Tomb of debate

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

It's just you. I can recall plenty of renamings-of-serious-threads, some of which were amusing, others rather less so. Of course your standards for "sensible, serious, meaningful" may differ from mine. There is a danger in assuming that one's own definition of "sensible, serious, meaningful" is the only "sensible, serious, meaningful" such definition, yes?

I'm glad to see the Ministry's continuing its tradition of recruiting the brightest and best, sir!

[nomead]

Originally Posted by Batalov

Maybe its just me - but I cannot recall a sensible serious, meaningful thread that was renamed. (But then again, my memory is not what it used to be. :-)

One current example "Glorious CCCP thread -- Cellphone Compute Cluster for GIMPS"
Another that is not renamed at the moment, but used to change names just a short while back, "Fast Bleating (queue management)" (and so on), now back to "Fast Breeding"...

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by nomead

One current example "Glorious CCCP thread -- Cellphone Compute Cluster for GIMPS"

That one could have been seen as an attempt at mere humorous effect, but the retitler subsequently added a post in the mods-only forum which confirmed that his intent was derisive. Apparently the mere spending of one's own time on pursuits of which this person disapproves makes one a target of mockery. The irony of course being that the Soviet Union in its day was a watchword in the West for thought-policing.

[Batalov]

I see. Was the retitler that one who added Glorious? I don't think so.
Glorious was added by someone else.
I'd see 'Glorious...' as derisive, too. I think we are in violent agreement.
I know that I added a neat name for the project - I changed
Cellphone Compute Cluster for GIMPS to
C³ -- Cellphone Compute Cluster for GIMPS

The other thread is so much more "serious". It had about a dozen names - and most were added by thread members themselves! Ironic, right? I personally haven't looked in that one for years. It was NSFW to visit, really. It was called "Breast Feeding ..."

[lukerichards]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

Sorry, I'm with Serge here -- it's important to distinguish between the idea and the person. The idea can be very, very wrong without imputing anything bad about the person, and it's extremely important to allow criticism of bad ideas without taking it as criticism of the person bringing them.

I want to make this a safe space for people, but not for bad ideas.

It's interesting that in society at large at the moment there is a growing culture of:

Person A says/does something that upsets Person B

Person B complains.

Person B gets the blame (in this case for having the wrong thoughts ('cognitive bias') but very extremely seen in sexual assault cases as comes to mind immediately where the victim is accused of leading on or wearing inappropriate clothing)

I Think a much more preferable sequence of events would be:

Person A reflects on the fact that they have upset someone
Person A keeps an eye out for whether or not this is a one-off or seems to have happened again
Person A learns how their actions are causing unintended harm and, being a reasonable human being and member of society, seeks to stop doing this, rather than just thinking of themselves
Person A adjusts behaviour so as not to upset people in future, because this is within their capability and is what decent people do

[Brian-E]

The Soap Box always used to be an arena of frenzied title changing. Those sometimes heated discussions are not generally the core specialisation of mersenneforum.org, but are they therefore not sensible, serious or meaningful? A lot of people here think they are indeed trivial or at the very least avoid the Soap Box like the plague, but others attach great importance to that area of our forum.

The thread now neutrally and appropriately titled "Marriage and other LGBTQ rights" in the Soap Box had a great number of frivolous titles given to it during its long lifetime. It discussed an issue which vast swathes of society, including many forum members here, did indeed find frivolous and ridiculous. I bring that example up because it illustrates the dangers of judging a thread and slapping a silly title on it if you think it deserves it.

Having said that, I have absolutely no qualms about the ability of the serious and accomplished mathematicians in the moderator team to judge mathematical threads in that way. And I agree with Serge's point that the serious mathematics on this forum does need to be clearly distinguished from the nonsense.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by nomead

One current example "Glorious CCCP thread -- Cellphone Compute Cluster for GIMPS"

Originally Posted by ewmayer

That one could have been seen as an attempt at mere humorous effect, but the retitler subsequently added a post in the mods-only forum which confirmed that his intent was derisive.

Originally Posted by Batalov

I see. Was the retitler that one who added Glorious? I don't think so.
Glorious was added by someone else.
I'd see 'Glorious...' as derisive, too. I think we are in violent agreement.
I know that I added a neat name for the project - I changed
Cellphone Compute Cluster for GIMPS to
C³ -- Cellphone Compute Cluster for GIMPS

I changed it from C³ -- Cellphone Compute Cluster for GIMPS to
Glorious CCCG thread -- Cellphone Compute Cluster for GIMPS
this was to be intended as a more subtle joke. The Glorious bit was inspired by the use in Borat and the way it got used by the Soviets. I put the G in CCCG because C³ missed it. Later someone else change the G to a P.




Threads that are off base should be marked a little more clearly and cleanly.
"Formula for finding all known primes" could be changed to
"Formula for finding all known primes? Nope!"
Adding the ? and a word or three indicating that it does not live up to the original title should be enough.

[GP2]

Originally Posted by lukerichards

...

No. Person A and Person B each state their case, and then rational third parties do their best to figure out, without prejudice, the facts of the situation.

Your formulation doesn't even consider the possibility that Person A is blameless. That may be the way things are done in academia, or with the "codes of conduct" that are all the rage these days, but it's unacceptable.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by lukerichards

I think we are seeing why some people (not just yourself Serge, there are others) think this behaviour is acceptable. This is by extension making fun of the person and I think it's important to be aware of how these actions come across.

I am becoming ever more depressed by this thread. The snowflakes seem to be winning, largely by being noisier than those who are more robust and partly by ignoring points made by those who disagree with them.

For instance:

Originally Posted by xilman

I beg to disagree (though I noticed your "almost" qualifier). I have often been helped by individuals whom I would regard as being rude in the manner in which they have helped me.

De gustibus non disputandem est.

I have yet to see anyone comment on the point I made.

Perhaps I should just resign as a supermod and give up on the forum.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by lukerichards

It's interesting that in society at large at the moment there is a growing culture of...

In mathematics research, distinguishing between people and ideas is vital.
Sharp criticism of flawed ideas saves a lot of valuable time for everyone, and is not a sign of disrespect of the person who brought up the idea.
On the contrary, good researchers welcome it.

The culture on this forum is closer to that of a research institute than that of an educational establishment.
You will find the same culture in your area at the research seminars of the School of Mathematics at Birmingham University:
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/researc...colloquia.aspx

[xilman]

Originally Posted by lukerichards

It's interesting that in society at large at the moment there is a growing culture of:

Person A says/does something that upsets Person B

Person B complains.

Person B gets the blame (in this case for having the wrong thoughts ('cognitive bias') but very extremely seen in sexual assault cases as comes to mind immediately where the victim is accused of leading on or wearing inappropriate clothing)

I quite agree and have seen a number of examples on this forum and, indeed, in this very thread.

To protect identities I will refer to the initiator under the pseudonym "L" and the complainer as "C" in an exchange which took place on 2018-03-25. L said (actually, wrote) a great deal of text which apparently upset C who complained. L's response was to attack C.