On June 13 2014 04:59 KadaverBB wrote: Yes, lets just ban all the people arguing against you and call it a win?
I dislike this depiction of events. The thread used to have a large number of people from a large number of backgrounds with healthy discussion between them. As is usual for a place as large as Russia, there were varied points of view coming from within Russia as well, and we had good constructive exchanges with many Russian posters (oo_Wonderful_oo and the fastest poster since The Bot come to mind). It's also not the case that there's some alliance between Cheerio and me, or some anti-Russia front. Under the current situation where information is scarce, and disinformation is plentiful, there are reasonable disagreements between all people about what counts as reliable information, and also which conclusions can be drawn. + Show Spoiler +
See my recent exchange with M4ini
But it's through such discussion that a more holistic picture is formed.
What Cheerio is drawing attention to is basically de facto the case. I wouldn't like to clump Paleman, Nunez and Zeo because I think they have different patterns though. The clearest case is Paleman who spends more time being warned or banned than actually using TL. While he improved for a while just a short time ago, previously his pattern of posting has been to be banned, return straight to the thread and get banned for the same thing again. He is currently temp banned again for basically just never changing his posting.
What's common between the three is the refusal to see that there's desinformation being spread around, and that most Russian news sources are no longer doing journalism. If this point is contentious in the eyes of the moderating staff, I can explain it in detail, but I honestly think there are no serious analysts out there who would defend sites like RT, Lifenews or Itar-Tass. Just for the record, I also think that ATO spokesmen and other Ukrainian govt. sources cannot be used as sources anymore, independent journalists consistently and directly contradict their claims (such as `300 terrorists are being killed per day').
On the other hand, the new moderation policy for the thread does not directly stop posts from Itar-Tass, RT.com, EuromaidanPR, etc., which is correct to the extent that they are good sources for certain things (Itar-Tass usually represents the Russian MFA view in fuller detail than other sources). But this leads to these three posters in particular to post news items from those sources claiming them to be accurate reporting, which leads to arguments, and with good cause. For example, the recent White Phosphorus article they ran has been confirmed by no independent journalists and is only being ran on Lifenews, Itar-Tass and RT.com. Yet, some of the footage being used to verify the claim was shown to be from 2004 and from Iraq. The other footage has not been debunked yet, but it should illustrate how misleading it would be to accept what Russian govt. controlled news sources are publishing.
Now, it would be ok to not have policy on what is a reliable source if two conditions were met: a) all posters would critically appraise sources after discussion on them in the thread, b) the discussions were civil. But if we look at Paleman, for example, he has taken on the position that only Itar-Tass articles should be posted + Show Spoiler [post in question] +
On May 27 2014 17:47 PaleMan wrote: As I thought Ukraine doesn't want to pay for gas which is already shipped (not 1st time thoug)
KIEV, May 27. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine “will not pay anything” for gas to Russia, if the countries do not reach an agreement to bring back the previous gas price at $268.5 for 1,000 cubic meters, parliament-appointed acting Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak told reporters before a country’s government meeting on Tuesday. “We are prepared to pay after they [Russia] confirm the gas price to us for the future. However, the proposal made today — “you pay and then we will start talking to you” — does not suit us,” the interim minister said. He noted the need to hold gas talks with Russia at which negotiating parties should agree on returning the gas price at $268.5 for 1,000 cubic meters. “If no agreement is attained, we will not pay anything,” Shlapak noted.
Since Ghan thinks he is thread captain or something I will post ONLY Itar-Tass sources even if there is others for same news, Itar-tass was founded in 1902 while biased, west-worshipping Kyev-Post (which Ghan likes so much) in 1995 by american citizen Jed Sunden. Now it is owned by british citizen Mohammad Zahoor. Nuff said.
User was warned for this post
. Regarding civility, Zatic can attest that the discussions are not currently civil. In fact, I keep posting in that thread knowing that there are probably ad hominems and other nasty pokes waiting for me right afterward. They are generally subtle enough to avoid moderation attention, but that doesn't mean they don't make you feel like shit. But I won't make the mistake of goading them on like Incontrol did, so I'll just say that the thread has made me grow thicker skin than I expected to be possible.
On June 13 2014 04:59 KadaverBB wrote: Yes, lets just ban all the people arguing against you and call it a win?
Have you even read the last couple of pages there? Because I haven't seen any arguing. Today the thread returned to the old ways, but even by the older rules some posts should have been at least warned, but they weren't. So the question is do you let the thread decay further or do you stop it right there.
On June 13 2014 04:59 KadaverBB wrote: Yes, lets just ban all the people arguing against you and call it a win?
Have you even read the last couple of pages there? Because I haven't seen any arguing. Today the thread returned to the old ways, but even by the older rules some posts should have been at least warned, but they weren't. So the question is do you let the thread decay further or do you stop it right there.
