Skip to main content
Psychology & Neuroscience Meta

Return to Question

replaced http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/ with https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/
Source Link
Community Bot
Community Bot
  • 1

I've received a flag for the following answeranswer:

My own personal experience: I learned about "sending energy" in massage school, and experimented with sending it to people I knew, just to see what would happen, and have gotten definite confirmation that they received it, never discussing with them that I sent them energy.

I have also heard many stories of people "knowing" something (usually "bad") happened to someone they knew at the instant it happened. I had 2 very definite moments of "knowing" (instead of "observing"), one of them completely innocuous, the 2nd a family member dying.

It is easy enough to do your own experiments with sending energy. The message may be delivered, the response you get may not be what you would expect--it is important to see if there is SOME response to the message sent, not if it's the response you were expecting.

Such an answer could be critiqued for many reasons. However, my question here concerns what is the appropriate action for a moderator:

  1. Rely on downvoting: Do nothing and let down votes and comments operate as they are intended
  2. Delete: Respond to the flag and delete the answer

More broadly, under what conditions should a moderator delete rather than rely on downvoting?

Initial thoughts

In relation to Spam, it is clear that we delete. However, in general I think we need to be careful of censorship in relation to answers that are provided in good faith. I think downvoting and comments provides a powerful mechanism to communicate disagreement with an answer.

I've received a flag for the following answer:

My own personal experience: I learned about "sending energy" in massage school, and experimented with sending it to people I knew, just to see what would happen, and have gotten definite confirmation that they received it, never discussing with them that I sent them energy.

I have also heard many stories of people "knowing" something (usually "bad") happened to someone they knew at the instant it happened. I had 2 very definite moments of "knowing" (instead of "observing"), one of them completely innocuous, the 2nd a family member dying.

It is easy enough to do your own experiments with sending energy. The message may be delivered, the response you get may not be what you would expect--it is important to see if there is SOME response to the message sent, not if it's the response you were expecting.

Such an answer could be critiqued for many reasons. However, my question here concerns what is the appropriate action for a moderator:

  1. Rely on downvoting: Do nothing and let down votes and comments operate as they are intended
  2. Delete: Respond to the flag and delete the answer

More broadly, under what conditions should a moderator delete rather than rely on downvoting?

Initial thoughts

In relation to Spam, it is clear that we delete. However, in general I think we need to be careful of censorship in relation to answers that are provided in good faith. I think downvoting and comments provides a powerful mechanism to communicate disagreement with an answer.

I've received a flag for the following answer:

My own personal experience: I learned about "sending energy" in massage school, and experimented with sending it to people I knew, just to see what would happen, and have gotten definite confirmation that they received it, never discussing with them that I sent them energy.

I have also heard many stories of people "knowing" something (usually "bad") happened to someone they knew at the instant it happened. I had 2 very definite moments of "knowing" (instead of "observing"), one of them completely innocuous, the 2nd a family member dying.

It is easy enough to do your own experiments with sending energy. The message may be delivered, the response you get may not be what you would expect--it is important to see if there is SOME response to the message sent, not if it's the response you were expecting.

Such an answer could be critiqued for many reasons. However, my question here concerns what is the appropriate action for a moderator:

  1. Rely on downvoting: Do nothing and let down votes and comments operate as they are intended
  2. Delete: Respond to the flag and delete the answer

More broadly, under what conditions should a moderator delete rather than rely on downvoting?

Initial thoughts

In relation to Spam, it is clear that we delete. However, in general I think we need to be careful of censorship in relation to answers that are provided in good faith. I think downvoting and comments provides a powerful mechanism to communicate disagreement with an answer.

edited tags
Link
Josh Mod
Josh Mod
  • 5.4k
  • 1
  • 15
  • 23
Tweeted twitter.com/#!/StackCogSci/status/228621481884676096
Source Link
Jeromy Anglim Mod
Jeromy Anglim Mod
  • 30.8k
  • 16
  • 26

What to do with answers that fall short of our standards of evidence?

I've received a flag for the following answer:

My own personal experience: I learned about "sending energy" in massage school, and experimented with sending it to people I knew, just to see what would happen, and have gotten definite confirmation that they received it, never discussing with them that I sent them energy.

I have also heard many stories of people "knowing" something (usually "bad") happened to someone they knew at the instant it happened. I had 2 very definite moments of "knowing" (instead of "observing"), one of them completely innocuous, the 2nd a family member dying.

It is easy enough to do your own experiments with sending energy. The message may be delivered, the response you get may not be what you would expect--it is important to see if there is SOME response to the message sent, not if it's the response you were expecting.

Such an answer could be critiqued for many reasons. However, my question here concerns what is the appropriate action for a moderator:

  1. Rely on downvoting: Do nothing and let down votes and comments operate as they are intended
  2. Delete: Respond to the flag and delete the answer

More broadly, under what conditions should a moderator delete rather than rely on downvoting?

Initial thoughts

In relation to Spam, it is clear that we delete. However, in general I think we need to be careful of censorship in relation to answers that are provided in good faith. I think downvoting and comments provides a powerful mechanism to communicate disagreement with an answer.