PZ, if the comments are so illiterate, repetitive and ignorant in your view why don’t you just disable the comments coming to your email and ignore them? It doesn’t follow that just because you have a problem with comments that everyone should be restricted from writing/viewing them.
Furthermore, your explanation doesn’t justify a reason to disable the ratings on your video. Perhaps people will dislike it more for the fact that you disabled the comments, but isn’t that fair and a good indication of what people think about the situation if you did that?
[OT]
knighttyme,
You have a point about the context, and it was my error.
That said (and to quote Hitchens), “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
Because… wait, that’s rhetorical I think. Fuck if I had a real answer besides rampant anti-intellectualism anyway. Even when corrected I get people who insist that it’s somehow giving up the argument when their opponent is the one to prove Godwin’s Law in an online discussion.
——————————
I see a poster is trying to argue that it’s a huge problem signing up here despite the various options for it. If signing up to comment on this blog is too hard for a would-be commenter who desperately needs to let PZ know the opposing view then I’m guessing they wouldn’t have much to add to a real conversation. Not the most persuasive argument, imo.
It doesn’t help Concordance’s own argument when he is attempting to draw analogies between discrimination to shut down minority voices and… whatever the hell YouTube drive-by commenting’s value is in the sphere of public discourse. There’s a difference between dialogue and textual diarrhea.
nms,
I don’t know what Rutee knows or doesn’t know. I am not a mind reader, but since you are telling me what I know I suppose that you are a mind reader. Congratulations on your supernatural abilities!!!
What I can say is that it is very confusing to read a post that quotes multiple people and does not even attempt to source where each of the quotes comes from, either by post number or by name.
It actually took some effort on my part to find out who Rutee was talking to which is really not the most beneficial way for them to engage in a conversation in an environment like this.
I guess from your perspective it is reasonable to expect me to have to do research just to find out who someone is addressing in the midst of a conversation they began by quoting me.
There is a better way to ease the progress of a conversation, and adding elements of confusion doesn’t fall under the banner of “best practices”.
No, you big lunk, Rutee did NOT agree. You have deluded yourself into thinking it’s “mockingly” agreeing, but it’s not – instead, it’s Rutee scolding you (deservedly) for you being unstoppable when you start saying wrong shit.
Boyoboy, I really wouldn’t want to be you when you sober up and realize what a howler you’ve made here.
How many people are going to miss that the problem was that the comments were fucking stupid, and not that they were in his email?
Gonna quote myself
And here is the link to that tag, courtesy A.R.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/category/pointless-poll/
Ooh, ooh, while the Rutee-Ing transformer is battling the StevoR-bot, let me have a go at Thorloar’s little gem here.
The “Ad Mominem” Fallacy deserves a place in the sun. Here is how I think it works:
A: Claim X.
B: Claim X is stupid. Here is why. Also, you are stupid.
A: MOOOOOOOMMMYYYY!!! B is a big meany-pants! Therefore, X is true.
The specific case in point is clearly not an Ad Mominem. I assume this is meant to be a fallacy of the Ad Hominem variety:
1. YouTube Commenters claim PZ should not have kicked thunderfoot out of FTB
2. PZ says all YouTube commenters are “illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant”
3. Therefore their claims are false.
This would indeed be an ad hom, if #3 were PZ’s conclusion, which it is not. Thorloar made that part up. The *actual* conclusion that was drawn by PZ was “Therefore, I do not wish to engage them” – which is not strongly subject to logical analysis, since it’s a matter of PZ’s preference.
John Morales,
Not a problem at all. I am trying to keep track of everything being said and I know it isn’t easy when several new posts keep popping up. So I understand that confusion is part of these things sometimes.
That being said, I also quoted Hitchens on that earlier :) It is one of his best sound bites I think.
John Morales –
Thanks for the suggestion. Never occurred to me to look at another site and port over.
@Rutee Katreya
Wow, you are quite a bitch. I’ve really tried to be generally civil towards you and explain my position. You’re obviously crazy though. You don’t seem to be able to follow anything I’m saying and then are just ranting on about all sorts of random tangents of various isms and drama that seem completely out of context to me while lashing out like a frustrated child.
Nothing in your last comment was even worth replying to point by point. I’m done here.
Yes, supernatural abilities are the only plausible way one might understand what I typed.
Mind, I’m not faulting you for not following, because you seem a run of the mill sort of atheist. I don’t really expect you to be familiar with the concept of ‘free thinker’ as just another code word for spewing asshattery and claiming to be a constrained genius. But it damn well does not take psychic powers to follow this, just context; context which others are familiar with and you are not. ITS LIKE YOU DON’T FUCKING KNOW EVERYTHING.
‘
I’ll grant it’s not the most clear, but you know, most of my posts only quote one person. Presumably, you know what you wrote.
Rutee Says:
“How many people are going to miss that the problem was that the comments were fucking stupid, and not that they were in his email?”
Out of curiosity, have you actually read any of the comments in question?
Or is this a second hand appraisal of their intellectual content?
Here’s a wacky idea: if someone is writing text under a quotation of something that you wrote, there’s a good chance that they’re responding to you. If someone is writing text under a quotation of something someone else wrote, there’s a good chance that they’re responding to that someone else!
Don’t thank me for my insights, this is just part of what I do.
Alright, fair call. I temporarily forgot Hanlon’s razor.
[OT]
knighttyme, thanks.
BTW, that sentiment is not original to Hitchens (cf Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur).
And, more to the point, do you now acknowledge that PZ’s motives are other than those which C0nc0rdance speculatively claimed?
fuckg00gle –
You get your goddamed sexist pig slime out of here. Your kind is not welcome. Don’t come back.
knighttyme,
In particular, my response to Andyo was specifically referencing PZ’s dismissal of Hitchens argument for which PZ presents zero explanation.
Hitchens was speaking in the context of hate speech laws and censorship, not about allowing people onto your property to spew inanities. Thus there is nothing to provide any explanation for.
No-one is being silenced. No-one is being censored. No-one is refusing to hear anyone’s comments. Anyone who wants can speak their mind about PZ’s video. No exceptions. Not a single one.
Therefore Hitchen’s quote is completely and utterly out of context.
You do comprehend context, do you not?
fuckg00gle,
Gendered slurs will get you banned here.
I see that should be noted for thorloar too.
Do not sexist slurs here.
Out of curiosity, have you actually read any of the comments in question?
as someone who finally gave up reading youtube comments because they were almost ALWAYS filled with inane, repetitious, crap, and replaced them with “herp-derp” using a plugin for firefox, I can really say that there is no need.
I know exactly what PZ was talking about, and why he decided to cut the chaff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj3WBfRZ5Nc&feature=youtu.be&t=44s
Not really worried that a chump doesn’t like being called a chump. You got your 3 posts.
aaronham:
1-no one is being restricted. They are easily able to come here and comment.
2-no one has the *right* to comment on a YouTube video.
That plugin really improved my YouTube experience.
[meta]
fuckg00gle attempts to diss Rutee:
I see you can only attempt to insult her, since you cannot rebut her.
(You forgot to write “uppity” in there, BTW)
Yeah, I can see just how hard you’re trying.
I bet you ain’t (I’ve seen your type before).
aaronham,
But PZ, if the comments are so illiterate, repetitive and ignorant in your view why don’t you just disable the comments coming to your email and ignore them?
What would be the point of trying to get people to engage in debate and then not engage them in debate?
It doesn’t follow that just because you have a problem with comments that everyone should be restricted from writing/viewing them.
Who is restricted from writing/viewing comments? You’re not, you just made one, and I just viewed it. Who exactly is being restricted?
Furthermore, your explanation doesn’t justify a reason to disable the ratings on your video.
Internet polls are useless. This has been established multiple times on this site alone. What purpose would keeping ratings active serve?
Perhaps people will dislike it more for the fact that you disabled the comments, but isn’t that fair and a good indication of what people think about the situation if you did that?
I have no idea what you’re trying to get across here.
Ah, now we’re going with hyperskepticism again. Because Youtube having a lot of stupid comments is an extraordinary claim.
Rutee Says:
“I’ll grant it’s not the most clear, but you know, most of my posts only quote one person. Presumably, you know what you wrote.”
Thank you for granting me that much.
Just to elaborate a bit here on this from my perspective. I took time to read through the majority of this thread and saw that you tended to only quote one person.
That is actually why I was very confused when my posts were mixed in with many things I didn’t say. That is why my original impression was that I was being straw manned.
I didn’t want to jump to that conclusion hastily though so I went and did further research to track down where the rest of the quotes came from.
My point has only been that it isn’t conducive to an easy conversation when the participants have to back track where everything originates. Normally the author is expected to cite their sources and where quotes originate.
For someone (not you) to then jump in and call me pathetic for asking the authors here to properly quote people seems rather irrational.
As for the “supernatural ability” comment I made. Please keep in mind that this was in reference to the following statement:
“You know damn well that Rutee is replying to multiple people”
This is a comment from someone telling me what I know.
For them to make this statement with confidence requires them to be able to read my mind and know what I do know and what I don’t know. That is a supernatural ability.
If they were really interested in knowing my thoughts on the subject they could have asked instead of telling me what my thoughts were.
I’m assuming of course that you wouldn’t appreciate anyone here telling you what you think.
“Bitch” might have been used, once, in ignorance. But take into account: “You’re obviously crazy” and “lashing out like a frustrated child” …
fuckg00gle is a perfect example of worthless youtube commenters. Fuck ’em.
Rutee Says:
“Ah, now we’re going with hyperskepticism again. Because Youtube having a lot of stupid comments is an extraordinary claim.”
Nothing of the sort.
I am asking because I have read the comments in question and find PZ’s appraisal to be innaccurate.
So while his claim might not be extraordinary, in this case my opinion is that it isn’t on target.
Based upon your above statement I am left to conclude that you haven’t read the comment thread in question and are simply asserting that the comments were stupid on the basis of someone else’s opinion.
My suggestion to you is to read the posts yourself and form your own opinion.
Maybe you will agree with PZ, maybe you won’t, but at least you will have looked at the evidence for yourself.
That isn’t “hyperskepticism”.
Someone of average intelligence would be capable of realising that multiple people were being addressed. Clearly though you are admitting such cognition is beyond you.
Did you mean to admit you are a bit stupid ?
Don’t tell people what they’ve read and what they haven’t read.
Dude doesn’t know how to take a compliment… or an insult. Google Hanlon’s Razor, and ponder why that might have been invoked.
IF you’d rather, I can assume you’re not capable of reading the entire thread, or of using ctrl-f.
Yeah I can’t imagine why I might only consider this confirmation bias.
It’s not like PZ said every. Single. Comment. in the history of ever was repetitive, ignorant nonsense. But they don’t all have to be, to primarily be repetitive, ignorant nonsense.
I’m not going to wayback machine fucking youtube comments. Get a fucking clue. I don’t give two shiny copper pieces whether or not Concordance has a decent channel. The average on youtube is shit, and it’d only be worse after the ‘FTBullies’ whining by thunderfool.
Right, the expectation that authors properly attribute quotations means that I am stupid.
Is this the amazing level of discourse that is so far superior to the youtube thread that you probably haven’t read?
The person in question even admitted it wasn’t all that clear.
When an author isn’t clear, it is poor form to hold the reader accountable. Please note that I have purposefully left your name off of this post since you are basically asserting that properly addressing who you are talking to is something only stupid people do.
MarkShepard/C0nc0rdance,
Hi, I’m new to your videos, I don’t spend much time on YT, but I’ll check your stuff out. Just thought I’d wave nicely first, hopefully proving we’re not all meanies…well I am a meanie, but I’m a nice one. Okay I’m not! ;-)
There’s only one thing I want to respond to, because frankly the issue of whether or not PZ opens comments on YT or not, or if anyone does, is utterly, spectacularly irrelevant to me.
This from your #41:
And this from your #66:
Is wrong.
Allow me to explain where I’m coming from.
I think you’re wrong about this. I don’t think you’re an idiot, or a noisy moron, or a voice in a mindless cacophony, or a scumbag or a shithead or a….
I don’t know you, I don’t know your work, I am completely neutral with regards to you. In fact my neutrality is tinged with more than a faint whiff of apathy. I say that not to offend, but to set the scene.
If I’m in a debate, a serious, rigorous debate, and there have been a few, I don’t consider my opponents beneath me, or my attention, or contempt because I am engaging with them. I am comfortable differing with people reasonably in so far as people I differ with are being reasonable. And indeed, in so far as I am being reasonable. Sadly I am not a perfect, purely rational Straw Vulcan. I too, have emotions and even occasionally fuck up. I know, it’s amazing, who’d have believed such a thing? ;-)
I’m a research scientist by profession, I get into heated debates (with plenty of lovely, lovely comedy swearing) with my colleagues on occasion, not in a nasty or unprofessional way, but in a passionate way. We have differing views on the next best step to take with some research sometimes. Humans being humans, sometimes the emotional cup runneth over. Never unpleasantly, but often enthusiastically. Are my colleagues idiots? Far from it. Mindless? Nope. Noisy morons? Nope.
Is my best friend’s wife, a devoutly religious woman with a degree in theology, an idiot? Noisy moron? Mindless? Far from it. She and I have the BEST discussions about religion, not least because we agree about so much, but where we differ is fascinating. We love our little wrangles, so much so that when they start, our respective spouses’ eyes roll because they are supremely uninterested and haven’t read the crazy shit that she and I have. So they get to mock us for our passions. It’s all in great fun, not hatred or derision.
So far so peachy.
But what about my personal pet hate, homoeopathy? Ohhh I loathe me some homoeopathy. Hey, my field is chemistry, show me a dose response curve, learn what the fuck Avogadro’s number is…FUCKING HOMOEOPATHY!!!!!! Do I hate homoeopaths? Are all homoeopaths idiots, noisy morons, or mindless? Erm..let me think…phew this is a toughy…oh okay, no.
