2841

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Pete please explain

« on: July 27, 2018, 06:23:48 PM »

A fundamental unwritten rule of online communication is that if someone didn't specify who they're responding to, they're responding to the post immediately above.

As I said, I fully believe that this was an honest slip-up, and no action is being taken against you. I do think it's unlikely that you sincerely thought something in our Wiki would be a joke (why would we publish jokes in between theories?), but I'm not gonna look into that much further - no point. Plus, if someone points out that they've found your attitude to be condescending, saying "yeah, I'm condescending AF" is not a helpful response.

On this board, that seems like a pretty fair question.

I disagree. You may have mistaken us for another similarly-named group, with which we have very little in common anymore.

2842

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: First question of the FAQ

« on: July 27, 2018, 06:16:48 PM »

A lot of people come here for the first time thinking that it is a joke.

I can't say I've witnessed that.

2843

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Incredible CGI / Parabolic Flight / Space Travel

« on: July 27, 2018, 05:30:00 PM »

Yeah, try not to do that in the upper. If you need to vent, take it to Angry Ranting. Most people will still read it and get suitably outraged

I'm not gonna issue a proper warning since this does look like a genuine slip-up, but let's go with a polite request.

2844

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Water on Mars

« on: July 27, 2018, 03:53:36 PM »

This started when Thork suggested that as humans are from earth we should stay on earth.
I merely suggested that that is silly, it's like suggesting that New Yorkers born in New York should stay there.

But these are completely incomparable. I can stop being in New York simply by walking to Jersey, and I'll be completely fine. Well, mostly fine. I'll be in Jersey.

We have the technology to survive in environments which we wouldn't naturally survive in so why shouldn't we go to Mars, if we have the technology?

You still need to substantiate that assertion. We have the technology to make life better in harsh environments, and we supposedly have the technology that lets us put a liveable environment in a big box. Neither of these translate into a technology that lets us meaningfully colonise Mars. Again, if you're just imagining a crapton of biodomes like in sci-fi movies - cut the middle-man, plonk them in orbit around the Earth. The outside will be deadly either way, so who needs a planet?

I don't think that there is any principle that because we are from earth we should stay here.

Again, I don't necessarily completely disagree with what you're trying to argue. But blimey, the reasons you're presenting are way off.

2845

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Water on Mars

« on: July 27, 2018, 03:35:35 PM »

The point was, and remains, we have developed technologies which allow us to survive in climates where we wouldn't otherwise be able to.

You haven't substantiated that point. The best you've got so far is that sometimes we've come up with technology that allowed us to increase the population density of areas we already survived in - and that's ignoring the fact that your premises and conclusions are entirely disconnected.

Well, to answer my own question there I'm not sure if our technology is quite that advanced yet, but people live in space for fairly long periods of time which is not the most hospitable climate, so in principle...

Your principle is that we can supposedly send big metal boxes full of air into space. Let's entertain the idea for a moment. Why would we bother landing them on Mars? What benefit is there from chunking these eternal prisons onto a planet? They might as well just float around the Earth - easier to resupply.

2846

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Water on Mars

« on: July 27, 2018, 03:17:31 PM »

although it's notable that Dubai didn't become a major city until the invention of air-conditioning

It's not notable, and it's not true. Dubai was still a relatively small city at the time of electrical air conditioning becoming commonplace. It was, however, also a relatively large city for its times long before the invention of electrical aircon - it was an important port, after all.

Its population really started to skyrocket in 1968 (many decades after the invention of electrical aircon), when the main source of income changed from pearls to oil.

2847

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Water on Mars

« on: July 27, 2018, 02:12:40 PM »

The general point you are pretending not to understand

I'm not pretending not to understand anything. I just don't like people believing in things for the wrong reasons, even if I don't dispute their actual conviction.

Have humans spread to places they wouldn't otherwise have been able to live thanks to technological advances? Eh, arguably - it's not the craziest or most controversial of claims. Bit malformed, but I can guess roughly what you're getting at.

Is the fact that humans live in Dubai a good reason to believe it? Absolutely not - hominids inhabited the Persian Gulf before Steve Jobs even invented humans.

Yakutsk is slightly less wrong, but still ridiculously wrong, unless you think that Neolitic technological advances were particularly relevant here.

Interesting.  I thought that humans evolved in the plains of Eastern or Central Africa, not the Middle-eastern desert.

That's okay. We're used to you thinking things that are simply incorrect.

2848

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Water on Mars

« on: July 27, 2018, 12:56:03 PM »

We are not really evolved to live in Dubai, but we have the technology to make life there bearable.

