I was thinking more along the lines of quoting You or wallows for example within just my discussion or potentially reference Massimo from his other discussions within my own.

I'm a bit hesitant about that being OK by itself, I think it would be OK so long as the quoted bit is contextualised explicitly by you in your discussion. Want to hear what the other mods and questioners think, hence putting this in feedback.

I'm a bit hesitant about that being OK by itself, I think it would be OK so long as the quoted bit is contextualised explicitly by you in your discussion. — fdrake

Of course, naturally. I fully intend to use my better judgement and best foot forward on this and do my best for our community. I won't embarrass you guys. Extremely grateful for this opportunity!

However I will still attempt to converse with Professor Pigliucci (side bar; How would he prefer we address him?) In as authentic manner as is respectfully possible by what I believe to be the highest standards expected. I want to have a meaningful and fruitful conversation and collaborative discussion, but I think we can all agree that I shouldn't pull well framed punches if I feel I see inconsistencies in his approach, so long as I relay these respectfully, charitably and in a steel man fashion.

"Hi Baden, I slightly messed up the title to my Pigliucci OP. The Part after the Semi Colon should read "How does Stoicism bring Balance to and justify its place in our Moral Ecology?"

Message I sent to Baden. Sorry I just thought I'd let the other mods know just in case one of you can sort this issue for me. Sorry I got excited and shared too early so I fucked up the title :/

Title's too long. Not just editorially. It hits the character limit for a thread title.

Okay then. Maybe just cut it down to everything prior the semi colon?

Done.

Deleted the personal remarks from your question. Also PM'd them to you in case you wanted to keep them anyway.

@Mark Dennis I thought we already edited out the personal stuff by PM?

Please just abide by the rules anyhow.

We had quite a few posts from @Mark Dennis and I'd rather not clog up the discussion with them. As a very bare summary, he found the OP guidelines too restrictive, requested removal of his OP, and we removed it. I don't anticipate any other issues but if there are please feel free to mention them. We'll do our best to accommodate reasonable requests to modify OPs, but we can't make any promises on that.

Is this the thread for forum members not involved in discussions with the professor? I mean, is this the place for member discussion?

It was to deal with some stuff that came up. I think there will be separate forum wide threads for each discussion with the guest.

Cool. That's what I thought, but haven't paid enough attention. I like the professor. I'm very glad that he was chosen and accepted the invitation. I'm looking forward to reading his input.

I think there will be separate forum wide threads for each discussion with the guest. — fdrake

Updated to:

That just means whoever wants to start a discussion on that can do so somewhere else in the forum. — Baden

It is unfortunate that this doesn't seem to be happening, for whatever reason.

Perhaps it would have been better for any Guest Speaker Questioner to start the forum-wide thread ?
Or a moderator ? Admin ?

Thoughts, anyone ?

I read some of the questions, including mine, and they seemed to be of the type that answered themselves, and then asked the Professor if he agrees. Maybe not all of our five questions were structured the same way, but some were. This seemed like self-adoration by the questioner, "look how smart I am because here's proof I understand you, and I feel kind of being a kindred spirit with you". Not a type of names dropping, but still. Rubbing elbows, instead of seeking enlightenment.

Dr. Prof. Pigliucci perhaps expected other types of questions, questions that probed and sought true enlightenment. He may have been taken aback by the verbosity and overstylization of some of the questions. A little less overt politeness and adoration also may have been in order... he did not come here, and he expected others also to not come here to hear praising of Caesar, but to have Caesar speak himself.

In effect, I think he declined the answering of the questions for these reasons. I could be wrong in this assessment, but I see it this way at this point.

I posted this only because direct questions were asked of the audience, "thoughts, anyone?"

If you're gonna ask a long question, you need to set up context. It's probably more to do with question length / complexity / number and how much time Pigluicci wanted to spend.

I must say that my criticism above here does not apply to all questions that had been chosen to present to Dr. Pigliucci. For instance, I especially liked StreetlightX's questions... they were open-ended, and asked relevant parts of Stoicism that are neglected these days, and I liked his concern about the complacency effect Stoicism lays on society.

