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It's a typical 4th of July or summer picnic combo. Watermelon is usually included.4th of July confirmed for racism. Ban American independence plz.
Evolution does not mean systems become more complex, which is probably what they're trying to refer to.Yes, sorry, I forgot to include that assumption. They assume that evolution always results in more information being added to the DNA (sic).
I've seen the facebook page. Among the content to be found there, what was being used for the ads you were paying for?Most of the posts were "boosted", meaning their reach is artificially increased to friends of those who already liked the page, or other people who might be interested in them based on Facebook's algorithmic magic. Also, there were a few standard fb ads that simply display the page and its description on people's news feeds, in an effort to get them to like it.
Oh, come on. Don't be like that. We're on the same side here.It really doesn't sound like it right now, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Hey, I don't think anyone here objects to you or anyone else spending their own money promoting the society. I just think that the society should know about it in advance. Is it really weird to think that an organization should have some foreknowledge of media expenditures on its behalf?I dunno, it strikes me as obvious that since I run the Facebook page, I'd be making media statements, and I still don't think the financial part of it is any of anyone's business, other than my own.
I'd say the people doing this deserve a certain recognition from the society too.Even if the person deserving recognition expressly doesn't want said recognition?
Yeah, you kind of cropped out my point there[...]Point taken and conceded.
When you said that "we can't wait for the council to make decisions", I took that to mean that you wanted the membership to take matters into their own hands. Based on such an interpretation, it's easy to infer that the Council would then be obsolete. If that is indeed wrong, an explanation of what you meant by that is clearly needed and would be appreciated.What I'm saying is that we should drop the rename discussion, either permanently or for the time being, as in my view it is delaying very important and long overdue tasks of the ZC. I say that with no authority and with no claim to authority, it is simply my opinion.
I honestly didn't realize that the facebook page operated independently of the society. I mean, it bears its name and presumably represents it, but the people running it put out anything they want? It even has a council of its own? At this point, would it be all that inaccurate to characterize it as a third FES? It certainly seems to be getting a lot more done than this place.It's not operated independently of the society, it's operated by its members. That's a very common occurrence in non-profit organisations (or at least each and every one of those I am or have been involved in is doing that - perhaps my sample is heavily skewed, but I'm under the impression it's not). A group of members decide to help out, and they help out. There's no reason for it to be overly formalised, and there's no reason to interrogate me or anyone else about it. If you, or anyone else, is interested in joining, I'm very happy to let almost anyone in.
I've covered this already. The name discussion has nothing to do with the Council's recent inactivity and you know it.No, I don't know it. The way I see it, several members of the ZC were inactive around Christmas time, which explains their inactivity to some extent. After that, a statement was made that the press release is being put on hold until the name debate is settled. Perhaps that's not the real reason (I think it is), but it certainly is the official reason. In either way, getting that reason out of the way sounds like at least a partial solution.
I can't help but get the impression that you're channeling your frustration at the Council towards me. I don't hold any kind of influence here, so I'm really not worth it.No, my frustration towards you comes from the fact that I feel attacked (by you and you alone) for trying to help the society out. I deeply regret even mentioning the ads.
Okay. The post is actually quoted in the OP of this thread. I mention the possibility of a name change as a means of differentiation, but I ultimately express reservations toward the idea. I conclude by saying that "it will have to be entirely the efforts of the members here to set this place apart". I don't see that as being much different from your own position.It is different from my position. My position is that any and all efforts to rename the society would be harmful to it. The only exception to that I can think of is the "official name that we'd never use anyway" proposal. After all, the other FES is technically the International Flat Earth Research Society, or something along these lines. If that's the kind of thing you want to do (which involves no change at all in our logo, site, or media), that's fine, especially since it in no way halts the press release and other activities.
How the hell are they relating the second law of thermodynamics to evolution?Assuming the Earth is a closed system (which it isn't), we should be degenerating, and not progressing
The issue isn't individual members advertizing the society. The issue is the content and the fact that money is being spent on it. We all know what is in the leaflets Tintagel made for the society because she posted them for all to see. We know nothing about these ads that were clandestinely placed for an unknown price somewhere at sometime. It's alarming to have this kind of information come out of the blue, particularly when it's being used to bolster someone's position.It's not being used to bolster anyone's position - I'd like to ask that you choose your accusations more carefully. All content on Facebook is public, and a link to it is rather prominent on the Society's front page. Also, most regulars would know about these ads, because we showed them off when they were being made on IRC. If you have an issue with the content on Facebook, you're more than welcome to raise specific concerns, after you've actually seen it. Until then, I do not appreciate your comments, as they appear to carry the sole intention of discrediting our efforts.
I don't see how the name change decision has contributed to slowing down the CouncilYou seem not to see many things that are right there in the open. http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=1132.msg16625#msg16625
The whole point of the Council was to perform certain duties and authorize certain actions on behalf of the society. If you feel that it's already proven itself to be a failed experiment and are prepared to support its abolition, that's fine. Just say that.I am not saying that at all. Again, much appreciated if you stop putting words in my mouth. All I'm saying is that the ZC should start doing the things they were mandated to do by their electorate, and only then focus on pointless dabble. As it stands, they have no Constitution (which was a direct requirement and condition for their existence), and have not produced any of the communication they promised. We cannot talk about a failed experiment, because there is no experiment to speak of yet.
