Re: Here are my thoughts about the habitat of the wading (substitute AAR for wading)


Algis Kuliukas wrote:
> Pauline M Ross wrote:
> > On 5 Aug 2005 20:37:59 -0700, "Algis Kuliukas" <algis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >It's a public forum with stated
> > >policies that say nothing about the AAH. I'm not suggesting that the
> > >AAH has been censored *from the world,* Jason. I'm claiming that it
> > >appears to have been censored from the PALANTH forum.
> >
> > Algis, the whole point about the Yahoo groups is that they are
> > intended to be narrow special interest groups. Topics outside the
> > particular focus can be excluded, and the 'owner' (moderator) has the
> > absolute right to determine the topics which can be discussed. That
> > prevents a group being hi-jacked by people with a different agenda, as
> > happens on usenet.
>
> But PALANTH isn't a yahoo group, is it? At least it doesn't look like
> the AAT forum.

It's not a Yahoo group. It is another similar style board, hosted on a
private ISP and maintained by a moderator. I do not know who foots the
bill but unless Canadian law says otherwise, they have no obligation to
let anyone post there and can decide they don't want you to post there
if they don't like the way you trim your beard or tie your shoes.

[snip]

> ... That sounds like a bit aof a contradiction to me. Why won't he
> allow discussions of the AAH on a paleoanthropology forum if he is
> totally fair? Sounds rather *un*fair to me.

It is a privately maintained board that someone has allowed the general
public to read and post to, provided they accept the moderator's
authority over what the owners of the board and moderator have deemed
acceptable for reasons that can be as arbitrary as they want. They
have no responsibility to be "fair" as Algis Kuliukas defines is. I
appears that Mikey has decided that AAH is not presently at a level of
science that suits his liking as the body of literature surrounding it
is wholly inadequate presently for a board dedicated to discussing
papers and areas of active research. It is fair to say that something
that has such a minority of literature surrounding it, the majority of
which comes from a lone individual who publishes the bulk of his work
in 4th rate journals outside of that literature regularly read by the
field (and in journals not accessible through many of the regular
scientific search engines like web-of-science or pub-med) and a series
of unreviewed popular literature books rather than a larger body that
has been held up to peer review and fair to say that something that the
proponents can't even properly define ISN'T really an area of active
research and as such, they don't want it brought in to their group.

And, even more likely, he has seen that its presence generates a lowest
common denominator almost immediately and, regardless of who is to
blame for this, just don't want that sort of stuff to go down in their
house.

.

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