>humans are not really evolved to live in the (more or less) place of origin of humans

That's... quite a claim you've got there. I guess Paleolithic technology must have been amazing.

2849

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Open the wiki to additional contributors

« on: July 26, 2018, 06:37:18 AM »

We're on the same page here. I picked up the Wiki in a much worse state than it currently is, but with very limited resources I can only push it forward so slowly. I can't even say with confidence that I've read every page of the Wiki.

There are many small, disjointed articles that should honestly either be removed or merged with larger articles, I agree for sure. If you do spot easy fixes like those typos or pages that can be uncontroversially merged, just ping me a message.

2850

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Open the wiki to additional contributors

« on: July 25, 2018, 10:23:50 PM »

That, to me, feels like pushing things towards the other extreme too much. Even if your only priority is driving people to the forum, there is merit in having a better Wiki. Think about it this way: the Wiki is what mainstream media outlets tend to cite when they want to refer to us. Not forum threads - those are too much effort for a random journo.

Ultimately, however, the distributed nature of our Society could be a strength here. If you think the Wiki should be going in a certain direction, then I'm happy to set you up with an account and have you show us what you can do. Obviously any super-drastic changes should be discussed first, but if you want to help with, say, writing an article about Eric Dubay (a reasonably common search term which currently just draws people to this thread), the power is yours.

2851

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Open the wiki to additional contributors

« on: July 25, 2018, 10:05:00 PM »

the George Scott fallacy page mispelling arguments as 'arguements.'

Fixed, together with another misspelling of "irrelevant".

This is kind of the purpose of the Flat Earth Projects board - to provide a destination for suggestions on the Wiki and other activity. I guess this thread shows that it's at least kinda-sorta working. I do agree that a list could be a good idea - perhaps as a sticky here.

Getting more people involved in fixing the Wiki should always be the main priority, that much is for sure. I still hope that you will join us soon. In the meantime, I'll carry on doing my best to advance things, as slow as it may be.

2852

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: First question of the FAQ

« on: July 25, 2018, 08:44:25 PM »

Initial feedback seems overwhelmingly positive, with the exception of pj1

pj1, I appreciate where you're coming from, although I would suggest that a statement of "no, we're not joking" is a bit meaningless coming from us - if we were joking, we wouldn't give it up at question 1 of the FAQ anyway. To me, starting off on the defensive there is only likely to spark doubt.

For now, I will implement this with my original phrasing. This is by no means set in stone, and any suggestions for improvement are always welcome!

2853

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Open the wiki to additional contributors

« on: July 25, 2018, 07:33:00 PM »

Plus honestly I'd question how much of the wiki is read by newcomers.

I can elucidate on that a little bit.

Looking at data from the past 2 months, 87.8% of the Wiki's traffic is from newcomers, the rest being return visitors. The vast majority (70%) only ever land on the FAQ, and only spend enough time on it to carelessly skim through. Visits to other pages are almost entirely by referral - someone asks a question and gets directed to a page that potentially deals with it.

If you're curious about anything specific with regards to people's browsing patters, please feel free to ask. We have years of Google Analytics data at our disposal

I think part of this comes down to understanding our audience, and deciding on our focus. If we're going for depth (i.e. we want for those few people who are truly interested to have a very solid response), then JRowe's approach is absolutely correct. If we're aiming for a wide reach (i.e. take people from not having any clue that the Flat Earth Theory exists to having a surface-level understanding), then Thork's suggestion of beefing up the FAQ is our best hope.

In an ideal world, we would be trying to accomplish both these things, but we have to face a simple fact - right now, the Wiki is largely a two-man effort, and we're both spread very thin. My response to that is to try and optimise - I try to spot subjects that people are actively looking for, and I hope to write decent articles on them. As I said, currently my focus is probably going to be individuals and the FAQ.

2854

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 25, 2018, 04:35:05 PM »

The two are not comparable. A medical licence means you can get certain jobs. Security clearance means you can access certain places and information, regardless of job.

2855

Suggestions & Concerns / First question of the FAQ

« on: July 25, 2018, 08:00:58 AM »

I'm considering replacing the first question of the FAQ, quoted below:

Is this site a joke?

This site is not a joke. We are actively promoting the Flat Earth Movement worldwide. There are, admittedly, several non-serious flat earth posters, but they are fairly easy to identify.