Is the place for a cadre of homoeopaths (what’s the collective noun for homoeopaths? A dilution of homoeopaths? A there’snothingleftinitit’stheplaceboaffect of homoeopaths?) the front bench and plenary speaker session of a chemistry conference? What can homoeopaths reasonably contribute to the advancement of actual science, of actual chemistry? Sweet Fuck All. The well refuted drivel of the homoeopath is abundantly documented. Whatever reasons they are holding fast to their beliefs are not scientific, they might be rational in some other fashion (defence of status, income, vested interest) based on some different set of priors, but they ain’t scientific. What meaningful contribution can these folks make in this scenario? None. They are, in general, an obstacle to meaningful discourse in this scenario, not an aid to it. Discourse in which one would have to “refresh” the memories of people who didn’t understand GCSE chemistry is not meaningful when trying to have a discussion about the frontiers of science.
Simply and much more concisely put: context matters.
If one is trying to engage in outreach and one wishes to engage with every homoeopath and try to correct their egregious chemical ignorance, then fine, get in there. There is a time and a place for that, it has great value, I support anyone doing this utterly. If one is trying to have a discussion of matters at the very edge of human knowledge then such remedial efforts will be a hindrance.
Those are the poles of the spectrum, there are infinite points in between. Where a particular individual chooses to spend their time and how they choose to spend it is their business. Feel free to criticise it of course, you have every right, and perhaps you may sway them to your method. But it doesn’t have to be so. Everyone doing as you or I do, or as PZ does, would be terribly dull. And worse, remarkably ineffective. When it comes to tactics, let a thousand flowers bloom. Be a pluralist. In this context adopt this strategy, in that context adopt another.
Are all Republicans idiots? Far from it! Do all Republicans view “us” as “noisy morons”? I sincerely doubt it. Citation very much needed, I fear it’s your unchecked and unevidenced assumption that is misinforming you here. Of course some, perhaps even a majority, of people will do this. So what? They’re wrong to do so. More or less of them don’t make ’em righter or wronger.
It’s not a matter of contempt to desire a context for a discussion where the bar is higher, be that slightly or enormously. Or where a different bar is being used. Anyone is free to use YT as far as I am aware, and they are free to use it their way, if PZ doesn’t want to deal with comments, or feel like he has to, or play the ratings game (his views on the value of online polls and their like are well known btw), then he doesn’t have to. You’re free to form your own conclusions, you’re free to have your own opinion, you’re not free to have your own facts.
I support you the exact same way. If PZ was fulminating about your wickedness in engaging with the commentariat of YT, I’d tell PZ he was talking through his arse. You get to decide your priorities and time management just as PZ does. If a number of people look at PZ’s lack (or your abundance) of desire to engage with the YT commentariat as “censorship” (or “stupidity” or whatever), then so what? It doesn’t make it true. PZ’s lack of engagement, or your abundance of it, doesn’t prevent anyone setting up a free message board and a YT account linking to it, or linking it in the comments, or whatever, to discuss the videos with as much praise/condemnation as they desire. What you or I might do in PZ’s position, what we might prefer, is tainted with our own perspective, we’re not IN PZ’s position, nor is he in yours. Be content that people differ.
Louis
Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with “can you attribute your quotations more clearly because I am finding this thread hard to follow”.
The “stop strawmanning me!” post, on the other hand, was not written by someone interested in honest argument. It is vaguely satisfying to me to see that knighttyme has backed away from that post.
Rutee Says:
“Yeah I can’t imagine why I might only consider this confirmation bias.”
I’m not asking you to take my word for it. In fact I am encouraging you NOT to take my word for it.
Go and read for yourself and form your own independent opinion.
It is impossible to have a well reasoned discussion with you on this subject until you have formed your own opinion.
As it stands you are simply parroting PZ’s opinion as if it were fact.
I mean you actually said this:
“problem was that the comments were fucking stupid”
Note that you didn’t say that the problem was that PZ believed the comments were fucking stupid. You stated that they were in fact “fucking stupid” even though you haven’t read them.
You elevated to fact someone elses subjective impression.
Please, go and read them for yourself. Maybe you’ll think that are fucking stupid too, but at least you will have come to that conclusion on your own.
I am not going to wayback machine fucking youtube comments to look at the exact ones PZ got.
On the other hand, if you don’t mean that, I already did. I looked at a couple of pages of comments to the stratosphere jump video, the bieber video on the front page, and now, the video of Mike Teevee’s demise. They’re stupid as shit, and they’re linked in my posts on this page. The ball is now in your court to establish that the youtube comments on PZ’s videos were *not* that stupid.
Yes, I imagine it is difficult when a ‘well-reasoned discussion’ consists of me agreeing with you, and you refuse to actually provide your citation. You better fire up the wayback machine, because I am going to play a fucking lottery, I want one where winning consists of millions of dollars, not a normal conversation.
No, I assumed a well established pattern held. Provide evidence it did not hold, in this specific case, or concede.
I HAVE COME TO A CONCLUSION OF MY OWN, YOU CONDESCENDING ASSHAT. I categorically refuse to run the wayback machine for fucking youtube comments. Present evidence that PZ’s videos didn’t draw comments as bad as normal, or go away.
*not going to play a fucking lottery, rather.
The comments being quoted are from this thread, not elsewhere, and you will have read all the comments on this thread.
No, it just a comment on your inability to follow a thread,
It could have been clearer, but it was hardly unclear.
You would have a valid point were others having the same problem, but they are not. It is poor form to blame others for your stupidity.
Why not just admit you have poor reading comprehension skills ? That way we can make allowances for you. What we won’t do is make allowances for whining arseholes.
Oh, and knighttyme.
It does you no favours to complain about people not attributing comments when you refuse to use blockquotes to improve readability.
knighttyme’s “I am not a mind reader” comment was apparently made because knighttyme is in fact a mind reader, and determined via mind-reading that I would find credible claims of inability to mind-read.
Rutee,
No one asked you to run the wayback machine. That you are getting so irate at the suggestion that you actually examine the evidence for the position you are arguing so strongly for seems really strange to me.
“The ball is now in your court to establish that the youtube comments on PZ’s videos were *not* that stupid.”
This statement doesn’t seem odd to you at all?
It isn’t your job or PZ’s job to establish that the comments were stupid… it is instead my job to establish that the comments were *not* stupid.
Wow… the concept of burden of proof seems to be lost on you. That being said, I will provide some evidence to support my position even though it is technically your job to support the positive claim.
Here is one of the comments from the deleted thread:
“The spirit of the enlightenment is completely compatible with rejecting supernatural claims. Any cursory review of enlightenment writers would confirm that. Surely you aren’t suggesting that the use of the word ‘spirit’ is wrong?
Progressive socio-political views and actions are also completely compatible with enlightenment ideals.
You have conflated so many contradictory positions that you must have trouble following the conversation.”
This is something someone said in the youtube comments. Does this comment seem “fucking stupid” to you?
There are many others like this that are just as reasonable and thoughtful.
“No, I assumed a well established pattern held. Provide evidence it did not hold, in this specific case, or concede.”
I gave you some evidence that the established pattern did not hold in this specific case.
So now should I expect you to concede? Or are you going to shift the goal posts?
Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be
I’m sure most if not all of this has been mentioned already. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to read nearly three hundred comments, especially this early in the morning. PZ, I think C0nc0rdance was well reasoned in posting his video for a number of reasons. Apart from the goading and presumptions about your motives for closing comments, he asked questions which deserve a little attention. I’m not sure why you were compelled to post such an irritable response, but I’m glad you responded. As a YouTuber and blogger, I understand the issue from both perspectives.
Regarding the shutting down of your YT comments, I doubt C0nc0rdance meant to offend you with his tactical comparison to creationists. While that may well have BEEN offensive, the closing of comments is something we very rarely see on YT (“we” should be read “members of the so-called YouTube atheist community”), except in cases of videos which cannot stand up to criticism. I understand how annoying it is to receive repetitive trash in the comments, trust me. However, most of the time, my regular viewers will correct the stupidity before I even see it. In other cases, especially those in which people are posting threats or attempting to pass personal information, I reserve the right to delete comments. Granted, I receive far fewer comments than you, and I am aware that the challenge grows along with the number of comments.
The YouTube comments are only un-moderated if you prefer. You can set comments to approval only, allowing for direct moderation. You can also change your email settings to have YT cease sending you comment notifications. Under these conditions, you are able to directly moderate your comments at your leisure. They will simply sit there until you choose to deal with them by logging into your account.
Content providers on YouTube have had to deal with a lot of censorship in the recent past, and when a user closes down comments, accusations of silencing criticism are inevidible. I understand that was not your intent, but it just adds fuel to the fire, creating further controversy amongst your detractors. I realize you stated that your final word on the matter was that you intended to leave comments closed, but I ask that you at least consider changing your comments setting from “do not allow comments” to “allow comments with approval only” (which you can do as a default setting for all uploads -OR- on an individual video), and turning off the “email me when comments are posted in response to my videos” setting. That way, everyone will be happy. YouTubers (many of whom also read Pharyngula, contrary to your post’s implications) will not be as irate as they are with no comments allowed, and you will not have do moderate your comments until you so choose.
Just a thought! Hope you are well.
-Modias
Matt Penfold Says:
“It does you no favours to complain about people not attributing comments when you refuse to use blockquotes to improve readability.”
I’m unfamiliar with how to do that, but I’m willing to learn.
I actually want people to have an easy time reading what I write. To the extent that I fail is to the extent that I am at the limits of my knowledge on a particular subject.
If you’re willing to teach me how to blockquote here I’m willing to do it.
You think expecting PZ to have to moderate another forum, on top of producing content and moderating this one, and on top of his teaching commitments is reasonable do you ? Were no other forum to respond to the videos available you might have a point. However PZ actually provides a link to this blog.
Not half as strange as the dude insisting the facts absolutely, positively agreeing with him, refusing to do it himself, when he is also sure he will like the content of the comments.
That is on *THUNDERFOOL’S* channel, for one, and yes, I did actually read through the comments that were linked on Thunderfool’s blog for a bit. They are primarily *stupid as shit*.
*Head desk* Great, another one trying to regress to the youtube mean.
Look, wise-ass, you’re not proving anything by showing there are occasional non-stupid comments on youtube, because it wasn’t said EVERY SINGLE COMMENT IN THE HISTORY OF EVER was stupid. The bulk are stupid. And they will continue to be stupid. And it’s not fucking worth it to PZ, and on that note, I fucking agree.
You’re not proving anything about PZ’s youtube video comments by quoting thunderfool’s, you titanic idiot. Granted, I wrote that because I was expecting you to try Concordance’s. That is why I specified the fucking wayback machine.
It tells you, above where you type your comments.
modiasmaclir:
Did you note that PZ has closed comments on YouTube but provided a link here, where anyone can comment?
(Has your criticism been silenced?)
Rutee Says:
“I did actually read through the comments that were linked on Thunderfool’s blog for a bit. They are primarily *stupid as shit*.”
Well I’m glad that you formed your own opinion.
I’m actually surprised that you believe the comments in the youtube thread were “primarily stupid as shit”, and yet hold that the comments here are of a higher caliber.
I’ve read both and my opinion is that the level of stupidity/intelligence in both is comparable.
Since there is such an abundance of stupid posts there, would you mind providing some evidence of what they are so I can know what you are talking about specifically?
[OT]
knighttyme, thus:
<blockquote>that which is quoted</blockquote>
yields
hmmmm… it seems like I need to work on it a little more.
:)
Just a note: there isn’t a single “YouTube comments”. It really depends on the type of video and the number of active commenters. Trying to have a discussion of videos with millions of view is like trying to have a debate with 10000 people simultaneously. Channels with say up to 25 000 subscribers often have productive discussion in the comments (point-counterpoint, linking to actual data, articles etc.) and many channels moderate to remove trolls or stop derailing of discussion.
As for the accountability, I’m not really sure about that. Compared to pharyngula comments for instance there is response-driven threading and you get notified of comment replies (on pharyngula this works horribly), whereas on a blog comment system like ftb is mostly set up it’s easy to just “fire and forget” and for drawn-out discussions to get split up by all the other contributions.
Mainly it’s a different format – large amounts of rubbish, but it’s just plain false to say it’s impossible to have a discussion there, or to influence someone’s opinion.
Higher caliber than what? Average? I consider that a low bar.
It’s like you’re trimming 99.9% of youtube off to begin with, in restricting yourself solely to thunderfool. But sure, I’ll humor you.
I’ll start with you, since you seem to think thunderfool’s channel says jack shit about what PZ should expect to see. That is a fucking stupid line of thought, and it only gets stupider when I look back over your posts and realize you *intended* for me to use thunderfool’s channel as the baseline, when I was not only not using any one person’s followers for that baseline (and was explicit in this, because I explicitly granted the possibility that any one person’s followers could deviate from the norm) but also stated an outright aversion to thunderfool. You’re part of his community first, I feel pretty safe in putting that on there, not here.
Moving right along though? How about this gem.
Confusing “Not dealing with your asshattery” with “ZOMG CREATIONISM AND BAD IDEAS”. That says *GREAT* things about your community. And that’s from the leader, not the commentariat.
There’s this drivel. Half of it is fucking word salad, for Madogoddess’ sakes. It’s poorly written, and a baseless assertion to boot.
Immediately following that is the not horrid one you quoted.
More drivel. It’s like people don’t know that words have more than one meaning.
References to ‘political dogmas’, yet another asshatted attempt to get the ‘forms in triplicate’ stupidity across (while failing to realize the original point was fucking stupid)… I can forgive the nitpicking on it being plaigairism pretty easily, ironically… right up until the use of creationists as a total bogeyman. Not saying that doesn’t happen here over relatively trivial things, but I hardly say this place is perfect, do I? Someone pointing out that ‘obtaining consent would ruin the moment’ is fucking rapey before defense of that phrase, “FREETHOUGHT MEANS FREEZE PEACH”…
Fucking christ, just to assuage your guilt? Get the fuck over it, I think your community is rock-stupid.
Oh lord as I scroll down it only gets more stupid. This was the community you thought was going to save youtube’s honor or whatever?
YOUTUBE IS TOTES MCGOTES AN AWESOME PLACE WITH GENERALLY AWESOME CONVERSATIONS YO.
[meta]The funny thing is, these last two posts are unlikely to help my case that I am not Ing. Though, general posting style aside, we also tends towards very different turns of phrase XD
Epic thread! Thanks Rutee, Louis et al.