All the questions had good points and bad points, but some were somehow imbalanced and / or unanswerable; some had the questions too deeply buried, under too many layers of pre-explanations, is the feeling I got from them.

Nevertheless, I praise all questioners, because we all had honest aspirations to have answers for our questions; they were not vainly asked, but indeed had purpose in the asking.

All the questions had good points and bad points, but some were somehow imbalanced and / or unanswerable; some had the questions too deeply buried, under too many layers of pre-explanations, is the feeling I got from them. — god must be atheist

Mismatch of expectations I think. I'm guessing we need a word limit.

Yes, I agree with you, @fdrake.

Mismatch of expectations I think. I'm guessing we need a word limit. — fdrake

When I first heard of the Guest Speaker event, I didn't know what to expect
If anything, I thought that the Guest would 'speak' first and then choose questions from the audience.

Poopy. Oh well...

Guess no more @Wallamity...

:sad:

'There is no member with that name.'

But we will always have the concept :wink:

But we will always have the concept :wink: — Amity

:blush:

I'm hesitant to speculate about another's motives, but as I don't suppose the professor will have any interest in divulging his reasons (nor should he) we will be left guessing, nonetheless, why it didn't work out as we'd expected.

I was concerned from the start about how much Prof. Pigliucci might actually know about the Internet's top philosophy forum (according to Google). It certainly wasn't what I was expecting when I first joined. Take a look at the discussions currently on our front page. Many are banal, childish and deeply insulting to the topic. I don't want to get involved with them, and I'm not even a philosopher. Did we really expect a professional (and well-known) philosopher to get involved with the kind of crap that seems to inevitably dominate even the most promising of discussions?

The questions themselves, I thought, were mostly very well thought out, but I'm not in the least surprised about the professor's lack of enthusiasm for the project as a whole. Answering serious questions is one thing, getting involved in a discussion which (for all he knows) is likely to deteriorate into the sort of nonsense exemplified by the "what is truth" discussion, is another matter entirely.

I know it's not my place to say, it's not my forum, but if there's a desire to attract involvement from serious academics then somehow (and I understand it's a lot of work) there's going to need to be more control over post quality.

It could, of course, just be that he's busy, and all this is just completely off the mark, but I've wanted to mention my concerns about quality for a little while and this seemed as good an opportunity as any.

If you want to know about him there is plenty of content out there. I went for an approach that interested me and which I thought may open up some interesting responses.

Nothing to do with anything you said. The modding standard here is pretty much as it was at the old place and we had plenty of guest speakers there. In fact, Massimo complimented the content but was worried about the volume despite our reassurances he wouldn't have to answer everything. Anyway, we'll plough on.

I know it's not my place to say, it's not my forum, but if there's a desire to attract involvement from serious academics then somehow (and I understand it's a lot of work) there's going to need to be more control over post quality. — Isaac

As far as I know, we'll continue to vet content which will be submitted to guest speakers. And we'll have a think about what to do to make guest speaker engagement more long lasting in the future.

Increasing the standard for content isn't particularly worthwhile in my view as: (1) users can selectively respond and read, like the under used "following" posters option in profiles (2) people's interest in philosophy usually starts long before researching much of it, and it's a valuable space for learning for that user type (3) less restricted posting stimulates discussion (4) increasing content standard to make the place more attractive to seasoned academics would simultaneously reduce our attractiveness for having a large and relatively high standard (for the internet) of discussion.

Well put. For which reasons we're not going to make dramatic changes in moderation, but we do miss stuff or don't get to it quickly enough, so if you, @Isaac, or anyone wants to help increase quality, please flag discussions you feel are unworthy of the place.

or anyone wants to help increase quality, please flag discussions you feel are unworthy of the place. — Baden

It's not discussions that I'd propose to moderate. I'll send you a file that shows how the deterioration of the site could be prevented, by a specific example. I'll send it to Baden, and he can distribute it among the mods.

Always open to feedback.