Are Members Being Objective Enough When Discussing Products?

I guess there is no point continuing on this. And there was no dance involved, I honestly think that you were basing your comments on the other usages of objective, or else they wouldn't make sense. But no matter, it's not a big deal, I was just trying to clarify.

If I was dissatisfied with Wilders, I wouldn't be spending so much time here. I think this forum is an excellent resource to anyone seeking help or trying to develop their know-how about computer security. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, and as you've pointed out I obviously think that is the case. But just because I'm trying to make this place better doesn't mean I'm dissatisified with it.

Now can we please stop with this and get back on topic.

 

First, thanks for taking this seriously and responding as such.

I'm glad we both see the value of my goal with this, unfortunately we both don't see the potential for change. Perhaps I'm being an idealist of sorts in regards to this, perhaps you would call me naive, but I still think it's possible for people to recognize and subdue their own biases and subsequently for significant change at this forum to take place. I know the task is difficult, but I think this thread has contributed to that goal by bringing this issue to everyone's attention and making people think about and discuss it. Some people will change, others won't. All we can do is get the message out there and hope for the best.

The frustration had more to do with the off-topic posts than with my message not getting through, but admittedly it is a bit frustrating when people just don't seem to understand what I'm saying. However, my attempts to clarify, that consist basically of reiterating in different terms or taking a different approach to convey something, while seemingly ineffective in this thread still maintains the potential for being productive. Such follow-up clarifcation can be useful in general, I can only hope that will be the case here.

 

Well, I have been following this board since years... signed in only recently.

Quality of posts have degraded very much, Paul (administrator) seems less directly involved and the 'real' security experts are slowly decreasing their contribution here... May be just a natural evolution...

Anyway just my impression and in 'IMHO'

Cheers,
Fax

 

Indeed this is the attitude that helped this forum to become the way it is... let it go, let things smooth by itself, we are all human, everything is subjective, etc..... yes, thats correct but does not resolve the issue nor provide any input to resolve it...

Concern from the OP seems valid and understandable, input so far as been on the line "... it is the way it is" , "... we can't do much about it..."

There is no rocket science solutions... but I would have expected some more consideration of the problem rather than very general statements (so far).

Fax

 

Hello,

Deteriorating? Not really.

I believe that you have simply outgrown certain topics which might have intrigued you back then, but now you find them boring or simple.
I can say this for myself. Since delving deeper and deeper into Linux, posts about security software are getting less and less interesting. I prefer discussing concepts and ideas much more than specific products.

Does that mean the quality has gone down? No.

Things change. The reality has changed. People, too. IE-Spyad and SpywareBlaster might have been hot topic 4 years ago, but today, things are different. These programs are still valid, but the old equations no longer apply. There are new players on the block. Vista sucks. Linux has evolved. Myths have been broken. XP is dying slowly, unfortunately. Several years ago, it was young and we were young (C. C. Catch). We had things to learn. Broadband was not so popular then. And so forth.

I do welcome and relish high-quality topics, but they cannot be forced. For example, how to harden IE? Good topic, but no longer relevant for most people. People have outgrown this dinosaur.

And the same applies for many classic software - like AV, AS etc. They are no longer as interesting as they were several years ago. Then, no one talked about alternatives or virtualization. And once you try these, you really forget about the relic.

So who talks about relics? People who still use them. I'm not trying to slight anyone, but it's really a deep conceptual gap. Old school. New school. And for those who have left the Old one, it's the same story all over, not really interesting. Normally, the fan circle dwindles.

This does present difficulty for people who have never heard of anything but IE. Naturally, they will get much less (colorful) help from the members, as quite some have departed from this school of thought. This leaves the impression that all discussions concentrate on 'what is best' or such, but in reality, there's a whole new dimension of discussion taking place, only it has a different flavor.

The fact that people talk about rootkits, virtualization, sandboxing, linux, all show a great improvement of thought. Unfortunately, not all can participate or wish to. But that does not mean that the enlightened ones should scorn the slow converts or that newbies should be afraid of asking questions.