The problem is that the Ukraine Crisis is an important issue. There is no "right" way to do this - we can and do try to moderate the thread to the best of all of our abilities, but it is difficult as all hell when people take subtle jabs at one another constantly and resort to reporting people they disagree with when others do not take their bait (backseat moderation and continuous offhand remarks about the quality of moderation with no constructive feedback does not help the issue). Closing the thread is just as bad, if not worse, a solution as staggering our way through a sea of reports none of us can handle perfectly or even make sense of most of the time, but if you have an easy solution to the problem I'm all ears.
On June 13 2014 04:59 KadaverBB wrote: Yes, lets just ban all the people arguing against you and call it a win?
Have you even read the last couple of pages there? Because I haven't seen any arguing. Today the thread returned to the old ways, but even by the older rules some posts should have been at least warned, but they weren't. So the question is do you let the thread decay further or do you stop it right there.
The problem is that the Ukraine Crisis is an important issue. There is no "right" way to do this - we can and do try to moderate the thread to the best of all of our abilities, but it is difficult as all hell when people take subtle jabs at one another constantly and resort to reporting people they disagree with when others do not take their bait (backseat moderation and continuous offhand remarks about the quality of moderation with no constructive feedback does not help the issue). Closing the thread is just as bad, if not worse, a solution as staggering our way through a sea of reports none of us can handle perfectly or even make sense of most of the time, but if you have an easy solution to the problem I'm all ears.
Show me a single subtle jab made not by nunez, Paleman, or zeo after the new rules.
On June 13 2014 04:59 KadaverBB wrote: Yes, lets just ban all the people arguing against you and call it a win?
Have you even read the last couple of pages there? Because I haven't seen any arguing. Today the thread returned to the old ways, but even by the older rules some posts should have been at least warned, but they weren't. So the question is do you let the thread decay further or do you stop it right there.
The problem is that the Ukraine Crisis is an important issue. There is no "right" way to do this - we can and do try to moderate the thread to the best of all of our abilities, but it is difficult as all hell when people take subtle jabs at one another constantly and resort to reporting people they disagree with when others do not take their bait (backseat moderation and continuous offhand remarks about the quality of moderation with no constructive feedback does not help the issue). Closing the thread is just as bad, if not worse, a solution as staggering our way through a sea of reports none of us can handle perfectly or even make sense of most of the time, but if you have an easy solution to the problem I'm all ears.
Show me a single subtle jab made not by nunez, Paleman, or zeo after the new rules.
@ghan no doubt that russian, ukrainian and even western newspapers are pushing biased coverage, false news, and echo govt sanctioned conspiracies (kyivpost, nytimes, dailybeast, rt, lifenews), and liquidians will scrutinize the articles they produce with caution.
but can't be compared with the constant stream of disinfo garbage from twitter feeds and propaganda sites (ukraine reporter, conflict reporter, euromaidanpr, stopfake etc) which you insist on reposting in the thread.
you're the only one still making that mistake, which is why my post appears to be biased.
nunez, the issue we are discussing is not reliability of the news sources, that problem can be dealt with in a reasonable fashion. What can't be dealt with is aggression, which on internet forums, unless stopped by moderators, only leads to more and more aggression. So I am advocating putting a ban on it altogether.
On June 13 2014 06:56 nunez wrote: @ghan no doubt that russian, ukrainian and even western newspapers are pushing biased coverage, false news, and echo govt sanctioned conspiracies (kyivpost, nytimes, dailybeast, rt, lifenews), and liquidians will scrutinize the articles they produce with caution.
but can't be compared with the constant stream of disinfo garbage from twitter feeds and propaganda sites (ukraine reporter, conflict reporter, euromaidanpr, stopfake etc) which you insist on reposting in the thread.
you're the only one still making that mistake, which is why my post appears to be biased.
I think this post serves as an excellent illustration of why the discussion doesn't get off the ground. The bolder parts are basically a personal attack saying I post `disinfo garbage' without any evidence. Why make it a personal and nasty like that?
Also, there's this strange sense that twitter is bad, yet almost all major parties are making public statements on twitter these days, this includes journalists and heads of states.
If we look at the list, we have a weird mix of things. While I agree that euromaidanpr had become a propaganda site, ukraine reporter is an excellent source. They post breaking content and generally qualify it accurately. For example, regarding the tanks entering Ukraine, they were adamant about the reports being iffy. As it happens, tanks did enter Ukraine from Russia today, they just happened to be different tanks than originally thought. Here's one of their latest posts on the topic:
As you can see, they are very critical of their sources and happy to debunk their own posts when new information arises.
Conflictreporter is a German news source specializing in Middle East coverage. I honestly don't know why anyone would consider them a propaganda source or for who.
