And the effect of this Quizz was...

[Malenfant]

I generally agree with that. But in this specific case, I don't think moving the quiz to Purgatory or a new forum would have had any serious negative effect. Not moving it produced this long pointless discussion, and has caused one of the valuable contributers to P&A to decline further participation. That's his choice of course. But I don't think this outcome is "perfectly fine". It's his decision, but it's also my loss, because I valued his contributions to the P&A forum. Against this loss, what is the benefit of not moving the quiz? I don't see any.

- Hank

Fridger is free to leave whatever board he likes for whatever reason he likes.

What infuriates me is that he still insists that he's not blackmailing the community. I'm sorry but "I'm never posting here again unless this thread is moved" is quite clearly holding the community to ransom - he wants something done, and if it's not done he's leaving. There's no other conceivable way you can look at that and come to any other conclusion.

The reason I'm drawing a line is that there's no way in hell that any user should be allowed to do that on a forum. I'm buggered if we're supposed to just drop everything and do everything that Fridger commands us just because he's a 'valued developer'. That he's a valued developer is not in doubt - but his perpetual demands and threats when things don't go his way make him nothing more than a royal a pain in the ass from a social perspective in this community.

The thing is, he's not been particularly useful on the P&A board lately anyway - he's admitted that he's not spent much time there recently himself. And we've got by perfectly well without him because other people (myself included) have contributed most of the interesting threads and posts there - there's only been one thread that he's contributed to in a meaningful manner recently (and I'm grateful for that) but that's it. So if he stomped out of the P&A forum never to return then it's really wouldn't be that big a deal. I don't see it as a big loss if he leaves that board, so his threats are somewhat meaningless.

If he wants to "impart his wisdom" anywhere else then more power to him. Celestial Matters can have its own forums and be his own personal playground that he can lord over as a God-King for all I care , at least maybe if he spends all his time there we'll have a bit of sanity here finally...

[t00fri]

...
What infuriates me is that he still insists that he's not blackmailing the community. I'm sorry but "I'm never posting here again unless this thread is moved" is quite clearly holding the community to ransom

absolutely NOT, because the emphasis was on here...You just did not add "1+1" . See my explanations above.

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

The thing is, he's not been particularly useful on the P&A board lately anyway - he's admitted that he's not spent much time there recently himself. And we've got by perfectly well without him because other people (myself included) have contributed most of the interesting threads and posts there - there's only been one thread that he's contributed to in a meaningful manner recently (and I'm grateful for that) but that's it. So if he stomped out of the P&A forum never to return then it's really wouldn't be that big a deal. I don't see it as a big loss if he leaves that board, so his threats are somewhat meaningless.
...
If he wants to "impart his wisdom" anywhere else then more power to him. Celestial Matters can have its own forums and be his own personal playground that he can lord over as a God-King for all I care , at least maybe if he spends all his time there we'll have a bit of sanity here finally...

With all your mean verbal attacks, did you ask yourself ONE simple question?

WHO WANTS YOU?

Does it never occur to you that you are constantly attacking my person verbally using rather low-level English, in addition?

make him nothing more than a pain in the ass

Throughout this long discussion, I am quite sure that I never attacked you personally with a single word.

Unfortunately I can't help it, but people who are loosing control so much as you do, tend to make a quite unfavorable impression on me. But that's perhaps just my personal bias.

Please try and get back to more civilized manners!

Thank you!

Bye Fridger

[Malenfant]

absolutely NOT, because the emphasis was on here...You just did not add "1+1" . See my explanations above.

Bye Fridger

What the hell are you on about Fridger? THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG!

You say "I'm never posting again on the P&A board if this thread stays". So if anyone wants your input on a P&A thread, they're screwed because you're being a prima donna who insists on having your way and refusing to accept anything else. What the hell is that if not "holding the community to ransom"?! The P&A board is part of the Celestia community. If you get away with doing that there then you'll get away with doing that anywhere else on the boards. Nobody else here has control over that thread, only Selden can move it and he's decided not to, in part since it's already neutralised by being locked. He's drawn the line there and he's not moving it, for whatever reasons he chooses - as is his right as a moderator. So that means by your demands that you should go away and don't post on the P&A board anymore and leave it at that. That should be the end of the matter.

But your insistence that you're not holding the community to ransom nothing but a complete lie. If that's not what you're doing then you should damn well stop linking your presence (or lack of it) on the P&A board to the continued existence of that LOCKED quiz thread on that board.

So by all means, please shut up and stomp off and leave us all to "suffer" without your godly presence there, I'm sure we'll manage fine without you (as we have done recently anyway). I don't know how to make it any clearer than that, because I'm sure as hell sick to the back teeth of all your egomaniacal nonsense and prima-donna behaviour.

