It's funny how many skeptics are selectively skeptical...
In December of 2011, DJ Grothe wrote (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=7887077#post7887077), "The JREF had for many years ran substantial deficits (some years surpassing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a given year) and when I came aboard as president, we reorganized in order to eliminate those deficits, even while expanding programs."
Is this true? According to the JREF's Form 990s from 2007 through 2010, the JREF had the following profit or (loss).
2004 - $322,019
2005 - $2,340
2006 - ($79,859)
2007 - $28,875
2008 - $108,931
2009 - ($209,919)
2010 - ($105,960)
I wouldn't call two years "many years" nor would I be inclined to call $209K "hundreds of thousands" even though it might technically be true. In 2011 they did, in fact, run a profit. Part of it was from Randi deferring $50,000 of his salary to 2012.
More importantly, an extra (compared to the prior year) $250,000 came from a single donor. During the two years of losses, the donations were $50K and $100K. The next year, where Grothe allegedly turned things around, the donation was $350K.
Great job, there, Deej. It's amazing how you can turn around $314K in losses over two years when one person donates $350K and the chairman defers $50K of his salary.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Friday, January 20, 2012
More Knox Statistics
Some people feel like discussion about the Amanda Knox thread on the JREF has been squelched. Others point out that people can still discuss it - the thread is just moderated. Technically true but not really the point.
In the two months before the thread went on moderated status, there were about 10,000 posts. In the two months after that there were about 1,200 posts. Hmmm. In the two weeks before moderated status, there were about 1,300 posts. In the two weeks after, about 300. Hmmm.
As for posts getting dumped to AAH, of the 10,000 or so posts in the two months leading up to moderation there were about 120 dumped to AAH. Some of them were clearly baby with the bathwater posts. Others were bickering. Most, however, were the kind of borderline posts that nobody except the moderators knows would be left to stand. Either people don't bother to report them or if they do, the mods figure they are not worthy of action.
vBulletin, the software that the JREF uses for the forums, has the ability to show that a post has been reported. It's trivial to do, and it is not expensive (disk/CPU) to do. It sure would make discussions about what is and is not acceptable a lot easier if members could know what was reported.
According to LashL, the majority of the Knox reports resulted in no action. As I have demonstrated in another post and someone added to with comments, the Knox threads as a percentage of posts are really not all that bad in terms of rule violations. The last two months were not bad at all (about 1% going to AAH).
If this is about the report volume being too high, then deal with the individuals making the reports or bring on more moderators. Aw, heck, just get the current mods more active. It seems like several of the moderators do very little moderating that we can see.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Amanda Knox Troublemakers on the JREF Forums
Quite frankly, the mods have really blown it when it comes to the threads discussing the Amanda Knox case on the JREF Forums. There doesn't seem much chance in changing Darat's mind about taking it off moderated status, but one thing does burn me up: Lionking's whinging about the Amanda Knox threads.
He seems obsessed with the people in the thread rather than the case itself. His latest obsession is telling everyone how the participants didn't obey the membership agreement and deserve everything they got. What does he mean by they? In reality Lionking has been highly disruptive in the discussions, and he's gotten off Scot-free.
I crunched some numbers. As of today there are about 72,739 posts in the main threads discussing the Amanda Knox case. This doesn't include threads in Community or Forum Management discussing the discussion of the Amanda Knox case. By my count there are about 1,589 Knox posts tossed into Abandon All Hope, which is where inappropriate posts are sent. That means about 2.14% of the posts [1589/(72739+1589)] were inappropriate.
Is that a bad percentage. No, not really. The thread about mental illness and religion has about 20% of its posts in AAH. That's 10X as bad as the Knox threads. The thread about AA being religious has 3.5% of its posts in AAH or 65% higher than the Knox threads. Neither of them are on moderated status.
Who Are the Problem Children?
I went to the largest thread in AAH about Knox (1,205 posts) and looked at the top 10 culprits. I then looked at all the other Knox threads in AAH and picked a few more members with the highest post counts. I then totaled them up.
Guess who far and away has the highest percentage of his Knox posts in Abandon All Hope? Yep, old Lionking himself. About 17.5% of Lionking's Knox posts have been deemed inappropriate while the thread itself averages about 2% being inappropriate. In other words a Lionking post is over eight times as likely as the average post to be tossed away.
In fact, Lionking has by far the worst percentage of posts tossed to AAH. His two closest competitors, whom he bests by at least 50%, have both been banned from the forums. The next closest person, Pilot Padron, who has been suspended three times, has just 1/3 the rate that Lionking does. Stated another way, about 1 in 6 of Lionking's posts are problematic while about 1 in 20 posts by Pilot are.
Lionking has never been suspended because of the Knox thread. See the chart below.
