Just a reminder of the new comments policy that I instituted a couple of weeks ago.

That policy laid out certain rules that I expect commenters here to follow. I want to make it perfectly clear that I have zero tolerance for people who try to find ways to skirt the rules, such as, for example, skirting the three comment limit by continuing it on another thread.

Readers may have noticed that there are no ads on any of the blogs on this network. Nobody is making any money at all. In fact, it is a money sink and PZ Myers pays for the costs of the servers out of his own pocket. The bloggers here blog because they want to create spaces for conversations on issues that they care about. ‘Clicks’ have no monetary value. That means that I do not care how many people come to the site.

For me, and I suspect for the other bloggers on this network, the rewards of blogging lie in creating space for a community of people to exchange ideas and views on a variety of topics. But that is pleasurable only if people post comments that are polite and respectful towards others, even while disagreeing. Some time ago, I wrote a post that a good philosophy of life is “Don’t be a jerk”. That would be a good rule to keep in mind when posting comments as well. There is absolutely no call for anyone to be rude or sneering or condescending towards others.

Almost all the commenters on this blog contribute positively and it is a pleasure to read their contributions and interact with them. It is a very few who think that a sneering, condescending, or abrasively argumentative tone is appropriate. My patience has been worn thin by some of their comments in the past. If I think, for any reason whatsoever, that someone is behaving like a jerk, I will ban them. I am in no mood to argue about this. I will not make any public announcement about who is banned. They will simply find that they can no longer post comments. If you are not sure if a comment that you are thinking of posting violates any of these rules, that is a good indication not to post it.

I also reserve the right to make exceptions to the rules at any time, if I feel it is warranted.

These decisions will be solely mine and will be final. There will be no discussion, debate, or appeal. If anyone objects because they think that I am being arbitrary, they are of course free to leave and never return.

I have been down with a fairly serious case of flu, probably picked on my recent travels, and hence have not been feeling up to blogging. Sorry about that.

The good news is that it is not Covid.

After being away for over a week, I will be resuming regular blogging.

As people know, I have moderated the comments with a very light hand, assuming that mature adults would know how to behave in a public space. It took outright hate speech targeting marginalized groups to cause me to ban people, and that has happened very rarely. But I have been getting increasingly irritated by the tedious and hostile exchanges among a few commenters that tend to fill up the comment thread with repeated posts about petty or off-topic issues.

So here is new new rule: No one will be able to make more than three comments in response to any blog post. Violation of that rule will result in banning.

But I also want to address a couple of deeper concerns for which a solution cannot be quantified but will require me to exercise my judgment.

It is well known that the comments sections on the internet can be a cesspool. I had hoped that the people who come to this site would be different, leading to more mature exchanges. But I was clearly too sanguine. We sometimes have absurdly repetitive exchanges seemingly based on the childish belief that having the last word means that you have won the argument or with increasingly angry repetitions being sprinkled with puerile justifications like “They started it!”

The other issue is the hostility that is often expressed, often triggered by the most trivial of things. People should remember that this is a blog, not a journal or magazine. There are no editors, proof readers, and fact checkers. In such a casual atmosphere, people (and that includes me) will often inadvertently be less than precise or accurate in what they say. If the error is trivial but the meaning is clear, the error should be ignored. If the meaning is not clear, clarification can be politely asked for. If it is a genuine error, a correction can be politely made. So in future, I will police the tone of the comments more closely. If I think people are being rude or condescending or insulting (and I do not mean just abusive language but also tone), I will ban the person.

A recent email sent to me privately by a long-time lurker brought home to me how people might be hesitant to join in the conversation here, even if they have something to say, out of fear that something that they write, however well-intentioned, will be seized upon and responded to in a hostile manner by some of the most egregious offenders.

Here is a portion of the email.

Are you aware that the comments in the comment sections of your posts can be perceived as dauntingly hostile?

It’s mostly one specific commenter named [name redacted], but there are a couple of others as well. In most cases… it’s not so much the actual, literal words but the general content and tone. And I know that makes the problem difficult to pin down. But there is so much arrogance and condescension and contempt and passive aggression in some of his (and some others’) comments that often there is hardly any productive discussion in the comment section anymore, just general grandstanding and bashing each other.

