E-Catworld moderation process?

I just wrote a post for E-Catworld and saved it and this showed up: "Hold on, this is waiting to be approved by E-Cat World."

I never encountered that before. This is the post:

http://www.e-catworld.com/2016…ology/#comment-2837078219

This is the content.

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Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax Omega Z • 7 minutes agoHold on, this is waiting to be approved by E-Cat World.What happened in the Doral plant, I do not know, though evidence is beginning to appear. However, I can see and confirm what is happening in Rossi v. Darden, and on the blogs, and it is not uncommon to see claims like that above, that are preposterous, stated as if they were fact.
"Only on the Blogs does anyone claim COP>50"

From Rossi's Complaint:
"71. On February 15, 2016, the Guaranteed Performance test was successfullyconcluded. The E-Cat Unit had successfully operated for more than three hundred fifty (350) days out of a four hundred (400) day period at a level substantially greater than the level achieved during the Validation Test. By all accounts, the amount of energy produced by the E-Cat Unit during the Guaranteed Performance Test was substantially greater than fifty (50) times the amount of energy consumed by the E-Cat Unit during the same period."

I wrote another post shortly before, no problem. Have some topics been subjected to moderation? Anyone know?

Ah, I was wrong. That post is also "pending."
https://disqus.com/home/discus…ology/#comment-2837067430

I have moderated many forums. It has happened that I put a member on moderation. I always inform the member immediately, because damage can be done.

Now, looking at my profile, I made another post, https://disqus.com/home/discus…ology/#comment-2837067430

I notice that the comment number is the same as the one mentioned above. I did not save that content. Looks like it was deleted. It was in a different thread than the first. I had just seen it as pending a few minutes before.

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Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax Ged 3 minutes ago
Pending

The MTD tested the situation of every claim that Rossi made being true, not the factual situation. Facts come out in the case and at some point, enough fact may exist to successfully make a Motion for Summary Judgment. The idea that the MTD made some sort of binding factual conclusion is not uncommon among those who have no understanding of what is going on, but with strong opinions held as fact. And, yes, if necessary fact remains in controversy, the jury will resolve it.

That shows as Pending. A moment ago, the other two posts showed as Pending. They now are gone.

Update: The post above is now live. The other two do not show in my Discus profile any more.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

There is a delay sometimes.

Frank A might go over the posts before they go live, especially if the post is not through a direct Disqus account, but instead a guest name.
It is so busy that I doubt he has much time to monitor them all, in real time. Sometimes words or peculiar combos of words get flagged for attention, also. I wouldn't read too much into it. Yet.

That's why I'm asking. Stuff Happens. However, this was through my Discus account, and the posts showed under my Profile. Of the three, two have disappeared, no longer shown as Pending.

Looking over the E-Catworld comment guidelines.

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E-Cat World is a site that takes LENR seriously, and accepts it as a valid field of research, and a potentially useful energy source. ECW is not a venue where LENR/cold fusion skeptics are given free rein, or a place to debate whether LENR/cold fusion is real. Here we assume here that LENR/cold fusion is a valid scientific phenomenon, an important topic, and one worthy of mature discussion.

Reasonable as a site focus, and much criticism of the E-Cat was based on such "debate," or pseudoskepticism. It should be understood that assuming that LENR cold fusion is a "valid scientific phenomenon" would be an oxymoron if skepticism is not allowed, because valid scientific phenomena are rooted in experiment, and "LENR cold fusion" is an interpretation of results, no matter how well or how poorly established. However, E-Catworld is not a 'scientific forum." And the name makes it be about the E-cat (whereas lenr-forum.com has an obviously broader mission).

The exclusion of skepticism is a problem. But, again, reasonable. Then, how is this enforced? The devil is in the details. Many sites build a community, but are actually controlled by a single individual. It's always dangerous, if that individual doesn't understand or accept trusteeship on behalf of a community, which then would require transparency.

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This being the overall philosophy of the site, readers are invited to comment, but there are guidelines regarding comments, and moderation is used which can result in comments being deleted.

With or without warning and measures to allow the user to recover their content? I have deleted mailing list posts, but those posts already went out to all email subscribers, they are always explained (I keep a deletion log on newvortex, it's a bit of a PITA, but it's worth it for the transparency. You can see that a post is deleted because of the gap in message numbers, so the log allows knowing why. And then if one wants a copy, just ask the moderator or anyone who has their own mailing list archive.

A post deleted on a forum like ECW is gone, it may not be recoverable (but maybe the moderator can). If the post was in response, the person to whom the response was made might get a copy, or not, it depends on system timing. And a pending post would almost certainly not lead to a notification.

