6801

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: What Religion are you?

« on: December 28, 2013, 11:47:44 PM »

You honestly think it's alright to murder a disobedient child?

Well, it certainly solves the disobedience issue.

6802

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is it possible to prove a negative?

« on: December 28, 2013, 11:27:24 PM »

I negate your premise.

Feel free to. It won't make you any less wrong.

6803

Flat Earth Projects / Re: The Poll™

« on: December 28, 2013, 11:19:10 PM »

For everyone's convenience, the results sorted by amount of votes, in descending order:

User:	Votes:
Tom Bishop	22
Roundy	15
Thork	12
Tausami	10
Secret User	7
markjo	6
Saddam Hussein	5
Ghost Spaghetti	3
rooster	3
squevil	2
beardo	1
Hoppy	1
Benjamin Franklin	1
Sean	0

6804

Flat Earth Community / Re: Zetetic Council Election Thread.

« on: December 28, 2013, 09:45:55 PM »

The results are in.

http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=1004.msg10787

6805

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is it possible to prove a negative?

« on: December 28, 2013, 08:31:35 PM »

It is relevant, because saying, "I have looked and there is no evidence" is an assertion that in and of itself carries a BOP.

How is it relevant to the subject of "Is it possible to prove a negative?"?

6806

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is it possible to prove a negative?

« on: December 28, 2013, 07:19:46 PM »

Assuming there is no evidence is not an assumption of falsehood.  It is assuming that it is true that there is not evidence.

Correct, but also irrelevant.

6807

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is it possible to prove a negative?

« on: December 28, 2013, 07:07:05 PM »

Assertions of any and all sorts deal with things that are true (or presumed to be true), not things that are false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_assertion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act#Classifying_illocutionary_speech_acts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assertion_%28software_development%29

6808

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is it possible to prove a negative?

« on: December 28, 2013, 05:36:03 PM »

I got a mirror for free with some furniture I bought and it was chipped at the back so they gave me £40 off the mirror.

Yes, I think my description of "doesn't actually happen" covers that

6809

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is it possible to prove a negative?

« on: December 28, 2013, 04:46:58 PM »

And this shows a distinction between a positive and a negative claim how?  I can just as easily assert a negative claim as I can assert a positive claim.

No, you can't. To assert means to state positively. Asserting a negative claim is like spending a negative amount of money - a cool abstract concept, but it doesn't actually happen.

I can know for a fact that there is no elephant in my backyard.

That is me making a negative claim, declaring positively, that there is no elephant in m backyard.

No, that is you negating the assertion that there is an elephant in your backyard.

6810

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is it possible to prove a negative?

« on: December 28, 2013, 01:22:07 PM »

so do we now move on to what constitutes a claim and is questioning or picking holes in a claim, itself a claim?

No, we're simply calling markjo out on his lack of understanding of English.

6811

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is it possible to prove a negative?

« on: December 28, 2013, 01:11:25 PM »

What about the sentence before the bolded one?  It makes no distinction between positive and negative claims regarding the burden assumed by the one making the claim.

Actually, it does quite clearly say that the burden of proof is on the person asserting the claim.

6812

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Honey & Lemon

« on: December 27, 2013, 05:14:09 PM »

It's also tastier, and you can introduce variety by alternating between several kinds of honey.

6813

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Honey & Lemon

« on: December 26, 2013, 11:43:15 PM »

I usually sweeten my tea with honey, and often add lemon to it. It certainly does help get rid of a sore throat, or other symptoms of a not-too-serious cold.

6814

Flat Earth Community / Re: Questions for the FAQ

« on: December 25, 2013, 11:06:57 PM »

Here's an illustration of the collapsible elements solution I suggested, showing two possible approaches to take:

http://wiki.tfes.org/User:PizzaPlanet/FAQ_Sandbox

The [Expand] buttons are currently tucked away to the right, but that could be changed with a little code modification.

6815

Flat Earth Community / Re: Questions for the FAQ

« on: December 25, 2013, 10:27:16 PM »

It's simply neater this way. The FAQ pages can actually have detailed explanations, with pictures and whatnot. Even with the contents thing, the page gets unwieldy quickly.

The FAQ is not for detailed explanations. It can contain links to more detailed explanations if those exist, but it should consist of short questions and short answers. We're definitely not splitting the FAQ itself into dozens of small pages.

While you were on your year-long vacation we played with making the original FAQ into a wiki page like this. It didn't work very well.

We did that before the wiki powergrab, by my specific request. It worked just fine until someone revamped the FAQ, and that was due to the content, not the layout.

There is no valid reason to force the users to navigate a bunch of pages to read just the FAQ. If you create such a reason, then what you've done to make it so is the problem. Not the layout.

Also, sorry. I was rather of the impression that the wiki was rather unofficial, since we don't currently have any angry noobs whatsoever and probably won't for quite a while

Not a problem, as long as we keep things tidy from now on. Part of the Wiki's purpose is to introduce people to the subject and invite them to the forum. It's linked to in our Facebook page, and some of our paid-for advertisements. Its effect is inhibited if we trash it up with personal experiments. It's also just a matter of principle, really.

6816

Flat Earth Community / Re: Questions for the FAQ

« on: December 25, 2013, 08:34:26 PM »

I have to say, the longer I think about this idea, the more confused I am about what you're trying to improve. Doesn't this do what you want already?

6817

Flat Earth Community / Re: Questions for the FAQ

« on: December 25, 2013, 08:26:52 PM »

Okay, I'm a bit worried that saying this will make me seem harsh, and I don't want it to seem that way. I really appreciate the passion and work that you put into the Wiki, but I need to ask you to learn some wiki etiquette.

Please don't replace the actual FAQ (or any page from the main linkspace) with unfinished experiments. That page is linked to from many sources, and we don't need visitors to see half the FAQ gone while we discuss what layout we should be using. I reverted your changes and chucked the draft to http://wiki.tfes.org/User:Tausami/FAQ_Sandbox. If you're doing something that is not ready to be viewed by users, please do not put it in the main space, but instead use your userpage.

Also, I don't see the merit in forcing people to visit dozens of different pages to view the entire FAQ. It makes it harder to read both for humans and search engines - we don't want either of that.  If what you want to achieve is things not looking to overwhelming the moment someone goes to the page, use collapsible elements. This is also something I'd rather avoid (The table of contents already gives you a rundown of the questions - you can already click the one you want. You're not introducing anything new.), but if people feel about this strongly, then that's the way to go.

6818

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Spambot Alert Thread

« on: December 25, 2013, 07:29:26 PM »

Ok.  I was just planning for future cases if you guys ever went with something more automated in account creation.

I hope to enable account creations at some point. I recently experimented with a module that uses the same database as the one we use for the forum, but that only blocked a fraction of bots. I'm sure there must be a solution that works, so I'll keep looking, but until I get something, I only see two possible ways to go: restricting account creation to administrators only, or allowing any registered user to make an account for new users. Perhaps we should consider the latter approach.

6819

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Spambot Alert Thread

« on: December 25, 2013, 02:22:22 PM »

If we find soambots on the wiki do we report them here too?

Surely there should be none left? No one but me and Parsifal can make new accounts at this point. If I missed something in my cleanup, PM-ing me will probably get the fastest response.

6820

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Spambot Alert Thread

« on: December 25, 2013, 12:14:27 AM »

Let us hope we won't need to use it too often