Re-Visiting "The World Table"

[_Doctor Scratch]

I'm sure all of us have fond memories of "The World Table," which promised to "completely transform" the way people interact online. As you'll recall, it featured a rather unique rating system that allowed community members to vote on each others' civility. Interestingly, there was a recent account of what happened on TWT over on "Sic et Non":

I’ve been slightly involved with it for some time now, on the periphery, and I actually announced it a few years ago at a FairMormon conference.

The World Table had a test rollout soon after that, but the unethical and hostile behavior and the personal malice of some of the posters — to say nothing of their unprincipled cunning — was far worse than the principal designers of the system had foreseen. (Having had years of experience with such malevolence, I wasn’t even slightly surprised, and I had warned my friends about it. However, they made the understandable mistake of assuming good will and honesty on the part of all of the participants, and the system wasn’t equipped to deal with what soon happened.)

I’m hoping that it will do well, and that people of whatever views who’re willing to be civil, mutually respectful, and honest will find internet conversation more pleasant — and less grating — than it has been. As for those who cannot or will not be civil, respectful, and honest . . . well, they may soon find that they either have to mend their behavior or that, alternatively, they’ll be relegated to their own little self-created online hells, densely and solely populated with their own aggressively unpleasant ilk.

In that sense, at least, Jean-Paul Sartre will have been proved right: “Hell,” he said, “is other people.”

Oddly enough, I remember the rise and fall of TWT quite differently. In fact, as memory serves, DCP, Ray Agostini, and Russell McGregor all had horrible ratings--way down in the 30s at one point, If I recall correctly. Indeed, Dr. Peterson's behavior was so bad that he was temporarily banned by World Table CEO Bryan Hall.

In any case, it seems that TWT's "revolutionary" approach to managing Internet conversations has now actually been transplanted into Disqus--the comments program that's used widely across a whole spectrum of sites--including Patheos. (See here, for instance.)

Quite interesting! Will the apologists--given their longstanding affiliation with The World Table--adopt this rating system for their own blogs? It would certainly be interesting to see what kind of "rating" someone like DCP would be able to maintain on his own blog. Nevertheless, I'm going to predict that they will never, ever adopt the TWT rating system. Arguing with people on their own blogs at least makes them feel like they've got a measure of power they can't have in normal discussion-board settings, and allowing people to do ratings per "The Way of Openness" would sacrifice too much of that.

Quite a fun trip down memory lane, in any event.

[_sock puppet]

Yes, that was fun. Thanks, for the memories. Dan "thin gruel" Peterson has quite a glorious track record.

[Guest]

Dan has a short memory. Ray, Pahoran and he were among the principal abusers of the system. Down voting folk who had different opinions than them. Different opinion -> down vote as uneducated or unfriendly.

[_Runtu]

As I recall they insisted that people provide proof of their identity, but that was applied rather selectively. Even though I had a good rating, that policy was enough to make me give up on it.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Thanks for the OP Dr. Scratch.

Daniel "Dowsing" Peterson indeed had one of the lowest civility ratings on TWT.

Of course this will come as no surprise to anyone even slightly familiar with DCP. From his now infamous [deleted] postings, to verbally abusing Blair Hodges and Gerald Bradford, it's clear DCP is a very angry and hostile mopologist.

[_Markk]

I'm sure all of us have fond memories of "The World Table," which promised to "completely transform" the way people interact online. As you'll recall, it featured a rather unique rating system that allowed community members to vote on each others' civility. Interestingly, there was a recent account of what happened on TWT over on "Sic et Non":

I’ve been slightly involved with it for some time now, on the periphery, and I actually announced it a few years ago at a FairMormon conference.

The World Table had a test rollout soon after that, but the unethical and hostile behavior and the personal malice of some of the posters — to say nothing of their unprincipled cunning — was far worse than the principal designers of the system had foreseen. (Having had years of experience with such malevolence, I wasn’t even slightly surprised, and I had warned my friends about it. However, they made the understandable mistake of assuming good will and honesty on the part of all of the participants, and the system wasn’t equipped to deal with what soon happened.)

