So we had the handy ban on medical info. We had the Reeder ban (wel strict quota) on Bush threads. We had the lissener ban on Starship troopers. These individualized rules are few and far between. As they should be.
That being said, is it time to put Pjen and Steophan in their corners? Ban them for addressing each other? I humbly submit that it is. They ruin every UK politics thread. I guess I know who I would lay more blame on but I don’t think it matters.
Thoughts?
Links?
Sorry the OP was a little lazy. I can find a few more later but for example:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=756496&page=3
I am most certain the relevant mods are aware of this dynamic, as are UK politics watching dopers but I’ll try to find more links later. Got a flight to catch. If you can’t wait, search on Pjen saying “steophan” and you’ll get the drift.
What a brilliant idea to stop people from messaging on a message board.
Well, they were moderated for their “personal sniping” in that thread yesterday. I can see how a 2 man show would be somewhat annoying, but at least they stay more or less on topic.
A couple more:
boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=749623&page=7&highlight=Steophan
boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=745725&page=4&highlight=pjen
madsircool, every rule or banning inhibits messaging on a message board. That’s reality on a moderated board. I prefer moderated message boards.
Barkis, they usually stay on topic but they will spend pages hammering each other on the same bits of minutia. It drowns many a discussion. Imho.
Hammering over minutiae - welcome to the Dope.
Did you look at the pages I linked? Full pages of just the two of them is not untypical once they get going.
On the thread which CarnalK has linked to, there are currently 165 posts.
Of those, Pjen made 90 posts (54.5%).
Steophan made 44 posts (26.7%).
The next highest poster is Malden Capell, who has made all of 8 posts (4.8%).
In other words, a thread that could have real potential: “Whither Great Britain in light of the election?” is really just a shouting match between two posters, who together have made over 80% of the posts.
I don’t even bother opening a thread on British politics anymore, because that is the typical ratio of their “contributions” to the topic.
So stop whinging and contribute something yourself.
This is why the scroll wheel was invented.
There’s not really any ‘contributions’ from either of you though, it’s:
Pjen wall of text being a blinkered nationalist.
Pjen wall of text being a blinkered nationalist.
Pjen wall of text being a blinkered nationalist.
Pjen link to wall of text
Pjen link to wall of text
Steophan ignoring all of above and being a blinkered Tory.
Steophan ignoring all of above and being a blinkered Tory.
Rinse and repeat until someone else posts something, usually unrelated to the ‘discussion’ you pair have had, then we’re back to you pair bickering with each other.
All very tiresome.
Yes. Almost every complaint can be met with this rather unhelpful contribution. Thanks.
If I’m walking down the street and I come across two people yelling hostile insults at each other, I say to myself “don’t make eye contact” and I just walk by.
Not sure why you would scroll. But outside of an outright mod decree I would think that setting two “ignores” would clean those pages right up.
In fact you could create a pit thread where you ask everybody to ignore the domestic fighting duo and link to it in the subject thread with a “Hey everybody, I have a suggestion for streamlining this discussion!”
Then the two of them would have the freedom to carry on their duet while everyone else could decide on their own whether or not they thought the music was worth a listen.
Sometimes I wonder why posters don’t just exchange phone numbers and scream unintelligibly at each other for a few hours. Seems like it’d be beneficial for both. Or they could even meet up for tea, Steophan on one side of the border and Pjen on the other.
I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
This is a tough one. On the one hand, I can sympathize with the OP. As soon as see those 2 exchanging quips, it seems like the thread is over. On the other hand, they aren’t the only 2 on this MB who do this. I can easily think of half a dozen other posters who, whenever they enter a particular thread, pretty much ruin it for everyone else. Seems like a valid slippery slope here.
I could get on board with some sort of restraint on one of the those poster in starting threads about Scotland in the first place. Do we need a new thread every time she reads something about it in the papers?
The problem with the ignore function is that it doesn’t really clean up the page. I get an entire page of “this message is hidden”. If vB just hid it without an announcement that would be a good solution.
There are userscripts you can add to your firefox or chrome browser that will hide Ignored users completely for you. I believe if you do a search in ATMB, there’s even a couple of threads where people go over the process for using one on the dope.