I admit that sometimes I see some threads that look boring. But instead of posting in them and perpetuating old school, I'll write my own posts or relevant threads that promote new ideas. That's the best way of advancing progress and quality. I think ...

Present ideas and concept, fight for what you believe in.

That's it.

Oligophrenic mode off.

Cheers,
Mrk

 

Hi thanks for the answer... when speaking about degrading quality I mean the content of the post not the subject per se. In gross terms I see more and more posts about this product suc** or its cr**... . (Obviously there also posts different from the above.)

It’s not about evolving products, natural in a rapidly changing market like security, but the poor and increasingly unsubstantiated contribution by forum members...

As you say it may be just the natural way the forum is moving towards, it may suit some of the members here... but it is certainly different from what it was... I am not nostalgic nor of the old school just reporting that the forum is moving rapidly in something different as it was in origin.

Fax

 

As I mentioned above, the reader has a lot of power in the grand scheme of things. Readers need not be a passive instrument in this exchange.

As Mrk writes, one can rehash a discussion that's been played out a thousand times before to the same conclusion or you can actively try to steer a conversation towards new ground.

Now, for some, that old discussion is new ground. They may need some time to come up to speed and assimilate current thinking. In doing that, perhaps they'll provoke some thoughtful discussion of the validity of current dogma. Since there is a constant stream of new users to this and other sites, there will be a constant, low level replay of classic discussions of old. That will continue to occur until there are no new users. If part of the role of this site is continuing user education, then at some level that old discussion does need to be part of the ongoing fabric of this site. There is only so much one can learn from reading old threads, at some point you have to join the fray, articulate your perspective, and test your understanding of the material. That only comes from active participation. When you do that, you'll find that some points of understanding are flawed, some are fine, and perhaps some key gaps are present. Hopefully your fellow posters will be able to productively point you in the proper direction and that you'll be receptive to that guidance.

Some of the examples Mrk mentions above do indicate an intellectually vibrant exchange. However, the same discussion vehicles can be used to promote the same old and tired paranoia. Rootkits are a specific example of this. Productive discussions can be held on how they work, what they possibly mean in the greater context of computer security, where are they on the threat horizon and so forth with some discussions technical and others not. Or they can be used to inject a pall of paranoia over the assembly. I'm still waiting half seriously for someone to claim that they've heard, and seen working examples, of a rootkit that hides in the subpixels of an LCD monitor, ready to deliver their ominous payload.... So that knife cuts both ways.

As for the main point of this thread - members maintaining objectivity (or minimizing emotionally based bias) in discussions - if you have an issue with fanboy postings, or any other type of biased posting for that matter, you (the reader) allow that post to have power or not. A voice talking to the wind without feedback will grow hoarse and soon loses it's power. You (the reader) have a choice in whether these posts have an impact or not. If you have a problem with the quality of posts, there are two extremes in which one may handle it:

• Severe levels of pre-emptive moderation, which I strongly disagree with for a number of reasons. As it is, there are many posts here and elsewhere that are moderated, which end up assisting the poster by basically sanitizing some of their more outrageous statements. I believe one should own the words that they write; a typical example of this has already been mentioned in this thread by Inspector Clouseau.
• Allow the community to exercise some level of responsibility by having the sense to step away from flame wars as they develop.

The recent site actions related to removal/stopping of Product A vs. Product B mini-flame threads is an example of where moderation was ultimately required since there didn't appear to be a responsible party on either side of those threads willing to step forward and say enough is enough. So sometimes the first option is clearly needed. However, that only occurred after a reasonable peer based approach had been tried and failed. The same held with the removal of Virus Total/Jotti/etc screenshots which didn't impact productive discussions at first, but quickly morphed into a screenshot arms race with product advocates showcasing why the product they use is superior to all others. When these situations are in the noise, they really don't matter. When they rise above the noise, dominate the discussion, and ultimately debase the quality of information, action is taken. However, each participant/reader in that screenshot arms race who felt compelled to post a screenshot in response should understand that they actively contributed to lowering the level of discussion by making general statements that were often out of date within hours of their posting. At least, that's IMHO.

