RST's new Treasurer

[bmck 117]

They dont want to get further forward. Allegedly, you do. they want to keep the status quo and you are allowing them to with this kind of thing.

 

I'm getting slightly lost in the pronouns here, but just to be 100% clear. Even if the people with the harshest criticism wanted to maintain the status quo, it isn't within their power. They could stop their criticisms, they could hop on one leg with pleading faces saying "Please please pretty please" and nothing will have changed. Their actions might give the Trust one way out, but the status quo is maintained because the people with the power to maintain it want to maintain it. That's not the pathological detractors. You think that by narrowing down the ways out, you give them less wriggle room. This is true, as far as it goes, but doesn't change anything. It doesn't make progress more or less possible because even within that less wriggle room there's still a gulf of space with which to out maneuver the reasonable criticism that's left after the sifting, because of the way power's balanced. Just now the trust won't answer criticism not because of the extreme criticism, but because the extreme criticism gives them one way to do it. It's an important distinction and not one I think you've fully considered. They have other strategies - the ones they've used between controversies from decent people looking to engage them - for just reasonable questioning on its own. When you add that the costs involved in censoring extreme criticism in any other method than free and open debate of the sort the RST won't allow, you're no further forward and a pale shadow of what you criticise with even less moral right to criticise.

 

At the next owngoal, the disunity involved in censoring will let the Trust say "You're accusing us of silencing debate, yet you can't even begin to criticise us without silencing those who are supposed to agree with you" or something similar. While they have the will, and the power, to deflect, it almost doesn't matter what anyone else does. I think you're right to argue against the extreme criticism, and that a more unified reasonable response would be better, but it wouldn't be more effective - especially not if it were artificially manufactured through censorship.

 

I dont know Deedle but he appears to be speaking on behalf of the trust. His comment is representative of trust attitude and proves, completely, that what you call wrong is infact 'right' and very much so.

 

I'm not sure you understand yet what I'm calling wrong.

 

This is honestly the last I can say at the moment, I'm no well. Please do feel free to respond though.

Edited October 1, 2010 by bmck

[Guest Pokeherface]

I'm getting slightly lost in the pronouns here, but just to be 100% clear. Even if the people with the harshest criticism wanted to maintain the status quo, it isn't within their power. Their actions might give the Trust one way out, but the status quo is maintained because the people with the power to maintain it want to maintain it.

 

Exactly. And they are given a great vehicle for maintaining it with the rubbish that comes with legitimate complaints. They do not need to face the music on proper points because they can hide behind false complaints. Remove the rubbish complaints and there is less to hide behind, meaning they need, to the neutral observer, show themselves up as unwilling to engage or they need to deal with the issues. Either way, it is better than seeing them hide being rubbish time after time.

 

 

That's not the pathological detractors. You think that by narrowing down the ways out, you give them less wriggle room. This is true, as far as it goes, but doesn't change anything. It doesn't make progress more or less possible because even within that less wriggle room there's still a gulf of space with which to out maneuver the reasonable criticism that's left after the sifting, because of the way power's balanced.

 

That is not correct. People are on the whole reasonably intelligent and they can currently see an organisation hit constantly with all manner of complaint. with no filter the rubbish complaints stick out as just that and colour all complaints. if people see that they are being asked legitimate questions and refusing to answer, that will sway opinion against the management. If people see them refusing to debate with people happy to peddle obviously rubbish points, they will understand the reluctance to engage in debate.

 

Just now the trust won't answer criticism not because of the extreme criticism, but because the extreme criticism gives them one way to do it. It's an important distinction and not one I think you've fully considered.

 

This is why I have, in your words, become fixated with you understanding my point. you very clearly do not.

 

I KNOW the trust will not answer legitimate complaints, I know it fully. I dont neccessarily think that removing the rubbish will make them address that. What it will do is legitimise YOUR complaints, not theirs and it will open them up to showing the neutral what is happening instead of them having a convenient excuse to hide behind. THAT is the point I made from the off and the point you are not grasping.

 

 

 

They have other strategies - the ones they've used between controversies from decent people looking to engage them - for just reasonable questioning on its own. When you add that the costs involved in censoring extreme criticism in any other method than free and open debate of the sort the RST won't allow, you're no further forward and a pale shadow of what you criticise with even less moral right to criticise.

 

Of course. But as soon as they say 'that question came from XXX.com and they also asked yyyy and zzzz, why should we engage with them' they are off the hook to the neutral, the people YOU need to convince to stop being a fringe.

 

If you think they wouldn't say, at the next owngoal, "You're accusing us of silencing debate, yet you can't even begin to criticise us without silencing those who are supposed to agree with you" you're mistaken.