That comment(*)is one of the top rated comments on the video by C0nc0rdance. That is, it has been voted on by other viewers of the video.
It is not the only stupid comment.
Out of the first ten comments (at the time of writing), all those are really very stupid indeed.
*. To be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wmMXiqbD9Dc
Here’s a comment that has just been posted.
Thunderfoot levels of stupidity there.
knighttyme
Just above the comments block there is a section called Allowed Tags. That gives you the basic coding for opening a tag like blockquotes.
To close a tag, for example the blockquote, you type </blockquote>
Matt Penfold:
Kind of derped out on completing the tags for block quote above. Sorry about that. Reference made to Matt Penfold’s comment #306.
modiasmaclir said:
Who are you quoting there ?
If is a reply from you to me, I will have to ignore it, since the first sentence is patently untrue.
Rutee,
I haven’t restricted myself in the manner you have suggested.
First of all, it is very important to note that the comment by =8)-DX highlights something that is often easily overlooked.
Just like FTB has a community. There isn’t exactly a youtube community persay so much as there are individual youtube channel communities.
The type of discussion you are bound to get will vary widely depending upon which videos you are looking at and whose channel you are on.
The discussion you might see on the latest viral video is NOT the same type of discussion you will see on a video about the higgs boson. As a result, when you say I am trimming 99.9% of youtube off, it suggests that you haven’t taken these important factors into account.
All we need to know is about the type of people who would be drawn into a discussion on PZ’s youtube channel. That list of people probably doesn’t include 99.9% of people watching youtube videos. Just to put things in perspective the gangnam style video has close to 500 million views at the moment whereas the Concordance video referenced in this thread has around 7000 views right now. The people who are interested in this type of thing on youtube really represent an extremely small subset of viewers. In fact, they probably represent less than the 0.1% you’ve granted in your above estimate.
Why exactly are those 99.9% of youtube users relevant in a discussion about a set of videos they have probably never seen, probably never will see, and probably have no interest in watching?
It is more odd that you’d want to include them in this discussion than my position that they are irrelevant to the discussion here. This is precisely why your generalized case of youtube comments does not make for a good argument.
We aren’t talking about a representative sample of the youtube community. This is a self selected sample of individuals interested in atheism, skepticism and science education.
It stands to reason that this group of people might post higher quality comments than the average youtube viewer. However, you’ve ignored all of this.
You also seem to be misunderstanding something. I don’t believe those comments are from “thunderfool’s channel” (incidentally, can’t we all just be adults here and call people by their names… those whole thunderfool thing seems childish to me). My understanding is that those comments were from PZ’s channel, but that thunderfoot saved them prior to deletion.
As a result they would represent the actual posts that got deleted. I’m open to my interpretation being incorrect on this, but I’m fairly confident I got things right.
In any case, I don’t actually consider myself part of any internet community. I’m more of an independent agent and just read and listen to things that suit my intellectual interests (most of which are science related). As a result I’m probably not as biased on this issue as you might think. Something that may have gone over your head is that part of the reason I hold Concordance in such high regard is precisely because he doesn’t engage in the type of agressive behavior that some other youtube people engage in. He strikes me as being above that kind of thing which I can appreciate.
Just to get things straight though. You ask me to provide evidence that the comments on PZ’s thread weren’t “fucking stupid” and I offer you one. I ask you to provide evidence to me that the comments were “fucking stupid” and you quote Thunderfoot in his own blog post???
What exactly does that have to do with the details of this argument?
Are you suggesting that if Thunderfoot says something “fucking stupid” on his blog, that means that the quoted comments somehow acquire a portion of that stupidity by being close to his words?
Your argument doesn’t make any sense.
Furthermore, one of the comments you quoted as being drivel included the following:
I’d think it would be painfully obvious to you that this individual is complaining about the very same fallacy you were complaining about earlier.
Namely that gaining popularity doesn’t improve the quality of ones arguments.
It is very ironic that you would not call drivel that which you were personally stating just earlier tonight in different words.
Like I said, the quality of the comments that were deleted are no better nor worse than the ones here. You personally pointed to a post and declared it to be one of the “fucking stupid” comments when it’s content was identical to your own points earlier.
Never before have I seen such an obvious situation of the pot calling the kettle black.
There is no such thing as a completely unmoderated forum on YouTube. Users can rate specific comments and comments that receive too many negative votes are not displayed. Also, channel owners can delete specific comments. Can you explain why you disabled ratings?
John Morales:
I did note just such a link and, as mentioned in my reply to Matt Penfold above, my suggestions were primarily aimed at alleviating misplaced vitriol over the mistaken notion that PZ is silencing criticism. Regarding your second question, I’m sure it goes without saying that I at no point accused PZ of silencing criticism. Rather, I pointed out why I believe others may be under that mistaken impression, and subsequently (three times now, I believe) pointed out the mistaken nature of the accusation of criticism silencing.
Can you explain why you have not read the thread ?
However the answer is because such ratings are meaningless. Do you have anymore questions to which you cannot be bothered to find the answer ?
PZ has a youtube account. I also have a youtube account. I think most of the people in this comments have a youtube account. I still concluded that most youtube commenters are awful people with short attention span and no argumentation skills. In my case, I made this conclusion after a long attempt to argue with some of them.
I’ll guess it is the free hosting of easily accesible and visible videos that does not force you to enable the comments and/or rating.
That is one approach. Another approach is to disable youtube comments.
What is the point of youtube comments? To me, it would be to allow the creator receive feedback on the video. If the creator does not read the comments, then the comments are just a worthless pity forum for sad people that are not going to deliver feedback to the author. It would be very pointless.
Matt Penfold:
Please see comment #324. I failed to end the blockquote, and thereby left out the content from your comment #306 I had intended to include. Sorry about that… Further, you may of course ignore whatever you like, but the sentence is not untrue. My post was a suggestion, and if it implied expectations (which is hard to imagine, in that I clearly indicated that I was aware PZ’s final word was that he intended to keep YT comments closed, but that I requested that he consider changing his mind), I apologize for my apparent lack of clarity. Would you care to respond to the referenced comment, post sentence #1?
And if it was to have an intelligent discussion about a video, the commenting tools available at YouTube are ill-equipped for such thing. The tools for commenting at FtB are not always brilliant, but they far exceed those at YouTube.
And also, why split a discussion between two forums ? It means more work for PZ. I have no idea how he finds time to eat and sleep as it is.
keithroragen, #327,
I cannot speak for PZ, obviously, but since my (and others’) point about the ratings thing might have been buried elsewhere I’ll reiterate:
PZ is well known for viewing internet polls as being so open to manipulation and abuse as to be useless. The ratings system is simply another (even more ambiguous) form of such a “poll”. Not enabling the ratings function is pretty much in line with his very public and well known stance on these sorts of things.
Whether or not you or I like that, accept that, or indeed welcome that is up to us. It’s irrelevant to anything or anyone else.
If I were a betting man (I’ll give you odds on that I am), my money would be on that being at least part of the reason for PZ disabling/choosing not to enable that function.
If I’m wrong I’m sure PZ will take the time out of his incredibly busy day to hunt me down and eviscerate me for being Wrong On The Internet. Of course, the vague possibility exists that he has better things to do, and as a proper grown up and everything doesn’t have to justify his every move to each pontificating, entitled driveller that pops up in some comment thread.
Although since I am really important (my mummy told me so) I expect a reply from him, duly signed and notarised, within the next few hours or I will chuck a strop and hold my breath until I turn blue. It’s possible I may even stamp my foot.
Louis
So saying to PZ he should spend his time moderating another forum is not telling him how to spend his time ?
Please stop being quite so transparent in your lack of honesty.
You know, in all of this discussion I have yet to see anyone provide a good reason to *allow* comments or ratings on their YouTube videos.
“Providing others with a place to exercise their right to free speech” doesn’t really strike me as particularly useful. Not while there are plenty of places to do that outside of ‘comments’ sections; anyone can create and post a YouTube video of their own, for example.
The only reasons I see to allow ratings and/or comments would be to (1) try to increase visibility of your video (ratings) or (2) engage with the people who comment on your video (comments). If you don’t care about (1), and have decided that (2) is more trouble than it’s worth (for whatever reason), then what possible arguments could be made to convince you to allow such ‘feedback’?
Questioning the motives of anyone who decides to disallow comments or ratings on their own videos just doesn’t seem particularly insightful or interesting. Perhaps someone can explain the appeal to me. Are the motives of those who choose to allow ratings and comments, and those who choose to not moderate comments not just as worthy of dissection? Which in my mind is to say, “not very worthy at all outside of a comparison along some meaningful axis of all strategies”.
And just how is it an infringement of anyone’s freedom of speech that rather than comment on YouTube itself, they are directed to another forum ? And one that is better equipped for having an intelligent discussion of the video.
To argue that is an infringement on anyone’s rights is incredible, and indicates a person with a self-regard verging on narcissism.
Skipped your teal deer comment as idiocy.
Yeah, and I acknowledged that, and was pretty specific that I could believe individuals had a better community without believing it reflected on the wider reality of Youtube.
Yeah, I ignored all of this because it’s standard atheist stupidity. I’ve seen no evidence that atheists are much better at anything on skepticism that wasn’t easy. Even pruning out the atheists who don’t innately consider themselves skeptics, I haven’t seen much to indicate they’re really better at anything except some hard science education.
For fuck’s sake, in 2012 the atheist/skeptic community had to have extended conversations on whether or not to include harrassment policies for their conventions, with fucking huge hissyfits over them existing at all. Because their skeptical mastery had lead them to the conclusion that sexual harrassment was an overblown problem and I CAN TOUCH TITTIES DAMN YOU.
You know who had harrassment policies since before I was born? Nerds. Comi-con had a harrassment policy before my birth. I believe A-con and AWA did too, though I may be thinking of different cons. Nerd conventions have had this shit figured out for decades. And you want me to think these idiots are somehow likely better than average for youtube? You fucking wish. They use bigger words, but you think I think this shit is better than youtube average, well, spoiler alert…
Thunderfool’s commentariat respects him and predominantly agrees with him, so stupid shit he says, especially on a regular basis, reflects poorly on his followers as a whole, because they mostly *AGREE* with that stupid shit. I think the same of stupid shit PZ writes (I consider it less frequent, but hardly nonexistent) and the commentariat here.
Are you a fucking robot, or an idiot? 99.9 means I don’t want to write more 9s, not that I actually think it’s .1% of the traffic on youtube. Even that tiny amount in % is a huge number of hits.
YEs, that thing I didn’t say doesn’t make sense. Congratulations, I concede this point.
Whatever you need to do to maintain your internal freethinker cred. BTW, since you seem to default to the assumption of the supernatural, it’s called inference. I won’t be surprised if I’m wrong, but…
It seems you did, my bad. So all these stupid comments that were posted yesterday are from PZ’s videos. These stupid comments I think are ludicrously stupid. This is what PZ doesn’t want to be posted on the internet. Oh. Noes. Little of value was lost.
It’s like I think you’re fucking wrong or something. Jesus, did you actually read any of the string of stupid feminism comments I just posted?
…
No, he isn’t complaining about the same fallacy. He is referring, poorly, to the act of trying to *become* the most popular, not the act of appealing to a popular ideal as therefore the correct one. You are really reaching, and failing. If that’s what you’ve got for your comparison, you might as well leave now. Actually, do that anyway.
Can you read? I quoted like 7 comments frmo that blog, and referred to another 4 or 5.
I’d be a liar if I said I’d seen someone grasping at straws to make this kind of comparison, but it’s usually about broader groups. “Oh you feminists are just as bad as misogynists, etc etc”.
Er… ok there’s some word salad in that last paragraph of #335. I hope my meaning is clear, though…
Jeez.
He did say he doesn’t like youtube comments. Is there any reason at all for him to enable something that he does not like? Youtube comments are a service youtube gives to authors that has an opt-out feature in case the author does not like them.
Matt Penfold,
Out of curiosity, I’m interested in your thoughts about the following.
I think it is fair at this point to assert that both PZ and many of those who frequent FTB do not hold those of the youtube community in high intellectual regard. Based upon what has been written in this thread it seems to me that the general consensus would be that including the youtube community people in the discussions here can only have a deleterious effect upon the quality and intelligence of the comments.
This being said, doesn’t it seem strange and counterproductive to shut down all comments on his youtube channel in order to encourage that same population who leave primarily “fucking stupid” comments to all come flocking over here?
If they really are as awful as some people here say, wouldn’t it make much more sense to sequester the “mob” to the “cesspit of the internet” as PZ calls it?
If the intent isn’t to silence anyone, but rather to draw them over here, I am left to wonder why anyone would have that as their goal. It seems remarkably similar to complaining about the insect infestation in the dumpsters outside your apartment building so to fix it you fumigate the dumpsters and encourage all the vermin to come into your apartment by sprinkling sugar on the floor.
Most people would be much happier with the vermin safely sequestered in the dumpster far away from where they eat, sleep, and shower.
As a result I’m not actually convinced that people here actually think the youtube is so bad OR they believe they are really bad, but recognize that removing their ability to comment in the environment they feel comfortable expressing themselves will likely prevent them from expressing their thoughts anywhere on the subject.
Why exactly is this a laudable goal? If they are as bad as some people here suggest let them annoy one another, at least it will keep them out of your hair, right?
The problem I have with all this is that it doesn’t seem like the logical response to the problem being described.
Well judging from the vast number of idiotic comments at youtube, I’m betting the extra step of having to come here will filter much of them out.
Much of them, not all of them.
And if someone really has something of value to say then they’ll make the extra effort to come here and say it.
Assumes the youtube cesspit isn’t utterly lazy.
But here is how it works. In pharyngula, PZ has dealt and deals with a fair amount of trolls and idiots. But PZ has the advantage that he has control over the rules in this blog and can perma-ban people and find sockpuppets.
And of course, the lowest bunch of youtube commenters do not have the brain cells to process the higher amount of steps needed to comment in this blog. Most wouldn’t even find the link, they would limit themselves to rage at the video and then find out comments are not allowed and then will skip to the next video they can troll in.
knighttyme, I agree. Providing a place to comment to people you don’t ever want to hear from with isn’t logical.