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The following types of comments are subject to moderation:

Comments that state openly or by implication that LENR/cold fusion/E-Cat is a fraud or hoax

This made some sense years ago. At this point, there are open fraud claims by both Rossi and Industrial heat. And it is being discussed. I would, myself, continue to exclude unsupported fraud claims. However, what about claims that Industrial Heat, a major supporter of cold fusion research, has defrauded Woodford and Rossi and is lying before the Court in Florida?

This rule shows a collapse of LENR and cold fusion with Rossi. The general with the specific.

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Comments of a deriding or mocking nature

Roundly and widely ignored. And now Rossi is being quoted making comments of a deriding and mocking nature. E-Catworld is not prepared to handle controversy, and this is not uncommon with sites and structures established by individuals as distinct from communities that set up dispute resolution process. It's the old "benevolent dictator" model of social organization. How's it working, folks?

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Personal attacks on other commentors and/or other persons

Now, I don't actually know if the comments have been deleted, but there certainly have been many comments accusing me and Jed Rothwell and others of being "Paid APCO FUD-bots," which is quite personal. I haven't gone back to see if they are still there. Maybe Frank deleted them, but they obviously were not "pending," and the main offender, whose claims are then repeated by others, was very active. Again, there is no transparency. One of the functions of transparency is to assure a community as to the fairness of site management.

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Comments by those who continually make off-topic comments

This can be highly subjective, just to note a problem. Off-topic according to whom? Historically, I saw a mailing list moderator essentially ash-can the list by putting me on moderator for off-topic posts. When he first proposed to do that, other lest members defended my posts as very much on-topic. So next time he didn't propose, he just put me on moderatation, and then, realizing that this required him to actualy read all my stuff -- which he mostly did not understand -- he banned. Me. I joined another list and supported the organization behind it, which thrived. That original list collapsed to almost zero traffic. Later, that moderator resigned and my best internet friend became moderator and I was unbanned. But the list is almost dead, having been replaced by two other lists and a formal non-profit organization.

"Off topic" is best handled by more sophisticated moderation that keeps threads on topic, and that sets up social threads, rather than by deletion. Deletion would be reserved for truly offensive material, spam, etc.

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Comments that could be considered defamatory, slanderous or libelous

Routine on E-Cat world.

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Comments that are excessively obnoxious

Ordinarily obnoxious is okay? There is a lost performative. According to whom? (The open secret: obnoxious is liked in on-line fora, as long as it is obnoxious on the right side.)

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Comments that include profanity

I.e., no authentic, real-world conversation. Again, the devil is in the details. Again, the process by which the site is "cleaned up" is important. Deletion is a crude tool. Adults can handle profanity, particularly if edits are presenved and transparent. I.e., if, as with Wikipedia, the full edit history is visible (excluding "revision deletion" which hides illegal or sometimes content considered grossly offensive, or sometimes RevDel is used for a personal agenda, without necessity, which is off-label and not supported by the community, because transparency is considered a high value.

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Needlessly repetitive comments

And if an error is repeated, is pointing it out as an error "repetitive"? (Yes, it can be, but, again, would the response be deleted and not the occasion for it?)

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Comments arguing for or against political ideologies, parties, or candidates

This is relatively obvious, because those should be off-topic. However, suppose a candidate supports LENR? If that is factually reported, is that "arguing for" the candidate?

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Comments arguing for or against religious beliefs or practices

This, again, should be obvious and is not much violated, though it has been violated, and recently. Not sure if that was done on E-catworld, I saw it here.

I used to post somewhat frequently on ECW. I did so under a guest account, however for a couple of years, my posts seemed to go through without moderation. Then I made a few "questioning" posts about Rossi. I made a post that listed 10 quotes of Rossi about customers, plants that were sold and factories. I put the ECW link to every quote on them. I ended my post with something like "I do not know what to think anymore as none of the above seem to be true"

The moderator responded that my post was repetitive and to review the forum rules of which a link was provided. Every post after that automatically went into moderation. Even when posting as a guest, you have to give your email address, so I assumed my email was now placed in a moderation list and nothing I posted would automatically go as did before. I assumed that if you were a "Rossi fan" and on a white list, your posts automatically went through. If you were too questioning or critical, you got moderated. This is what I assumed was happening, I cannot say for certain that Frank runs it that way.

I do not blame Frank for wanting to keep the site from becoming ecat.com. That site became a virulent place. I believe he wants to keep ECW a relative "positive place". However ECW has let the pendulum pretty much swing the other way. It is the church of Rossi now. If you ask too many hard questions, you will get excommunicated. You can blast "anti-rossi" supporters as much as you want (as long as you keep it clean and not too flagrant) and you can repeat "pro-Rossi" propaganda as much as you want without any consequence at all. (Sifferkol and Engineer 48 are rock stars there) Just do not post many non-supportive posts, whether fact based or not. You will get your wrist slapped and eventually excommunicated.

