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How can it be possible that a post can be made by more than 2 users/posters? So, it is very clear that every posts made by a poster clearly reflects his/her personality except his/her account is being hacked. I know that members give positive and negative feedback on the post itself and not the poster but when we trace back to the source-it is the poster. It is also ridiculous for a poster to have 2 personality. For example, poster A posts harsh words and inaccurate scientific theories in a thread but then he post another post with clear and vivid explanation about religion or other mature science fields and get +2 reputation points in the second post but -2 in the first post, so offsetting each other and you get zero. This is very unlikely to happen.

So normally it takes months to build a good reputation as any good experienced member will tell you, but often times the reputation system is abused for emotional purposes while the reputation itself doesn't seem to have a logical place in concluding of something is logical or not, so instead I propose a new type of reputation system: Instead of having "I like how you talk, therefore you are logical and a good scientist" and "I don't like how you talk, therefore you are illogical and are a bad scientist" and all sorts of other non scientific uses r illogical fallacies, we simply have a button for each post that you can press that says "This post answers your current inquiry". That way the reputation is actually more based off of answering questions and logically in an understandable manner rather than some easy demagoguery. You can ask any staff member (I would think if they were on ever) that negative spamming can also be a problem. This essentially get's rid of that while also providing a more accurate concept of someone's work for answering questions. And since spamming is easy to recognize as I've been pointed out, if someone crates an alt account and brings their new reputation up it can be found out. You might ask "well why not keep the current one if it's the same work to keep track of spamming?". Well its not, instead of having to worry about both positive AND negative spamming, staff members would only have to keep an eye out for positive spamming. I'm not saying the current reputation system has no validity, but I think this is a much better way to go about that sort of thing.

How do you know/can you say this forum is not democratic? We speak at least through words but I dislike reputations. This forum is democratic in the sense that you are allowed to speak through words/express your opinions and together with reputations but my suggestion is to shut down the reputation system and continue with replying system because no problem with democratic but emotions. We should take others` emotion into account too.

We limit the number of negative points a person may hand out, so people tend not to overuse them. The funniest problem is when a member creates a new account for the sole purpose of giving themselves reputation points, as if meaningless Internet points are sufficiently meaningful for that to be worthwhile.

We could just delete the previous bump post in the new user induction post when we bump it...

A reminder that getting a down-vote to your reputation is not a rules violation, even if it seems undeserved, so it's not something the staff is going to pursue unless a rules violation is involved (such as a sockpuppet account used to game the system)

I think it should be allowed, at least once. If someone really wants to change name they should be granted a new one. The username reflexts on yourself and if you really regret the name you took when you joined, then not allowing a change could cause good members start a new account or leave, which both would seem less desirable than the problems with a simple name change. If they have to ask an admin then I don't think it will be abused and while it could cause some problems, especially if a user like iNow or someone else with 10 000 or more posts would change name, I still think we can handle it even for them. There are examples of members who have been granted new names and even new accounts in the past, problems seems to have been minimal or none.

If you change your display name, that will change the name that appears on all of your posts. It will not, however, change the name you use to log in. "Current password" is the password you currently use to log in; you're required to enter it when setting a new password as a security measure. I do not know what "Local password" is; I don't see it in my account, since I'm an administrator and see different controls.

If you use the "log out" link, I think it may delete the cookie. The answer is to use "remember me" and close the tab/window without logging out when you leave the site.

Very weird If you do not accept cookies from this site, it can't remember you. Make sure SFN is not on your cookie block list or cookie "delete when I close the browser" list. If you have a "keep cookies" list, put SFN on it.

No, you cannot. Can you change the ring tone on your phone when the battery is dead? Can you reorganize your room when you are locked out of it? Can you change the channel on your television when the power has been shutoff? The answer to all of these questions is the same as the answer to "can I change my account settings or logout after I've been suspended or banned." At the top left of the text editor is a little toggle switch that changes the interface from code based to quicklink based and back again. If you click that and change the editor type, does the paste fail in both, or in only one of the editor window options?

That, and a lot of the time the IP's don't match at all; they might fall within the same range or they might be completely different. It's actually not that common for a member to create a sock puppet that has an exact IP match to their original account. IP's are only a portion of what we look at to determine sock-puppetry and usually we can only look to see if they resolve to the same place. Often it's a combination of that, posting style / habits, profile information and other tidbits of personal information that they leak into the forum that lets us know if we're dealing with a sock-puppet or not. I think we do a pretty good job of finding them, though admittedly it sometimes takes a month or so for it to click. Moral of the story is that unfortunately, specific IP bans won't help us very much and banning IP ranges is unfair on others who use an IP in the same range.

Did the pasted text ever appear in the editor window? If not, then you didn't properly copy/paste. If it did appear, but then disappeared when you tried to post, that's a separate issue. You can setup your account to receive notification emails when new posts come in. It's a combination of steps. First, you click Follow this Topic on the top right of the thread. Next, you go to your user settings and update notification preferences. http://www.scienceforums.net/index.php?app=core&module=usercp&tab=core&area=notifications

You keep getting moderator notes because you keep breaking the rules. Did you bother reading them, because this question is (imho) answered in the rules? Please just read the rules. I suggest you start at the top, and don't stop until you have reached the end. In this case, your question seems about section 3 of our rules. A suspension is temporary, and you will be allowed back onto the forum. A ban is permanent, and we will not tolerate a banned member back onto the forum. You are also not allowed to make a new account. [edit] Contrary to many polls on our forum where members are asked for an opinion, this one has only one correct answer: Yes.