So, you’d have no problem if PZ had *not* provided a link to his blog, in case there were people who were genuinely interested in discussion?
I suspect one/some/all of your
assumptions“assertions” are incorrect.*I’d be a liar if I said I’d never seen someone grasping at straws…
And for fuck’s sake, TREKKIES, in the FUCKING SEVENTIES, were better at race and gender (No matter how much people like to pretend it’s all dudes), than atheists are NOW. And this asshat wants me to accept the proposition that atheists are somehow ‘better’ than the norm? Fool, I expect LESS of atheism than I do the general community, except on some matters of science.
Madogoddess above, if there was proof the world does not need an atheist movement, it’s the fucking atheist movement.
Hi PZ,
How DARE you not allow everyone in your home whenever they want to come in.
You’re not taking anyone’s FoS away. You can run your channel the way you want, otherwise there would be no option to run it that way.
Matt Penfold:
Matt, I am only trying to carry the discussion forward. I think it is pretty obvious that I agree with most of your comment #306. The part I don’t agree with is the bit wherein you accuse me of having expectations of Dr. Myers. I did not say I expected him to do anything, but made a suggestion. The beauty of the suggestion I made is contained in the following:
In spite my having created a post clearly lacking in the expectations department, I apologized for any ambiguity, made clear that I had no expectations of PZ, and indicated that I respect the fact that how he uses his time is completely up to him:
If he doesn’t have time to employ my suggestion (weird, to me the word “suggestion” doesn’t even remotely resemble the much different word “expectation”), then he won’t.
It seems to me that you have misread my post. The expectation you seem determined to will upon my comment is non-existent. I have apologized for your having read it that way…
…and for the sake of thoroughness, allow me to reiterate: I did not mean to indicate that I have expectations regarding the use of time, for any purpose, by PZ Myers. If I implied otherwise, doing so was a mistake, and I apologize. If I did not imply otherwise but was mistakenly and repeatedly accused of implying otherwise, even after having apologized for my apparent lack of clarity, I apologize.
Does that make sense? Do you understand that I have no expectations of PZ (and in fact find it presumptuous to have expectations of anyone, apart from myself and those who report to me professionally)? Do you understand that, if my post implied expectations it was unintentional, and has repeatedly been apologized for?
I hope we can draw a line under that bit and move forward. I have, at no point, been dishonest. What are your intentions here, Matt? Do you wish to carry on berating me about something external to reality, or are you willing to accept my apologies and move forward? If not, could you at least misrepresent my original post in some other way? I think we’re all done with the expectation nonsense, yes?
Exactly.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out how this commenter has made my argument for me.
Also, occasionally people have suggested that I install a comment rating plugin here. I will not. All you yt newbies: imagine coming here and finding that instead of people arguing with you, all the Horde regulars simply dismissed you with a single click. Would you find that persuasive?
I was dismissed with a single click once.
I got better.
Louis
I do a fair bit of public speaking, and those who know me know I like and encourage Q&A afterwards — I have a reputation for being willing to allow Q&A to go on for hours.
YouTube is like a Q&A in which you just tell the audience to shout out questions and comments, and you get total chaos — answers are drowned out, no one tries to listen, and even in their arguments defending the system, people are telling me to just ignore the noise as a strategy for dealing with it.
While I prefer a more orderly system which requires a tiny bit of effort on everyone’s part: taking turns, asking questions, and paying attention to the discussion. That’s what this is. If you prefer inchoate noise, stick to YouTube — I have no problem with that. But I want a tiny bit more order.
And again for mikepaps comment 127
I woke up went to my last comment last night and the posts written while i was sleeping. Easy as that.
Also thanks to the others for again pointing out to curious cat that since pz provides an alternate commenting venue his objection was moot.
PZ Myers:
I hope you’ll read my comment #304 regarding a potential solution, but I agree with your decision not to allow comment ratings on FtB. I don’t like the feature’s presence on YouTube, especially its facilitation of the hiding of comments, given a particular number of “down thumb” ratings (25, if memory serves). I’m also not sure why C0nc0rdance was so upset about your having disabled ratings. I understand his criticism regarding the closure of video comments, and agree with that point to a degree, but why was he so annoyed about disabled ratings? Ratings merely help determine the video’s “rank”, and influences the likelihood of its showing up as a related video in the sidebar.
By the way, my suggestion in comment #304 is just that: a suggestion. It is not intended to demonstrate an expectation. I feel that it would be completely out of place for me to have expectations regarding the manner in which you use your undoubtedly limited free time, and I felt the same way whilst composing the above referenced comment. This lengthy caveat may seem stupid and unnecessary. A reading of the comments replying to #304 will reveal the necessity of the caveat.
modiasmaclir, you have offered some reasons for PZ to follow your ‘suggestions’, which I’d like to summarize here, just so I can understand what the arguments in favour of a particular user allowing comments or ratings on their video. So please correct me if any of these are gross misinterpretations of what you’ve said.
1. Closing of comments is rare on YouTube videos related to atheism. (…and so… um…? oh, this leads to the rest I guess…)
2. Allow comments to avoid criticism of wanting to avoid criticism. (wait, what?)
3. Regular viewers will correct stupid things in the comments, so you should allow people to say stupid things in the comments. Oh, but…
3a. You can moderate/delete comments! yay! and
3b. You can delay comments until you have time to choose which ones you’d like to allow!
(…and *poof* go the accusations of censorship! right? people who make those accusations sure are a bright bunch, aren’t they?)
4. Allow comments to avoid accusations of censorship. (…from people who don’t know what ‘censorship’ means, apparently. Or who claim a right to be free from criticism themselves. Am I warm?)
5. Allow comments to avoid angering your detractors. (Those pesky critics again! Wouldn’t want to anger people who get angry at being told they can’t comment in a video’s comments section!)
Finally, please explain how any of those ‘concerns’ cannot be better addressed by providing a link to an alternative location (like, say, a blog) where anyone can post a comment.
Has anyone else noticed that you can distinguish most of the YouTube commenters from everyone else by their non-reading of the thread, repeating the same drivel, inability to read for comprehension, and rusty (or nonexistent) debate skills? You cannot have a reasoned debate with someone who is accustomed to simply blithering out their thoughts and running.
Fixed that for you, taking out your presupposed fallacy. That is your problem, you think outside of the facts.
I’m just making wild assumptions here but what if there is a correlation between one’s ability to articulate sensible information and willingness to debate seriously and hir realization that this cannot be done in a youtube-comment format?
I have nothing to back that up obviously, except maybe the resulting majority of commenters on youtube.
Oh, also, there was the suggestion that I moderate my youtube comments.
Did you know I tried that? There were a number of recognizable slymepitters there making their usual kneejerk hate comments, and I blocked them. Guess what the response was?
Yep, howls of “CENSORSHIP!” “How dare you!” “You can’t handle criticism!”
So even that approach is condemned by the youtube “community”.
Rutee,
You really seem to be holding a great many people in contempt and I’m not sure I fully understand why.
There isn’t really a very compelling reason to believe that any heterogeneous group will be substantially “better” than any another heterogeneous group. It was sort of a long standing conceit amongst the atheist/skeptic community that they were “better” than the groups they criticized. Hopefully they are learning that the quality of a person is best assessed by personal interaction rather than labels.
As for the whole harassment policy thing, I watched that with some bewilderment how that all transpired. I believe that you are mischaracterizing the opposition to your position in that case, but that unfortunately appears be me a part of your rhetorical style. I don’t remember anyone saying something akin to a demand that they be allowed to grope anyone, but at the same time the resistance to the development of good common sense policies seemed unnecessary. Needless to say, as an outsider the whole thing appeared to me to play out like most political controversies with each side trying to demonize each other and a very precious few acting as voices of reason… but I digress.
Exactly how did we get onto this subject by the way?… it feels like it has very little to do with the subject at hand, so what was the purpose of bringing it up? In any event, I have friends who go every year to the comic conventions and have a blast so I’m glad to hear that they have nice policies in place.
As far as bloggers and youtubers saying stupid things, why should that be a surprise anymore than any other person saying something stupid. One thing to remember is that there is nothing inherently special about PZ or Thunderfoot that prevents them from occasionally saying stupid things or allowing their egos to get in the way of rational thought. As a matter of fact, I think Thunderfoot and PZ share some character flaws that I wish both of them would work on… in particular I find them each to be a bit too aggressive and a bit too stubborn. That being said I have no delusions of grandeur, I’ve got my own set of character flaws to contend with.
One thing we disagree on though is that I don’t think it is fair to hold someone accountable for what someone else says. For example, if my political representative says something bone headed and stupid, I see no reason for why I should have to be associated with it. I should only be responsible for the stupid things I say… in the interest of fairness though I’d like credit for any intelligent thing I might happen to come up with. I feel like these are reasonable standards to hold everyone too. You are no more responsible for the stupid things PZ might say than you deserve credit for the brilliant insights he might have.
You’re not going to win any points with me by being an ass. For the record, that is a false dichotomy. Being a “fucking robot” or an “idiot” are not my only two options.
You have a nasty habit of failing to be clear in what you write and then pitching a fit when someone who doesn’t know you is unable to perfectly decipher your meaning. Need I remind you that you have time and time again failed to comprehend the meaning of what I’ve said? I mean, you accused me of being part of a community that I’m not actually part of on the basis of nothing but your idle speculation… does this make you an “idiot”?
Or is your definition of an idiot include things like taking someone at their word and not speculating further, but being smart is jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions based upon nothing more than a personal hunch?
Why can’t we just be two humans trying to have a conversation and recognizing that communication in this environment isn’t perfect?
Right… so you completely and utterly miscomprehend the context of an argument and it’s simply “my bad”… but I take you at your word when you meant something slightly different and you want to classify me as a robot or an idiot?
Show a little humility will you. If we were to compare the degree of our mutual screw ups, mine would be minor, while yours completely missed the point.
If you were consistent you would have at least referred to yourself as an idiot, right?
I don’t expect perfection from you though, so no worries.
I did, but I find your interpretation to be very lacking because you have failed to explain WHY those posts are being classified as “stupid”.
Exactly what is “stupid” about the comment where someone is expressing admiration for PZ’s work and classifying Thunderfoot as pedantic?… I’d think that you would be in agreement with this post.
Exactly what is “stupid” about the comment where the person self identifies as a humanist and agrees that everyone should be treated equally?… What exactly is “stupid” about this kind of a sentiment?
Exactly what is “stupid” about someone commenting that their own personal experience suggests to them that harassment is not something they find particularly concerning?… This is a retelling of their own perspective, sharing their own experience, how is that “stupid”?
I’ll grant you that the first comment is rather ill-informed. Homeopathy does not rank above ANY academic discipline.
As a result, of the all the posts you selected you pretty much only found one that I think can be genuinely classified as “stupid”. That doesn’t bode well for your argument.
I think you are defining “stupid” to mean any opinion that is expressed in such a way that you don’t like it. Unfortunately, there are probably thousands of highly intelligent things written out there that you won’t agree with. In fact there are thousands of highly intelligent ideas which have been expressed that we know to be flat out wrong. For something to be “smart” it doesn’t have to fit within your personal and narrow perspective.
Just as an example of what I mean. Many if not most of the concepts we teach to freshman chemistry students are flat out wrong. However those same concepts are expressed in an intelligent way and when utilized appropriately can help students develop chemical intuition.
The same is true for social issues. Someone can express something you deem to be flat out wrong and it can still be expressed in an intelligent manner. You are way to trigger happy with the stupid gun.
Anyway, I’ve enjoyed chatting and need to focus on more productive things now, take good care.
And there are people who take him seriously after that?
PZ: And you thought they wouldn’t come!
knighttyme
Allow me to jump in to see if I can assist here.
The last paragraph of that comment.
The claim that feminism is somehow *not* about equality.
The denial of the existence of a problem that has been shown to exist.
Hm, perhaps yo’re right. Rutee should probably have specified that the comments quoted are either stupid or lies.
*shows up shitfaced drunk in the middle of the third quarter*
*makes inconvenient, obnoxious, and stumbling way to the middle of the row, sloshing beer on people and stepping on toes*
*waves pennant*
LET”S GO BLOGOSPHERE!
HOLD THAT LINE!
RAH!
SIS! BOOM! BAH!
So I wasn’t gonna bring this up, but since StevoR dragged in sth from another thread (and seriously, accusing Ing and Rutee to be the same person? Really? The mind boggles, what have you done all these years being on this blog…), let me address that and also at the same time what andyo said:
Actually, andyo, many here do know StevoR, and they do know him to espouse genocidal and racist ideas. Unless he has publicly retracts and apologises for his past behaviour, I’m not gonna take seriously what he has to say on almost anything. (But usually I refrain from saying that every time he speaks on an unrelated topic, but since he brought up some other thread I know nothing about, I felt like it was appropriate to bring up this aspect of his commenting personality. Apologies if this was a violation of the rules)
@84, Stevarious, Public Health Problem
wow Stevarious you sound like one tough big mouth.
run frenchie out of there–who needs attempted dialogue. Seems there are many hypocrites and fools trying to be the boss of the blog.
Keep it up and soon all you will have are folks what agree with you–is that what you want.
“Did you really just say this, after making a dozen comments insisting that PZ should be obligated to do exactly that? Keep a forum for the commentary open against his desires? You are a hypocrite and a fool.”
My youtube account won’t let me post comments unless I agree to vote for Ron Paul.
BTW I wouldn’t put up with the crappy comments either. fuck’em, shut’em down.
You keep saying this, and keep offering technical solutions to managing the amount of work that the noise creates. You don’t seem to realize that it’s not the amount of work involved that is the issue, it’s that PZ is fundamentally disagreeing with the method of communication of youtube comments. He is saying that the type of information gathered by youtube comments is not useful. Youtube comments boil down to either “you’re awesome!” or “you suck!”, and that’s not the kind of discourse he is interested in having. That is not something that needs a technical fix. Collecting shit efficiently is still collecting shit.
