It is, anyone could leave anyone negative feedback for liking lemons if they really felt like it.

Again, to be blunt for the sake of not mincing words, not as any sort of personal attack, but I don't want to debate you because I don't care about your opinion. You ask a question, I try to reply, if we don't see eye to eye, its no big deal. I answer quite a few threads that appear in meta, I probably said it before, its out of habit.

False allegations don't matter all that much, this is the internet, just ignore the people you don't like, and that is really the extent of your recourse unless its a major issue that requires moderator intervention (death threats, doxing, etc). If someone calls you a flea infested coke head, you don't challenge them to a battle of wits, you say, yeah whatever. If someone claims you scammed them, you provide evidence that you didn't, if they want to refute your proof, thats on them, if not, leave it as is. If you worry about little potential problems, or besting your enemies in a war of words, you are just going to waste your own time.

Whatever perceived moderator bias that is against you I can assure isn't real. The moderation staff have to deal with actual nuisances. At worst, I'd just say you come off as the kid who asks why to every single response someone could possibly give you, a little frustrating, but not worth holding a grudge against. You aren't even in the top 10th percentile of people they'd be annoyed at. Keep in mind, the Bitcoin crowd tend to be pretty anti authority of any sort. Give someone the ability to keep a user from posting about the lizardmen that are currently fighting the federal reserve for ownership of the moon, and you'll get a full PM inbox of threats and insulting posts from someone who legitimately needs a psychological evaluation.  

You are very caught up on observable facts and all, but what happens if someone disagrees with you? Then its no longer a fact, its an opinion. I've been stating the lemon thing as absolute fact, but you seem to disagree with me. There are very few facts on this forum, moderator discretion is what allows them to classify trolling versus people having a difference of opinion.  


TLDR; In my opinion, you need to relax. Stop caring so much what others think. Who cares if there are some people you think are jerks, ignore them. If you can't look past what other people are doing, you are going to be incredibly unhappy here, and I imagine everywhere else. Stop worrying about potential loopholes that have existed for years, but nothing has come of them.

I had 5 minutes of freetime with nothing better to do, so I wrote out more than a few words. If you want to work on saving your own time, I'd recommend not responding to me, I might read your response, I probably wont respond. By the way, believe it or not, I'm not a jerk (as far as I know) I'm not a short tempered crotchety miserable existence thats just here to tell you what to do. I'm just a fella who advocates for being aloof when it comes to forum drama, and saving everyone's sanity one blunt paragraph at a time.

I said it. Consider how many posts have been deleted, versus how many people have claimed their post did not deserve to be deleted. Then, read through their claims and see how many weren't answered with the reason why the post was deleted with proper justification.

People keep sticking to this theory that the system is broken because moderators are allowed to enforce the rules however they see fit, yet the past ten years shows little complaint about them. Considering that in a board full of crypto anarchists, if there was the slightest hint of a problem, you would think the entire forum would be set ablaze.

It may seem strange to you, but after deleting 10,000 posts, impartial judgement regarding post deletion become second nature. Things aren't quite as without strict criteria as you might believe.

If people report 1000 good posts you make, not a single one will be removed.

Moderators don't touch anything regarding scam accusations except in the most extreme of cases. If you know someone who had a post deleted in a scam accusation thread, it means that they were criminally off topic. Borderline calls might be made occasionally elsewhere, especially in boards with stricter standards, but scam accusations, even stupid ones, are held with special care.

Hierarchy of Sacred Posts:

Satoshi's
Admin's
Scam Accusations
other Moderators
Meta
Typical threads
Strict board standards

Well, its not really a new system, we started being able to leave each other feedback in 2013 or so? Your point on "could it be a problem if people are too hasty leaving feedback" would be more effective if you gave examples where it did occur.  Before the feedback system, people still created scam accusation threads just as freely as now, the only difference was that then Theymos had to personally review each one and decide whether a person would get a scammer tag or not. If you are claiming that people can farm merits by opening scam accusations, I don't know that I'd agree with that. I generally do see valid scam accusations earn merits, but not so much the invalid ones. Its sort of hard to compare back then to now, because Bitcointalk was a fairly uniform discourse community at that point, so things were a bit different, but overall with the exception that people take feedback too seriously, I'd say that it works better than the old system.

It will actually shatter Theymos' fragile self if Xal ends up with more merit than him.

Woohoo, lets see how it goes!

I'll take a Shirt, Cup, and Condom. You can get my address from the KYC form I filled out, I made it public for the sake of transparency.

