Man, between Oler and all of the trolls and idiots, the comments section over there has become unreadable.
41 thoughts on “Space Politics”
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Man, between Oler and all of the trolls and idiots, the comments section over there has become unreadable.
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I liked this comment: “Should our military rely on commercial for access to space? I dont really think that would be wise.”
(applies palm to face)
I quit posting there a long time ago as Jeff said he had no way to moderate the idiots.
I simply refuse to be drug into exchanges with people like that.
Agreed. You nailed it when you mentioned that it was driving people away. I can stand most of them, but that DCSCA fellow is pollution of the lowest order.
What can be done other than to hope they eventually go away?
I haven’t tried the greasemonkey firefox plugin–it’s supposed to provide killfile capabilities for some blogs.
Oler and all of the trolls and idiots
You’re repeating yourself.
OK, I installed it on my machine; the killfile script doesn’t handle those in Space Politics (yet. The author seems willing to modify the script to include different comment formats).
The problem with killfiles is that they don’t work unless you also killfile the people who respond to those in the killfile. On the other hand, it’s not as bad with blog comments because, unlike Usenet, the idiocy isn’t automatically quoted in replies.
between Oler and all of the trolls and idiots
I was surprised to see him make a limited amount of sense the other day. It was in response to one of the other trolls/idiots. It must be some interesting psychological phenomenon induced by interaction between trolls. Not worth trawling through hundreds of posts for, but still interesting.
I’ve seen similar moments of lucidity elsewhere. I occasionally read alt.assassination.jfk.moderated (no, there probably wasn’t a conspiracy) and it is full of nut cases, even with the moderation. The unmoderated sister group (affectionately known as the Nut House) is even worse. But some of the people who are unable to detect the beam in their own eye can sometimes perfectly see the mote in other people’s eyes, lucidly pointing out the illogic and willful ignorance in the conspiracy theories of their opponents. Inter-troll lucidity.
Yeah, it’s sad to see how far downhill the comments section has gone. Unfortunately I seem to have attracted a few of them over to my blog occasionally. When I see a single person putting in 10x more comment writing than I can do blog writing, it’s a sign that their parents need to kick them off their computer…
~Jon
I stopped reading it because of the comments section, mostly because of that ass-tard TLE.
I wish he would simply disable comments.
What’s a TLE? I assume you’re not talking about two-line elements…
Thomas Lee Elifritz, notorious for trolling sci.space.* and various space blogs. He’s a constant ‘nym-shifter, but his writing style is highly recognizable regardless of the name at the bottom.
Yes, Elifritz. In the dying days of sci.space.policy, I managed to organize a voluntary boycott of his drivel, contacting people offline to advise ignoring him. It worked fairly well in that case, he’s one troll that really wants a lot of feeding.
TLE only showed up once (as far as I’ve seen) and his dick-headedness was pretty damn obvious. Googling his name opens up a view on a truly disturbed fella. Best to avoid.
Jon, that’s anti-PC of you, isn’t it? 🙂
Regular internet forum sw works pretty well against trolling ( see NSF ) , as long as there is a respectable community and a couple of moderators.
Blog comments .. only if one has some sort of authentication mechanism, OpenID or something .. or a really devoted author keeping the place tidy, which could be awfully timeconsuming.
Rand, in a nutshell (or longer, if you prefer), how do your views on space policy differ from Robert Oler’s? Also, do your preferences for the near-future of NASA differ from Mr. Oler’s? I don’t see much difference: fuel depots, launch small and often, govt prizes to support entrepeneurial efforts, don’t worry abou destinations, shuttle-derived LVs suck any available govt money away from R&D into operating cost, enable a market-based economy in space, etc,
Rand, in a nutshell (or longer, if you prefer), how do your views on space policy differ from Robert Oler’s?
They differ little, but I don’t understand the point of the question. I should be happy that ungrammatical loons and slanderers of my character, and liars about what I believe, and sufferers of Bush derangement, would agree with me on space policy?
How would you feel if a Klan member claimed to be a big fan of Obama? What would you think if I asked what your problem was with him?
Sorry, but I don’t seek such allies, and I’m insulted, really insulted, that you think I should.
I really was wondering if you had any space-policy related differences. You are reading more into my question than was there. I am well aware that you don’t like him, and of course, you and he obviously disagree about other topics not related to space policy.
The comments section of many formerly digestable space bulletin boards have become unreadable. There used to be thoughtful comments which one might or might not agree with, and one could take issue with in a spirited and constructive way. But now they’re just mostly rants. Even for some sites that pride themselves on having some level of editorial oversight.
But it’s true, the folks who have taken over at Space Policy have thin ideas, and pretty clearly don’t have a life, because posting inane comments is all they do.
This is what I was talking about a few days ago in the Space Philosophies post. Nobody is convincing anyone of anything, positions are the same as they were before the discussion. Even those who are arguing in good faith are simply talking past each other, because we’re not discussing the root issues of political and economic philosophy. For example, one can’t convince someone that Commercial Launch is a good idea if they are firm believers in Statism … that is, unless one can show that Statism itself is wrong.
Nobody is convincing anyone of anything, positions are the same as they were before the discussion
Would you really want somebody to suddenly change their position without a really good argument? (by argument I’m not referring to an emotional, but rational exchange) People like that tend to not have any position worth anything.
Sometimes you have to dig deep to find the thing that will bring about a change of view. Plus, in almost all cases, you really can’t tell anybody what to think, you have to get them to come to a realization by drawing them out a bit.
I do understand the frustration.
Throwing up a comment system with no way to moderate (or no intention to do so) is just pointless. I hope Space Politics stands as a lesson to this. On the other hand, if Jeff wants to switch to software that has even the most basic features of moderation, I’d be glad to help.
