# A serious question for Sam Stone on Factual Errors **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 11, 2021, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881 "2021-12-11T12:32:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 66
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1301 "2023-12-14T03:36:45Z")
Y’know, the problem here isn’t me, it’s the hysterical reactions and pile-ons that kill threads. You know, it IS possible to discuss politics and debate the ‘other’ side collegially. And in fact, if you want people to maintain an ooen mind and admit occasional errors, you migt find that refraining from calling them evil liars works a lot better. I’ve corrected many errors on this board, both political and not. I have never felt the need or desire to attack someone or mock them or think less of them for disagreeing woth me. Free speech requires tolerance which is in very short supply these days. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1302 "2023-12-14T03:37:56Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Oh, and by the way, THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP WAS REAL, and the people who hounded me for a year on this board for saying it MIGHT be real owe me an apology. Which will never come. I actually said early that the Laptop was likely real, but useless, as useless as the innuendo produced before by the republicans with the stolen climate scientists emails and Hillary’s emails. Of course, you never wanted to acknowledge that… … you Wanker X3 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1303 "2023-12-14T03:37:59Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Y’know, the problem here isn’t me, it’s the hysterical reactions and pile-ons that kill threads. No-I’m pretty sure it’s you. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1304 "2023-12-14T03:41:06Z")
[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMY3U8ZUEAAy-41.jpg) ](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMY3U8ZUEAAy-41.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1305 "2023-12-14T03:42:35Z")
Over, and over, and over. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1306 "2023-12-14T03:42:47Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > I also find myself wondering just how long I or any other poster could get away with such obvious trollery before the mods took serious action and either suspended or banned the guilty party. It is one of the more baffling things about The Dope. For me, it’s always felt like we’re almost _required_ to have one or two of them running around at any given time. And any given one tends to hang around for a long time. Meanwhile we’ll see other people being banned/suspended for seemingly more minor offenses. To be clear, I’m not saying that’s actually what’s going on, it’s just, looking back over the decades, I think if you took all the ‘big names’ they’d probably overlap quite a bit. It always seems like once there’s more than two, the mods will finally start cracking down on, and ultimately banning one or two of them. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1307 "2023-12-14T03:44:36Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMY3U8ZUEAAy-41.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMY3U8ZUEAAy-41.jpg) It never ceases to amaze me how often they say that, almost verbatim. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1308 "2023-12-14T03:44:37Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > Everytime the shitstain known as @Sam_Stone starts destroying a thread with his lies, dishonesty and failure to provide accurate citations from non-biased sources, much as he is currently doing in the Biden Impeachment thread, I have to shake my head and wonder why people continue to engage with him. Co-signed. * * * I rarely post about a poster in the Pit. I’m going to make an exception here. > [@Will Joe Biden pardon Hunter?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-joe-biden-pardon-hunter/994425/81): > > These kinds of deliberately misleading statements such as I quoted from you above is why no one trusts your cites or your rhetoric. I made the above statement of fact in the Hunter Biden thread, and I’m not apologizing for doing that, except to the extent that I posted it in the wrong forum. It’s not a pleasant fact, but it is a fact and it’s long overdue to be said. Sam, you do not bring valid cites to support your arguments. You post Republican propaganda glurg and insist that others accept it as fact. You lie with ease about factual matters. I don’t think you know how to discern what’s factual and what isn’t. If this only affected you, I wouldn’t care. But in my opinion, it has a detrimental effect on the whole P&E forum. You’re untrustworthy. Other posters show you again and again where your cites fail, and all you do is make some lame ass excuse and fade into the woodwork for awhile. Then you return and regurgitate the same garbage talking points that were already discredited. Other posters should not have to be relegated to the Pit in order to have an honest discussion with you. And I don’t think the P&E forum is the least enhanced by your presence in it, fighting ignorance notwithstanding. It never rubs off on you. You’re so far down your rabbit hole of disinformation, it’s pathetic. You want an example of your latest lie? Here you go: > [@Will Joe Biden pardon Hunter?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-joe-biden-pardon-hunter/994425/80): > > Hunter could have had a plea deal. He had a pretty good one all lined up, but his lawyers went too far and tried to slide a blanket immunity for all prior crimes into the fine print on one of the charges, and the judge threw it out. That’s a lie. The judge threw out the plea agreement because the _prosecutors_ tried to slide the responsibility for Hunter Biden’s compliance with the plea agreement onto _her_. That was on the _prosecutors_, not Hunter Biden or his lawyers, and it was entirely inappropriate of the prosecutors to do it. Judges aren’t responsible to oversee compliance with plea agreements. So fuck right off with your, “What, me, lie?” garbage. You lied right there, and you do this all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1309 "2023-12-14T03:50:04Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > It’s not a pleasant fact, but it is a fact and it’s long overdue to be said. [![](https://cdn2.iconfinder.com/data/icons/facebook-ui-colored/48/JD-22-512.png) ](https://cdn2.iconfinder.com/data/icons/facebook-ui-colored/48/JD-22-512.png) ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1310 "2023-12-14T03:51:24Z")
