From: Bill Roh (billroh@churchofvirus.com)
Date: Mon Aug 04 2003 - 15:36:57 MDT
You seem to have missed my point entirely. Let me rephrase.
Human's in general, and especialy under stress are often incapable of
making "objective" decisions about information presented to them. My
question was: is there an objective party that can, at the top level,
say that something is false, and have that reflected regardless of the
opinions of the people signed up? From what you wrote, I gather the
answer is "no". Unchallanged flasehoods are to remain as truths in this
system. It's about the ability to convince, not integrity.
"Anyone is free to point out obfuscation and deception at any time."
To what end? What you are saying here is that if one does not point them
out, they do not exist. Every flamee must respond to every flame, or the
flamer is telling the truth? Is that what you are suggesting? That if
one can cow people back into sleepy pens, one can be the top dog?
Ad hominen seems to be working in the opposite manner you suggest.
Hermit, who is near the top of your list, has by far the longest and
most aggressive history of ad hominen here, with the possible exception
of Joe. I avoided ad hominen for years, until this last year and a half
- of which I was gone for half. I doubt people would be able to find
more than one or two attacks of such a nature by me prior to the last
1.5 years. What about Jonathan, no history of ad hominen and a great
history of contribution? Or Rhino who not only refrains from attacks,
but offers loads of insight and comment without prejiduce?
As for convincing evidence - how can un researched attacks qualify as
convincing evidence? Because people are too lazy to research. People
historically do not research something when they like hearing other
results. It's not about convincing evidence as you point out, it's
about popularity of opinion and the ease at arriving at that opinion
with a minimal investment of energy.
Of course, if the systems purpose is only to rate reputation based on
the opinions of those that sign up, with no external system of checking
integrity, then this sounds fine. It will do that exactly, I have no doubt.
David McFadzean wrote:
>>As for making it better: A fair system would include objective
>>researchers. If a member was found after research to be engaging in
>>obfiscation or deception, these ratings would need to reflect that
>>prominently. Otherwise it's a popularity and manipulation contest in
>>disguise with no means of checking for legitimacy.
>>
>>
>
>Anyone is free to point out obfuscation and deception at any time.
>Everyone else is free to take that into consideration when rating
>those concerned. Whether or not that affects the reputations depends
>on how convincing the evidence is, and no doubt issues concerning
>the credibility of the critic such as whether they use ad hominen
>attacks in presenting the case against someone.
>
>In other words, the system already implements your suggestion.
>
>David
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>
-- Reason - Vision - Empathy Tools for a healthy mind Bill Roh --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
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