We can look at the data another way. The more one posts in a thread, the greater the chance of his or her posts ending up in AAH. The "average" member would have about the same percentage of posts left in the threads as tossed into AAH. "Good" members would have a larger percentage left in the thread while "bad" and "disruptive" members would have a larger percentage tossed into AAH.
Let's see how Lionking fares in that regard:
Basically, about 1 in 200 posts in the threads were by Lionking, but about 1 in 25 posts tossed to Abandon All Hope were written by him. Over a hundred people had posts tossed to AAH. So, really, who is he to be whinging about how the participants ruined the thread. In absolute numbers Lionking had the 4th highest number of posts tossed to AAH.
He should apologize for his contributions for invoking the ire of the mods.
He seems obsessed with the people in the thread rather than the case itself. His latest obsession is telling everyone how the participants didn't obey the membership agreement and deserve everything they got. What does he mean by they? In reality Lionking has been highly disruptive in the discussions, and he's gotten off Scot-free.
I crunched some numbers. As of today there are about 72,739 posts in the main threads discussing the Amanda Knox case. This doesn't include threads in Community or Forum Management discussing the discussion of the Amanda Knox case. By my count there are about 1,589 Knox posts tossed into Abandon All Hope, which is where inappropriate posts are sent. That means about 2.14% of the posts [1589/(72739+1589)] were inappropriate.
Is that a bad percentage. No, not really. The thread about mental illness and religion has about 20% of its posts in AAH. That's 10X as bad as the Knox threads. The thread about AA being religious has 3.5% of its posts in AAH or 65% higher than the Knox threads. Neither of them are on moderated status.
Who Are the Problem Children?
I went to the largest thread in AAH about Knox (1,205 posts) and looked at the top 10 culprits. I then looked at all the other Knox threads in AAH and picked a few more members with the highest post counts. I then totaled them up.
Guess who far and away has the highest percentage of his Knox posts in Abandon All Hope? Yep, old Lionking himself. About 17.5% of Lionking's Knox posts have been deemed inappropriate while the thread itself averages about 2% being inappropriate. In other words a Lionking post is over eight times as likely as the average post to be tossed away.
In fact, Lionking has by far the worst percentage of posts tossed to AAH. His two closest competitors, whom he bests by at least 50%, have both been banned from the forums. The next closest person, Pilot Padron, who has been suspended three times, has just 1/3 the rate that Lionking does. Stated another way, about 1 in 6 of Lionking's posts are problematic while about 1 in 20 posts by Pilot are.
Lionking has never been suspended because of the Knox thread. See the chart below.
We can look at the data another way. The more one posts in a thread, the greater the chance of his or her posts ending up in AAH. The "average" member would have about the same percentage of posts left in the threads as tossed into AAH. "Good" members would have a larger percentage left in the thread while "bad" and "disruptive" members would have a larger percentage tossed into AAH.
Let's see how Lionking fares in that regard:
Basically, about 1 in 200 posts in the threads were by Lionking, but about 1 in 25 posts tossed to Abandon All Hope were written by him. Over a hundred people had posts tossed to AAH. So, really, who is he to be whinging about how the participants ruined the thread. In absolute numbers Lionking had the 4th highest number of posts tossed to AAH.
He should apologize for his contributions for invoking the ire of the mods.
Randi's Speaking Fees go to the JREF?
DJ Grothe, in defending the JREF's appeal for donations on their discussion forum, informed the membership, "for those interested, it should be noted that 100% of Randi's speaking fees and honoraria go to the foundation."
Really? Mr. Randi is paid $190,000 per year from the Foundation. Would it cross anyone's mind that any fees Mr. Randi receives for his JREF speaking engagements would go anywhere else but to the foundation? It seems kind of silly to point this out, but perhaps it reflects something in their thinking.
I wonder where Mr. Randi's book royalties go? The JREF's tax returns state that Mr. Randi works 40 hours per week for the foundation. His salary is certainly very high, so one would expect more than just 40 hours per week. When does he find time to work on his books? Does he work on them during JREF time? If so, that doesn't seem like a good use of his time or the foundation's resources.
Really? Mr. Randi is paid $190,000 per year from the Foundation. Would it cross anyone's mind that any fees Mr. Randi receives for his JREF speaking engagements would go anywhere else but to the foundation? It seems kind of silly to point this out, but perhaps it reflects something in their thinking.
I wonder where Mr. Randi's book royalties go? The JREF's tax returns state that Mr. Randi works 40 hours per week for the foundation. His salary is certainly very high, so one would expect more than just 40 hours per week. When does he find time to work on his books? Does he work on them during JREF time? If so, that doesn't seem like a good use of his time or the foundation's resources.
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