There was no complaint or notice from a moderator, that I saw. So I put up three posts that showed up in my Discus account as pending. Two disappeared, one eventually showed. I had not noticed any "pending" notices before. I just put up another brief post. "Pending." While it is not impossible that I simply did not notice the moderation before, I don't think so. So I've been put on moderation.

I'm concluding that I'm better off, not adding content to what will be a dying forum. Few there understand the lawsuit. So what?

The plot thickens. The first post, which I though was deleted, was not, it was accepted. However, my profile posts are sorted weirdly. It was below, off-screen. But now, looking down, I see a deleted post, it was in response to:
https://disqus.com/home/discus…_11th/#comment-2834688907

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Michael W Wolf Steve Savage • 2 days ago
And you wonder why skeptics have no credibility. This is a big joke to them, Libeling people, slandering, defaming, and not one that I know of ever takes it back, they just go somewhere else and begin the same drivel.

My response, deleted, was:

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Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax Michael W Wolf 2 days ago
Removed

Whereas the fine upstanding Rossi believers would never libel anyone, because the critics are actually paid IH FUDbots and IH officers are not worthy of the air they breathe, just a fact, right? Sifferkoll said so.

The serious part of the Cow-sicle is that one way to handle the heat would be by melting ice, but it would need to be a lot of ice. If JM Products had equipment capable of handling a megawatt, why so obscure?

Do not forget, it's been claimed that IH did an infrared survey of the building and found no trace of it. Now, yes, if there were some chemical process, a megawatt endothermic, with very high efficiency, they wouldn't see anything, but this would require moving a lot of product and no chemist so far has come up with anything like that.

As to humor and joking, isn't that what Rossi is saying? "Nevertheless I must confess that these amendments have remarkably improved the former countercomplaints, completing their cultural reach: before they were comic, now they are tragicomic."

So, we will see who laughs last. I take no pleasure in Rossi's downfall. Tragicomic is actually an appropriate word. "Johnson Matthew." Selling JM Products as better than a test in North Carolina because they would be more credible, being independent, the only connection being that the sole clearly identified officer or person connected with JM Products is Johnson, and it is a mere coincidence that he is the President of Leonardo Corporation, Rossi's company.

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Okay, a bit edgy, but the 'tude from Michael Wolf is endemic on ECW. The discussion was of a parody comment about JM Cowmical Products by Steve Savage, so the Michael Wolf comment was actually attacking Savage as a "skeptic."
https://disqus.com/home/discus…_11th/#comment-2834688907

I don't see any other removed comments than that. I'm guessing, then, that Discus saves removed comments so that the user can access them.

What I don't know is if the more egregious comments I've seen on ECW have been removed. Maybe they have.

Meanwhile, we need a more professional look here. Part of the pilot program:

Quote from Engineer48

........

Rossi has not offered me a job or position, what he will do is work with me as a nonexclusive agent that guides the customers I find through the Leonardo purchase process, then work with Leonardo and the client's engineer's to plan and do the install and commissioning process. No money comes by way until the client's engineers sign off and accept the plant.
.
My clients are heavy steam users and their plant people eat steam engineering for breakfast.

Before my 1st install, my engineering team & myself will be trained to install & maintain ECats.

Nothing new here, my interests were disclosed a long time ago.
.

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I think this is an excellent situation. Engineer48 seems to be quite enthused about the eCat and the prospects of putting them into action. From his posts that I have read, he seems at least fairly comfortable with Rossi. (If this is too assuming, please correct me, I do not mean to be). What we need now to do, is encourage Engineer48 in his endeavors to work with Rossi as soon as possible to get a plant into a true customer. I am 100% positive that there are many corporations out there that will jump at the chance to publicly announce with great fanfare that they are doing all that is possible to help with Global Warming and that they are pioneers in the area of cold fusion! They would use it as a marketing device, just as Elon Musk does.

Rossi himself stated that there were a huge number of companies wanting to purchase the eCat, I am positive that many would not require NDA's! Perhaps Mr. Rossi can enlist you to work with this list to prepare the purchase agreements?

"... We already have a huge portfolio of “pioneers” from all the world ready to buy the E-Cats "
http://www.e-catworld.com/2015/05/15/latest-e-cat-updates/

What type of time frame do you foresee to have any customer start the actual purchase process? The issuing of a PO for example. I believe it has been about 6 months since you first posted that you had a customer. (Time flies and I have not searched for the exact date, so please excuse me if that timing is incorrect)

Rossi stated that the 1 year test company purchased (3) more units. I would think that perhaps you would have some information from them to pass on to your clients about how well the plant performed. A satisfied customer is the greatest selling tool one can have. I would think Rossi would put the two companies in contact with each other. I would think good progress has been made in this project? Any updates?

Sincerely,