I’m hoping that it will do well, and that people of whatever views who’re willing to be civil, mutually respectful, and honest will find internet conversation more pleasant — and less grating — than it has been. As for those who cannot or will not be civil, respectful, and honest . . . well, they may soon find that they either have to mend their behavior or that, alternatively, they’ll be relegated to their own little self-created online hells, densely and solely populated with their own aggressively unpleasant ilk.

In that sense, at least, Jean-Paul Sartre will have been proved right: “Hell,” he said, “is other people.”

Oddly enough, I remember the rise and fall of TWT quite differently. In fact, as memory serves, DCP, Ray A, and Pahoran all had horrible ratings--way down in the 30s at one point, If I recall correctly. Indeed, Dr. Peterson's behavior was so bad that he was temporarily banned by World Table CEO Bryan Hall.

In any case, it seems that TWT's "revolutionary" approach to managing Internet conversations has now actually been transplanted into Disqus--the comments program that's used widely across a whole spectrum of sites--including Patheos. (See here, for instance.)

Quite interesting! Will the apologists--given their longstanding affiliation with The World Table--adopt this rating system for their own blogs? It would certainly be interesting to see what kind of "rating" someone like DCP would be able to maintain on his own blog. Nevertheless, I'm going to predict that they will never, ever adopt the TWT rating system. Arguing with people on their own blogs at least makes them feel like they've got a measure of power they can't have in normal discussion-board settings, and allowing people to do ratings per "The Way of Openness" would sacrifice too much of that.

Quite a fun trip down memory lane, in any event.

An email conversation I had with Paul...

Mark May 10 2015
I went to the WT site, and saw what your goal all along was, to sell software...


Charles Randall Paul
May 10 to me

Hi Mark,

After realizing we could not sustain our program on a single small website, we looked for a sustainable way to get millions of people to engage each other ethically on any website. We finally came up with a plan that (we believe anyhow) will prove sustainable. Note we have expanded the program to include interaction on any subject. This way people of all walks of life can get into conversations online and build good reputations for treating each other well. We presume that will always include conversations about religious differences as well as other things they find interesting or important.

Randall Paul



May 10...to Charles

I have a hard time believing that given the silence to my asking for transparency. You used folks Randall.



Charles Randall Paul to me...

May 10


Sorry you feel that way.


May 10

to Charles
You had so many opportunities to be open and transparent...are you saying that when we were discussing this you had no idea where TWT was heading? Or that it was primarily LDS ran?
Charles Randall Paul

May 10 to Mark from Charles
We had no idea that this would end up a business model. We thought religious groups would donate to a ‘neutral website' that their members could visit to have good interreligious conversations. We hope that TWT business model will create great conversations on all subjects in much broader audience—including religion.


> On May 10, 2015, at 9:00 PM, Mark
>
> You had so many opportunities to be open and transparent...are you saying that when we were discussing this you had no idea where TWT was heading? Or that it was primarily LDS ran?
>
>
> On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 6:41 PM, Charles Randall Paul wrote:
>
> Sorry you feel that way.
>
>
>
>
> On May 10, 2015, at 16:53, Mark wrote
>
>> I have a hard time believing that given the silence to my asking for transparency. You used folks Randall.
>>
>> On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 2:31 PM, Charles Randall Paul wrote>
>>
>> Hi Mark,
>>
>> After realizing we could not sustain our program on a single small website, we looked for a sustainable way to get millions of people to engage each other ethically on any website. We finally came up with a plan that (we believe anyhow) will prove sustainable. Note we have expanded the program to include interaction on any subject. This way people of all walks of life can get into conversations online and build good reputations for treating each other well. We presume that will always include conversations about religious differences as well as other things they find interesting or important.
>>
>>
>>
>>

Mark to Charles

May 11


Do you believe TWT and yourself was transparent? The leadership was pretty much LDS yet that was denied? Am I wrong?
Charles Randall Paul <randall@worldtable.co>

May 11

to mark from Charles..
Hi,

TWT was first a concept of Foundation for Religious Diplomacy. We had people from various religious groups working with us at FRD. The board of FRD was two Mormons and on evangelical. We all live in Utah. The development engineers for TWT were a mix of agnostics and Mormons.

Leo Brunnick, the CEO of Patheos.com (no one know what Leo’s religion is), Bryan Hall (a Mormon sympathetic with Evangelical ways) and me (a radical Mormon that most Mormons find strange) are the founders of TWT in its business format.