Well, I suppose as long as its for all of our security.

Real question here, will I get 50 pms from angry people claiming merit abuse if I try to buy a handful of those Tshirts?

You can take the unofficial rules to mean the official rules. Moderators play by the unofficial rules. If something pops up that isn't covered by the rules, its discussed amongst the staff and it is either added to the rules if deemed necessary, or not if its not. Theymos provides moderators a few guidelines, but most of the unofficial rules are what the moderators came up with. They haven't all been officially sanctioned by Theymos for the reasons in mprep's post.

I was just letting you know why it looks like your posts were being deleted. I mentioned what the definition of off topic replies was, and attempted to clarify with an example that seems to be relevant to you. I'm going to be blunt, I don't have a spare 3 hours per day to discuss every aspect of every  forum rule. I don't mind spending 30 seconds smashing a keyboard to answer a question you ask, but I'm not going to get sucked into a meaningless discussion over why policies that are 100% outside of both of our controls mean what they mean and whether we each agree with them.

Theymos replied in this thread, that means hes aware of every single one of your claims here. If he chose to ignore them rather than ask you for more details, then the one person who could potentially do anything about whatever situation you are perceiving doesn't care.

I'm not responding to anything you post after this, so don't waste your time trying to engage me. You are welcome to disregard everything that I've said. Put me on ignore if you'd like, I'll probably keep responding to your new threads out of habit.

61 reports is quite a number. It seems like the concept of off topic isn't clicking, or you disagree with the concept. If the Original Post of the topic is not what you are discussing, it isn't allowed. Moderators will give reasonable consideration to posts on very strongly related topics, but regardless of how important or true a post you make is, if it isn't on topic, its getting deleted.

A common example often seen is someone who has been scammed. They will follow the scammer around, posting that they are a scammer after every post the scammer makes. While it might be true, if your post is, "Jerknum1 scammed me for 0.1 BTC!" in a thread about mining hardware, your post is still going to be deleted. I suppose I can give an example of moderator consideration with this scenario if I say that a moderator may not delete that, "Jerknum1 scammed me for 0.1 BTC!" if they are posting in a marketplace thread, and its a warning a potential trader of the open scam accusation.

Main point to take away is that regardless of how true, important, or correct, you are. The post will still be deleted if that is not what the topic is about. Posting about scammers in a thread about lemons will be deleted. Posting about citrus/lemonade in a thread about lemons might be deleted.

Side note, people aren't avoiding having a debate with you because they are afraid you'll epicly prove them wrong. They just don't want to waste their time when a simple, oh hey this is the problem, will do. If you don't agree with anything in my post, I honestly don't care, I'm just letting you know in case you actually had some misunderstanding of why your posts were being deleted.

No, the problem is we are having a clash of ideologies, not a debate. Your own words are religion to you, and mine are the same to me. I'm not interested in your points about immigration, I brought that up a while ago so you wouldn't waste your time. I'd have to swim through countless hours of research to justify whether your sources are valid or not, what they actually mean, and whether it is worth communicating my thoughts on them. I'd be happy to do that if this was a thread about border security and influx of disease, but as I stated before, I know nothing about any of that. If that was the topic of the thread, I wouldn't have replied, as I have nothing to add to that conversation. I'm not dismissing your claim that immigrant carriers of diseases are of greater number than domestic unvaccinated citizens, because I don't know otherwise. You are not a minority group because of an individual belief on whether or not you should be vaccinated. Citing the 6th grade statistics definition of minority versus the anthropology definition of minority is dishonest.

I cannot engage you in a debate because I cannot understand your point of view. I really don't mean this as a personal attack, but to me, it sounds like you live in a self entitled fairy land, where you can do absolutely anything you want with no regard for others. I understand this is probably not the case, but from my perspective thats what your words mean. My absolute main point throughout the entire discussion which you keep trying to drag away from "County in New York bans unvaccinated from public spaces" to, "We aren't as bad as this other group!" is that you cannot force people to accept your life choices. You make a choice, other people have a reaction, you don't get to scream outrage because other people aren't as understanding of what you consider a good idea. If your point is that the threat is being overblown, sure you might be right! That doesn't change anything, your rights are not being taken from you until someone is holding you down and injecting you. People are just saying I don't want to live with you.

Everything you describe as false equivalencies and incoherent arguments makes absolute perfect sense to me, I'd assume in the same way your argument makes perfect sense to you, and absolutely no sense to me. You don't debate people who have different ideologies as you, because they aren't formed from misunderstanding but perception.
I'm not trying to take some philosophical high ground, I'm just stating that we are both wasting our time.

