Forgive me if this has been posted before (I’m sure it has, but not sure where to look just now), but I’m not entirely comfortable with this new glasnost approach. It is well-intentioned, but it just seems to have shifted Pit stuff to ATMB, and it creates as much problem as it solves.
I’d feel better with “Wanna know? Email an Admin”.
Good show, mods and admins, good show again.
I think it’s perfectly possible to support the insurgents yet NOT be an idiot while doing it. I wish Aldebaran had done that.
I hadn’t really cared about it until that thread in the BBQ where he introduced false quotes from Israeli leaders, passed them off as real, then when called on it insisted ‘The quotes exist. I got them from my files’ and continued to not acknowledge their falseness.
That’s just primo trolling for effect.
Thank you. There was a basic intellectual dishonesty and laziness about the man that just seemed to worsen as time went by. I just picked up on it earlier than some. I assure you I never stalked him, just tried to get him to level with us–he constantly attacked other posters based solely on their national origins while coyly and finally bizarrely refusing to reveal his own. It was hard to engage in honest debate with someone who was probably not what they claimed to be.
The atmosphere will be a lot clearer for the new year. Good move.
And 2005 starts on a brighter note.
Thanks and Happy New Year to the mods, administrators, and fellow Dopers here on the best message board on the Internet.
Regards,
Shodan
Ditto.
Bravery? Are you serious? He posted anonymously to a message board. There was nothing brave about that in the least.
He was a troll. He debated unfairly. He posted slanderous quotes knowing full well that they were slanderous. People bent over backwards for him because his veiwpoint was unpopular. This banning, at the end, was a no brainer.
Haj
I did not like him, but I grew to respect him and his views, because it was patently obvious that he truly believed what he said. I don’t think he “trolled” much, because it seems to me that the definition of a troll is a poster that says things simply to incite ire.
Ah well. Life goes on.
Same here. I’ll miss him.
Salaam, Aldebaran. Wish you had found it easier or more palatable to tone down the rancor and remain with us.
This is sad and disturbing to me that another poster with insight to a different worldview has been banned. I wish the staff could’ve been more successful in communicating with Aldebaran. Perhaps if he felt that his concerns were taken seriously, he would’ve lasted longer. IMO he was not a troll and his behavior was no more jerkish than many of the people who frequented his threads. I believe his New Year’s post was sincere and not a PR effort.
Nonsense. Aldebaran clearly elected to commit Suicide by Mod, and has no one to blame for his banning other than himself. I really fail to see how the staff here could have done anything additional to “communicate” with Aldebaran, being as he responded with unremitting hostility and insult to nearly every single poster who ever attempted to engage him in dialogue, even those who agreed with him. As far as I’m concerned, there was no such thing as “communicating” with Aldebaran and the staff bent over backwards to accomodate him.
Look, many, if not most, people around here seem to agree that banning Collounsbury was perfectly justified based on his flagrantly disrespectful behavior to other posters. Aldebaran was far worse in this regard. He had more than a year to figure out what kind of behavior was acceptable around here, and resolutely refused to argue in good faith, or to recognize what the Mods were trying to tell him was unacceptable. Good riddance to him.
Couldn’t of happened to a more deserving poster.
I agree with the above - and I would also like to know why some members get “suspended” [Vanilla] while Aldebaran got banned. Would it not have been better, if you were going to take action, to suspend him for a month and let him cool down?
Really? It could’ve happened to you!
Vanilla is banned, in case you didn’t know.
Go back and look at the first post in this thread, that lists the major warnings Aldebaran received. Does that mean nothing to you?
It also meant nothing to him, because he kept on going, which culminated in his banning.
We gave him plenty of opportunities to shape up and behave by board rules. These are the same board rules we apply to everyone else. Actions do have consequences. These consequences apply whether your view is shared by many or reviled by all.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
The suspension tool has been used, on rare occasions, in a couple of different ways.
Sometimes, it’s simply a temporary action until we figure out what to do. So with vanilla – we were still debating amongst the mods, and suspension provided a time-out until we confirmed the need to ban.
Sometimes, people are put on voluntary suspension for a brief period, to avoid being tempted by the boards during a busy time of life.
Sometimes, people are misbehaving on account of an event in their lives or around them that pushes them over the edge. We had one poster put on suspension until after the November elections, IIRC. We’ve had a poster suspended during a separation period from her S.O., because she was just too volatile then. Etc.
For other types of behavioral problems, we have, on a couple of occasions, tried one-month suspensions rather than banning. There are a few exceptions, but in most cases, these have been disasterous. Here’s the bottom line: when you have someone who continues an inappropriate behavior, in the face of multiple warnings, why would you think that they would change that behavior after another warning/suspension? How many times do they have to be told? If they’re not modifying behaviors after several warnings, there’s something about them that’s not going to change.
We’re not running a nursery school here, where we can send someone to the corner to think about what they’ve done. We’re dealing with adults, who should be responsive to clear warnings from Moderators.
So, we have in the past and will in the future use the tool of temporary suspension in a few limited cases where we think a time-out will cool things down. But the circumstances where we are willilng to try such action are few and far between.
Again, the bottom line: if a person has been told, half a dozen times, that repetition of (say) insulting other posters outside the Pit will get them banned, and they still insult others… why on earth would they change if we just suspend them for a few weeks? They’ll come back and continue to insult: it’s in their personality, and they seem unable/unwilling to restrain it. That’s been our experience to date, anyhow.
I am disappointed by the ban. The Internet is capable of reinforcing the walls we build around our perception as much as effectively as it is capable of breaking down those walls. IMHO, Americans especially need to be exposed to divergent viewpoints. The sentiments expressed by Aldebaran are tame compared to what you will find at Muslim dominated forums.
No. I am an American. He disagreed with lots of Americans. But when I stopped attacking him, I was treated with respect – even when I disagreed.
But first I learned not to badger, taunt and nitpick at his posts. Then I learned to ask myself what it was that he wanted me and other Dopers to question and reexamine.
I understand that the moderators had to lower the boom in order to enforce the rules, but I’ll bet it was a tough call. I’m certain they have not been blind to the insights that Aldebaran has offered.
I will miss him more than any other poster who has been banned in the two years that I have been here.
Banning was a bad decision. But I wouldn’t have liked to been the person having to decide either way.
Aldebaran was impossible at times, but there was also times when double standards were applied to some of his more heated debates. And I also think his debating style was in part misunderstood, perhaps due to cultural differences.
But more than anything, his posts were a continual and much needed reminder that western (and particularly US) values and morals are neither god-given or universal. We should always be prepared to question them and accept that others may reject them.
Might I suggest that the old method of one or two warnings followed by an insta-ban would make the Board a far more pleasant place than the current version of dozens of warnings stretching over a year or more?
I don’t hang out here nearly as much as I used to, but even I noticed at least three or four warnings or mod/admin interventions against Adlebaran in the last month or so…and who knows how many other warnings that I didn’t or that happened before? Take another obvious troll with a similar MO–Jack Dean Tyler: he was here and gone in a month or so after only a few warnings and the board was a far better place afterwards. The Stormfronties didn’t even make it two weeks. By allowing obvious trolls to keep trolling as they rack up warning after warning after warning after warning diminishes the effectiveness of the warnings and makes the board a less enjoyable place for those of us who do follow the rules…
As you say, we’re grown-ups, this isn’t nursery school and the rules here aren’t that hard to follow. So why not enforce them as they used to be enforced? It seems to me that things have changed in this regard. If so, could you explain why?
Fenris