The Space Politics site is using WordPress, just like this one. Unless the owner is using a very old version of WordPress that he’s never bothered updating, he can easily set the comment thread to moderation, or registration-only. The fact that he doesn’t means… well, I’m not going to say what it means since I don’t know him and have never read the site, but on my own sites any time they became badly troll infested I always took whatever means necessary to prevent that (either setting comments to moderated, or registration only, or using IP banning). I figured it was a service to my readers to keep comment threads from descending into personal attack-fests.
Andrea, I imagine people posting bad poetry on your site would be cause for a ban. Perhaps not after the first time, perhaps not even after the second offense, but eventually, you’d figure..
You mean like this? (That link is where the troll poems started — before that the post is all about imitating a bad Harold Pinter poem. YMMV on the quality of the mockery.)
I think it has been said already somewhere, but I want to say it again. Jeff’s blog posts are extremely informative. It’s the comments attached that we’re talking about here. Those blog posts are what I consider to be high quality space journalism, expressing information, analysis, and insight. Unlike certain news aggregators who somehow consider themselves journalists because they know how to copy URLs and attach flippant comments to them. Yeah, there is more than one of those.
Yes, I stopped posting at Space Politics years ago.
But Jeff’s Troll pit does serve a couple of useful functions.
First, I find that the vast majority of folks actually interested in doing something have also abandoned Space Politics as a waste so a quick look at who is still posting there tells you if they are someone to be to taken seriously or just someone who haunts the blogsphere with their opinions for lack of anything better to do.
The other is that the trolls are so busy fighting among themselves they tend to ignore the other blogs making them more readable
Ken,
[[[Would you really want somebody to suddenly change their position without a really good argument? (by argument I’m not referring to an emotional, but rational exchange) People like that tend to not have any position worth anything.]]]
Actually when I reply to someone I really don’t expect them to change their opinion. Once folks articulate an opinion human nature simply makes it difficult to change. The focus of my posts are third parties who may not have formed an opinion, or having not articulated it are more open to change. In a sense I see the exchange much like a modern version of the classic Greek dialogues where both points are argued for the benefit of the reader.
I really was wondering if you had any space-policy related differences.
His posts are too incoherent and annoying to read, with all their bluster, and inappropriate quote marks, lies about me and what I believe, etc., to know.
In a sense I see the exchange much like a modern version of the classic Greek dialogues where both points are argued for the benefit of the reader.
Hmmm… does that make the Greeks the original bloggers?
I understand what you are saying. I just wonder, if you can’t draw out the point of contention (from a reasonable person of course) are the third parties actually getting the maximum benefit or are you even (and if not, who is?) It seems to me, expressing a point (while perhaps emotionally satisfying) misses the real value of argument which is self enlightenment. I always see an argument as a chance to better myself (on the assumption there is always plenty of room for that.) It’s the same reason I prefer to play a game like chess with someone that is better than I am. I’m hoping to improve my own game. Losing a good argument just gives me useful information to consider. I’ve never understood the need to win an argument at all costs. I believe the cost of that is higher than generally realized.
Ken,
The debates in Athens did indeed have the flavor of Blogs today 🙂
Nobody is convincing anyone of anything, positions are the same as they were before the discussion.
This is a good sign that at least one side of the debate is not being honest. In this debate, I strongly suspect those opposing commercial approaches have likelihoods that depend on the current state of affairs. Of course they are going to stick with arguments that are transparent BS.
Er, livelihoods
Paul D,
[[[This is a good sign that at least one side of the debate is not being honest. ]]]
Politics and policy are not like engineering. There are multiple right answers. That is one of the reasons I think it drives engineers nuts 🙂
[[[In this debate, I strongly suspect those opposing commercial approaches have likelihoods that depend on the current state of affairs.]]]
And I suspect many of those that are supporting “commercial” options also have livelihoods that stand to benefit financially from the new space policy. So by your way of arguing they have the same incentive to be “dishonest” in their arguments.
But in reality the debate is simply reflective of different perspectives of what is best for the nation’s future. In short each side believes in the points they are arguing and that the other side is posting “BS”.
Oler is a buffoon. He believes he’s the smartest guy in the room. Laughable.
I don’t know. I can’t think of any optimization problem I’ve run into that didn’t yield at least three decent solutions.
There’s likely a web of reasons for why large segments of the population–if not an outright majority–are turned off by political and public policy debate. Probably because the study of such is still stumbling over first principles, and the bar to start bloviating is set so low. For all the bickering pertaining space politics, I’d even wager that most of it is for the sheer fun of yapping about and picking apart each other’s visions of the future.
On that note, everybody’s wrong. I’m right. Miller time.
In this debate, I strongly suspect those opposing commercial approaches have likelihoods that depend on the current state of affairs.
That seems likely, but it looks as if there are also people who do not seem to have a direct financial interest in the status quo but who are still shilling for NASA launchers. That I don’t understand. There even appear to be some professional liars who contribute their skills free of charge.
MPM,
[[[That seems likely, but it looks as if there are also people who do not seem to have a direct financial interest in the status quo but who are still shilling for NASA launchers. That I don’t understand. There even appear to be some professional liars who contribute their skills free of charge.]]]
A statement that could also apply to those opposed to the status quo as well. I suspect both sides honestly believe they are right about the future of space.
I don’t think there are many (or even any) professional liars who contribute their skills free of charge on the pro-commercial side. And I don’t believe both sides honestly believe they are right about the future of space. I can’t prove this, but it is what I think. I think the blogosphere resistance comes mainly from liars, morons, fanbois and the ignorant (these categories are not disjoint) and very few others. Very few, not none. But then, I don’t have much faith in humanity.
MPM Says:
As you say, its your opinion. I am sure someone supporting NASA would say just the opposite. Again, such is the nature of debates in the Blogsphere