What if someone is WRONG on this forum?

[EEVblog]

Your prerogative.
He'll remain on my "Don't waste your breath" list.
Why?
He's either:
 1. A troll who gets their kicks watching others run around trying to explain - where he couldn't care less about the facts.
 or
 2. A classic Dunning-Kruger candidate who just cannot see where their logic is flawed - and refuses to even concede that possibility.

That's the thing.
Is "trolling" on a thread they started actually trolling?
Who's is it hurting if they get their jollies discussing physics or other technical details in circles and refuse to admit they are "wrong"?
If you don't think you are getting through to someone who asked a question, then just don't reply any more.
There are countless legit electronics threads on here I could put under the same catgeory.

[EEVblog]

Obviously we don't just ban for talking about physics like we have here, we even let wacy free energy people discuss stuff on the forum if they are aren't otherwise creating trouble and generating user reports.

It's good to have a policy like this.  One of the major physics forums has an annoying policy of an absolute ban on free-energy discussions, including ones like "Can someone explain to me why this alleged free-energy device doesn't do what it claims?".  This is really annoying because it's one of the few forums that has people qualified to explain where the hole in the argument is, everywhere else it's just people guessing.

If we had a policy like that then we'd have the ban everyone involved in the Electroboom / Walter Lewin discussion for example.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/does-kirchhoffs-law-hold-disagreeing-with-a-master/

[EEVblog]

FYI, after discussion we have agreed to reinstate the Electrodacus account.
The Dacian account will remian banned as we generally don't allow multiple accounts as a rule.

I would be good if this reinstatement could be conditional on not trying to discuss "direct downwind" or any related topics in any shape or form. It was relentless trolling in this area that provoked the original ban.

But he started the thread. How do you troll in your own thread? No one is obligated to reply to or continue discussion in a thread.
It would be different if say someone came into an existing established thread and just ruined it by trolling.
It guess it comes down to "ownership" of a thread. Should the thread owner have the right to continue going in circles or whatever in their own thread? I think it's probably generally agreed on here (and general forum ettiqutte anywhere) that there are some "rights" that come with being the OP of a thread.
We (mods) have actually had many reports over the years from an OP that someone is derailing the thread and can we give them a tap on the shoulder.

[EEVblog]

Who's is it hurting if they get their jollies discussing physics or other technical details in circles and refuse to admit they are "wrong"?

"Wrong" is a real thing.  No quotes required.

Wrong is also, in many cases, only wrong until it's not, or comes under question, or you are making a subtle technical point etc.
And even if someone is dead set demonstrably wrong, full stop, if they asked the question in a new thread and refuse to admit they are wrong, should they be banned? If so, why?

[IanB]

But he started the thread. How do you troll in your own thread? No one is obligated to reply to or continue discussion in a thread.
It would be different if say someone came into an existing established thread and just ruined it by trolling.

It's fair enough that he started later threads, but the first thread, he didn't start (as I recall). He came into that thread later, and when people got tired of it and told him to go away, he then started other threads.

It would be great if people would simply ignore the new threads and stop feeding them, but it seems hard for that to happen.

Maybe people will do better at ignoring them this time around.

[EEVblog]

if they asked the question in a new thread and refuse to admit they are wrong, should they be banned? If so, why?

That's your business; not mine.  I'm only pointing out that there's "wrong" and there's WRONG.

My question is relevant and remains, should they be banned for not admitting they are wrong? And if so, why?

[EEVblog]

But he started the thread. How do you troll in your own thread? No one is obligated to reply to or continue discussion in a thread.
It would be different if say someone came into an existing established thread and just ruined it by trolling.

It's fair enough that he started later threads, but the first thread, he didn't start (as I recall). He came into that thread later, and when people got tired of it and told him to go away, he then started other threads.

In that case isn't that the polite thing to do? 

It would be great if people would simply ignore the new threads and stop feeding them, but it seems hard for that to happen.

But what if those people want to engage in those threads? How does that harm you or others on the forum?

[IanB]

But what if those people want to engage in those threads? How does that harm you or others on the forum?

It doesn't, directly, and if it was a private forum nobody would care.

But this is a public forum, and people can be directed here by search engines when looking for answers to questions. It is therefore difficult to leave factually incorrect information lying around in threads unchallenged, as if it is accepted.

So you get an endless spiral, where something incorrect is posted, people say "no, that's wrong", and then more wrong assertions get posted over and over again.

[EEVblog]

But what if those people want to engage in those threads? How does that harm you or others on the forum?

It doesn't, directly, and if it was a private forum nobody would care.
But this is a public forum, and people can be directed here by search engines when looking for answers to questions. It is therefore difficult to leave factually incorrect information lying around in threads unchallenged, as if it is accepted.
So you get an endless spiral, where something incorrect is posted, people say "no, that's wrong", and then more wrong assertions get posted over and over again.