As for this thread, advocating that posters put some thought into what they write before committing it to the site is advice that everyone should embrace. Too many folks allow the relative anonymity of electronic communications to free them of all constraints of decorum and make fairly outrageous statements in the course of heated discussions.

As for a higher level of active post moderation, I'm not in favor of it unless other measures have been shown to fail. I'm concerned that a too active injection of moderation will chill any and all discussion of matters that involve users who really need to participate - and those are the users who are often the least able to articulate their thoughts using objective (i.e. technically factural) or well reasoned analytical criteria.

Blue

 

Hi Blue:

This thread is !

Bias and emotion will always exist in posts.

* have seen many and * hate to admit been guilty of losing it at times. *'ve been a fanboy hater, but have given that up as a waste of pixels.

We sure don't want forum censorship, as the lite and fair moderation here is the reason * am in this forum. Other forums have suffered from draconian methods and thus lose their audience.

Practical Suggestion: DISCLOSE YOUR SECURITY TOOL SET UP and PUBLIC FORUM MEMBERSHIPS.

In the past * have suggested that members disclose their setups in their signatures thus revealing their potential bias up front. * used to do that but was influenced by herbalist * think to change that since smart hackers might be able to exploit known holes in my tools!

Also * asked why nobody fills in the other public forums they belong to? The answer was nobody fills it in.

Maybe my biased ideas are poor, but * offer them up again and ask for better ideas to increase objectivity which is a noble goal.

Another thought is when a poster says x,y z is true ask for the source of the opinion or the proof, there is a big difference between honestly held opinions and proven facts. Then again even with facts and testing like AV Comparatives and Stems work on FW's there are those who reject those findings because they fly in the face of their honestly held opinions

The other thing we could do is have a word checker to "star" *** out the words "I" and "you" in all posts. It tends to make posters self regulate.

 

Everyone has their own set of experiences. A certain amount of bias is to be expected. I don't expect Inspector Clouseau to say "The AV is obsolete technology" and no one expects me to say "an AV is all you need." I expect "IC" to be partial towards AV based solutions because of his background and circumstances. Anyone who knows me knows I'm biased towards SSM and a default-deny security policy. Each can be both right and wrong, depending on the user in question.

Unless the subject of a thread is a rogue product, there are very few black and white solutions. There's a lot of grey area. Example: with Vista, security-ware vendors don't have the access to the kernel they had with XP. If a product vendor resorts to "hacker methods" to gain they access they believe the user needs to defend themselves, access that M$ doesn't allow, is their app a security tool or a hackers tool? Are they defending the user or compromising the operating system? Who's rights come first depends on who you ask. I consider DOS to be an extremely useful security tool. Another will consider it wasted hard drive space. Same thing, both can be right.

When it comes to questions like "which is better?", we need to keep in mind that there are no best for everyone solutions. If we can do that, the rest can be discussed intelligently.
Rick

 

To preface this, I would like to thank everyone that is taking this seriously, earnestly considering the subject matter of this thread, and contributing in a substantive, genuine, and in turn constructive manner.

Obviously there is nothing wrong with someone liking a product more than others. Such partiality doesn't necessarily entail bias, at least in the sense I'm using it here. It only becomes bias when one lets that partiality hinder their objective assessment of the criteria that people should use to evaluate (and in turn comment on) prodcuts, namely their own experience with them, others' experiences with them, reviews from qualified people, tests conducted by qualified people, etc. When your partiality makes you want for the product that you use and favor to be relatively better than others (or the 'best') and this desire alters or tinges your perspective of those things in the aforementioned criteria, then the partiality becomes bias. This bias frames how you look at and think about those things, and as that desire gets embedded in how one perceives and assesses them, the bias prevails. This effect subsequently affects how they comment on the product in here. Unfortunately that seems to be happening too much, obviously to varying degrees between people, but altogether way too pervasive. Ideally, it shouldn't happen at all. Realistically, that simply isn't going to happen, as I and others have said before, there will always be those that refuse to acknowledge the problem or the bias within themselves (not that everyone is biased as such, but for those that are), and are thus incapable of change. Note that the process and effects of the fanboy bias as described above are essentially the same for the others. The only differences for the hater bias are that emphatic disliking and disapproval would take the place of partiality and the desire would change from wanting it to be the better than others or the 'best' to wanting it to be worse than others or the 'worst'. As for the 'bandwagon jumper' bias, the same partiality and desire of the fanboy would apply but would change more frequently based on the latest hype or test results. Lastly, the commercially driven bias would have a similar partiality and desire, but it would be based on ego (pride, wanting validtion, etc. Though I guess this applies to the fanboy bias too, just in a different way) and/or economic self-interest.

