Whatever happened to that troll over at MTR who had the handle of TEXAS?

[J N Winkler]

About appeals to authority being an attempt to provoke certain posters  -- I wouldn't go that far, I think in most cases it was simply an attempt to silence the other poster, "I am the expert by profession in this matter, and I am right about this point, so you are wrong, and you need to stop arguing about it".

There is a specific person who is the first to come to my mind, and--I am sure--yours as well, when we think about PEs posting as PEs on MTR.  Though this person has been a protagonist in many heated debates, he has for the most part impressed me as someone who is able to foresee the consequences of his actions. 

I have lost count of the times I have seen him set off other MTR posters (including RAD cross-posters who agitate for higher speed limits) by appealing to professional expertise.  When I got into it with him about some aspect or other of Green Book policy, he tried to play the professional-expertise card by suggesting that FHWA was more likely to listen to a PE than some ill-informed member of the general public.  My response to that was that the FHWA rulemaking process is open to all comers, and that (as shown by, e.g., the rulemaking that led to the 2003 MUTCD), FHWA considered individual comments on their technical merits, without regard to the professional or institutional standing of the entity making them.  This meant that a private-citizen commenter who had studied an issue sufficiently to develop technical expertise in it, and could make a well-reasoned argument for one position or another, would be taken seriously whether he was a PE or not.

The person we are both thinking of offered no rebuttal.

The PEs on MTR went a long way to damage my trust in professional highway engineers.  While there is perhaps some fallacy there, there is at least some truth there.  Civil engineering is considered by many of its members to be the "noble profession", that is their guideline.

In assessing the authority or otherwise of PEs, it is important to keep in mind precisely what engineering practice is.  A PE is someone authorized by law to accept formal legal responsibility for engineering designs and analysis and to indicate that acceptance by affixing a distinctive seal to documents which formally communicate a given design or analysis.  Because engineering is one of the traditional professions, holders of PE licenses are expected to abide by certain moral and ethical standards even outside the narrow context of professional practice, similarly to how doctors and lawyers are expected to be pillars of the community by modelling good conduct, performing charitable good deeds through taking on a certain number of cases pro bono or doing medical mission work, etc.  But that is just expectation--it has no formal legal backing--and it simply cannot be enforced in unmoderated forums like MTR.

Examples of documents which are products of engineering expertise and bear PE seals include construction plans, reports of traffic investigations and structural inspections, etc.  The PE affixing his seal to these documents can expect them to be taken seriously because he has accepted legal liability for the conclusions they express or the designs they convey.

MTR posts, even when reporting engineering design activities at second hand, do not fall into this category.  For this reason I have always felt that appeals to engineering licensure are beside the point and should be quietly ignored.  I have never approved of MTR regulars putting "PE" in their signature lines or making appeals to authority along the lines of "I am a PE, so I hold a monopoly on the truth," but I generally avoided challenging these behaviors directly because I felt to do so would be to step into a rhetorical trap.  If they were spoiling for a fight, I reasoned, I would not give it to them, especially not in an unmoderated discussion group where the only way to "win" arguments is to encourage the other party to look at the issue from a different vantage without encouraging him to dig a trench to defend his or her own position.

Some of the MTR PEs were blowhards who constantly "rah rah-ed" their highway departments where they work, and a few frequently got into terrible arguments with non-PE posters, and none of the other PEs ever made any attempt to step in and try to calm things down with a PE that was out of control and putting shame on the profession.  They basically "hid" by not posting when that stuff was going on.  Weasels ...

I don't think they were weasels.  I think they just reached the same conclusion I did:  it is completely pointless to police behavior on an unmoderated forum subject to First Amendment protections, even when some of the misbehavior emanates from professionally licensed individuals who should know better.  (I usually interpreted it as a bad sign when a MTR regular put "PE" in his signature line.  Only a small minority did--two or three, as noted upthread--and of this group an even smaller number engaged actively in heated discussions.  I knew many others who had PEs but normally didn't refer to them in MTR, and I also know one or two others who have engineering-related positions in state DOTs for which professional licensure would presumably be a compulsory qualification, but have never come out and said they are PEs.)

I also tried to filter out the state DOT jingoism.  For a long time I took a rather dim view of most state DOTs simply because they weren't yet putting construction plans online, so most of those debates were easy for me to write off as empty choices between bad and worse.

(On the topic of state DOTs:  did anyone ever notice that many state DOTs never had PE representation on MTR--whether hidden or overt?  I suspect this was because the office culture at many state DOTs is so restrictive that PEs working for those DOTs would have felt they were endangering their jobs if they posted to MTR.  I could not imagine working for Kansas DOT, for example, and feeling free to post on MTR.)

In over 10 years of my reading MTR, I never saw any PE ever get into an argument of any significance with another PE, or seriously contradict an opinion of another PE, and that is surely part of their "culture" not to do that in public.  They are cliquish, I know that as a fact having dealt with many of them in the past.