And for someone who claims to have better things to do than post here, you sure seem to like coming back to prolong the argument.

[Malenfant]

This thread is just utterly ridiculous...

It should never have been allowed to exist in the first place. Rule #1 of general forum netiquette (elswhere on the net at least) is that YOU DON'T PUBLICLY ARGUE WITH THE MODERATOR. Selden's mistake as a moderator wasn't to keep the quiz thread on the P&A board, it was to allow this sort of back-talk and pubic questioning to occur in the first place. All of the complaints at Selden's decisions should have been done via PM - but no, instead, our resident Prima Donna had to go kick up a stink and draw attention to himself.

I wouldn't be surprise if Selden just told Chris he was quitting as Moderator. It's a generally thankless job and it's certainly not worth all this hassle, particularly since the offending thread in question has been LOCKED and therefore isn't going to cause trouble anymore. Selden's done his job - who gives a damn whether it's still on the P&A board or not, the damn thing is dead, kaput, terminated, ceased to be. It's not causing any harm or disruption to anyone there anymore. That should have been the end of the matter.

Thing is, there's plenty of us - myself included - who care just as much (if not more) about the standards of the Physics and Astronomy board - and of the rest of the forums for that matter. But do we throw a tantrum and say "RIGHT! I'M LEAVING THE BOARD OVER THIS!". No, we don't. It's just one person doing that, someone who is supposedly a mature, intelligent professor at a respected research establishment. And more to the point, he's done similar things time and time again in the past too, and he's the only one who reacted that way then too.

Why exactly should we pandering to that one individual here? How is it that the rest of us can just shrug and carry on without kicking up a stink and making a point of shoving into everyone's faces that they're going to leave the P&A board if that thread remains there, but Fridger can't do that? Does he think he's some lone crusader for academic standards or something, and that everyone else is too slack to do anything about it? Because that's certainly not true at all. Or does he have some deep-seated personality problem that means he wants to have his way all the time?

[ElChristou]

Malenfant,

Your antagonism with Fridger is not new, seems both cannot stend each other character, this perhaps based on statements too quickly written and once done, seems both are unable to retract your words...

Perhaps Fridger haven't used the wiser way of acting, but he is not a stupid person and of course he plays with his position to influe the decisions here, thing that is normal in whatever kind of society/community... Good? Bad? who knows... in all case it's a human reaction, he his free to act this way as you are free to do so...

Note that by this way he hasn't achieve his goal, but he do respect Selden decision, so I don't see what is your problem about this...

The net for some can represent a kind of utopia where all users are equalls etc... but this is not true. People have the value of their acts.

Why not ending all this topic with a poll? Rules or not? You said we are 100 active users? ok; if... let's say half, 50 users respond to this pole within the month and if the majority votes for rules, then I think we will have to open again this topic... what do you think?

[rthorvald]

does he have some deep-seated personality problem that means he wants to have his way all the time?

Eh... Exactly what are you doing? It seems to me that you are very active, in public - and all these postings makes it look like you really want to have your way.

Fridger just sets his own standards, which you percieve as "blackmail", while insisting loudly to get to work on standards for everybody. And when that does not get too much support... Well, here we are with "personality problems". It is time to stop.

- rthorvald

[Malenfant]

does he have some deep-seated personality problem that means he wants to have his way all the time?

Eh... Exactly what are you doing? It seems to me that you are very active, in public - and all these postings makes it look like you really want to have your way.

If my way is "let's just discuss things instead of trying to force decisions by holding people to ransom" then yeah, mea culpa. I'm not trying to impose anything on anyone here - but Fridger is trying to impose his "solution" on us all - he's trying to force Selden to move that thread by saying he'll stop contributing to the P&A board if it's not moved. And it seems to be working because people who don't want that to happen are putting pressure on Selden to yield to him. I'm quite certain that if it was anyone else threatening to do the same thing as Fridger then that person wouldn't get as much support from everyone else - but because Fridger is perceived as a valuable contributor you all get behind him because you're afraid to lose him.

That's an incredibly dangerous precedent to set on an online forum. Individual users simply cannot be allowed to dictate a course of action to the community and to the moderators by abusing their position as valued contributors like that.

Fridger just sets his own standards, which you percieve as "blackmail"

That's because it IS blackmail... He's quite entitled to his standards, and naturally they're very high. But he's not entitled to use the threat of withholding any further contributions as leverage to getting something done the way he wants it - at least not without a fight. And I'm certainly not going to sit back and let him run roughshod over this forum like this, because if he gets away with it this time then he'll be able to do it again and again until this just becomes his personal playground where he chooses what is and isn't 'acceptable' and how to deal with it - I don't care if I'm the only one who will make that stand, but that's the position I'm defending here.