 

Yes, all this is valid.

But a few posts back * put forward specific ideas (not necessarily the best ones) about steps to take to actually do something.

But no one reacted one way or the other with other ideas. That is .

* think * must have misunderstood the whole thread. * apologize for that.

It seems a question discussion thread and the answer is NO.

But nothing will actually be done about it? Is this a wrong view?

Perhaps the discussion alone will help.

 

Yes, I think that is the wrong view. Because, even though at first I also supported more formal regulation (see post #32), I'm mostly advocating self-regulation on everyones' part. To achieve that, everyone must acknowledge the problem, and recognize and subdue any potential biases (as discussed in this thread) in themselves. I think (and hope) that this thread has been instrumental towards achieving that goal, by bringing it to everyone's attention and getting them to think about and discuss it, this thread has layed the groundwork for significant change among members here and in turn on the standards and quality of the discussion at this forum.

 

Good, that is fine, but the idea of ***'g out "I", "you" , "my", "your", would be take 0 effort from moderators and cause 90% of the heat to be drawn out hasty posts. Much like dealing with swear words.

Why are other ideas that will foster more objectivity like declaring security setups or failing that filling other public forum memberships not even referred to as to why they are not desirable or to be replaced by better practical steps?

It is fine to have the discussion that has been had, but without real steps only those who posted or read the thread will be effected by it. In time all will revert to the average as they say in statistical studies.

* hope that I'm wrong and that *** are correct about that!

Good thread well done!

 

Interesting idea, but it might lead to unnecessary confusion, and it doesn't address bias, but rather civilility. But perhaps civil dialog and unbiased dialog are mutually affective, as in there might be some interplay between them. In other words, biased dialog fosters uncivil dialog, and vice versa. For instance, when emotion and incivility begin to dictate the flow of discussion, then bias is more likely to surface. Similarly, when bias begins to dictate the flow of discussion, then incivility is more likely to surface. If that is the case, as it seems to be to some extent, then efforts to alleviate one of them should help alleviate the other one as well. Still I don't think they are directly linked, but rather reinforce eachother.

I don't think these would foster objectivity, but they would be helpful in determining any potential biases people might have.

* also hope * wrong. Not sure what you mean by 'real steps', because if you simply mean people doing something to address this issue, then the self-regulation I've been espousing is a 'real step'. If however you mean something along the lines of formal regulation (moderation), as I initially thought you did, then I'm not sure much else could be done about it beyond what has already been suggested. I like your desire for more practical application, as in more steps being taken to address this, but I'm not sure if there are any other than self-regulation and limited formal regulation. Perhaps there are other methods that have yet to be suggested, and I appreciate your effort to get at that. Aside from what I've suggested so far, I currently can't think of any other means of alleviating this. But if anyone has ideas about this, as in other suggestions, then by all means come forth with them.

 

Honestly, I think we all have our favorite apps and give thwem more praise than others. And then you always have the hot program that gets the praise. A while ago it was Process Guard. Lately, Powershadow has gotten a ton of praise. So I think certain applications get more praise then they deserve for whatever reason.

But look around, even with bias, this board is probably as objective as it gets. It seems that PC magazine, CNET, other supposedly "objective" third parties are not really objective at all. Almost everyone has an agenda nowadays. But I would trust what I read at Wilders more than what the mags publish.