 

See above.

 

 

I'm not sure you understand yet what I'm calling wrong.

 

Fine. I KNOW you are not grasping the points made to you. They are my points, after-all.

 

 

ultimately, and this is a fact, you are argueing against watching what is said about the trust. That means you are argueing that anything can and should be said against the trust. That is baffling.

[wabashcannonball 0]

The trust should be fekked ower the heid wi' a large mallet, we can then enjoy the fitba....

[maineflyer 0]

The trust should be fekked ower the heid wi' a large mallet, we can then enjoy the fitba....

 

The RST is a sad waste of time. I find it increasingly difficult to take seriously the attempts at elevated debate over something that's broke and ain't gonna be fixed in a hurry. That's partly because everyone can now see the sheer cesspit they've made of it and partly because the RST response to the recent shambles has been so indifferent that it's now clearly a lost cause. Job done.

[wabashcannonball 0]

rst........

Edited October 1, 2010 by bmck

[rbr 1,247]

tell you what, while you are telling me I spout absolute nonsense, chew this over from Deedle....

 

 

 

 

whether you like it or not, Deedle has just completely discredited a source of flak with one simple sentance. It doesnt matter in the slightest that YOU dont see it as discrediting you, the fact that the largest source of info (FF) has written this place off a source of stupidity means that people will simply view everything said here as dubious. You know it is wrong and that there is plenty good done here. I know it. But how on earth can a neutral observer split the fact from the fiction in your complaints when arguements such as this are made? The answer is they cant. But dont mind me, it is all nonsense

 

The day I take lessons from Deedle is the day I stop coming on any site , the next time he post some original thought will be the first , guys like that were the reason I stopped wasting my time on �£�£

Edited October 1, 2010 by rbr

[bmck 117]

I KNOW the trust will not answer legitimate complaints, I know it fully. I dont neccessarily think that removing the rubbish will make them address that. What it will do is legitimise YOUR complaints, not theirs and it will open them up to showing the neutral what is happening instead of them having a convenient excuse to hide behind. THAT is the point I made from the off and the point you are not grasping.

 

God, I can't help myself and I'm going to slip into flu induced coma and it's going to be your fault.

 

Again, I did understand your point from the off, it's just that I don't agree. My complaints are already and necesarily legitimate. Neutrals can read them here in a free and open debate and agree or disagree. If people are simple minded enough, when reading valid criticism here or on FF, like ascender's say, and are unable to seperate it from hyperbolic criticism then it's no more difficult for the trust to undermine it in the future as it is now. You are counting on neutrals to be smart enough to distinguish sensible from non-sensible criticism; the surrounding noise is irrelevant. If people aren't smart enough to distinguish it now, then there's nothing to say that the purely reasonable criticism can't just be cast as the latest incarnation of the unreasonable criticism. In your commendable desire for progress you've turned things entirely the wrong way round. It's not the responsibility of RST members with reasonable criticism to silence, by whatever means, the unreasonable criticism - even if such a thing were possible. If their criticism is being called unreasonable now, by being lumped in with unreasonable criticism, it will be called unreasonable in the future, by being lumped in as a new incarnation of the old unreasonable criticism. If the neutrals can't determine reasonable criticism now because of misidirection, they won't see it in the future.

 

You want what can't happen. You think, which is to your credit, that it's our responsibility to do everything to narrow the wriggle room. You're right. And you can use your voice to do so in a free and open manner here. We've done everything possible for a long long time, short of censorship, to engage the Trust in the most reasonable way. We'll continue to do it. Even if you're not naive enough to think that the Trust will answer legitimate complaints if they come in a more reasonable package, you're naive enough to think that those neutrals who can be persuaded to ignore them now can't, by some other means, be persuaded to do so in the future.

 

You should argue against the hyperbolic criticism - everyone who thinks like you should. You can actually do that here, and in other places, where there's free and open discussion. You can do it in the knowledge that it won't make any difference to the RST but with a view to converting the neutrals. But they don't exist. That you view us as 'peddling' obviously rubbish points, as if we're responsible for directing what people say, rather than allowing free and open debate from which people can make their own minds, is telling. We don't peddle these views; in this thread itself there have been plenty of people arguing precisely the most reasonable stance as we would perhaps agree to see it. Nonetheless, we can't criticise the RST for stifling debate and then do it ourselves. Not only would it gain nothing with the neutrals you imagine, or with the RST board as you acknowledge, it would essentially mean that we had become some sort of closed propoganda machine, allowing only to be said what we deem useful. That's the very thing we don't like about FF and the RST being so closely intwined.