Best wishes,

Randall




> On May 11, 2015, at 5:53 AM, Mark wrote:
>
> Do you believe TWT and yourself was transparent? The leadership was pretty much LDS yet that was denied? Am I wrong?
>
> On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 9:31 PM, Charles Randall Paul
>
> We had no idea that this would end up a business model. We thought religious groups would donate to a ‘neutral website' that their members could visit to have good interreligious conversations. We hope that TWT business model will create great conversations on all subjects in much broader audience—including religion.
>
>
> Charles Randall Paul
>

Mark >

May 11 to Charles

You know Randall, I have a hard time believing the motive was less that[n] selling software. Maybe I am wrong, and I hope I am. one thing positive I got from talking to you was you told me you always started with a positive...I have tried to do that since then and it helps make for a calm starting point and calm spirit when discussing the tough questions...I appreciate that...but the rest is a bunch of bull in my opinion.

I hope I am wrong.
Charles Randall Paul
May 11

to me
well, best to you,

Randall
Charles Randall Paul



> On May 11, 2015, at 8:51 PM, Mark
>

>
> I hope I am wrong.
>
>

EDIT I just looked at this an dthere may be double posts, sorry it is the way it pasted.

[_Gadianton]

I'm nowhere near the World Table scholar that some here are, but I also remember the World Table era differently than described. The message here is the WT was a pie-in-the sky venture by good people who naïvely believed in humanity, and they were warned about their naïvété by those with experience. When disaster struck, the disaster was predicted by the apologists of experience.

But that's no the way I remember it.

I remember TWT advertised as the pie-in-the sky venture that had the cure for internet incivility. I remember the warnings going out not to those who believed in the soundness of the venture, but to the critics, who stood no chance at bringing their hostility to the new forum. The ruse was over for the critics.

I am open to correction, but in addition to my memory, there are some theoretical considerations that align with my version. The new vision, first of all, was designed by TBMs, a boon already, but the regulating principles of TWT were rooted in free-market economics. Like Adam Smith's nation of shopkeepers, the population of TWT would come in as equals to price the productions of their peers. And there was real risk, just as there is risk in entrepreneurship from a market perspective, where one's opinions were tied to their in real life names. Given the staple apologetics that critics are largely the products of leftism, and especially, of anonymity, it's difficult for me to believe the apologists were all that skeptical of a forum designed by the faithful to implement the power of the free market and strip away the mask of anonymity that they'd diagnosed as the leading contributing factor to critic nastiness. This, plus a big CFR on any caution at all in statements by apologists about TWT prior to launching, suggests that the apologists didn't "call it" at all.

[_Jersey Girl]

As I recall they insisted that people provide proof of their identity, but that was applied rather selectively. Even though I had a good rating, that policy was enough to make me give up on it.

I remember TWT advertised as the pie-in-the sky venture that had the cure for internet incivility. I remember the warnings going out not to those who believed in the soundness of the venture, but to the critics, who stood no chance at bringing their hostility to the new forum. The ruse was over for the critics.

The above may be two unrelated comments, but is anyone thinking what I'm thinking? That part of the goal of this venture was to collect in real life information on otherwise anonymous critics?

I thought that from the very beginning. The above two comments seem to drive that home for me.

Ah well, it's late.

In any case, what I remember seeing is the same types of things that I've seen on this board, on blog comments and on the Time Lightbox (wasn't that it?), only with a ratings game embedded into the system.

[_Markk]

As I recall they insisted that people provide proof of their identity, but that was applied rather selectively. Even though I had a good rating, that policy was enough to make me give up on it.

I remember TWT advertised as the pie-in-the sky venture that had the cure for internet incivility. I remember the warnings going out not to those who believed in the soundness of the venture, but to the critics, who stood no chance at bringing their hostility to the new forum. The ruse was over for the critics.

The above may be two unrelated comments, but is anyone thinking what I'm thinking? That part of the goal of this venture was to collect in real life information on otherwise anonymous critics?

I thought that from the very beginning. The above two comments seem to drive that home for me.

Ah well, it's late.

In any case, what I remember seeing is the same types of things that I've seen on this board, on blog comments and on the Time Lightbox (wasn't that it?), only with a ratings game embedded into the system.

It was never more than making a buck.

[Guest]

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