I think it made sense to have this up a few years ago, or even before the Society split in two parts, mostly because we were much accepting of tongue-in-cheek posts in the upper fora. At the time, it was pretty much necessary to warn people that they may be exposed to, say, James's theories about seafaring dinosaurs. Now that this episode is behind us, I think the question can give off the right idea. It has a "we're serious, honest!" vibe to it, which I think only serves to make people that we might not be entirely serious.

I propose that we replace this question with What is the Flat Earth Society? It serves a similar purpose (clarifying what we're about), but it moves us away from the "totally serious, honest!" tone.

Here's a rough idea of what I'd prefer to see, though the actual wording will definitely need some work:

What is the Flat Earth Society?

The Flat Earth Society is a group actively promoting the Flat Earth Movement worldwide. Descending from Samuel Shenton's International Flat Earth Research Society, and the Universal Zetetic Society before it, we continue the age-old tradition of questioning the Round Earth doctrine and challenging authorities. Acknowledging the link between various unconventional beliefs, the Society also occasionally engages in other unconventional debates, striving to provide a voice for all free thinkers and Zeteticists.

What do people think? Am I roughly heading in the right direction here? If so, how exactly should this be phrased?

2856

Flat Earth Community / MOVED: Open the wiki to additional contributors

« on: July 24, 2018, 01:33:18 PM »

This topic has been moved to Flat Earth Projects.

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=10218.0

2857

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Open the wiki to additional contributors

« on: July 24, 2018, 01:14:12 PM »

Perhaps. I certainly think the FAQ should be an accurate representation of Rowbotham's model. It is my understanding that most modern serious FE'ers remain somewhat close to it, and understanding it is a good starting point.

The Wiki as a whole might be a bit tougher. For example, you used to subscribe to what is more-or-less Rowbotham's model - that's currently most of the Wiki. I'm largely on the same page, although I'm leaning towards EA.

Does the addition of EA constitute a whole separate model? I'd argue not, it's a relatively small alteration. Thus, the current approach of having a separate page on EA makes sense (though that page does need a lot of expanding).

Because of that, I think the "mish-mash" is somewhat unavoidable. I, for one, would love to include more material from other models, but I do not want to be the one to write out explanations and definitions I don't fully understand or believe. And since proponents of other models don't want to do it either, I've found myself at a stalemate.

Personally, my current focus is on individuals. I'd like to write a page on Eric Dubay, Mark Sargent, etc. to acknowledge their contributions to FET (regardless of any disagreements we may have with at least one of them). I want to cover subjects people actually search for online. I think making the Wiki a very good entry point is well within reach, but making it a comprehensive resource is probably beyond our resources unless others want to join our efforts.

2858

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Open the wiki to additional contributors

« on: July 24, 2018, 10:48:00 AM »

You are correct. Nonetheless, there's nothing more I can do. The Wiki is already open to contributors, and the individuals you have in mind have both turned down an offer of an account/documenting their theories in the Wiki.

2859

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Open the wiki to additional contributors

« on: July 24, 2018, 10:26:43 AM »

I would like to discuss the possibility of opening the Wiki to other contributors.

The Wiki is already open to contributors. It always has been, and will always remain so.

I have actively reached out to people who might want an account. Sandokhan was one of them, but the only response I was able to get from him is that we must abandon our model and replace the FAQ with one of his own, and some advice on merging the societies. He wouldn't even acknowledge the question of whether or not he'd like a Wiki account.

JRowe's response, in brief, was that he'd rather run his own Wiki, but that we're free to draw content from it as we please.

On an entirely unrelated note, I also spoke to Jane on the other forum who gave permission for us to integrate some of her FEIR posts, should we find them useful.

2860

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Question - image leakage

« on: July 23, 2018, 11:43:36 AM »

I would interject and say that photo's of ice are extremely commonplace.  Whether or not they're the ice wall is entirely up for debate.  I've personally photographed a glacier, close-cropped so you can't see the edges, but I don't think it's evidence of anything :-)

That's not the question that's been asked, so your interjection is not particularly useful. Is it the case that the Ice Wall exists and conveniently happens to have never been photographed, as asserted by DuniyaGolHai? No. At least one of his two assertions are false.

FET would suggest that there are no photo's proving the earth is flat because, under FET, space travel (and by extension photo's taken from space) aren't possible.

Some FE'ers would suggest that. Many photographs proving FET do exist, despite not having been taken from space. In some models, there is nothing stopping you from taking a photograph from space - you'll just be able to see the illuminated portion of the plane, and not much else.

Generally, I would advise against making sweeping statements about what "FET would suggest" - no disrespect intended, but RE'ers simply aren't good spokespeople for FET.