swansont

stemcellbuff and montrellblundell banned for sockpuppetry and spamming to advertise their journal papers. While we wholeheartedly welcome science discussion, spamming links to your papers does not foster such conversation.

In the US, the laws say basically that a site hosting a discussion is not responsible for what is said by the participants (including things like copyright violations or libel) and also that the site can do whatever it wants regarding commentary posted there. (I'll see if I can dig up the cite when I get home) Even though British law is different (especially with regard to libel) I suspect the overall thrust is similar.

For the record, the topic been brought up by members who are not, in my opinion, trolls. (Trolls and crackpots do raise the issue as well, however)

Since the topic comes up every so often, here's a good summary on why internet moderation (among other things, like boycotts) is not a violation of free speech rights http://xkcd.com/1357/

cells has been suspended for repeatedly advertising a paper. (Also, reckless and escalating use of exclamation points. One per sentence, at most, please)

Schneibster has been banned for being apparently unable to proceed in a civil fashion when involved in a disagreement.

vampares has been suspended a week for some abusive comments, re-opening the discussion of a closed thread and a slew of off-topic or otherwise meaningless posts clogging up discussion

Some answers to frequently asked questions (or paraphrases of questions) that have come up in moderation efforts or in the Support forum. This will be amended as needed. 1. Someperson is wrong! Why don't the moderators step in and do something? We don't do that. The role of the staff (when acting as staff) is to enforce the rules, so we don't make determinations on who is correct. We do, however, participate in discussions as members of the site, and may weigh in in that capacity, but generally do not mix the roles of enforcing moderation and participation in a discussion. (Some "housekeeping" actions, such as moving posts to a more appropriate area, can still happen while participating) 2. Why was what I posted called a hijack? Or off-topic? The topic of discussion is set by the first post in a thread. If your post is such that it changes the discussion from what the original post(er) (OP) was talking about to what you want to talk about, you are guilty of attempted hijacking. Posting your own pet theory anywhere but in its own thread in the Speculations forum is always considered a hijack. Off-topic is related to this, but this usually arises in the context of commentary on an answer or a subsequent post to the original. Rather than continue the side discussion, a new thread should be made. 3. What is soapboxing? It's when you are simply making a speech, rather than engaging in a discussion. This is what blogs are for. 4. Why was I yelled at for copyright/plagiarism? Copyright is a set of laws that protect things that people write, and mean you can't just paste entire screeds here without permission (and simply existing somewhere on the internet is not permission). Under the provision called Fair Use, you can post small excerpts for review and commentary. Copyright also protects pictures and drawings, so anything posted here should be done with permission or under some form of Creative Commons license. Plagiarism is an ethical violation that occurs when you present material as your own. That is, you have not attributed the work of others. Whenever you are using the creative work of others, you should post an attribution and whenever possible, a link to the source material. 5. What gives you the right to censor me? This is not a public place, and we are not the government, so any such free speech protections do not apply. The price of participation here is that you agree to follow the rules. The people who run the site are well within their authority to remove posts that violate the rules. Moving posts to an appropriate section is not censorship — your words are still there. There are a number of threads where this discussion has taken place. The search function should help you find them. 6. Will you delete my account or remove some post I made? No. We don't delete accounts. If you don't want to participate anymore, it's a simple matter of not coming here. We don't generally remove posts, because doing so after the fact is disruptive to conversations. If you aren't going to stand by something you post, you shouldn't post it. 7. Where is my post? Sometimes posts/threads get moved. Though we try and leave a trail, it doesn't always happen. If you go into your profile, you can click on either the topics or posts box to find your material. If you hover over your user name in a thread, there is a "my content" link. A third option is to use the advanced search function and type in your user name as the only entry, and you will get a list of everything you've posted. 8. Why was my thread locked? Threads are locked if they are duplicates or if the staff decides they have run their course. The latter happens when the thread originator is not engaging in useful discussion — usually by ignoring critiques and simply repeating the same points over and over again. 9. Why was my post moved to Speculations? This has its own FAQ 10. I was expressing my opinion. Why are you asking me for links? This means you probably weren't merely expressing an opinion. An opinion is a personal, subjective view, but if you are asserting a claim as an objective truth, i.e. something that others must accept as truth, then it's not an opinion. And in that case, it's perfectly reasonable for someone to call you on it and ask you to support your claim. Any factual reason(s) you might have given in order to justify your opinion are similarly open to a call for a link to confirm it.

overtone has been suspended for a week for repeatedly berating other discussion participants and for continually refusing to support arguments with any external literature.