 

Just remembered a point I wanted to reiterate and re-emphasize, namely that another method to mitigate this problem is the other side of self-regulation that I had been neglecting but that Blue emphasized. The self-regulation I had mostly been referring to was for everyone to acknowledge the problem, then recognize and subdue any potential bias they might have. The other aspect of self-regulation is that everyone here as readers and contributors ultimately hold the power to control the impact and longevity of threads/posts/comments that are rooted in or unduly influenced by bias. If we don't read and respond to such biased input, then it will only fall upon deaf ears and will lose its significance. If we respond to such biased input then we are simply contributing to and perpetuating the problem. To re-emphasize this point, I've quoted Blue's comments on it.

The real twofold solution consist of the two different aspects of self-regulation. We need to utilize our power as readers and contributors to stifle biased input and we need to recognize and subdue any potential bias that might exist within ourselves.

 

Hi!
this is a useful suggestion but in practice difficult to implement since there is no way to check that the information you provided in your 'signature' is genuine or fake.

I have seen two main bias in this forum so far:

1. Genuine bias: done unintentionally without second/hidden intentions. The large majority here.
2. Malformed bias: done intentionally to discredit a member, a product or a concept/idea in favour of another.

It is not easy to distinguish between the two and not much can be done to rectify the situation that is largely delegated to moderator(s) and their level of knowledge, attentiveness and capability to distinguish and recognise a 'genuine' bias from 'malformed' one.

More and more posts seems to concentrate on emotional aspects and very generic assessments rather than focusing on technical aspects and concrete assessment of security related issues. This has contributed to a more chatting attitude and less objective arguments.

There is nothing wrong about it if all members recognise it... and if the administrators are happy the way the discussion if moving to.

EDIT: What would be a concrete proposal?
For example, try to split the current security software discussion in two main areas;

- One open to users of security tools;
- Another one specifically for practitioners, security experts and developers;

This way users will be free to discuss about security in general terms as well as benefitting from more technical discussion in the 'expert' section while avoiding the two to poison each other.

Fax

 

Let's just be very clear on one issue - operational suggestions from members to forum Admins via PM are always welcome. Admins will certainly weigh any suggestions made moving forward, but they generally will not generate an immediate response.

On the other hand, initiation of a running public debate on restructuring forum operations along the lines mentioned above will result in the closure of this thread without additional comment or warning.

Blue

 

Hello again off beat!

Agreed! in the past * have allowed the post/poster more power over ** reactions and posts than * should have.

Advice from many helped a lot and now when any "fanboy" has repeatedly posted in a thread I'm active in (it is easy to identify them), I simply add him/her to my block list.

Blood pressure drops, nerves calmed, posts get more thought we slow down and the real contributors get the attention they deserve.

There! The practical step * was looking for was already right in front of us all along!

This thread is good, you are to be congratulated!

 

Hi Blue,

Thank you very much for your interesting insight on forum administration.
I would not personally like to follow up via PM since it will defeat the open and public nature of this or any other forum.

Given this constraint, I will reconsider the original proposal from Escalader as a concrete step to selfregulation and possibly mitigating the bias issue.

Fax

 

"On matters of fact or morality, honest rational truth-seekers cannot agree to disagree. Even if highly computationally constrained, they should not be able to anticipate the direction of others' opinions relative to their own. Yet virtually no pair of humans is like this. Thus virtually no humans are truth-seekers, and since most humans think they are truth-seekers, they are self-deceived"

http://hanson.gmu.edu/deceive.pdf

"ABSTRACT
We review literatures on agreeing to disagree and on the rationality of differing priors, in order to evaluate the honesty of typical disagreements. A robust result is that honest truth-seeking agents with common priors should not knowingly disagree. Typical disagreement seems explainable by a combination of random belief influences and by priors that tell each person that he reasons better than others. When criticizing others, however, people seem to uphold rationality standards that disapprove of such self-favoring priors. This suggests that typical disagreements are dishonest. We conclude by briefly considering how one might try to become more honest when disagreeing."

 

I must strongly disagree with this sentiment.

If this forum could guarantee that those with access were all "good guys" then I would agree. But the bad guys have access to this site too. Advertising your security set up is an unnecessary risk. A hacker could use this info to custom make a piece of malware just for you.

There is no way in my opinion to eliminate bias. Very few people in this world can be truly objective, partiularly when they are looking at themselves and their decisions. It's just human nature.