He complains that you have to register to comment here? But you don’t have to register to comment here. All I do is click the little Google icon and select the Google account I want to use. And if I don’t want to do that I can use a number of different accounts to comment here. Meanwhile to comment on YouTube I have to have a Google account and I have to use it. So it seems to me that it’s actually easier to comment here.
Also, yes, YouTube comments are generally a cesspool of worthless crap. There is actually a YouTube community, or rather, a number of YouTube communities, with each channel generally having its own community, with considerable overlap. But even on the channels with the best communities of viewers who make great comments and are very active, there are still very few people reading each other’s comments because there’s too much noise in the comments and too many pages to sift through. For every useful and intelligent comment there are pages and pages of misogynist trolls, bros, and First!s. Not to mention creationists. And that’s on videos that have nothing to do with religion or feminism. It’s amazing how the misogynists and creationists both have the ability to take a comment thread that is completely unrelated to their pet issue and twist it around to fit their crap in.
Ibbica:
Quite. Not at all a misrepresentation of my post. The thing you must understand is that my intention in making that post (#304) was in hopes of helping PZ understand why so much grumbling was being aimed at him for closing moderation on YouTube, in light of the fact that doing so on FtB is not unusual in cases of the idiotic outweighing the constructive. It is not my intention to defend YouTube, nor the assumptions made by YouTube users with regard to closing comment moderation. An explanation of the grumbling’s source, not a defense of it.
Well, I think I said those who regularly view my videos correct the stupid things in comments. If not, that’s what I meant. I also acknowledged that PZ’s videos receive a great many more comments than my own, possibly leaving him with a lot more stupidity to deal with (especially with fanboys of large users like thunderf00t coming to fling poo for the sake of flinging poo). Ergo, PZ probably can’t rely on a system of stupidity auto-correct. This was stated as an example of my experience, and I should have done a better job of making that clear. Actually, I should have omitted the point entirely.
Again, no argument from me. The accusations are silly and, when made by larger users like thunderf00t, are intended to elicit mindless fanboy repetition. I have no desire to defend those who don’t understand how freedom of speech works.
Not merely warm, but beautifully aflame. Again, I wish to explain the source of such criticisms and offer suggestions as to how it might be squelched, not to defend the critics.
Well, I wouldn’t want to, because I would almost immediately find myself dealing with larger users (like thunderf00t and C0nc0rdance) criticizing (through blog posts and videos, respectively) me for something I didn’t do. Under those circumstances, rather than continuing to provide the content I would like to provide, I would have to pause and respond to misdirected complaints about a misunderstanding of the freedom of speech and presumptions about my motives. Case and point, this very blog posting.
I have no explanation to offer, as I don’t oppose your analogy. I assume most people viewing PZ’s videos are effectively stumping for thunderf00t. I assume that when PZ disabled comments, the “stumpers” ran to their demi-god (again, the Mighty Thundering F00t) to whine about it. I further assume that C0nc0rdance was alerted to the closure of comments by thunderf00t, prompting his creation of the video to which this blog post is responding. Also, I find C0nc0rdance’s assertion that YouTubers feel that their anonymity is threatened by registering with FtB is misleading and wrong. As I said to Matt Penfold in comment #325:
That said, if my suggestion were employed, the non-sense and stupidity could be (and I think would be) stopped before getting to this point. Also, in the case of using YouTube settings “comments with approval only” and “do not email me when a comment is posted in response to my videos”, both problems are dealt with: the whiners get to whine, and PZ only has to deal with the whiny comments when he wants to. Even if he decides not to deal with them, much of their indignation would be alleviated simply by granting them their five hundred characters. I can assure you, most of them will be perfectly happy leaving a comment (even if “comment pending approval” pops up), and The Great and Powerful F00t needn’t ever be summoned. Do I realize how stupid these assertions make those whining YT commentators sound? Yes, but remember… I never disputed the stupidity.
PZ may be perfectly happy to deal with stuff like the C0nc0rdance video and, if he is, he should leave things as they are. If he would prefer to shelve the whiners and avoid having to stop what he’s doing to respond to the sort of complaints lodged by C0nc0rdance (and T-f00t in his blog post), these suggestions should help. Those who wish to have a proper discussion will follow the link to Pharyngula, but I think we both know that most of those whining commentators are not in search of a thoughtful chat. They just want to whine…
Finally, as I stated in a comment to PZ, I don’t understand why C0nc0rdance felt it necessary to complain about ratings being disabled. Comment ratings are stupid, and given enough negative votes can result in one’s comment being hidden. Video ratings help determine a given video’s ranking in terms of subscribers’ homepages and with its position along side related videos. Granted, by the YouTube metric, video rating is beneficial (if the ratings are primarily positive), but it’s hardly a censorship issue… That’s it, nothing more, nothing less! =)
Carlie:
Well, I think it’s a combination of the two. I understand he disagrees with YT comments as a method of communication, but he also said he read each and every one of those comments. It seems like an excess of work to me, but I’m not PZ. The technical fix isn’t to allow for a more reasonable flow of comments, nor is it to encourage PZ to accept YT comments as a preferred method of communicating. It is to placate whining commentators for the purpose of avoiding receipt of videos and blog posts from larger users like C0nc0rdance and T-f00t, assuming that PZ would rather blog about things he finds important. I assume (and could very well be wrong) that PZ posted this blog because the video by C0nc0rdance was bringing unwanted attention to FtB, forcing him to address it.
Somewhat amusing. I posted several serial comments over there, detailing where the video goes wrong (as I saw it, anyway), then put a comment saying that PZ had posted about it. I got a reply saying:
So, from that, I guess allowing people to comment on your videos on your blog, PZ, is unacceptable because it ‘contributes to your revenues’.
modiasmaclir #369: OK I think we’re close to being on the same page… adjacent pages, maybe ;) I do disagree that taking your suggestions would be an improvement over PZ’s current course of action, in light of his stated goals. The most effective and efficient way to avoid/prevent stupid comments being posted in the comments section of your videos is to disallow comments entirely.
But the issue here in my mind really isn’t “how to avoid teh stoopid”, because that’s very easy. It’s not even “how to avoid teh stoopid being posted while allowing teh not-stoopid”, because that’s not really all that difficult either.
Rather, it’s the fact that others are making baseless accusations of skeeee-ry nee-farious motives ooooOOOOoooOooOOoo for behaviour that is very easy to explain and understand without invoking skeeee-ry nee-farious motives ooooOOOOoooOooOOoo.
I still have yet to see a single argument in favour of someone allowing comments and/or ratings in the comments section of their YouTube video rather than encourage people to have a discussion elsewhere, that is anything more than self-serving. All those baseless accusations being made are also all just arguments against a strawman.
Er… I think there was a sentence missing somewhere near the end of my last comment (#372).
Should be:
I still have yet to see a single argument in favour of someone allowing comments and/or ratings in the comments section of their YouTube video rather than encourage people to have a discussion elsewhere, that is anything more than self-serving. PZ has indeed allowed comments, even dissenting opinions (gasp!), just not in that particular venue. All those baseless accusations being made are also all just arguments against a strawman.
That’s because you don’t get PZs premises. You aren’t thinking from the same starting point. What PZ did makes sense to me, but I’ve been here for a while. I don’t do youtube, but only read reports, almost all unfavorable.
fuckg00gle (#252)
Actually, I’m saying neither of those things. You are using PZ’s decision to route comments towards his blog as evidence that PZ is “not able cope with engagements with people who don’t share his worldview.” This is wrong because routing comments to his blog is a way of engaging with such people. Whether they will come or won’t come depends on the strength of their desire to make their opinions known. Maybe it’s not the way of engaging YouTube viewers that you favor (just like abortion isn’t a form of birth control that conservatives favor) but you can’t use your dislike to say it’s not a way.
And I didn’t say he was valid in rerouting (not “closing down”) the comments because “no one there is worth engaging.” Maybe worthy people exist. But comments worthy of engagement—those that aren’t “illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant” and that “actually [pay] any attention to [PZ’s] videos”—are, according to PZ, extremely rare. That’s not the same thing as non-existent. And it’s hard to “hear” the people worth engaging over the mindless clamor which makes up the bulk of the comments. Filtering out that noise will enhance substantive engagement.
Anyway, since I have limited time today and the rest of your reply is nothing more than you flaunting your inability to read for comprehension by arguing with things no one has said, let’s focus on this for now. See if you can engage with what I actually said. If not, then there’s no point in talking with you because I’m not interested in discussing what you imagine people are saying.
Ibbica:
It’s the nefarious accusations my post meant to address, and I agree that people who honestly want a proper discussion will of course click over to Pharyngula. I see two possible courses of action… PZ can employ my suggestions and halt the accusations, allowing him to deal with the whiners when and if he chooses to do so. Or he can weather the storm, which will pass soon enough. PZ knows that no one who wants to participate in an intelligent discussion of the matters presented in his videos is being prevented from doing so, courtesy of his having linked back to Pharyngula. Intellectually honest YouTubers realize the same thing. The only voices of dissent on the matter come from those who have nothing of value to add to the discussion or who have a dog in the fight. I think that’s why c0nc0rdance’s video had so much to say about how PZ must be bringing the discussion to Pharyngula merely for the sake of turning a profit (which is absurd). My suggestions should only be used if PZ wishes to opt out of the current storm of misplaced dissent.
As an aside, I’m not sure if C0nc0rdance monetizes his videos, but thunderf00t certainly does. A great many YouTube videos are monetized, paying per view. If you wish to comment on a video, you have to go to the playback page, and that tallies up another view. Kinda makes the whole financial gain argument do a nose dive…
It’s baffling why so many people don’t understand that many folks (such as PZ) simply don’t care that much about YouTube or find it worth more than the most cursory attention. “Why DID YOU DISABLE RATINGS11???” This presumes that PZ actually gives a shit—out of ego or something—about the existence of YouTube ratings. Why would you assume that? Hint: not everyone thinks this is as important as you do and they don’t have the same amount of self-worth wrapped up in the existence of YouTube ratings.
As for “suggesting solutions” to YouTube comment problems: Again, why do you presume this is a goal PZ shares? Why do you assume that right-thinking people automatically stipulate that YouTube comments and their administrivia are things Very Much To Be Concerned With?
Just because YouTube is yourpreferred soapbox does not mean that it is Obviously So As Part Of The Natural Order. It’s not that hard.
modiasmaclir… I didn’t get the impression that PZ’s particularly interested in avoiding conflict or accusations of anything, rather than pointing out the
stupidityflaws in the arguments and accusations being tossed his way.And as PZ has said upthread, it doesn’t matter what he chooses to do about the stupidity/accusations/arguments/etc. in the comments, some people will complain bitterly. You tried to make suggestions that would “make everyone happy”, but that’s actually impossible.
PZ Myers:
My suggestions won’t work if the commentators aren’t even willing to deal with reasonable moderation, or if the whiners continue to whine if their comments are not approved. In fairness, what I said in comment #304 was based largely on my own experiences, and I rarely have to deal with the described level of non-sense. In fact, in the nearly 4 years I’ve been posting to YouTube, I’ve only had an abundance of grossly hateful comments appear on two of my videos. They were both directly criticizing thunderf00t.
Yes.
Is that so bad?
Yes, me, I was thinking about it at just that moment. I believe it highlights one of the weaknesses of “debating” in YouTube comments – a commenter is rarely forced into defending their position on YouTube so the only opposition they encounter is inside their heads. I’m sure we are all far too familiar with those scenarios where we can effortlessly defeat all opposing arguments in our own minds. The YouTube format means that commenters don’t get enough practice at proper debate so they never get past the beginner stage of applying logic and rationality. Directing them here means they’re suddenly confronted with real people who understand rhetoric and debate because they’ve spent a lot of time sparring with others. Suddenly the YouTube commenters’ reasoning isn’t as solid as they thought it was, but there’s a tendency for them to fail to recognise that and carry on trying to answer anyway, usually while continuing to miss the point of what it is they’re arguing. They don’t understand why their arguments are unsound.
I realise that is a blanket generalisation and doesn’t apply to all YouTube commenters, but it IMO it’s indicated by the small sample which has shown up on this thread. I hope most of them stick around long enough to get some more practice and join in discussions productively. That doesn’t mean they have to agree with everything, but at least learn to put up an intelligent defence. Just touting your skeptic credentials by pointing out that you’re an atheist and therefore automatically a rational thinker isn’t enough, most of you need to do more homework on the subject of rationality. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just another applied skill and it takes practice to perform well and avoid common pitfalls.
I realise that must sound snarky but I genuinely don’t mean it to be, it’s the situation as I see it. We’ve all had to learn what rational skills we have as they often go against our natural inclinations, and it’s very easy to overestimate one’s abilities when one hasn’t been properly challenged. I’ve certainly been guilty of it, and still am sometimes, although I’m a lot more wary now than I used to be! Whatever your opinion of the style or tone of Pharyngula, you can’t legitimately claim that your comments won’t be examined and challenged on their content.
modiasmaclir, please quit trying to tell PZ how to run things. His account, he’s in charge. Your preaching is irrelevant for that reason, repetitive, and is in the process of geting you killfiled for terminal insipidity.
I don’t understand this. I’m supposed to allow comments, but it’s excessive for me to actually <gasp> read them?
You know, I take comments seriously — I try to read all the comments on Pharyngula, too (although I confess, I often have to just skim briefly because of the volume). Maybe that’s our difference. I assume people who make comments are trying to say something and be read; the youtubers dismiss the content of comments as unimportant, but regard their mere existence as sufficient demonstration of principle.
Besides, nothing will halt the false accusations of censorship. These are not reasonable people we’re talking about. And honestly, who gives a fuck?
I am also pretty sure PZ is not very interested in appeasing people who think his not allowing comments on YouTube but instead directing them to this blog is a denial of their freedom of speech. The views of such people are really not worth bothering about. I have also noticed that PZ does not bother catering for the needs of the under 5s on his blog either, and I suspect it is for much the same reason.
