Questions and complaints about moderation + unlisted, mostly unmoderated, free discussion

Speaking of unsupported misinformation by an anonymous authoritarian hypocrite-

Windy Skies: “unproven rope drive system”

In fact both the first successful autonomous groundgen (KiteMotor1), and now the first serious AWE product (Kiwee), use the rope-drive method. I shared on this site the classic Rope Driving treatise from the historic industrial era before electrical grids. Rope driving is far more proven than your Methane or H2 production aloft concept, for which no refences are given.

Surely when your true identity becomes known, it will be consistent with your failures here.

What the creators of this Forum have set up is an SPE, where the self-selected Moderators lapse into authoritarian abuse of moderation power over those who have no such power. Its even more asymmetric, because instead of a coin flip, those attracted by the power were able to self-select. The bloated software array of available moderation powers further encouraged the abuses.

Should we just close the forum here?
Same old roundabout

Less intrusive more open moderation, like JoeF practiced, would be better.

Look what happened to Knots topic under draconian moderation by an unknown party.

Oh well, let the most interesting content, like what is the NOT State of kite line, find a better home.

Windy Skies is a terrible moderator of AWE knot content. The bold claim, that kPower has set the state of the art in AWE knots, stands unfalsified.

Please delete all posts of mine that WIndy Skies moves.

One of the misconceptions is perhaps that the other forum participants are your personal volunteer peer review system. They are not of course.

1 Like

I did not support @kitefreak’s “kPower has set the state of the art in AWE knots” claim. That does not mean I agree with moderation to split his message from All about knots topic. Indeed @kitefreak’s message comprised an interesting photo of different knots in the AWE field, while the initial topic does not seem to be connected to AWE.
So I disagree with moderation for this.

My suggestion would have been the simplest solution. If they don’t follow that suggestion I have the choice to moderate the entire post (and the off-topic discussion after that), or to edit part of the post (and moderate the off-topic discussion after that). For the moment I have chosen not to edit posts of others, so the choice defaults to option one. A poster is free to resubmit without the problematic part.

A simpler example is that from today:

The bolded part here is off-topic. It is also about something another member is supposedly doing wrong, so it is suspect.

Best option here would be to ask the poster privately to edit that out, or resubmit in a more appropriate place. That has been done in the past without result. So again here, I have the same choice to moderate the entire post or only edit part of the post, and my choice would again default to option one.

I am moderating with considerable leniency, so many posts that could be moderated are not.

1 Like

There is another possibility which is to affix a note of the moderator on the doubtful part and to leave in the state.

Windy Skies does not Moderate impartially. In fact, the material censored from All about Knots contained the essence of practical standard kite knot information, the Larkshead and overhand-loop Stopper-knot. He censored the Cosine Functions topic just as brutally. His own topics are not even accurately titled (“all about”). Knot and cosine expertise deserve better.

There is nothing “lenient” about anonymous authority wielding censorship powers over better informed domain experts. Joe Faust is the high AWE standard for helpful informed and lenient Moderation.

I think we should start treating any messages with have the anonymous claim
“As documented on the old forum”
Flagged as spam

Here are the flagging options:

I agree that the spam option is the closest match. An occasional reference to one’s own content is okay if it is useful, but here it becomes spam because the mention is not useful (I don’t remember seeing @kitefreak actually posting an actual link to a discussion so you could for yourself determine the existence, relevance and value of the discussion) and it is posted too many times.

I count 75 mentions of “old” “forum” together in a comment by @kitefreak:

https://forum.awesystems.info/search?q=old%20forum%20%40kitefreak

I agree with the suggestion. You can flag the post, @kitefreak sees the flag and he can either edit out the mention of the previous discussion on the “old forum” or he can leave it in and give direct links to relevant discussions.

While we’re talking, I think the forum rules should have an update. We are having technical discussions here, and I don’t see how the current forum rules promote high quality technical discussion. They’re mostly about netiquette.

Indeed for such discussions “likes” are not suitable because they are more or less synonymous with “I agree”. Decanting can only happen with time, readers, and achievements.

Nothing really wrong with “likes”. I’m talking about the https://forum.awesystems.info/faq As that is now, I think it is lacking, like I said a few times before. Now I say:

They could be improved by adding something like:

This is from https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/wiki/rules I edited it a bit.

What do you think about adding this in @Tom, @tallakt, @Rodread?

1 Like

I heart / like the proposed addition

All is wrong with “likes” in a technical discussion as they are only emotional manifestations, and technical discussions are not.

I disagree your proposed addition, which only allows to impose subjective constraints under the guise of objective rules.

Indeed you ask to @Tom, @tallakt, @Rodread, knowing they will likely agree. Why do you not ask also the advice to @dougselsam, @Kitewinder, @kitefreak and other?

The people I mentioned are the current moderators. Sure, having the input of the people you mentioned would be useful as well.

I don’t understand? You say tomorrow a meteor is going to strike the UK, I ask for some evidence. I don’t know how I am being wrong for asking for evidence in that scenario.

Also look at where the rules come from. I’m sure they were discussed at length and ad nauseam first in AskHistorians where they originated and then in AskEngineers to adapt it to engineering discussions.

State your opinion honestly and freely, but respect the need for factual evidence and good logic.

How do you decide if the messages agree with these vague prescriptions (perhaps excepted for “factual evidence”), above all by considering there is no consensus in AWE?

As AWE is not marketed, someone can think some method is good, but not someone other.

AWES has no consensus because there are so many possible choices to investigate.
I heart the ideas and discussions which best resonate with my experiences and I see as most progressive. Can the collection of likes inform the iterating attempts of a Bayesain AWES exploration? Yes, maybe. Have we got a better advisor?

tl;dr. But will read as soon as I get around to it. Am aware that my attention is required.
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