I do not think that people are physically able to take responsibility for the actions of their choice to not be vaccinated. That is why it is a problem at the social level rather than just a matter of individual responsibility. I have zero problem with unvaccinated people living the way they want, but just don't be surprised if your only neighbors are also unvaccinated neighbors, and when the question is asking 1,000 people to move elsewhere or asking 1, its not really a hard to answer. Set your own house on fire if you'd like, but the situation is different if you live in an apartment complex.

If I say that I also support unvaccinated illegal immigrants staying out of the same spaces as unvaccinated U.S citizens, does that help? I'm not "afraid" of infection, statistically it'll never happen to me, but its an absolutely real possibility. I'm not pretending that every single unvaccinated child will catch the plague, but all it takes is one to screw over a lot of people. The same could happen with immigrants as a source of contagion, but that doesn't mean we ignore the pinhole until we've shored up everything else. The problem is that with a single case that occurs, who foots the bill? Who is held responsible, and makes everything right?

Its not media, its thousands of years of human history that have taught us diseases are bad. Telling me to shut up and deal with you doing whatever you want is dismissive in itself, what about my right to not catch your diseases? Now you are stripping me, and using your minority defense to make your point infallible. Anti vaxers are not a minority group, they are just reckless. The point I keep trying to stress, you don't have to get vaccinated. Just don't expect everyone to respect your decision. I don't have to bathe, and if I don't bathe for a few years, I don't get the right to get pissed off when they kick me off the subway. If you don't give a shit about your community, you aren't welcome in your community.

My only point is that you only get to live exactly how you want, with whatever you perceive as your rights, if you live on your own. Don't expect that you can force your bullshit on others, any more than I can force mine on you. That doesn't mean we have to live harmoniously as neighbors however, and a community can tell me to leave for not bathing, and they can tell you to leave for being unvaccinated. A homeowners association can tell you to leave for not having the right color doors, your recourse is to not live in that homeowners association if you don't want to abide by their rules.

We obviously don't care much about each other's opinions even after making our claims. Thats cool, we nor our opinions will likely never effect each other in any way. I'm alright with watching it play out. Shoot me a pm with I told you so when it all works out in the end.

I can make things up if you'd prefer? Actually, I meant my comment on fear mongering in your benefit. I don't trust any news sources or studies without reading the raw data. I don't know anything about how many illegal immigrants from the Mexican border are Mexican, Mongolian, or Moroccan, again I could make some stuff up if you'd like, but I'd rather just say I don't know enough about it. I'm skipping over the subject not because its not significant, but going back to my point previously, we don't get to just disregard certain things because there are other potentially more significant or important cases elsewhere.

I could say that improper diet is responsible for more than half of a million deaths per year in the U.S alone. For that reason, immigration doesn't matter, vaccination doesn't matter, automobile safety doesn't matter, and africanized honey bees don't matter, but again if we are constantly shifting goalposts, there is no point in discussing anything at all.

Here is what I'm claiming:

1) Lack of vaccinations lead to diseases that otherwise wouldn't exist.

2) Those responsible for infecting others with diseases that otherwise wouldn't exist are solely responsible for the cases that they transmit.

3) In the case that a disease is transmitted, and a non statically insignificant case where permanent damage is done, the one who transmitted it is responsible.

4) The financial and life toll associated with lack of vaccination outweighs your right to infect others.


Here is my conclusion, being told to go away because the rest of the population doesn't want your diseases is not unreasonable. Strapping you into a chair and forcing vaccinations on you is unreasonable. The needs of a society outweigh the rights of an individual, and if you disagree you should not have those rights forcibly stripped from you, but given the option to politely go elsewhere.

If your point is that other unvaccinated individuals are coming in illegally anyway, why does that suddenly invalidate all other concerns? Shouldn't we be just as concerned about them as unvaccinated U.S citizens?


As you said, I'm not paying much attention to the fear mongering statistics of political propaganda trying to support their claims one way or another. Take a look at sources prior to the eradication of infectious diseases to make conclusions about them. People today have the right to be idiots, because they were never actually faced with threats. The reason Mexico is more vaccinated than the U.S, is because they had been dealing with actual epidemics far more recently than us. People under 60 didn't watch their friends and family deal with these diseases, so they are a non issue, that is until they resurface. We forget just how fortunate that we are that we don't live in a time where 50% of children die before they hit age 5, it really wasn't that long ago.