And your solution is what?
Where is the line?
Who becomes the arbitor of absolute truth?
Should I delete all posts in the Electroboom vs Lewin thread that disagree with the esteemed Professor Lewin?
What about the Veritasium electricty thread?

Getting back to the topic at hand, why should someone not be able to start a thread like this one taking on the validity of Veritasium's test, and argue it into minute detail until the cows come home?
Just because a Youtuber won a bet against a university professor, that's it, it's settled for the rest of eternity, not to be questioned ever again under the punishment of banning for posting misinformation?

Even if no one replied to them and they posted pages and pages of absolute technical dribble, do they not have a right to the "Free and Open forum" which this one is? If so, where is the line?
We do actually have a rule in place that we reserve the right to remove "unsafe" information. I think maybe we have used that once.
But there is no rule for being wrong. Convince me that there should be and how it should be implemented. But you are ging to have to try hard, because I have seen in recent years where that leads, and it's not good.

[lezginka_kabardinka]

David, have you been on the Whisky? 😆

[EEVblog]

David, have you been on the Whisky? 😆

I don't drink.

[wraper]

Who becomes the arbitor of absolute truth?

I have mixed feelings about this. On one side he shouldn't be banned for spewing nonsense. On other hand there was no normal discussion where he would actually listen his opponents. Not misrepresenting what they claimed in different ways to generate even more nonsense. The problem was that others were "feeding the troll" and try argue instead of just giving up on hopeless endeavor and let the thread die for good. Dunno, maybe appropriate would be temporary ban for being overwhelmingly annoying and creating new threads to expand worthless discussion as if his life depends on it.

[lezginka_kabardinka]

David, have you been on the Whisky? 😆

I don't drink.

You will dehydrate! 😛

[EEVblog]

David, have you been on the Whisky? 😆

I don't drink.

You will dehydrate! 😛

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-2mf1mqZVQ0

[RJSV]

   I'm leaning more towards semi-unrestricted (postings), but with caveat that lots of 'monitoring' takes place, and a person posting has a tacit acceptance of that.  Hmmm that sounded like a 'cookies' notice.
   Some posts get a bit playful, as in something from Electroboom videos.  I see that (non-serious) as a valuable factor, in entertainment...Maybe the Nuclear Engineer comes home, for the evening, and wants only frivolous, and yes, maybe pure stupidity, for a couple seconds, before repeating a potentially crappy daytime job.
   Just go for the harmful posts, and, of course, keeping everyone's basic privacy and no expressions of hostility, at least.
===================================

   I'm reminded of the classic 1950's TV show,
'Leave it to Beaver's with an episode dedicated to a 'Lying adult' who told untrue stories..., followed by pitching the kid for some $ money.

   At end of that episode the kid (i.e. 'Beaver') admitted that he gave the man money, saying:
"I knew he was lying, but it was a good story".

   THAT sent the older brother off, shaking his head, trying to wrap his head around the concept.

If it's entertainment, partially, let the fools lie!  They better be good though.

[Psi]

I think it's probably too hard of a problem to solve with fixed rules.
Needs human feedback. 

Be cool if regular users could indicate that person X (in their opinion) has done enough to be banned by simply clicking a 'ban' button on that users post.
The vote wouldn't actually do anything itself and you couldn't see if other people were voting to ban you.
Admins could see this ban count and make a call to ban or not, but they would have a good indication that the community is in agreement or not.


(Maybe only usable if you have a high enough post count and have been around for a few years, just to stop bots making many new accounts and trying to game the system against someone)

[VK3DRB]

Who's is it hurting if they get their jollies discussing physics or other technical details in circles and refuse to admit they are "wrong"?

"Wrong" is a real thing.  No quotes required.

I worked with a bloke somewhere far away on the spectrum. He'd get his jollies by telling people "wrong, Wrong, WRONG!". He was a brilliant electronics engineer and one of the  few engineers who could write embedded code properly. We got on well. He was a nice bloke though, despite his strange behaviour. He clashed with another employee with a big ego who wanted to punch his lights out.
 