To outsiders it can look like cliquishness, but from the inside looking out, it is a question of professional etiquette.  Part of being a professional is being willing to provide genuinely independent second opinions when they are requested by outsiders, but not to attack other professionals unless their work manifestly falls below the standards expected for the profession as a whole.  Colleagues in the same profession are otherwise expected to offer their criticisms, if they have any, in a facultative manner.  It is also just not done to wield the club of professional responsibility against informally expressed opinions because that is seen as unduly restricting the practitioner's ability to deliberate possible approaches before committing to one in particular.

It is not true to say that there were never robust discussions between fellow self-declared PEs on MTR.  I can remember many dealing with speed limits since one of the self-declared PEs was very interested in higher speed limits.  There was also a thread dealing with bicycle lane provision in North Carolina and Arizona because PEs licensed in these two states had divergent views on this issue.  But it did surprise me that there was this much frank discussion among the PEs about engineering-related issues on a general-interest forum.

To me, the only thing being a PE gives me is greater responsibility to think about what I type here or on my site, making sure that it's sound engineering or at least a good guess. It comes into play very rarely, and only if someone really starts questioning me or naysaying for the point of being a prick will I bring out the PE card.

I think it is even better not to play it at all.  Good engineering analysis sells itself; if the other party neither recognizes it as such nor counters it on its own terms, then that is a good discussion to just walk away from.

[hbelkins]

(On the topic of state DOTs:  did anyone ever notice that many state DOTs never had PE representation on MTR--whether hidden or overt?  I suspect this was because the office culture at many state DOTs is so restrictive that PEs working for those DOTs would have felt they were endangering their jobs if they posted to MTR.  I could not imagine working for Kansas DOT, for example, and feeling free to post on MTR.)

I suspect it was because they were unaware of m.t.r. or of Usenet in general.

I was active on m.t.r. and the Yahoo forums long before I got my present job. I feel no restrictions whatsoever about posting my personal opinion or observation anywhere as long as I am doing it under color of me as an individual and not with my job title attached.

[Beltway]

<<< I suspect it was because they were unaware of m.t.r. or of Usenet in general. >>>

Most likely so.  A handful of DOT PEs out of 50 states is too few to make any theory about as to why so few posted.  I don't think that MTR ever had more than about 100 regulars who actually posted, in totality, ever.

[flowmotion]

Let's all keep in mind that a web forum is much more accessible through Google search, compared to the legacy protocol island which was Usenet. And, any newcomers interested in roads don't care about the old drama.

I've never been involved in MTR politics, but there clearly is some baiting going on here. If you really care that much, fire up the old NNTP client and party like it's 1999.

[hbelkins]

While we are talking about m.t.r., it should be known that Jason Pawloski posted there yesterday that he was banned from even joining this forum.

[vdeane]

Let's all keep in mind that a web forum is much more accessible through Google search, compared to the legacy protocol island which was Usenet. And, any newcomers interested in roads don't care about the old drama.

At least until Google Groups came along.

There's one forum I'm on where the top results to some of my Google queries are my own threads asking just that question on the forum!  Kinda spooky if you ask me.

[J N Winkler]

While we are talking about m.t.r., it should be known that Jason Pawloski posted there yesterday that he was banned from even joining this forum.

He might say that; frankly, I disbelieve it.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

I honestly don't remember the "Texas" guy.

I do I do!

From the #roadgeek days, even!  Circa 1999.  PAWTY LIKE IT'S 1999!

Anyway, yeah, he's on this forum.  I'll let him come forth if he so desires.

Oh and those who remember...my first #roadgeek handle was ConcreteHwys.  Now THERE are some memories.  Damn, I was 14 then.  Sure doesn't doesn't seem like that was 13 years ago.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

He might say that; frankly, I disbelieve it.

I don't for even a second.  Jason Poologski was who finally killed #roadgeek, and subsequently #echm, with his chat flooding script and his many proxies that prevented both us and the server admins from permanently banning him.

[Scott5114]

I am not aware of any ban currently in effect that specifically targets Pawloski. It is possible he posts from an IP range that was used by someone else who was banned (or operated a sockpuppet that was banned without our realizing it), and thus was unable to join.

Update: Apparently I forgot what all was in the ban list. It looks as though there is indeed a ban on Pawloski.

[BigMattFromTexas]

I thought BigMatt was the 'Texas guy', or it was someone completeley different.

Considering I don't really even know what MTR is, I don't think it's me..
BigMatt

[hbelkins]

Update: Apparently I forgot what all was in the ban list. It looks as though there is indeed a ban on Pawloski.[/color]

Why? Did he ever conduct himself inappropriately here?

If he's going to be banned, then I can think of a few others that should be banned as well, if the ban is based on behavior elsewhere.

[Alps]

Update: Apparently I forgot what all was in the ban list. It looks as though there is indeed a ban on Pawloski.[/color]

Why? Did he ever conduct himself inappropriately here?

If he's going to be banned, then I can think of a few others that should be banned as well, if the ban is based on behavior elsewhere.

It's more than just behavior elsewhere, it's his potential to cause harm to websites as he has demonstrated before.

[hbelkins]

It's more than just behavior elsewhere, it's his potential to cause harm to websites as he has demonstrated before.

That's news to me...

[NE2]

You just like him because he hates pooing.