However, that isn't what the membership here decided the system was going to be. That's going to have to be reconciled if you want to take a new direction.The membership here decided how the Society is going to be run; not the Facebook page. The Facebook page is being run by myself, Tintagel, Secret User and Junker, and predates the ZC in its origin. I refer you to the list of people in charge of different FES-oriented media, none of which are under the jurisdiction of the ZC*: http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=804.0
I agree with the general sentiment here. If you'll read my original post that was misrepresented to start the "name debate" in this thread, you'll see that I was explicitly not supporting a change of the name. The only reason I pursued it here was because it was the only idea I mentioned that anyone seemed to want to talk about. I absolutely feel that there are much more important things to be done.But they're not being done. We're stuck here because of the discussion you (allegedly) started, and TB is not going to let this go even if no one supports him. If it was misrepresented, that's something you should have mentioned earlier, don't you think?
I just think that all concerned need to figure out where they want this site and/or society to go before they worry too much about how to get there.I think they can be done in parallel, to some extent.
Pizza, this site is essentially a clone of the other site.I prefer to think of it as a continuation, but sure. We were never intending to start a new society, just to move to a better forum (only later on we decided to reform the way the society is governed). That's exactly what we did, which is why it looks like that.
The logo here just looks like a refresh of the original logo.Each to their own. I think it looks very different. The one and only similarity is that they both depict an image of a flat Earth.
Even most of the tired, old arguments are the same here.Does that surprise you? You're discussing the same topics with the same people. The discussions are quite obviously going to be similar.
I haven't really looked to closely, but I'm guessing that the wiki hasn't changed much since it was copied from the other site either.There have been some changes, but nothing enormous, no.
Face it, other than a few subtle (and much appreciated) improvements to the forum software, there is hardly any distinction at all between this site and the other.And I'm very happy to do more. I just don't think a name change is the right step. I do not oppose making changes in general, I just dislike this particular idea for a change.
With all due respect, can the logo really be held up as a distinctive feature? I don't think a casual observer would even notice the difference unless they were to have both forums open at the same time.I'd think they would, but I have no data to back it up. Personally, I pay lots of attention to logos, but it's very possible that that's just me being weird.
That is why a change like "The Independent Flat Earth Society" would be so ideal. It doesn't take away anything; it only adds a new element particular to this society[...]I'm a bit worried that this would carry an impression of us being the other FES. It feels extremely similar to, for example, the Oxford Brookes University. Y'know, that second university in Oxford that everyone is talking about... not. They're not even a bad university, but the name acts as a detractor and provides opportunity for mockery.
Also, if individual members are to be financing ads, I think the rest of us should at least be told and provided a means to donate. Surely such things ought to be paid via a fund established by the Council on behalf of the whole society, not by private initiative behind the scenes, no?When we set this site up, we made it clear we wouldn't monetise it. We still have no intention of doing so. The decisions of individual members to advertise the society are their own. If you want to assist, why not print out some leaflets and drop them around a local library, or something?
As I see it, the Flat Earth Academy of Sciences would still be part of the Flat Earth Society. It's a sister organization. We will present ourselves to the world as being part of the Flat Earth Society. This is simply our research branch.Given that we're nowhere near to reaching our hosting capacity (and likely will never be), we can always set up a sister site, assuming there are people willing to work on it.
Still, something to differentiate us from the other group may not necessarily negate all that.I don't think that "something" has to be the name. We already have our own logo and our social media (well, Facebook at least) are on the rise, while the other site is stagnant. I think our identity is quite secure. A new motto could be an interesting idea. I'm quite attached to the name. It acknowledges our history and ties to past societies (including the other site).
However, as far as we can tell rehabilitative models are the best for society as a whole, so that's what we should do.Another contradiction. You say rehabilitative models are the best for society, and yet you firmly stand behind the American system. I'm starting to think you're trying to waste our time here.
Absolutely. I support such models 100%. The criminal themself is irrelevant, in my opinion.These two sentences directly contradict one another. You cannot "support 100%" a model that focuses all its attention on the criminal and simultaneously claim that the criminal is irrelevant. Like with your previous claims, the problem here is lack of consistency. You are welcome to dislike it all you want, but self-contradictory claims do not take a sophisticated debate to dispute.
Does anyone here support rehabilitative models of criminal justice?Sure. The human mind can be shaped in essentially any way, although with obviously varying results. Generally speaking, it's always worth a try.
Don't give me truisms, I'm asking for actual logic.You're asking for logic to dispute your claim that the justice system should do something else than what it was designed to do. The fact that it can be dismissed with a truism is a problem with your argument, not my response to it. If you'd like to discuss something where logic is involved, make an argument that doesn't disprove itself.
Why? That's a pretty broad generalization.Because justice systems are designed to exact justice, not revenge.
Yeah. But is revenge really such a bad thing in all cases?In a justice system, yes.
There's money in WOW's money too...You do not own WoW money at any point in time, though. You're also not allowed to sell it (partially because you don't own it).
Yes, that is exactly how it should work.That will require some backup.
Because in America we are innocent until proven guiltyYeah, that's how it works here too.
and "if at first you don't succeed, try try again" is kind of a dumb way to go about things when you're talking about people's lives.It's a good thing that's prohibited by EU regulations, then.
If you are proven not guilty you shouldn't spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.I certainly agree. That's exactly how we do it. It seems to me that the problem here is that the vocal American legal experts of this forum never bothered to read the European Convention on Human Rights and assumed that just because extraordinary cases exist, the rules are completely different for us than they are for you.
That's idiotic. I'd rather a few guilty people get away than a few innocent people be jailed unjustly.But the European system is better at that. If this is your objective, you should strive to understand other Western legal systems and adopt the good things out of them. Currently, the American judiciary is the laughing stock of the West, what with your ability to just make up a crime when you want to jail someone. Granted, the UK, Australia, Canada, and other Anglosphee countries are guilty of that to some extent, too, but your case is the most extreme. In fact, the very priority of the American system seems to be to put everyone that even looks guilty in jail (or to declare war on them because they're TRRRRRISTS).