There was ex-Air Force technician I had to work with in the same company. You couldn't tell this jerk anything no matter how careful one was. If a car was black and he said it was white, you either agreed with him or he'd spit the dummy yelling out "WRONG!". One day has said something about EMC compliance regulations that was incorrect. I gently showed him the paragraph in the standard and he screamed blue murder. He spat the dummy like a big baby and would not speak to me for two weeks. He was rude to the extreme. And dangerous. He once booby trapped his desk with bare 230V live mains wires on it, saying that anyone who touches his desk deserves to be electrocuted, and then he went home. He left the company not long after and I noticed the morale of the place immediately increased markedly. I suspect his mental issues came from him being bullied in the Air Force for 20 years. I came across two other military jerks with a similar mentality. One at a Agilent trade show said "Only real men use analogue oscilloscopes. Digital oscilloscopes are for poofters." Another at a wedding told me I did not work at IBM because they had closed. I told him i was had worked there for 10 years and was still working there at the time with 600 other employees and he I was WRONG, the place had closed, and I that didn't know where I worked. 

[EEVblog]

I think it's probably too hard of a problem to solve with fixed rules.
Needs human feedback. 
Be cool if regular uses could indicate that person X (in their opinion) has done enough to be banned by simply clicking a 'ban' button on that users post.
The vote wouldn't actually do anything itself and you couldn't see if other people were voting to ban you.
Mods could see this ban count and make a call to ban or not, but they would have a good indication that the community is in agreement or not.

We kinda have this already. If someone's posts get repeatedly reported by multiple people then we look at giving a warning.

We also have a crude Twitter Community Notes style feature with the Thanks button. For example, if someone posts somethign that's incredibly wrong and someone does a good technical rebuttal and a dozen people Thank that posts, then it's really obvious to anyone watching that that post that's being rebutted was rubbish. And that's visible to random people searching and not logged in.

[fourfathom]

I've participated in the DDWFTTW threads, and argued with electrodaecus (spelling?  don't care)  plenty of times.  He is wrong and can't be convinced.  But it's entertaining, until it's not.  Then I stop participating.  But as far innocent people being directed by Google to Bad Information, this seems pretty self-correcting when 3/4 of the posts are explaining why it's Bad.

[wraper]

I thought a bit and if I had to create an actual rule that resolves the situation it would be something like this:
If discussion is somewhat heated, then after thread reaches defined X amount of posts moderator may lock the thread on their discretion. If particular user made over certain % of posts in this thread, and tried creating a new similar one, they get temporary ban. If they reoffend in say 6 months, they get permanent ban. Nothing to do about being right or wrong. In other words, you regulate maximum size of heated discussion rather than judge who is right or wrong.
EDIT: It's not like I propose this rule, just suggest how to look on the problem from a different angle.

[Psi]

We kinda have this already. If someone's posts get repeatedly reported by multiple people then we look at giving a warning.

I suspect most people can't be bothered to click report and write out a paragraph explanation about why they are reporting someone.
You'd get way more data points if it was easier to say "ban this guy" in a single click.

I almost want a button that works exactly the same as the "Thanks" button but instead of thanks it says "Dip Shit".
However that would almost definitely cause more problems than it solves, so lets not do that.

[EEVblog]

I almost want a button that works exactly the same as the "Thanks" button but instead of thanks it says "Dip Shit".
However that would almost definitely cause more problems than it solves, so lets not do that.

IIRC we actually tried this a long time ago with a post rating feature plugin, and it was abused. Almost everyone voted to removed it, and the simple Thanks only plugin was installed instead.

[EEVblog]

I thought a bit and if I had to create an actual rule that resolves the situation it would be something like this:
If discussion is somewhat heated, then after thread reaches defined X amount of posts moderator may lock the thread on their discretion. If particular user made over certain % of posts in this thread, and tried creating a new similar one, they get temporary ban. If they reoffend in say 6 months, they get permanent ban. Nothing to do about being right or wrong. In other words, you regulate maximum size of heated discussion rather than judge who is right or wrong.
EDIT: It's not like I propose this rule, just suggest how to look on the problem from different angle.

We have actually done this in the past after peole have reported a thread.

[tggzzz]

Is "trolling" on a thread they started actually trolling?
...
If you don't think you are getting through to someone who asked a question, then just don't reply any more.

Yes, a first poster can troll. The prototypical example of  troll is someone who, in a usenet feminist/mothers/women's group, posts "It is impossible for a husband to rape their wife", or similar. In other words, a drive-by "light blue touch paper and retire immediately" incendiary post. Then retire and watch the endless posts, without participating.

My objections: wasting other people's time, endangering other people, lowering the signal-to-noise ratio without any counterbalancing benefit. Usenet suffered from all of those, yoootooob does now, and let's not think about farcebook and twatter.

Too much trash, and the serious contributions are drowned by the trash, and people go elsewhere.

All in all it is a difficult subject with no simple answers. A big grey area in the middle. Someone has to exercise judgement and decide the "purpose" of the forum. Without that the conspiracy theorists (and others) will gradually dominate.

[snarkysparky]

Or if someone is "right" on this forum, but the management doesn't like it and locks the thread.

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