Josh, Official SpokesGay:
I don’t assume PZ shares such a goal. I only wanted to pose what I thought were helpful solutions if he wanted to avoid having to deal with things like C0nc0rdance’s video. Subsequently, he has explained that he has tried moderating his YT comments before, only to be greeted with the same noise he now faces, essentially negating my suggestions. I have only my own experiences to draw from, and what would work for me will not work for PZ. Had I realized PZ already tried what I suggested (more or less) with the same result as closing comments, I wouldn’t have made the suggestions in the first place. As for the assumption posited in your second sentence, I don’t. I make no such assumption, and I was very careful to avoid making ought statements regarding my suggestions, in (clearly vain) hopes they would be seen as suggestions, not as demands or expectations.
My preferred “soapbox” is actually my article, followed closely by my blog. YouTube videos are a distant third, for what it’s worth. I’m confused as to why you find anything I said as implying that I or anyone else should find YouTube video making to be an expected first line method of “soapboxing”. Confusing though it may be, it is also incorrect. Did it offend you that I offered suggestions? If so, would you mind telling me why? If not, what was the purpose of being snide in a comment clearly aimed (at least in part) at me?
What’s not how hard? Addressing comments to their intended targets and continuing a civil discussion instead of shoving faux intent and snarkiness in? I agree. It is, in fact, not that hard at all.
Hi pelamun.
How’s things?
Late to the party, and I so did not read all of the other comments…but…
I comment over on YouTube. Usually when I’m feeling particularly snarky, or run across an egregiously moronic comment from a Christofascist. When someone like “emptywithoutjesus” trolls an atheist video, I don’t feel any compunction about taking him on and handing him his head on a platter.
But I don’t consider that “serious” commenting. It’s more like sport debate. And the commenting does get repetitive. I could probably boil down my YouTube comments to about 5 to 10 stock posts and just copypasta. But maybe that’s because I usually only post in reply to the willfully ignorant like “empty”.
Hi chigau,
thanks. Busy as hell….
I wish you and theo were on PET ;)
PZ Myers:
I didn’t realize at the time of posting what you quoted that you had already attempted moderation over on YouTube. If you have already tried that with essentially the same result as you are receiving now, having closed comments, my suggestions will be of no help whatsoever. I wouldn’t have posted them if I’d been aware of the result of your attempt to moderate. I only have my own comments forum to go on, and you are dealing with a larger problem than I thought. The thrust of what I meant by the comment from which you quoted was that reading a load of comments which add nothing to the discussion seems to me to be very laborious. Further, on the assumption that people who wanted an actual discussion would come to Pharyngula, the suggestion to set comments to approval was to potentially allow the repetitive whiners to continue leaving comments. As you would have some idea of the content of those comments on YT, and since the proper discussion would have come here, I thought it might silence the accusations of censorship and alleviate your having to read said YT comments, until/unless you chose to. The only reason I thought it might be helpful is that, as you said, many on YouTube regard the mere existence of comments (or the ability to post them) as sufficient demonstration of principle. It’s stupid, but seemingly true, and I’ve never understood it. Many of them have been programmed to be perfectly happy until the words “Comments have been disabled on this video“, and to absolutely lose their minds at that point. They don’t have their own feelings about censorship (extant or not), but only what their “leaders” (read Thunderf00t et al) tell them is censorship.
As a web developer and old-school hacker (i.e., pre-internet), I have to say I am mightily amused by the sense of entitlement that web-surfers have about sites they visit.
I took the nick “Banned Atheist” because I was banned from the forums of a popular progressive political site for calling a bigot a “bigot” — but am I bitching that my freedom of speech is being trammeled? Duh, no, because as a webmaster of multiple sites, I know what they are — not public forums, but programs running on computers.
In other words, web sites, including on YouTube, are private property. I violated the POS TOS at DU and took my licks. I didn’t mount a free speech campaign against them. In fact, my revenge was just to start my own blog site where nobody could ban me, again.
Freedom of speech on teh webz is not the same as freedom of speech IRL. We are entitled to say whatever we want, but we aren’t entitled to say it wherever we want. I can’t walk into a public school cafeteria and start preaching that Jesus is a mushroom (as much as I might want to).
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls:
I’m sorry you find it challenging to follow the conversation, as you must if you feel comfortable posting the above. As it is PZ’s blog and as he is the one in charge, perhaps you should leave the order that I quit trying to tell him how to run things (if he feels that’s what I’m doing, which I doubt, in that I’m not) to PZ. Sound good? Great. If PZ says “shut up or get booted”, I’ll shut up to avoid getting booted. When you say an ambiguous version of the same thing, it’s just not compelling. Maybe it would be on your blog which, as you established, this is not.
Shorter Czeronczerordance and his troupe of Czeronczerordancers, with special appearance by Thunderfzerozerot:
modiasmaclir, time to think about the difference between being assertive, and having your say, which you have done. Compared to being aggressive and engaging in borderline harassment due to continuing posts of the same shit, over and over ad nauseum. You are approaching that. Nobody has to agree with you, or take your suggestions to heart. I’m sure PZ won’t implement them. It’s his account, not yours, after all.
If you want to stick around, change the subject. Then you won’t be repeating yourself and harassing PZ.
I got as far as
Yep, YouTube commenters sure are known for their thoughtful, nuanced discussion!
@StevoR
Yawn
I’m not sure I agree with the wisdom of PZ’s decision, due to the strategic concern about the comparison to creationists who routinely close comments as a way to facilitate the attitude bolstering ability of their inane arguments by reducing their readers’ incidental exposure to effective and rational counterarguments. However, I can understand the motivation from the dearth of effective and rational counterarguments; and I’ve any number of life decisions that leave the depth of my own wisdom in considerable doubt.
In the interest of trying to respond in kind on YouTube, I’d suggest PZ consider putting a version of this blog post up as a video on YouTube to explain why he has comments closed these days, and indicating that anyone who wants to comment on any of the videos should go to the most recent Thunderdome thread, where there will doubtless be a highly responsive audience for them to talk with on any video they care to comment about (as long as commenters indicate the title to know which is being discussed).
You might also ask the FTB IT dude about setting up a URL that redirects to the latest Thunderdome thread, to facilitate the commenting and to provide in the YouTube video. (One for the lounge would also be nice, for those who want to bookmark either.)
The question is “When will you stop trying to tell PZ how to run his account?”. The honest answer will tell if you are agressive or assertive. I suspect the answer is you won’t stop until PZ implements your inane fuckwittery or tells you to fuck off. If it is, that is harassment.
Imagine an alternate universe where YouTube exists as it does now, but no one had ever hit on the idea of including ways for people to comment. Commenting on new stories and videos and blog posts just isn’t a part of Internet culture in this world, and it’s not something people have come to expect.
Is your right to express yourself being violated in that universe? Do you have a right to say whatever you want wherever you want? Does anyone offering up his or her opinion have to give you equal time?
That just seems ridiculous to me.
RE: 391… “complaining” would’ve been a better choice of words.
Why is allowing comments and/or ratings considered to be the default?
and another thing:
Are PZ’s videos intended primarily for the entire yutubverse or are they intended primarily for his existing audience?
[OT]
chigau: You should joint PET!
[OT]
re facebork
Not in this lifetime.
:)
Wait. Wait.
“Placate the whiners?”
Really?
With regard to YouTube comments PZ has basically stated, “It’s a lot of nasty shit to have to wade through, I don’t feel like it because I already have lots to do, and I don’t have to, so I ain’t gonna.” Full stop. This is a perfectly valid and reasonable position to take, not in need of any justification. It’s clear and simple.
As far as “receipt of videos and blog posts from larger users like C0nc0rdance and T-f00t”, well, since things like that are very revealing in and of themselves they can be worth blogging about. Indeed, since PZ does blog about the massive critical thinking failures from certain quarters, these things fit right in.
Granted some people will show up in threads on those subjects to whine. But the fact that they whine does not indicate that they need be placated. It just means they are whiners.
Under reliwhat’s definition of free speech, putting bumper stickers on someone’s else’s car, or posters on their house, would be perfectly ok. I’m not down with that at all.
Banned Atheist:
I’d say it really is.
Consider the case of a movie theater. Say you’re watching a movie, and you decide you disagree with something on film. If you stood up in the middle of the theater, shouted, “That 9mm was a Glock in the last scene!” and ranted about how terrible film-makers are these days, the movie theater staff would be perfectly within their rights to remove you from the theater. You would hear nobody cry about the infringement of free speech.
If you were wearing a sandwich board denigrating McDonald’s in a McDonald’s parking lot, and the manager demanded you remove yourself from the property, nobody would be crying about the infringement of free speech.
And need I get into the laws restricting political speech near polling places?
Even in real life, there is a time and a place for speech. Nobody is denied the right to criticize film. Nobody is denied the right of political speech. Nobody is denied the right to campaign against an eating establishment. Just don’t expect the right to do it in inappropriate places.
NOTE: These views are from the vantage of a privileged society, and do not represent the available options in all parts of the world.
anyone who complains that there is not enough free speech and then in another breath complains about what someone else says about them is displaying a depth of irrationality that is more commonly heard in groups espousing fundamentalist religion or extremest politics.
uncle frogy
You know, I had been seeing StevoR in threads recently being sensible and shit, refraining from barking like mad about Islam and showing just how much he doesn’t consider them human. I was relieved. Perhaps he had learned some amount of restraint. But, no. He comes in here and shits all over, because he feels aggrieved over people calling out his racist bullshit.
Fuck StevoR. Oh, and fuck knighttyme , the fucking “Just Talking About Science” clueless misogynistic pedant.
I am getting really, really bored of the free speech argument which boils down to “If you say something in a public forum, you are morally obligated to listen to my response no matter how flippant, repugnant or ill-conceived that response may be.”
QFT
Add in that we must also respect the speech and therefor not criticize it.
I have learned from the internet that “free speech” really means “mandatory listening”.
As Rutee is not a sock puppet. We just absorbed her into the Collective a while ago. That long absence from her was reconditioning her to accept the Tao of the Hivemind
Jumpin Jehosephat, but I’m coming in late.
I really want to be here more, but …? Law school isn’t the half of it. Suddenly becoming a step mom to 2 kids and not only having to do massive numbers of things to keep the fam running, but also learning how to do those things from scratch, it’s a lot of work.
But this is an area I love and read the first 80 comments.
Free speech is not a right.
Rights come with duties – they are always paired. If I have a right to 2 baby turtles every tuesday, someone has a duty to give me 2 baby turtles every tuesday.
Freedoms are individual and do not come with duties. I have a right to speak, which means I can choose to speak or not and that I cannot be silenced before I’ve had my say. But absolutely no one is compelled to **listen** …or to provide fora or a megaphone or any other Freuding thing.
Speech is a freedom not a right. PZ can give me the banhammer – which means I’m no longer welcome on his front lawn – but I’m not silenced. I can continue yelling on the sidewalk.
And even the gov’t isn’t required to provide anything either. It can kick me off the sidewalk, provided it isn’t for the content of what I say (being too loud at night and all kinds of other faults can be used to justify removal, just not the content of what you say).
A freedom bars the government from preventing an action.
It is not a right that comes with a duty – on the part of anyone – to provide space for your speech.
Louis @294:
I hope some of the YouTubers will recognize that your post here highlights one of the *other* problems PZ mentioned with commenting on YouTube videos-
You were able to give context and nuance for your opinion by having no limits on characters.
****
Matt @308:
When I first started posting here, the list of allowed tags was no help in learning how to use them. It took help from Pharyngula regulars for that. If there were examples of how to use the blockquote tag (and the rest of them) that would probably help immensely (for one thing, I didn’t know how to close the tags).
****
keithroragen @327:
If I had to guess, it may have something to do with ratings being pointless. As others have mentioned, PZ’s opinion of polls is well known. Perusing the net, I found this lovely site that discusses the value of YouTube ratings:
I suspect PZ does not have videos on YouTube with the desire to become a celebrity (he’s already pretty darned popular anyways).
Also, whether it’s a star system or a like/dislike button, that doesn’t give any nuance. Someone can like most of a video, but not some of it or vice versa. More importantly, it doesn’t allow for an understanding of *why* someone formed their opinion of the video. That’s ostensibly what the comments are for. But if the comments allow people to discuss their opinion of the video, what’s the point of the ratings? Especially if one isn’t concerned with garnering a large audience?
Or in videos where the commenters are harassing the author instead of commenting on the contents of the video.
Or in videos where the comments are filled with off-topic racism, homophobia and/or general asshattery.
Or in videos by unpopular people who get anything they make downvote-bombed.
Or in videos that have no need for comments.
Seen it all on youtube. The issue isn’t so black-and-white.
ibbica @335:
. . .
Good reason, no?
/snark
****
PZ:
I did not know that.
Damn.
You must never sleep.
You frelling asshole. You fucking expected me to do so to start with, and now that I point out the rubber band is on the other claw, you don’t believe there’s a compelling reason. Do you read what you write? Or do you just not remember this?
“Obtaining consent would ruin the moment.”
Fuck off and die, you worthless piece of equivocating shit.
You can believe what you want, the only difference is they didn’t outright state they can touch titties on demand. Some of us can read between the lines.
Foolishly taking literally ‘99.9’ does actually only leave you with two options. Assuming I don’t understand large and small numbers already makes you an ass, I don’t know why you think I owe it to you to be nice.
You’re a misogynistic fool, and it’s a good thing you left, because your company is best not kept.
“Ill-conceived”. “Poorly thought out”. A poor synonym for “Ignorant”. All of these work for those. You are vastly overestimating the comments I quoted, because you are desperately trying to prove your point.
There is no intelligent way to express nonsense like the shit I quoted regarding feminism, because the ideas are fucking stupid. I am too trigger happy, but it’s because I’m resorting to ableist language, not because it’s intelligent or well thought out. It’s more of the same ignorant shit I’ve seen quite a bit of. Misogynistic asshole.
Holy crap, maybe I *AM* a sock puppet!?
Whoa, I made it through about 120 comments. Dumbest complaint yet (I guess I shouldn’t say that, there are so many dumb ones).
What’s the problem? PZ Myers doesn’t like YouTube comments and also doesn’t like the comment system, itself. So, he disables the comments on the YT page and links to another location where discussion can take place.
…I…the…huh? What’s the problem? That you have to sign up for an FTB password? You have to sign up for a Youtube password.