I don't know enough about the actual non fearmongering statistics regarding illegal immigration, and am not in a position to respond. I'd be happy to point out the CDC's statics that seem to conclude that Mexico has a higher vaccination rate than the U.S, but most of that data is for children, and I have not validated the legitimacy of their data.

I would agree with you if the tiny majority demanding bodily autonomy were absolutely isolated, and had no risk of spreading diseases that they obtained by choice to those that did not make the same choice. I support the choice not to be vaccinated, I do not support the choice to put others at risk because of it though.

Consider the choice to stop bathing. No one can force a person to bathe, but you may find out that you are no longer welcome in public places. Why is that understandable, but when a health risk is at stake, its oppressing a minority group? Again, its all fine and good as long as your choices only effect you when they effect others, it is not acceptable.

No one has a right to compromise public safety. Saying that threat X statistically will claim 1,000 lives vs threat Y will statistically claim 100 doesn't mean we can just ignore threat Y. We could save far more lives ignoring nearly all hot-button issues combined, and focusing on proper nutrition, but that doesn't mean there is no point in anything besides nutrition.

This topic isn't about people in Rockland County being forcibly strapped to chairs and injected full of chemicals, its about them being told, you aren't welcome here because you are a threat to public safety. Those that have enjoyed their decades of lack of crippling diseases should change, just because others are willing to take the risk? You don't have to be forced to put anything inside your body if you don't want to, just don't feel indignation when others tell you they don't want to come in contact with you.

Owning a snotty tissue with measles virus on it will get you sent to prison for a while, why is having the child that produces those snotty tissues acceptable?


This isn't vaccination related, its travel related, but check out the SARS outbreak in Toronto in the early 2000s. It didn't affect hundreds of people, but it shut the city down pretty well. The doctors that didn't quit were quarantined along with those they came in contact with. They don't really want little Jimmy going to the hospital if he comes down with something that could kill the other patients with weakened immune systems, and quarantine is awful expensive. 

I would absolutely say that Antivaxers have the right to do as they wish, if they are willing to agree to deal with any consequences as a result of their choice. Thats not going to happen though. I'm not going to try to compare threats, just because one threat has a higher total amount of damage as a possibility, doesn't mean we should disregard the others. Talking about dangerous precedents, do you know the human rights you lose during a federal isolation order by the CDC? You are imposing that on others by choosing not to get vaccinated. Yes, I understand that not everyone that doesn't get vaccinated will contract all of the diseases, but the possibility is real and not insignificant.

Your rights end when they spill over and infringe on others, thats just sort of how human civilization works. You don't get to claim minority rights, when they are harming the majority or anyone else.

Vaccines work by introducing a dead virus that allow your body to create antibodies. In the case that you come in contact with the live virus in the future, your body already has the antibodies necessary to fight it off before it gets the chance to proliferate. That doesn't mean you can't get sick with a disease if you have a vaccine for it, it typically just means that you'll be able to fight it off more easily before it gets the chance to develop. If you have ever gotten the flu after getting a flu shot, you'll probably notice its like a cold, not that bad, but it still sucks. That doesn't mean you aren't contagious though.

I agree that people should have the choice to be vaccinated or not, but that also means they should understand that others may dislike their choice and not choose to just respect it. Nudists live in their own separate communities because they'd get arrested for walking around naked in public elsewhere. If you enjoy chewing gum, maybe avoid Singapore. If you are an avid gun collector, and enjoy shooting, maybe avoid living in Boston.

Its not really that touchy of a subject on the surface, it becomes an upsetting subject when we get to the step past it. Suppose everyone has the right to choose whether they get vaccinated, the next step is what to do with those that do get sick, and thats a humanitarian can of worms.

Right, that was sort of my point, no one has any objection to telling a specific group with infectious diseases, sorry you are a danger to public health, and are being relocated against your will. In this case, they aren't saying, alright we are shipping you off to an island, but, sorry you are a danger to public health, and can't stay here.

Compare the situation where someone is infected with a dangerous disease, versus someone who is healthy and carrying a vial containing the disease. One is a bio hazard that will get a SWAT/CDC team surrounding you, and the other is acceptable? People would be outraged if government officials ran into a house, killed, and cremated a disease carrier to prevent spread, but thats what was done in the past... We got around that with vaccinations and advances in medical science, but if people make a choice to disregard the measures in place to prevent a disease that requires those kinds of measures, you can't get angry when they decide that rather than having to deal with preventing disease, they'll just politely ask you to leave.