Just a Reminder

Some things have recently led me to think it might be a good time to post the following reminders on this blog:

1. The legitimacy of feminist theory as a field of intellectual endeavor or feminism as a useful guide to action and public policy is not something that is up for debate on this blog.

2. Similarly, talking about gender and science is also not up for negotiation. It's the whole point of this blog and if that distresses you, I suggest you just not read anymore.

We might debate the particulars of these topics and how they play out in real life situations. But we're not going to argue here about whether or not there's anything to talk about. If this discussion does not meet your needs, you can find plenty of places in the blogosphere to nurture your budding moronocity. This is not one of those places.

More like this

Jeez, you didn't frame that very well.

By Alexandra (not verified) on 07 Apr 2008 #permalink

Zuska's always been unpleasant. And I can't say I'm surprised she's enforcing a speech code here.

"Zuska's always been unpleasant. And I can't say I'm surprised she's enforcing a speech code here."

wut, you don't believe in private property?

Yeah, telling people to stay on topic is a "speech code". What are you, a fucking moron?

Do you go to a needlepoint forum, where the purpose is to share ideas and concepts about needlepointing, and start telling everyone that needlepointing is for losers, and why should anyone needlepoint, and macrame is much better? And if you did, would it be enforcing a "speech code" if the people there told you to shut your fucking yap or stay on topic?

Grow the fuck up. It's not like there aren't plenty of other venues on the Internet for dumb shits like you to gibber about whatever you want. There are intelligent people here trying to have an intelligent conversation.

How's that for a fucking speech code?

Ah, the necessary boilerplate for any feminist space. I wonder if the fact that pretty much every such space needs it to keep from being overrun by crap might tell people something.

PhysicsProf: Now, now. Everywhere else on Scienceblogs that deals with an unfavorable topic, from framing to religion not being a blight upon humankind that must be removed to save people from their own delusions, you're allowed to demand that they justify every single statement and the basis for their entire field of study or belief system, and if they don't they're childish, worthless, anti-reason, and non-scientific, and it's not treated like it's unfair of off-topic. Even if it takes a thousand posts. And if they try to tell them to be quiet, oh my god, it's censorship! Evil censorship! Why limit your criticism to just the anti-feminists who use that completely disingenuous and discussion derailing tack?

-Mecha

I would actually very much like to avoid this blog (and a few others), but the ScienceBlogs channels - which I prefer to having to subscribe to each and every blog individually - won't let me do so. I usually just skip over the posts, but if there is any way to stop the "content" here from cluttering up my feeds, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Wow, that takes the cake. You want us to create a separate-but-equal RSS feed just for you, so you don't have to be inconvenienced by not reading posts you aren't interested in. What are you doing here commenting if you'd "actually very much like to avoid this blog"??????

...
Wow.

This comment section should have some legs ..wait, can I say that??

By anonymous (not verified) on 08 Apr 2008 #permalink

I got a very similar comment by email and it was my OWN BROTHER ... Zuska, look this person up, it may be a relative...

While I am surprised at the hubris of this comment, the person does have a point (in genreal.. about RSS feeds). But the problem is not this blog or sciencblogs, but RSS feeds in general. For being all Web 2.0 and all, they are pretty dumb, functionally.

Greg, I'm curious - what point does RSS have? That people ought to be able to exclude feminist posts from RSS feeds that include them? That their eyes shouldn't be troubled by what they aren't even going to read? Seriously, what point?

By the way, there is NO WAY that RSS is a member of my family. And if he (I assume it's a he) were, I'd disown him.

Let's not confuse RSS the troll and RSS the feed. RSS the troll does not seem to have a point except he does not like you and somehow feels compelled to tell you this. RSS feeds may also not have a point.

I'm not entirely sure what the point is, but from what I understand, a person should be able to construct a thing that might resemble a web site out of bits and pieces of this and that from wherever else on the web they want. RSS feeds are thus conceived as a source for such activities. So each of us, having feed capabilities, could become part of someone's Web 2.0 experience.

It does make sense to have the capacity to filter or search within feeds, just for practical reasons.

The person does have the capacity to filter it. Either they learn to subscribe to each blog they want to read individually or they learn how to scroll down the page. Either one doesn't take a lot of excess brain cells.

Cherish: I'm talking about the ability to apply keywords to a feed so that this is automated.

I agree with Greg. I, and I'm sure many others, would like to have a "personalised" feed which only contains those scienceblogs channels which interest me (which would include this one). It's a limitation in the current technology, but I'm not going to get bent out of shape about it.

One of the nice things about not having too fine of a filter is that occasionally you run across something really interesting and useful that is outside your normal circle of reading - you would have missed it with a more narrowly tailored feed.

I have to agree. I find myself reading a lot of biology-related articles on SB which I probably would never have gone looking for (or requested through keywords on a feed) because I'm not a biology type of gal. It really depends on what looks interesting that day. The brain is probably the best filter...

Right, it is a difficult balance between filtering out stuff you don't want and missing stuff you want.

I would like to have a dial I can turn up and down and see more or less stuff getting through the filter. Maybe two or three dials:

1) Lowest setting = just human evolution, higher setting includes palaeontology, next highest setting includes biogeog/taxonomy/cladistics etc.

2)Theory only through data rich

3) Science only through science plus creationism through sci+creationism+GLBTA through all of the above plus presidential politics

4) No snark - all snark.

How hard can it be to write a perl script to do this?

I subscribe to the feed for both ScienceBlogs and Thus Spake Zuska. She's good enough that I like reading her blog twice!

OTOH, there are a few commenters that I wish I could filter out; along with the comments that comment on their posts.

By MoonSinger (not verified) on 22 Apr 2008 #permalink