That assumes a certain level of military capability. Is there evidence that such capability actually exists? Malaysia had a 2012 defense budget of around US $4.7 billion. Compare with the UK's at $61 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures The Malaysian military has about half as many active duty personnel as the UK (110,000 vs 205,000). I'm guessing that's a huge chunk of the budget right there.

! Moderator Note Do not hijack any more threads with numerology. No more numerology discussion on this thread (including responses to the above post). Do not respond to this modnote.

Yes, which is one of the issues with the so-calld upgrade to the forum software and one of the reasons for the tutorial. To do this you need to follow section 5, and copy/paste or type the quote tags around the sections you wish to quote.

You need a satellite looking there, and in order to resolve something like a plane the image are will be small, so you need to know where to look. I expect satellites are set to pass over as little ocean as possible, because there's no point in surveilling random patches of ocean. So you would have to be lucky. Then, you'd have to search lots of images because you need to be zoomed way in. And I doubt any of "us guys" have access to these images.

The reports I've seen say they flew to successive waypoints, which means someone with reasonable flight experience was at the controls. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-malaysia-airlines-radar-exclusive-idUSBREA2D0DG20140314 But, as one might expect, other reports are saying that this may not be the case.

It's probably a good thing to be able to turn off a piece of equipment if it's faulty and might be a fire hazard. I read this morning that's for the transponder it's not even a matter of pulling a fuse — there's a a knob on the control panel. The article spent a paragraph explaining how you turn the dial to the off position. (because turning a dial two or three clicks counter-clockwise is probably outside the experience of most readers)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/malaysia-plane-transponder.html?_r=0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_traffic_control_radar_beacon_system

What I read implied that primary radar is sometimes turned off and only secondary radar is used, or that the plane was out of range of primary radar. All things being equal, primary has a shorter range since it drops off as r4, while secondary drops off as r2.

I think you're overestimating the abundance of cell phone towers out at sea (or in some areas of some countries), and how much civilian radar can do. It's my understanding that much of the tracking comes from query and response from onboard transponders, not active use of true radar — if you turn the transponder off, the plane is invisible to civilian radar. Can't find the link now, but one article said that two separate transponder signals went dark, but at different times. And that military (active) radar detected the plane on a different course after it went dark. That strongly suggests that there wasn't a catastrophic incident causing to disappear from civilian radar. Add to the mix the usual effect of incomplete information, with things that are wrong or merely speculation being reported as solid fact.

The important thing is an explanation of what the program does, i.e. what the model is.

The post by itself lacks context; you don't spell out details of what you are doing or why one might think it explains anything at all.

! Moderator Note Merged. Let's keep all of this in one thread, please.

Jaydeep as well (posts removed)

The subject of hijacking has come up a few times recently, so it's clear a few people don't understand what is meant by thread hijacking. In regard to the board rules, it stems from rule 5 which says Stay on topic. Posts should be relevant to the discussion at hand. This means that you shouldn't use scientific threads to advertise your own personal theory, or post only to incite a hostile argument. The relevant part is Stay on topic. Posts should be relevant to the discussion at hand. The latter part refers to specific actions that are against the rules: advertising a speculative "theory" (further detailed in rule 10), and trolling. However, any off-topic post is a violation. The basic premise is that the thread starter has a topic in mind, and the thread is for discussing what they want. Not what you want.

Can you at least post something of an abstract here? Something to whet one's appetite, i.e. to give us a reason to download the document and read it?

I Am the Father of TIME banned as a sockpuppet of LittleBoPeep