 

Again, I understand your point, and have understood it from the beginning, I just don't think your way forward is right other than through people like you arguing your point in a free and open manner. I'd prefer a unity of only reasonable criticism - but it wouldn't be any more effective with the board, or with neutrals. It'd be nonetheless good, and it's why I'll continue to go forward saying what I think is reasonable, argue against what I don't, and afford everyone else the same right.

 

If you truly knew, as you say you do, that the RST are sufficiently motivated not to accept any criticism, no matter the surrounding contexts, you'd know there's nothing to be gained by garnering more reasonable criticism from the unreasonable or your imagined neutral. It's a sickness that can only be cured by the people who have the power to do it - the RST themselves, who are as able now as they ever were to engage reasonable criticism.

 

I'm away to get sufficiently MWI that I don't feel ill. Really this time.

Edited October 1, 2010 by bmck

[Guest Pokeherface]

God, I can't help myself and I'm going to slip into flu induced coma and it's going to be your fault.

 

Again, I did understand your point from the off, it's just that I don't agree. My complaints are already and necesarily legitimate. Neutrals can read them here in a free and open debate and agree or disagree. If people are simple minded enough, when reading valid criticism here or on FF, like ascender's say, and are unable to seperate it from hyperbolic criticism then it's no more difficult for the trust to undermine it in the future as it is now. You are counting on neutrals to be smart enough to distinguish sensible from non-sensible criticism; the surrounding noise is irrelevant. If people aren't smart enough to distinguish it now, then there's nothing to say that the purely reasonable criticism can't just be cast as the latest incarnation of the unreasonable criticism. In your commendable desire for progress you've turned things entirely the wrong way round. It's not the responsibility of RST members with reasonable criticism to silence, by whatever means, the unreasonable criticism - even if such a thing were possible. If their criticism is being called unreasonable now, by being lumped in with unreasonable criticism, it will be called unreasonable in the future, by being lumped in as a new incarnation of the old unreasonable criticism. If the neutrals can't determine reasonable criticism now because of misidirection, they won't see it in the future.

 

You want what can't happen. You think, which is to your credit, that it's our responsibility to do everything to narrow the wriggle room. You're right. And you can use your voice to do so in a free and open manner here. We've done everything possible for a long long time, short of censorship, to engage the Trust in the most reasonable way. We'll continue to do it. Even if you're not naive enough to think that the Trust will answer legitimate complaints if they come in a more reasonable package, you're naive enough to think that those neutrals who can be persuaded to ignore them now can't, by some other means, be persuaded to do so in the future.

 

You should argue against the hyperbolic criticism - everyone who thinks like you should. You can actually do that here, and in other places, where there's free and open discussion. You can do it in the knowledge that it won't make any difference with a view to converting the neutrals. But they don't exist. That you view us as 'peddling' obviously rubbish points, as if we're responsible for directing what people say, rather than allowing free and open debate from which people can make their own minds, is telling. We don't peddle these views; in this thread itself there have been plenty of people arguing precisely the most reasonable stance as we would perhaps agree to see it. Nonetheless, we can't criticise the RST for stifling debate and then do it ourselves. Not only would it gain nothing with the neutrals you imagine, or with the RST board as you acknowledge, it would essentially mean that we had become some sort of closed propoganda machine, allowing only to be said what we deem useful. That's the very thing we don't like about FF and the RST being so closely intwined.

 

Again, I understand your point, and have understood it from the beginning, I just don't think your way forward is right other than through people like you arguing your point in a free and open manner. I'd prefer a unity of only reasonable criticism - but it wouldn't be any more effective with the board, or with neutrals. It'd be nonetheless good, and it's why I'll continue to go forward saying what I think is reasonable, argue against what I don't, and afford everyone else the same right

 

3 criticisms levelled against the trust. 2 are hyperbolic and 1 is valid. how does the neutral decide which is which? They dont. Remove the hyperbolic ones and the criticisms are all valid. very simple, very easy to follow. Thats it, the long and the short.

 

Again, you are argueing that people should be able to say what they like. I am saying that this approach is counter productive. In this I am unquestionably correct. 100% so in fact and has been proven as such time after time.

 

The hyerbole has two negative effects, it distracts from the main, valid points and it gives them something to hide behind. That is all this wordy debate is about at the end of the day and I am, indeed, right.

[bmck 117]

rst........

 

Wabash, I had to edit out some of your little smileys as they'd made the site go skee wiff and I'm still to sober to be able to read sqwinty.

[bmck 117]

3 criticisms levelled against the trust. 2 are hyperbolic and 1 is valid. how does the neutral decide which is which?

 

By employing the same rationality they'd need to employ if there were 3 valid criticisms and the Trust said, as they are now, that all 3 were hyperbolic. If they can't do that now, they won't in the future.