I decided to wait a few days before commenting, in order to reflect, and to attempt to minimize the impact of my own clear bias in favor of continuing to allow discussion of other conspiracy theories on my response.

I can certainly understand where Phil and Fraser are coming from, and I admit that the September 11 conspiracists are well past the point of sounding like flock of parrots--all we get are the same tired arguments. I also agree that something had to be done.

Having said that, I have to second (third?) PhantomWolf and Laguna2 and say that I wish we could at least try strictly enforcing the rule on backing up conspiracist claims (which I've advocated for a long time) and see if that improves the situation. I'd also like to revive a suggestion I made a while ago, which is to have a FAQ on the various major conspiracy theories, so that some broken-record discussions might be ended with "read the September 11 FAQ, Section 2.21," or some such reference.

Finally, like some others, I don't feel that I have nearly as much to contribute on space subjects as I do on other CTs. However, I participated here back when the moon hoax and Planet X were the only conspiracies discussed, and I will continue to participate even if those are the only ones allowed. My participation will likely be limited, however.

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--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

I sympathize with PhantomWolf's sentiments as regards critical thinking but I think the decision is correct.

A few things distinguish this forum from all others: the intellectual quality of the participants, the restriction on discussing politics and religion under Rule 12, and the quality of the discussions as a result.

The discussion of 9/11 conspiracies on the science of what happened has been rehashed over and over. Absent new information, we've been there, done that. We await the final NIST report on WTC 7 and we know what we'll get from CTers. New CTer's have come here in recent months not to learn anything but to troll. It has gotten boring. It is boring in every other forum discussing 9/11 conspiracies as well. I think the 9/11 Truth Movement will die a natural death from extreme boredom.

I expressed a desire that we do not lose the threads and am glad that we won't. The quality of material in there is great.

I believe shutting down the 9/11 threads under Rule 13 is a principled one from strength rather than from weakness. Phil and company are stating, "we discussed the science of 9/11 conspiracy theories as an exception to Rule 13, we covered the entire subject, there is nothing new, we are ending the discussion. See the archived threads."

maybe, at the very least, have some sort of a "sticky" link to the various CT's that have been banned- or put them in their own section where no new responses are allowed. i've seen this on a few car related forums i go to where they archive posts from previous years, and it works quite well.
kind of like a reference library where you can look but not touch.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

A final notice from me.
You are right. Concerning 9/11 CTs we have been through with everything over and over again, but that is not different with the Moonhoax CTs.
Or did you hear something new from the Apollo deniers?

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"Who does not know anything, must believe everything."
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

Seriously, good rule change.

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There we were in the park when suddenly some old lady says I stole her purse..... I chucked the professor at her but she kept coming..... So I had to hit her with this purse I found.
-- Bender

True, but that topic is consistent with Rule 13.

But, I believe, the same could be said about the Moon Landing Hoax or 2012 and the Mayans. I've only been around here a few years, but it has been a long time since I've seen anything new for either of those. By that reasoning, we should also stop the discussions on Apollo.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

So much new info on here since last time I was on (Friday). Guess feelings are a little more split on the new rule than I remember them being when it was first announced. I understand the argument that some of those "other" CT's promoted critical thinking and what-not. But it doesn't have to be an ATM or CT to promote critical thinking. There's plenty of accepted and proven topics that can promote just as much (and probably healthier) critical thinking than any CT topic. The problem was, the 9/11 CT's and all that junk were not generating good thinking or conversation or new ideas. They were just generating hundreds of "you're wrong because i say so" posts.

Besides, as pointed out, there's more than enough forums out there that deal specifically with those topics. I'm not saying you shouldn't visit BAUT, I love these forums. I'm just saying, you can't go into a mexican resturante and order chinese food. (i.e., you go to the place that offers what you're looking for). This is an Astronomy board...and I have to admit, I always wondered why CT'ers would even come here to discuss 9/11 CT's and the like.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

Yes, I see how you can interpret my statement that way and I was not clear on that. I meant that more as my observation and opinion and not the justification for terminating the 9/11 threads.

The Moon Landing Hoax is covered under Rule 13 and 9/11 CTs are not. I do not know the genesis of allowing the 9/11 CTs to begin with.

Something called "Google".

Eventually when the new rule has been in force for some time, the CT keyword references will work their way down the Google equivalent of a temporal metatag list and the CTers will no longer visit.

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

As has been said, this is Phil and Frazier's forum. They get to decide what gets discussed and how. This new policy will not send me running.

However, I did enjoy the non-astronomy CT threads... mostly. The discussions were - for the most part - reasonably well conducted; there were none of the name callings, threats, political implications that make other fora just not worth visiting.

Phantomwolf, Gillian and others make some good points. As for BigDon's concerns, no one can force you to post. I know I have written and deleted many replies, and in some cases, not even gone that far, rather than post something I shouldn't.

Novaderrik brings up a good suggestion. If the 9/11-type topics are to abandoned, why not create a new forum - locked for replies but open to read - just for them? Post the explanation given as the OP for this thread so folks know why the discussion is closed on them.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Well, yes, now that rule 13 has been changed. Other topics were previously allowed.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

i just don't want to see the world famous "moonman" thread disappear forever.. that was probably the most fun thread ever..anywhere..

oops.. i meant to say the "firstcontact" thread about the twin towers...
but moonman was fun, too..

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

And I'm sorry if I wasn't clear - I took it as your observation, not as your belief. I just expanded upon it to argue that it is not a valid argument to eliminate the discussions about 9/11 and other CTs.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

I've been waiting to make a responce, sorry to my fans. Waiting to decide where I stood. Of course we are just guests in this place and have no real say, but if this board was strictly supposed to be for space and astronomy stuff, how do you explain the general forum or that games forum? Here I think your argument falls flat. Could such CT threads be posted there? I think your responce the next time a 9/11 thread pops up will be pretty weak given the amount of trash that fills some other forums on this board.

Perhaps it was a plea from the moderators. I can understand how they could get sick of the place, especially if all they knew or cared about was space and astronomy. But there are a lot of us who don't know much about astronomy and space but do know about other things. We weren't interested in playing games or reading general interest stuff. We liked to use our expertise for a change. To show what we know, outside space and astronomy. Here was our arena and I think we did a pretty good job, even without Jay's bombastic replys.

Any way you slice it, there's no way that limiting this forum to space and astronomy will not be seen as an easy way out for us, by the 9/11/JFK/yadayada...CTers. The genie is out of the bottle and there's no way to put him back without looking like we can't go head to head with lowly CT website copy and pasters.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

Yea, but the truth is we were never going to "win" with them anyway. If the threads stayed open for years and we all stopped posting out of sheer boredom the CT'ers would still say we stopped posting because they were getting too close to the truth. The genie is just a CT delusion, there's no bottle to put him back into. So yea, it's nice to know that this board is recognized all over as a site for critical thinking, and I think it's very cool that we have experts here from so many different backgrounds, but I agree that this forum should not be a centralized CT hub.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

The irony is that if you read what you have just said (this applies to all of you ) you see what others see when they lurk-
I was a Lurker for a long time too.
The arguments and counterarguments between the bunked and the debunker may seem silly to the participants- but there are MANY lurkers who simply read. Those people have two perspectives available to choose from, rather than just one or the other.
And many debunkings really clarify beyond the shadow of a doubt how full of holes a lot the the CT and HB arguments really are.

Well...they will now have less to read.

True, and many participants simply post and do not read the other posts.