I'm mystified as to why you can't see the damage his actions could cause here if Selden bows down to him and does what he tells him to and moves the thread. Where would it stop after that? While other peoples' arguments against keeping the quiz thread in P&A certainly have some merit, if it's moved then the perception won't be that it was moved because of those valid arguments - it would be that it was moved because of Fridger's threats. And it's not Fridger's place - or yours or mine or any other user's - to apply that sort of pressure on a moderator of a forum that they're on.

[Malenfant]

Note that by this way he hasn't achieve his goal, but he do respect Selden decision, so I don't see what is your problem about this...

I don't think he remotely respects Selden's decision, or even Selden himself. Look at what he said again, in the very first post on this thread that started all this:

Selden,

+++++++++++++++++++++++
ok, ALL that your "wise" decision managed to effect is that a frequent and competent poster at the Physics and Astronomy board will NOT appear there anymore, answering questions of people about cosmology, extra dimensions, relativity and all that...

The "educational" and "entertaining" nature of that Quizz stuff was apparently more important to you than the numerous clarifying contributions of an internationally renowned scientist.
+++++++++++++++++++++++

Well done!

Bye Fridger

Yeah, right. That's nothing but a bitter, sarcasm-filled rant against Selden because he didn't do something the way that Fridger wanted. If that's the attitude of someone who "respects Selden's decision" then I'm the Queen of Sheba...

If Fridger had respected Selden's decision then he would have just respectfully disagreed, shut up and not posted anything more on the P&A board and that would have been that. But no, instead he started this thread to let everyone know and make a big deal out of why he was leaving the P&A board because of that decision. He's basically saying implying that it's all Selden's fault that he is leaving the P&A board, and he's using that in an attempt to twist everyone's opinion against him. If he really did respect Selden's decision - or even Selden himself - then he wouldn't have posted that twisted, bile-filled crap to start with.

And he still seems to be trying to polarise people into those who support Selden and those who don't. I mean, look at this:

Those of you who (unlike Selden) still value my way and my expertise of discussing and explaining basic concepts of modern (astro) physics and cosmology, will be able to read my forthcoming articles elsewhere.

So the implication is that those of us who do support Selden apparently DON'T value Fridger's "way and his expertise of discussing and explaining basic concepts of astrophysics etc" and thus do not deserve to be able to read his articles here because we've been deemed "unworthy"by him. That's an incredibly conceited, divisive way to talk about things. Who the hell is Fridger to try to drive a wedge in this community like that?

Why not ending all this topic with a poll? Rules or not? You said we are 100 active users? ok; if... let's say half, 50 users respond to this pole within the month and if the majority votes for rules, then I think we will have to open again this topic... what do you think?

Well, the other thing I've noticed about forums is that polls just don't work. Too few people respond to them - the 100 active users are only those who have posted a total of 100 posts ever on this board. In practice the total number of people who REALLY regularly frequent the board is probably closer to about 10-20 at most. You wouldn't get any kind of meaningful majority of active users posting there.

[t00fri]

Malenfant,

I think you are just writing a bit fast and a bit too much.

Here is what I ALSO wrote about Selden somewhat later. It's DEFINITELY my honest opinion. I bet you will also be able to discover "sarcasm" in there...

++++++++++++++++++
I respect Selden, because he is a most peaceful, reflected, intelligent, knowledgeable, helpful person with close to infinite patience and NOT because he happens to be the MOD!

I respect him because he does NOT loose his natural authority if one argues with him. And so on.

Same with Chris and all my friends here, with whom I have collaborated on numerous Celestia projects.
++++++++++++++++++

Never read it? I suppose you left it out since it didn't quite fit into your "plot"



Here another one of many of your paragraphs, distinguished by wild interpretations that have NO basis...

Those of you who (unlike Selden) still value my way and my expertise of discussing and explaining basic concepts of modern (astro) physics and cosmology, will be able to read my forthcoming articles elsewhere.

So the implication is that those of us who do support Selden apparently DON'T value Fridger's "way and his expertise of discussing and explaining basic concepts of astrophysics etc" and thus do not deserve to be able to read his articles here because we've been deemed "unworthy"by him. That's an incredibly conceited, divisive way to talk about things. Who the hell is Fridger to try to drive a wedge in this community like that?

Your implication is again totally twisted! I grant you that these frequent misinterpretations are not really on purpose but rather because you are too much out of control to retain your common sense.

There are NO implications whatsoever than what I wrote above. Note that you have no right to constantly interpret untenable conclusions into my sentences that I have NEVER written!

Bye Fridger

[selden]

Gentle folk,

It's clear that no further communication is happening. Neither of you is going to convince the other. I would greatly appreciate it if any further discussion would take place in private mail between you.

I'm locking this thread.