Set aside all the dumbassery surrounding the “free speech” argument, but even the government is allowed to control the time and place of speech, just not the content. If you want to have a rally on Tuesday during rush hour, the city is allowed to say, “No, do it on Saturday, instead.”
So, all other issues aside, even if PZ Myers were the government, he probably would be allowed to say, “Don’t comment on YouTube, comment on FTB.”
Hi all:
I intend to make this my last post on this thread. It’s been very helpful in clarifying some of the concerns I expressed in the video, and I’ve found some of the arguments persuasive. In particular, I agree with several people who made the argument that PZ’s use of YouTube is different from my own. I think maybe that’s where I went the furthest astray in my argument. PZ uses YouTube strictly as a hosting service for videos for his blog readers. He has no interest in outreach or neutral ground engagement or even to join in the actual YouTube atheist community discussion. It’s a shame he isn’t more active there, but I completely understand the time constraints of multiple internet footprints. My criticisms, given the use of YouTube PZ intends, were a little off the mark, and I apologize.
I disagree that YouTube is worthless or stupid or pointless or a cesspit or populated only by idiots. It is a truly open forum, and is not populated strictly by people of a single ideology, religion or lack thereof, political party, gender or other grouping. Pharyngula, on the other hand, is restricted to people who want to read PZ’s posts and discuss them. That’s not even the whole atheist community, but a subset.
Given that YouTube is the place where theists and nontheists, skeptics and non-skeptics engage with each other, it is incredibly important (to those of us who use it as our primary site) that we honor, voluntarily, the principles of integrity and reciprocity that come with our unmoderated forum. PZ’s presence there without options for engagement violates those community guidelines that have evolved as the norm for civilized discussion within that forum. I would feel better if he chose a different hosting site, one where the community didn’t depend so much on video-specific engagement options, but I think I do understand that PZ just has a different idea of what YouTube is good for, for him.
The limitation of Pharyngula is that it only serves a subset of the “faithless” and hence, by itself, isn’t useful for outreach to people of differing views. It’s true that many of the discussion on YouTube devolve to exactly what you would expect, but it really is the “front line” of engagement. If you want an argument with a theist on neutral ground, the open services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are far more appropriate than a private blog where 95%+ of the commenters hold similar views on a few key topics. Very few creationists are regular Pharyngula readers. Very few “race realists” would dare to set foot here, and if PZ wants to know what criticisms are leveled against him by the larger, non-Pharyngula atheist community, he’ll probably have to meet his critics on more neutral ground than his own moderated blog.
Not everyone is interested in broadcasting a message outside our community. I’ve noticed that both here and in the Atheism+ forum, anyone who comes in with controversial discussion or questions is labeled a troll. I *personally* want to engage with people just like this who have questions about content I have produced. That’s part of the outreach element, demonstrating a consistent willingness to address people’s questions rationally, whether they are honestly asked or not. If I get fatigued answering repetitive questions, or the person is just being lazy, I can simply choose not to answer.
I hope my videos can promote critical thinking, make people more aware of my causes, and the ability to offer comments to the author of a video is part of what draws people in, makes YouTube more interesting than other nearly identical video hosting sites. A frequent comment on my video is that if people know a video has ratings and comments disabled, they aren’t interested in even watching it. People like to know that a safe mechanism exists for their voice to be heard by the author and community is created by people sharing their thoughts on topics of interest to them.
I’ll finish on a final thought: No-one has suggested that someone is obligated to listen to their critics, to provide them a forum or to hear what they have to say. I *will* say that anyone who embraces criticism, honestly and thoughtfully answers it, and who creates an environment that fosters critical examination, is someone I admire and respect.
One thing I have found about Youtube channel owners, especially the more popular atheist ones, are that they overrate their own importance.
c0nc0rdance is a good example – he somehow seems to think that PZ really should care about his opinions. Now, PZ is a nice guy, and will listen, but why should he? Even if PZ was just concerned about popularity, the total number of views on c0nc0rdance’s videos is about the same number as the monthly visits to Pharyngula.
I think the reason why they overrate themselves are because they are in an insulated feed-back environment. Maybe it is healthy for them to go out and comment on other peoples’ blogs – perhaps they can get a better perspective of their impact.
Oh, and I am not dismissing youtube as a good and efficient communication channel, nor do I consider Youtube channel owners irrelevant. I am only addressing their oft-demonstrated lack of perspective.
@420
I’m sorry can you post that as a series of comments under 500 characters?
@marksheffield
I would just add to the list of reasons (and maybe someone already made this point, I didn’t read every comment), that in this current environment there is a big imbalance of stupid, offensive, intentionally ridiculous spam coming from the MRA side.
I’m not associating you, personally, with that group, I don’t know your work well enough, but anything posted by PZ Myers will be flooded with “Rebecca Wastson is a whore” comments. Even if there were folks prepared to have legitimate discussions on YouTube, that sort of thing just buries any discussion and makes the experience completely miserable.
Content-wise, despite the lamentations of the ill-mannered, there’s nothing you can say on YouTube that you can’t say here, save for the sorts of personal attacks and intentionally provocative vulgarities that flood PZ’s in-box when he’s on YouTube.
Is it a shame that folks like you who want to engage substantively lose an opportunity because of the avalanche of dickery? Sure, but then you can come here. There’s no real loss for anyone who cares enough about the issues to exert the effort of three mouse-clicks and 25 seconds of typing.
This is factually wrong. People have not only suggested it, they have stated it. In this very thread. And on a larger level, Thunderfoot and his mindless drones, as well as the slymepit creeps.
Yes, there’s nothing more important than letting assholes victimize people some more. Clearly, nobody has ever been harmed by speech, especially not by offensive speech. Just ask Amanda Todd…
reliwhat
Fucking asshole, to compare the fact that people here are arguing with your stupid with women being raped.
Yes, when you say stupid things here you get torn apart. Because freedom of speech actually means we get to talk back.
You’re not getting bullied. You’re getting lots of opposition to the total bullshit you’re saying.
But yeah, no surprise that you’re one of those free speech warriors who scream “oppression, bullying, prosecution, can’t people shut the fuck up” when they get disagreement.
FTFY
You ARE stupid. Sally’s comment was obviously about an online situation.
Yes, only it has nothing to do with the current situation. It would be valid if PZ had demanded that Thunderfoot shut down his channel.
curiouscat
Gosh, that’s an interesting name, considering that C0nc0rdance told us you couldn’t do it without disclosing personal information.
But, you know, premptively climbing up your cruxifix isn’t really a good start, so you’ll allow us to not treat you as a if you were arguing in good faith.
You mean that was just collateral damage?
ideways
So, I actually agree with you on that. Doesn’t that mean that the argument about “free exchange” and “engaging your opponents” is totally bogus?
mikepaps
Yes, and people here are actually supposed to do that.
You know, if you want to join the debate, get your information!
That’s why this is a hell lot of a reply.
thorloar
That’s even kind of sweet.
You know, you would have a point if things weren’t like this:
1)YouTube Commenters claim PZ should not have kicked thunderfoot out of FTB
2) PZ explains in detail why he thinks it was a good idea and provides a space to discuss it. He shows that they’re wrong.
3) Youtubers scream stupid things in comments over and over and over again without obviously having understood (or actually heard/read the arguments)
4)PZ says all YouTube commenters are “illiterate, repetitive, and ignorant”
That’s nice. We love it when you save us the time from demonstrating what a waste of skin you really are by doing it yourself.
So, PZ shut down videos?
Dumbass, youtube is about videos, not 500 character comments
fuckGoogle
Seriously, put on your big kid gloves. Most people here have youtube accounts and even sometimes leave comments there. Funny enough, we don’t feel offended by what PZ said. that’s because we have eyes to see and a brain to process the nonsense the eyes saw in the comments.
You call them free thinkers, we call them unhinged.
Hey, misogyny AND ableism within two sentences. We have a winner here!
StevoR
Minor political disagreements like the question whether muslims are really people
Cute
The two of you should use it as a nym
+++
Well, the only thing I really don’t understand is:
How come those people seem to function as adults offline when they behave online like a toddler who has just had mummy’s smartphone taken away?
Well, that’s fine and dandy, and you can care as much as your heart desires, but you’re not convincing anyone on this matter.
Have the intestinal fortitude to stand by your statements.
I find it almost cute that you think theists are the primary point of contention for everyone.
Oh noez, freeze peachers draw each other in and agree with each other. Quelle shock.
Okay, now you can shut the fuck up. Do you have any idea how uncontroversial the racist, sexist, etc, shit that is about to be spewed by someone with a ‘controversial opinion’ is, to the majority? This shit isn’t ‘novel’, and there’s nothing gained by allowing such people free reign, nor by refusing to label their behavior as trollish. Fuck off.
I like it. Hey Ruttee, if you change your nyme modifier to Rutee “Ing” *whatever* I’ll change mine to Ing “Rutee” *whatever*
Any moderation here is usually minimal. Even when the banhammer hits, the posts remain for all to see. Only truly offensive material is deleted, maybe one post every other month. I think you have no idea of how little moderation goes on here. It isn’t a problem for real exchange of intelligent ideas.
I’m very sorry I hurt your feelings by criticizing you for wanting to endanger or murder people I know or their families. It was inconsiderate of me. I guess such hurt feelings are just your cross to burn…I mean bare
Yeah, this is a common pattern. People complaining about the moderation, censorship, and groupthink here, rarely seem to realize how little moderation happens, that censorship can’t happen in this context, and how often people disagree with each other and with PZ.
Maybe if they tried going out of their own little comfort-zone, and comment a bit here, they would learn something.
Mark Sheffield
And yet PZ shares letters and emails he gets from people who came to his blog as Christians or science deniers and read it, and were eventually convinced. He also shares emails from people who found his blog and disagree with it, and have sent him hatemail.
PZ gets a lot of hits on this blog, and not all of them are “the converted”, and we have had creationists MRAs and “racial realists” posting in the comments before.
PZ does ban commenters if they are to far beyond the pale, but this is not a gated community. I understand and respect the outreach that happens on youtube, and I do not think you should dismiss the outreach that happens here.
I’m not sure, but if that’s done, the obvious solution would be Rutee ‘Ing’ Intellectual Terrorist and Ing ‘Rutee’ Shrieking Harpy, but I might be wrong. Need a little time to consider that.
I wonder, how many of these folks bitching about free speech actually put the time and effort into creating and maintaining blogs for people to come in and post comments?
Seriously –
wordpress.com/
blogspot.com
yuku.com
ezboard.com
or host your own youtube channel
All free
All places you can speak
All places you can allow others to say whatever shit they want.
You have free speech. Now shut the fuck up.
If you go to C0nc0rdance’s video on youtube and look at the comments, you’ll see a perfect example of what I’m talking about: the top comments are both standard cant from the usual idiots, calling me “fat” and a “cunt” and the commenters here “toilet slaves”.
Yeah, that’s the reasoned discourse I want to hear in volumes, day after day. I really want to create more open forums for misogynist wankers.
Actually, there have been some real examples of people trying to repress other peoples’ right to free speech in the past (e.g. woo peddlers getting wordpress to shut down skeptic blogs), and we should fight against that. But otherwise your point stands.
I second the motion
Well, they haven’t:
Nothing critical about that at all. Just misogynistic, sizist dreck.
To be fair, he can succeed in general at promoting critical thought, while failing in this instance.
I mean, I don’t really think he is succeeding at that, given what amounts to mindless regurgitation of noted dead white man John Stuart Mill’s opinion on dissent, but then…
Fuck this was a long thread.
1)Ing and Rutee, sockpuppets?! bwahahaha
2) PZ’s place, PZ’s rules. He doesn’t want to deal with the fuckwittery of YouTube comments, so what?
3) FREEZE PEACH is my new favorite phrase.
That is all.
My favourite summation of this kind of discussion comes from Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Making Light blogger and Boing Boing comment moderator:
Movin to the country, I’m gonna freeze me a lot of peaches…
COME PLAY WITH US
Delurking for one quick sec because this thread has been xkcd-free for far too long.
http://xkcd.com/202/
http://xkcd.com/481/
That is all.
Sockpuppets.
@marksheffield
Lacking formal moderation does not make a community neutral ground. It instead becomes a place skewed towards whatever views are most conventional, because those generally take the least thought, get repeated the most and can rely on the most support. And since we live in a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, size-shaming, etc. society, so-called “neutral” communities actually, in fact, default to supporting and promoting all of those things. In such an environment, those for whom bigotry holds no negative consequences are privileged over those who suffer from that bigotry. That’s the opposite of neutral ground. And daring to speak out against bigotry in a place with no moderation, especially one set up to encourage brief and anonymous comments, is about as fun and rewarding as trying to juggle flaming honey badgers. That is why communities engineered to lower the volume of conventional, casual bigotry can achieve more neutrality in fact than unmoderated ones.
erik:
More like:
“Moving to Florida to hear Tea Party freeze peaches.”
Ing @445:
Which one is you and which is Rutee?
I got half-interested in the origins of the phrase “tone troll”. Perhaps someone has an older reference, but the best I have so far is that a commenter named “Presno” took it for a tagline at secularcafe.org in 2009. Largely the posts consisted of sarcastic remarks such as this:
http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=1377
~60 English search results from 2009, mostly noise generated on older records by newer activity. (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/31/the-more-ignorant-you-are-the/). By 2010, it starts to appear in blog comment sections & elsewhere in its modern usage.
So perhaps a different troll title is older and inspired the now popular tone troll meme? Indeed! Concern troll & (Internet) troll were popular enough to make the news in 2006 (TIME mag). Earlier than that and Google dissolves into goop.
LOL! PZ, I don’t really think it’s misogyny when they call *you* that… I mean, come on!
Lol wut
I see JL is being purposely obtuse as ever. Hasn’t said anything cogent in months. Prima facie evidence of the onset of terminal fuckwittery/trolling.
@ Jacklewis
Assuming this wasn’t sarcasm….
So if you play slur roulette it’s ok? Mixing and matching the slurs with unintended targets. Honestly I don’t think it makes it any better if you decide to use a word that’s used to denigrate say jews on some Japanese Buddhist. Or one used on women on a man in this case.