Well, the reason it counts them as -1 is because the OP in those threads are all deleted and the threads totally empty. As to why that is, I am not sure, but I think it's something to do with the fact that in the very early days of SFN you didn't need to register an account to post. It's possible (but this is a guess) that when we changed this policy, these guest accounts were nuked (a number of them would have been spammers) and their OP's went with the accounts.

Usually - and I mean no offense by this - the ones who start these topics are the ones we'd never in a million years ask to be a mod. What happens is this. Staff decide we need to con kidnap recruit new gullible fools people to exterminate Phi rookies and we then discuss who we think would be good at the job based on posting history, message the member we decide upon and throw cheese nips at them until they say yes. You have a history of starting crack pot threads and in at least one instance, creating a sock puppet account to come in and agree with you. This sort of behaviour pretty much excludes you from being considered, especially when we have so many other members with a great posting history that haven't broken our rules. They tell you this in mod training camp, but in actual fact, the admin had to evict them all after an incident involving Phi, a bottle of vegetable oil and some expired cheese nips.

PM me for the paypal account to which $100 should be deposited.

I don't have access to your face book account, this is not face book where you can assert anything with no evidence, read the rules then get back to this non mode...

hmm... why me? an alternative would be to choose a load of people who have been here for ages and we trust not to be tits with it and give them the ability to click a button and simultaniously report and soft-delete a post at will (maybe a max of 10 a day or something). looooooooads of people spring to mind who could do that. duno wether that's feasable from an implimentation pov, but either way would deal with, e.g., random tubgirl postings.

I turned off the vbulletin birthday email. We don't typically delete accounts.

Flaming usually leads to retaliation, so if we catch an obvious Flame before any replies are posted we will delete it. Absolutely. Religion is supernatural, it can't be observed using natural laws. It's just such a huge and popular topic that we generally gave it it's own sub-forum. You got it. It can't be measured by science. But we used to be able to discuss it without resorting to the more obvious logical fallacies like ad hominem and Strawman. If opinions can be shared as such, the way it's done in the Politics forum, we'd have no problem. Few people in Politics state, "Show me the evidence why Republicans are better than Democrats!" It's understood that it's mostly opinion. A big part of the problem with religious discussions is staying on topic. A believer would start a thread like, "Did Christianity spark the rise of Islam?" and eventually you'd get an atheist posting that he thought both religions were stupid. It happened the other way around as well. The believers just couldn't stay away from a thread entitled, "Defining Atheism". If a Mod isn't on when it gets posted then it gets replies. When the Mods come one and start deleting people cry censorship. Inevitably the cries of "Prove it!" and "God is omnipotent!" drive away anybody with anything interesting to say. I think what people liked about the old P&R (before it started downhill) was the ability to talk about things outside of scientific methodology without being shot down in flames. We demanded they restrict the use of logical fallacies while still understanding that the topics weren't at all logical.

I am curious if there is a process in place to appeal a staff member's decision. I've looked at the rules and announcements, but have not found anything. I've had far too many posts deleted in response to one specific staff member, threats of infraction, and actual infractions levied for comments or questions to one staff member. It seems this member is using their ability to delete threads only when a comment is made toward them, and it seems inappropriate since none of my posts to others have warranted deletion. I am consistent in my method and tone, and it's not been a problem with others, so I'd like more of a "trial by jury" than "execution by governor." Is there an established process to appeal a staff members decision? Thanks.

Thanks all for your replies. You've been a great help. Question: If a post on SFN has within it somewhere an ad hominem response to another member, is that reason enough to delete it? My take is "no," but each site is a bit different so I figure I'd ask. Peace.

Will do! Thanks Imatfaal Edit: This is crazy!!! I checked to see if my blog, "Against All Odds", was listed, and it was not. I then sent Cap'n a message as you suggested. Then, I updated my blog entry, "A Window Into The Soul", to include the arrangement of the music I wrote for Externet, "A casa d'un drapaire", and my blog showed up in the list. So, I edited my message to Cap'n telling him not to worry because my blog is now showing up. However, when I checked the blog list after editing the PM to Cap'n, it wasn't there. So, I closed and re-opened my browser and now my blog is listed, but just now as I am editing this post, I went to get the link to my blog from the list and it is no longer showing up. I decided to test the list using a different browser, IE. I didn't log into SFN and went straight to the blog list. My blog wasn't listed. So, I logged into my account at SFN, and sure enough when I went to the blog list it showed up. I'm not sure if anyone else can see my blog listed. If everyone else can see "Against All Odds" in the list, then both, Firefox and IE, on my PC are having problems retrieving the list. If others are having the same problem as I am seeing my blog in the list, then it might be a problem with SFN's server not retrieving all of the blogs for the list. Edit: After checking multiple times, my blog seems to be showing up in the list for both browsers now that I have cleared the cache. I'm going to keep an eye on this issue to see if it occurs again, but it would be helpful if I can get a verification from others that they see my blog listed. I appreciate any help with checking this. I thought I was going crazy so I took screen shots of the problem: Here the blog is listed: Here the blog is NOT listed:

Hi Tridimity, I am trying to understand something about you. How can you explain with your two messages posted (only two since you opened your account) you get 10 points when in reality you've no and from nobody? Did you open Pandora's box?