Stop Fake is a new fact-checking cite recently endorsed by the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard. They are excellent at calling out fake news. For example they reported on the White Phophoros story by a Russian news agency using 2004 footage. And they have called a lot of the hoaxes out there. I don't think you can argue that they somehow spread propaganda if we can all see that the footage is CNN footage from Iraq. So to call the cite a propaganda site is dis disingenious at best. But the best test for a cite to check whether it's propaganda or not is to find them breaking official government lines. Ukraine continues to assert that it didn't bomb the local separatist HQ in Luhansk, well Stop Fake debunks all such claims. They posted a whole lot of analysis and they reach the same conclusion as Interpretermag, OSCE and we in the thread. It was most likely a govt. plane bombing the HQ.
rofl ye, just check conflictreporter twitter feed and you will know that russia has been invading ukraine for about 4 months. its #BREAKINGNEWS is usually just as worthless as the drivel produced by ukraine reporter, like f.ex the russian t-72 invasion today... quite the expert.
using stopfake as a source is comparable with using this thread as a source, after you filter out everyone who disagrees with the side you wanna front. it's a facebook group for calling bs on russian media (99% of the time) and that piece is hardly an endorsement...
it doesn't matter if ukrainereporter puts out an 'i'm sorry, i'm full of shit' every once in a while after he/she flings it. if he/she were continuosly posting bs like that on tl, he/she'd be permed. he/she produces no content, constantly spreads disinfo and propaganda, we have 0 accountability or any way of knowing what interests that twitter act represents (allthough it's painfully obvious what it's purpose is), yet you think he/she is an excellent source.
and you are quite literally the only one who insists on reposting worthless disinfo tweets in thread that wouldn't make the cut if you had posted it directly yourself, it's garbage, why bother. you even repost it before real reporting is done on whatever it is they're trying to spin, and needlessly shit up the thread, like this debacle is a good example of.
On June 13 2014 07:35 nunez wrote: rofl ye, just check conflictreporter twitter feed and you will know that russia has been invading ukraine for about 4 months.
using stopfake as a source is comparable with using this thread as a source, after you filter out everyone who disagrees with the side you wanna front. it's a facebook group for calling bs on russian media (99% of the time) and that piece is hardly an endorsement...
it doesn't matter if ukrainereporter puts out an 'i'm sorry, we're full of shit' every once in a while after they fling it. if they were continuosly posting bs like that on tl, they'd be permed.
and you are quite literally the only one who insists on reposting garbage disinfo tweets (ukraine reporter in particular).
Well it's not their fault those are lying so much.
The problem with nunez is that he doesn't know when to shut the fuck up. Once he gets in an argument that he believes in, he can't stop because his ego tells him that the other side is too stupid to actually be sincere. I have the same problem, (though nowhere near as bad as before I quit drinking in january) which is why I try to limit my posting in both the US politics and the Ukraine Crisis threads. For every post of mine there are at least 10 I delete (I almost posted the poll that got me a 2 day temp 3 times in the week before I finally got fed up).
My basic criteria boil down to: 1. Does my post add anything to the conversation? 2. Am I saying something that any regular reader of the thread could assume I would say? 3. Is my post intentional flame bait?
If my post fails these, I generally go back to lurking. Granted, I sometimes let my ego get the better of me (MY FEELINGS MUST BE KNOWN!!!!!). Nunez has the same problem but is always willing to return to the old wild-west posting quality of the Ukraine Crisis thread. He needs to avoid getting personally attached or stop posting, because as it is he has a very bad habit of lowering the level of discussion in the thread to suit the level of argument he perceives from others, instead of raising it to outperform them.
On June 12 2014 21:46 sgtnoobkilla wrote: Video footage of the said tank(s):
They look more like Ukrainian T-64s than Russian T-72s to be honest. Perhaps the separatists managed to get a few tanks from that depot in Artemovsk up and running?
only an idiot would think otherwise.
Still no warning so I guess it is fine with the new rules. My question is could some moderator clarify when a statement like that is ok and when not because I would really like to use that argument myself.
On June 16 2014 04:17 KadaverBB wrote: He was already warned for a seperate post, there was no sense in dishing out 2 warnings in the span of 5 minutes.
Are you kidding me? If somebody violates the rules a few times in a short period that is a reason for more severity, not less, because it eliminates the chances that it happened by accident. "Violate a rule once and you can do it again for free in 5 minutes." Seriously what the hell?
On June 16 2014 04:17 KadaverBB wrote: He was already warned for a seperate post, there was no sense in dishing out 2 warnings in the span of 5 minutes.
Are you kidding me? If somebody violates the rules a few times in a short period that is a reason for more severity, not less, because it eliminates the chances that it happened by accident. "Violate a rule once and you can do it again for free in 5 minutes." Seriously what the hell?
He was warned for the second of two warn-worthy posts, so yes it covers both of them. It wasn't a case of warn -> post terribly again 5 minutes later, which would indeed result in more action.
... Ok, think of the precedent you are making for those who don't read this thread: a guy basically calls his opponents idiots (something not only me pointed out) and walks away with it. And this is happening in the thread with stricter moderation rules than on the rest of the forum. You are undermining your own efforts.
I agree. If the thread was a normal thread, I would had expected nunezto have been warned and banned several times over. That he isn't, in a thread with supposedly stricter moderation, suggests that nunez has been granted immunity to such actions for whatever reason.
EPT