YES
Testing new handle.
Did it work? Looks like in preview…
Ing:
You two aren’t the start of a Pharyngu-Borg Collective are you? Because if you are, I know resistance is futile. I’ll throw in the towel now.
@Tony
That is an entirely ridiculous statement. In entirely unrelated news a new express line for GAY SECKS WITH BROWNIAN has opened in the lounge…please enter one at a time into this dark ally
Tony is it really FREEZE PEACH if everything they say is dictated to them by their Faux News overlords?
Lot o’ people in this thread complaining that the majority of youtube comments go unread.
Lot o’ people in this thread pointing out that they didn’t read this whole thread.
Lot o’ people in this thread quibbling over minute details, while at the same time grossly misinterpreting comments, thus indicating their own inattention to detail.
Lot o’ jargon I’m unfamiliar with, but I learned a few new acronyms, and a lot of feces related curses.
All in all, not too bad. I don’t know if the time investment of readying 457 non-length-constrained comments was preferable to just starting a conversation with whoever happens to be in the first few pages of youtube comments, but it was certainly interesting.
Cheers!
jacklewis, it’s still misogyny.
Base case: woman is bad like genitalia == woman’s genitalia is bad.
Next: man is bad like (woman is bad like genitalia == woman’s genitalia is bad).
Hello.
My ‘nym is chigau.
I hadn’t heard of Concordance before this thread.
I have never watched an Amazing Atheist video.
nor Thunderfoot
(nor AronRa nor PZ)
I watch youtube for Simons Cat, QI and knitting videos.
and I still don’t read the comments.
My atheism is 40+ years old and ticking along quite nicely.
Thank you.
Ing:
I’m sure that was a typo, but damn, that was funny!
Tony, #414,
That is one of the nicest ways I have ever been told that I wrote a TL;DR.
:-)
Louis
*whew*
I thought everyone had been snatched.
[meta]
chigau, Veni Vidi Vado.
@strange gods before me
Bullshit. Cunt in that context (and directly thrown at a man) means the following definition taken from Wiki but there are plenty of sources you can look at: “cunt is described as “an unpleasant or stupid person””
It is true that some people when they get insulted have this very low class habit of pretending that the insult that was personally delivered to them was not for them but really for this other group of people who were not even involved in whatever discussion is going on and don’t need to be dragged into it. That’s one of the most despicable things out there.
For example, I could call you a complete fucking idiot in this comment area and basically nobody would really make a big deal about the comment’s tone. If I go and call you a fucking retard, then some really deluded people will think the insult was now magically thrown at all the retarded folk out there that are not even reading this comment area and will manufacture fake outrage at someone mistreating all these innocent bystanders. But obviously that never happened in the first case.
Quick look up! That thing you see the sun reflecting off of 30,000 feet up…
Bah never mind you missed it. The point that is.
Why do we have to have the ‘cunt’ argument again and again and again and again and again and again and . . . ?
asshat jacklewis,
By using a synonym for female genitalia as an insult, your are by definition implying that having female genitalia or being like female genitalia is a bad thing; that it should be considered an insult.
This is an insult to all women no matter who the insult is directed towards fuckface, because it implies that being a female or having female body parts is the inferior state of being.
Why is it so hard for you to imagine using insults that don’t carry collateral damage? Can you tell us that? You herpes ridden hamster smuggler.
The troll JL doesn’t get it, can’t get it, won’t get it, because its two brain cells are fighting over which one is the most stupid one. In other words, gross troll stupidity.
Ogvorbis
I don’t know.
It’s like the jacklewises of the interwebs are actually incapable of rational thought.
Furthermore jacklewis, you pus-licking pukestick, what makes you think that there aren’t parents or loved ones of the mentally disabled reading, and why shouldn’t they be hurt by the use of abelist terms like retard?
What say you? You fart-sucking, otter-toothed, necrophelic pillow humper.
First, I’ll say that I agree with the idea of allowing comments and ratings on all videos. I’d prefer if all videos allowed comments and then just let the community to police itself by collapsing crap posts. That being said…
The guy’s argument doesn’t make any sense. First he compares a YT video to a highway billboard. This analogy fails because, ostensibly, the only people who watch a YT video are people who intend to watch a YT video and the whole time they’re watching it they have the choice to stop watching it and never watch videos from that person again. Contrarily, a highway billboard is in your face even though you didn’t ask for it and you don’t have a whole lot of choice in whether or not you see it. You often have to actively attempt not to see it.
Then, he goes on to bring up the atheist billboards that were taken down and defends the rights of the billboard company to take them down. So if a YT video is like a billboard, does the person who posted the video (or billboard) have the right to do what they want with their own video (or billboard) or don’t they?
The whole thing seems to have this idea that the principle of one person’s freedom of speech, even in cases where freedom of speech isn’t actually abridged, trumps the right of another person to moderate their own media. Essentially he saying “You have ‘Right A’, I have ‘Right B’. Even though exercising ‘Right A’ doesn’t infringe upon ‘Right B’, you should stop exercising ‘Right A’ because I don’t like it.”
Then there’s the idea of people being afraid to register an account in order to be able to post comments because someone might see their IP or they don’t know what the rules are. Guess what you have to do on YT before you can post comments. Register an account. Guess what YT has in regards to content of comments. Rules and regulations. No reason he gave for not registering an account applies here that doesn’t apply on YT. So if you aren’t able to post a comment here for those reasons, you aren’t able to post a comment on YT anyway, and you have missed out on anything.
I said before that I would prefer all videos be open for commenting and rating, but just because I don’t like the idea of disabling comments doesn’t give me any justification for telling you not to do it. They’re your videos, it’s your YT channel. Do what you want with it. Do you prefer driving traffic through your blog to generate ad revenue? More power to you. Are you under any obligation to tell me that? Fuck no.
One final point. YT does not own the content that you upload. You retain all ownership, but by uploading you give YT license to use your content.
ok my bad, I shouldn’t have used fart sucking as an insult. If it’s between two consenting adults, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with fart sucking, you know, if that’s your thing.
Words mean exactly what you say they mean, amirite?
(Did you ever come to wonder WHY a word that primarily describes female genitalia is also used to mean “an unpleasant or stupid person”? And what the connotations are when using the word that way? No, of course not. That would require thought)
PZ is copping a hard time online, and something had to give, and YouTube seems to have been it. Fair enough..
If we’re honestly going to call a spade a spade, isn’t the truth, at it’s heart, this: PZ has, for better or worse, nailed his colours to the mast in the storm-tossed seas of gender politics. And it has left him on the nose for a lot of people who would otherwise inhabit broadly the same spectrum of the online atheist communities.
And nutters.
But he’s conflated the two species and pissed off a lot of people in the process.
People really want to take him on over his positions on gender issues and how they interact with things like evolutionary biology and behavioural theory, but he runs a pretty tight commenting policy about that sort of thing over here.
I mean that is pretty much what this is all about isn’t it? Oh, Oh, and of course the nutters want to yell at him, too, but they’re easy enough to skip over.
Yes, yes, the femistasi, etc
No, they want to come over, show nothing but attitude, pretend their OPINION is evidence, and ignore real evidence from the literature. They are laughed and mocked for their lack of real discussion, which starts with evidence, not OPINION.
???
Umm…no, not so much. I don’t comment much but I lurk a lot and I’m yet to see anyone even attempt using evolutionary biology to take on PZ’s positions on gender issues. I’ve seen some assertions that men are naturally like this and women naturally like that but that’s really just people pulling shit out of their arse. Since those sort of things were able to make it through without banning I’d bet anyone who produces some real evidence to back up their opinions would get through as well.
I have heard this before, and it is such an ignorant argument. First of all, PZ has said many times that he wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if he woke up one day and had only a handful of readers left and was never invited to atheist events again. So, you can be sure that this kind of attempted shaming misses the mark entirely. Second of all, the historical momentum is on PZ’s side, which is the pro-woman side, not on the side of the misogynists. It may be a storm-tossed sea right now, but the calm will come and it is more likely that PZ is on the ship that will still be floating when it does come.
*crickets*
Thank you folks! I’ll be here all week!
Crap. You can discuss gender issues all you like. Give just one specific example of the “pretty tight commenting policy” you claim exists, or admit you’re talking through your nether orifice.
We’re still waiting for that intelligent discussion. But, for the discussion to be intelligent, the following needs to be done by those trying to change our minds:
1) Hyperskepticism toward any feminist literature is a no-go; if it is a prerequisite for your argument, don’t even bother. We give feminist literature the same skepticism you expect your evidence to be treated with. There are no favorites.
2) Lead with evidence.
3) Your OPINION is not evidence.
4) Your unevidenced OPINION can and will be *POOF* dismissed as per the Christopher Hitchens quote.
5) Attitude is not an argument, it is the acknowledgement of lack of evidence.
ffs, Nerd.
Do you ever get tired of speaking in the first-person plural?
Do you ever acknowledge that many subjects are in fact matters of opinion and not evidence?
Have you ever noticed that you are perpetually asking others for evidence and yet never bring any of your own?
Do you realize the utter hypocrisy of your point 5?
yeesh this place makes me grumpy anymore.
(yes, I know what to do about it)
Evobio has nothing to say about this shit. Evopsych does, but seeing as Evopsych is to Evobio what Astrology is to Astronomy, I’m not really concerned. Pull out your ‘studies’, give me a laugh.
Others already provided plenty of evidence for the stupidity of evopsych, and usually whatever other position he’s attacking, as far as I’ve seen.
lolwut? People really want to take him on about “WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ”, including whining about such assorted subjects as:
-FREE SPEECH!!1!! (Means you must listen to me)
-Sexual harassment (Means you can’t have fun with women without signing paperwork)
-Rape (Did you know that it isn’t as common as facts say that it is? And that false accusation of it are far more common than facts say it is?)
-Male privilege (Doesn’t really exist because custody battles)
-Sexism (Isn’t at all significant anymore)
-Feminists (They are THE REAL SEXISTS)
And of course, there are the whines that aren’t about anything in particular. Like your’s.
Hah. Yeah, there are only a few of them. Whatever you say.
And this is supposed to be better than the comments at Youtube. That’s hilarious.
Kudos to Erik the bassist for going from getting his ass kicked by the “community” to trying to keep up with the top ass hats that give this space a bad name. That was adorable.
It is. Your stupidity is hilarious, thinking you have a point when you don’t.
For someone so challenged with reading comprehension, jacklewis almost managed to look it up in a reference! One day he may even be able to understand a dictionary & apply its contents. WATCH OUT YOUTUBE, HERE HE COMES!!!
jacklewis:
There are many people who that’s true.
Have you stopped to consider why?
@Rutee
Careful now, we wouldn’t want to make Pharyngula irritating for Chas again.
I watched Concordance’s video knowing little of you and nothing of him. When I saw you’d left a reply, I wanted to see it to compare both sides. Having read your reply, the arrogance that comes off it is almost choking. Your writing gives me an image of a person I never want to meet. The degree to which you think you’re in control, and think you deserve to be in control… it’s repellant. Plus, I don’t know how much of what Concordance said was true, but I know what points he made. Most of your replies are to strawmen, and you do so with a dismissiveness like you couldn’t care less.
I think the real deciding factor for me is that, if you feel YouTube is such a cesspit that nothing said on it is worth your ear, then why didn’t you give any acknowledgement to why you’re apparently still willing to post video there? If no one there has anything intelligent to say, why share your thoughts with them at all? Why not be consistent and simply remove your entire presence?
alexreynard
Your comment was #493.
Did you read any of the 492?
alexreynard:
Care to be specific, so as to actually substantiate your exceedingly vague claim?
(i.e. Which replies are to what strawmen?)
alexreynard:
Well, that’s sure a straw dummy that you’ve attempted to burn, but it’s one you’ve made.
(What, you’re trying to test people’s irony meters? ;) )
But I’m going to form a strong opinion anyway, and share it here with all the self-righteousness I can muster, because I’m such a special snowflake and my loud, unresearched opinions are a sign of courage and honesty and shit.
Ah yes. Arrogance . The thing that you are accused of when your opponents really haven’t anything left to say.
PZ Myers: Internet Comment Tyrant. Sure, he has a blog here with infamously few regulations. But who cares, because he doesn’t allow Youtube comments! Because Youtube comments are important!
Ah yes. The “STRAWMAN” accusation, without any specific examples. Unsubstantiated accusations of strawmen and the impression that PZ is arrogant are all you need to berate PZ. And PZ is the dismissive one. Gotcha.
I’m pretty sure it has been made clear to everyone without a brick in their skull that Youtube comments =/= Youtube. Youtube itself has some good videos. Youtube comments are 90% shit. On a good day. And that may not necessarily reflect the intellectual acumen of the audience, as much as the tendency of idiots to think they have something significant to bleat about while not bothering to explore whether their point has been explained or undermined already.
I got pissed off when he said that we shouldn’t expect freedom from ‘stupid or offensive comments’.
People have threatened to kill and rape me. OVER FUCKING VEGANISM. I’m not even critical of vegans or vegetarians. I don’t care what they do, I really seriously don’t. Yet I’ve been threatened with rape and murder because I like to eat cow. That’s insane.
Not to mention the slew of attacks I’ve gotten for being a feminist and daring to speak up. I barely have a presence online and due to my own mental health(something that is severely compromised) I actively avoid certain communities.
It’s great that he has the strength, durability and support structures to shrug off offensive, aggressive, stupid speech. I DO NOT. Even avoiding the internet, news and pretty much everything that could possibly trigger me I STILL have to deal with my own brain telling me how worthless I am. I do NOT need some anonymous fuckwit joining in and making me feel EVEN WORSE.
So yeah, I’m strongly disappointed in this video. I couldn’t even watch it all because of how stupid his argument is. People should be allowed their safe places. I’m not saying nor supporting people having free-speech… I just don’t want to have to be forced to listen to them against my will.
Why should we care what he says? Where is your examples of strawmen? Talk is cheap when you only provide unevidenced OPINION. Typical of certain types.
Unlike you, PZ provided the evidence to back up his claims. Not hard to do. People of intelligence and integrity do that, you know.
Look in the mirror. No intelligence in your OPINION post.