So you’re saying he’s simply a moron? Maybe an imbecile? I’m sticking with troll. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1311 "2023-12-14T03:53:56Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > That’s a lie. The judge threw out the plea agreement because the _prosecutors_ tried to slide the responsibility for Hunter Biden’s compliance with the plea agreement onto _her_. Glad you brought this to the pit. He avoided your response in the “will joe pardon hunter” thead. And he definitely posted after. This is his MO though: Avoid posts and cherry pick what he responds to. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1312 "2023-12-14T04:00:39Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Y’know, the problem here isn’t me, it’s the hysterical reactions and pile-ons that kill threads. You know, it IS possible to discuss politics and debate the ‘other’ side collegially. > > And in fact, if you want people to maintain an ooen mind and admit occasional errors, you migt find that refraining from calling them evil liars works a lot better. See [post #1196.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1196) (Yeah, DavidNRockies, that sealion cartoon came to my mind as well.) It’s the old “when everybody you meet is an asshole, maybe you’re the asshole” truism. If one poster is constantly provoking pile-ons, maybe that poster has some poor posting practices that aren’t being adequately offset by their punctilious avoidance of superficial rudeness. I also think, as I’ve said for decades, that complaining about rudeness or aggression in Pit threads is a fairly pointless form of whining. People with poor posting practices are frequently on the receiving end of disproportionate levels of rudenss and aggression in the Pit, because poor posting practices are annoying to deal with, and the Pit is where people can let off steam about it. There are, AFAICT, more or less three ways to deal with the phenomenon of becoming a Pit “lightning rod”: 1. Make efforts to reform the annoying poor posting practices that produce the disproportionate levels of hostility in the Pit; 2. Stay out of the Pit and ignore the venting; 3. Keep complaining about the unfair victimization of being subjected to disproportionate levels of hostility in the Pit. One of these strategies is, IMHO, significantly less constructive than the other two. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1313 "2023-12-14T04:11:18Z")
We don’t need that kind of poster on our forum to repeat Republican lies for us to debunk when we can all read the lies in the news. That poster in particular reduces the usefulness of the site with endless ignorance and discourages honest posters by placing the burden on them to counter it. And I believe that poster’s goal is to hasten the demise of our site. The site management should ban him from all political discussion, if not the site altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1314 "2023-12-14T04:11:34Z")
So we’ve moved to the part of the cycle where Sam pops over here to “woe is me I’m so put upon” and y’all devote a bunch of time crafting cogent, reasonable arguments that carefully explain why people don’t trust him? And then he pirouettes away until the next time he wants to wind y’all up over here? Hope springs eternal in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1315 "2023-12-14T04:11:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > There are, AFAICT, more or less three ways to deal with the phenomenon of becoming a Pit “lightning rod”: > > 1. Make efforts to reform the annoying poor posting practices that produce the disproportionate levels of hostility in the Pit; > 2. Stay out of the Pit and ignore the venting; > 3. Keep complaining about the unfair victimization of being subjected to disproportionate levels of hostility in the Pit. > > One of these strategies is, IMHO, significantly less constructive than the other two. Monty, I’m going to go with 1. Sea-lion like a son-of-a-bitch while your giant, beaming troll face is lit by the glow of your monitor. Because it’s all attention, and he basks in making it all about him. Sure, it’s not a positive, or constructive strategy, unless, of course, you’re a troll. Which I am convinced of. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1316 "2023-12-14T04:20:51Z")
Well, he hasn’t called us “mean girls” yet, so there’s still more to come! ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1317 "2023-12-14T05:43:37Z")
My favorite parts of the act are they ‘you hive minded libs are driving me to suicide by mod, it’s all your fault I’m going to get myself banned’ and the ‘you mean hive minded libs have scared my poor sweet boy from ever posting here with your witch hunt, and you would have liked him too.’ Go have another supper, Sammy. Take as long as you need this time. In fact, you don’t even need to come back. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1318 "2023-12-14T05:43:38Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > So we’ve moved to the part of the cycle where Sam pops over here to “woe is me I’m so put upon” and y’all devote a bunch of time crafting cogent, reasonable arguments that carefully explain why people don’t trust him? No, I’m done with that. No point repeating myself. Funny thing is, I kind of like Sam. I actually sometimes have good conversations with him in some threads. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1319 "2023-12-14T07:21:17Z")
For a moment there, I though you’d confused me with **Kimstu** , then I remembered Monty Hall from _Let’s Make a Deal_. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/1320 "2023-12-14T09:51:40Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > And I don’t think the P&E forum is the least enhanced by your presence in it, fighting ignorance notwithstanding. And that sums it up. It’s a drag that so many interesting topics turn into the Sam shit show, a movie we’ve all seen too many times. We know how it ends. Sam declares victory after chastising the board for its bad manners, and just about everyone else is left gnashing their teeth in frustration. Alternate ending: Sam disappears for a bit after pulling the pin on a few hand grenades. It’s my opinion, offered many times previously, that if a poster accomplishes everything a deliberate troll would have—derailing discussion so that everything focuses on him, eliciting frustration and ire, providing weak or outright false support—well, that’s a troll. I don’t care if he believes his shitty cites and is a genuine advocate for his beliefs. That’s close enough to troll for me. Not sure why there’s not more “Sam, you’re done in this thread” decisions by the mods, especially given @Aspenglow’s excellent summary here. Shut it down when it’s obvious what’s happening. She’s a really good, reasonable mod, so I’m guessing there’s a reason. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881.md?page=65) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881.md?page=67)