Also, in rather rare cases there is very open abusive language. A recent commenter called another commenter “demented fuckwit”. Even if their frustration with the other commenter was understandable, such open verbal abuse makes for rather painful reading.
 
This hostile atmosphere has kept me from commenting several times. I haven’t dared partaking in the discussions because I didn’t want to elicit such aggressions against my own person. And even just reading them being directed at others makes me feel very unsettled. It unsettles me to the point that I have increasingly skipped the comment sections; because I’d rather miss out on interesting contributions than stumble over frequent hostility. I know that I’m more vulnerable than many because of prior experiences with verbal abuse, but also I don’t believe I’m the only one who feels like that.
 
I know there are differing opinions about what constitutes (un)productive commenting, and about moderating comments. I totally get it if your opinions and preferences differ from mine. If nothing changes, I will simply stop reading the comments – and will continue to enjoy reading your original posts!

I thought the writer made a persuasive case that my earlier policy was not working and that I needed to do something different. It looks like I have swung from being highly lax to very strict. Maybe in the future I’ll find some middle ground but I am going to try this for a while.

So I would suggest that in future commenters think carefully before they post anything, taking into account what they say and how often they say something. They should try to put themselves in the shoes of the person they are arguing with and think about how they might feel if their comment had been directed at them. They should also think about how their comments might look to others. It surprises me that people do not realize how badly this kind of behavior reflects on themselves.

I realize that these guidelines are somewhat vague. So a good rule of thumb would be: If in doubt as to whether to post something because it might violate these boundaries, that is a good sign to not post it. I will be the sole judge of whether the boundary has been crossed.

I will be traveling for the coming week and so blogging will be light.

As a respite from political news, here is a nice little logic puzzle.

Alice and Bob are two infinitely intelligent logicians. Each has a number drawn on their forehead. Each can see the other’s number but not their own. Each knows that both numbers are positive integers. An observer tells them that the number 50 is either the sum or the product of the two numbers. Alice says to Bob, “I do not know my number,” and Bob replies, “I do not know my number either.” What is Alice’s number?

The above link also points you to the solution.

I love to read about acts of sportsmanship and this article highlights six of them at the current Olympics. One of the nicest was the USA’s Simone Biles (silver) and Jordan Chiles (bronze) bowing to Brazil’s gold medal winner Rebeca Andrade at the podium.

Speaking to TODAY about the move, Biles said, “I think it’s all about sportsmanship, and we don’t care whether we win or lose. We’re always going to keep a good face and support our competitors because they’ve worked just as hard as we have for that moment.”

“So you have to give them their flowers,” she continued, speaking about the bow. “And that’s exactly what me and Jordan were doing, and we were so happy for her. She deserved it. She had the best floor routine of the day and in the Olympics. So it’s like, yeah, she deserved it.”

“It was just the right thing to do,” Biles said, according to the Associated Press. “She’s queen.”

Biles seems like a really classy person.

I only follow the Olympics cursorily, consisting mostly of scanning the headlines in the news sites that I read. Within those, I am mostly interested in the track and field events and the stories that grab me are those of athletes from small countries that have next to no infrastructure to produce top athletes and almost never win medals.

And boy, did these games produce such a story!

Julien Alfred from St. Lucia, a tiny country in the eastern Caribbean islands that has a population of just 180,000 and had never produced any medal winner before, ran away from the competition to win the 100m gold medal, the most prestigious of the track events. (Click on the ‘Watch on YouTube’ link.)

[Read more…]

I learned that in order to write, I could not depend upon the muse to inspire me but instead had to have a regular writing schedule that would compel me to write every day. That experience resulted in me even writing an article titled Seven Suggestions for Becoming a More Productive Writer in which the first suggestion was to set aside time every day to write, whether one wanted to or not. I like to quote Peter de Vries who said, “I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.”

It is similar to exercise. For most people, physical exertion is not pleasant but seen as a necessity. We are told that having a regular exercise routine, or ‘plan’, is a good thing. Having a steady daily routine is a good way of maintaining discipline. Ad hoc exercise, where you do it only when the mood strikes you, tends to not work well because other things that are more interesting or seem more important can easily distract you, whereas if you prioritize a set time for exercise, you are more likely to stick to the plan.
[Read more…]