But wasn’t Aldebaran more of a ramp-up, rather than a start-from-the-gate troll? I get the feeling he became more and more troll-like over time. He didn’t start off as one.
I’m sorry he was banned, but I could see it coming from a mile away. I wish he’d have toned it down a bit…his insight and perspective was interesting. But I think we can mark this as a case of Suicide by Mod.
Hm…that wasn’t my impression, but I don’t bother with GD, so I’ll concede that I could be wrong about that, but the question still stands.
Each of the bannings we’ve seen under this new "glastnost’-esque policy (which I like, btw) has been a poster warned time after time after time. Evil Death and Pa PaulFitzroy had like nine each, Vanilla had 3*, Aldebaran only has 3 or 4 listed in the OP, but I know that he’s had more warnings than that. I’m curious why these people are being given so many chances when it diminishes the quality of the board AND undermines the severity of a warning (“Yawn. I warning down–I still probably have 5 or 6 more”).
Fenris
*But that was a special case–she was banned for a specific rules infraction rather than generalized bad behavior which, IMO, is a different circumstance.
People do get an awful lot of rope here, Fenris. I suspect part of the reason is that the goal of “fighting ignorance” is more important than making this a “pleasant place”.
I’m sad to see Aldebaran go. He had a poor start and very poor end, but for a while he looked like he might be a good - if controversial - poster. I come here for them.
I’m far from a fan of Aldebaran’s posting style (particularly in GQ), Fenris but to compare him with Jack Dean Tyler is ludicrous.
JDT was a one-trick pony troll who never contributed anything of worth to the board. Aldebaran, OTOH, just needed to tone it down a little.
Lots of reasons, most having to do with the pay-for-membership situation that changed.
(1) First, we’re more inclined to give people a little more benefit of the doubt if they are paid members. People do post while inebriated, or angry, or under the influence of some other strong emotion that overtakes common sense, and we’re understanding of that.
(2) Imagine one person warned against insults in GD, then against insults in CS, then against insults in CoCC, etc. It can take us a while to notice that this is a general pattern, rather than a one-time offence.
(3) Imagine a person warned against insults in GD, then warned against quoting full material in CS, then warned against reply in kind to an insult in CoCC, then starting a joke thread in the Pit, then… There’s no consistent misbehavior there, until we get lots and lots of warning, and then we see a general pattern of jerk.
(4) There’s also the nature of the warnings – some offenses (and warnings) are more serious than others. A paid-up member trying to sell porn toys, for instance, wouldn’t be given multiple warnings.
(5) Under the pay-system, we have put in some checks and balances internally, so that it does take some time, discussion, and internal approvals to ban a paid member. That usually doesn’t slow things down more than a couple of days, but it does slow things down.
(6) And finally, we tend to be a little more forgiving for people who represent a “minority” perspective – people for whom English is a second language, for instance, might not understand the nuances that make a certain phrase an insult. People from different cultural backgrounds might have different attitudes towards what is an insult and what is merely colorful discussion, etc. So, we tend to cut a little more slack for “special cases.”
and same for you, it didn’t. Case closed.
Thanks–that helps clear a lot of questions I had up. I appreciate the response, but still have a comment and a question:
I understand giving a little more slack to those to whom English isn’t a first language, but it seems to me that Aldebaran had considerably more than “a little”. Just from my cursory browsing over the last year, it seemed that Aldebaran got a dozen or more warnings over the course of a year (and it could be that my perceptions are wrong). That strikes me as FAR more than “a little”. Ditto with Evil Death and PaulFitzroy’s 9 (at least) warnings each. The “little more slack” rule makes sense, but I’d argue that the pendulum has swung too far in that direction.
Th’ hell…??
Damn it Dex–this completely undermines my business model. Now what the hell am I gonna do with all this inventory? 
Hawthorne–IMO, if a poster is warned a dozen or more times, he’s most likely not fighting ignorance, he’s trolling or, I suppose, too dumb to grasp the pretty simple rules here. Either way, I don’t see how they add to the SDMB.
Bluecanary–IMO the only difference between what Jack Dean Tyler modus operandi and Aldebaran’s is that JDT had considerably more panache and was a little more honest in his anti-Jewish screeds*.
Fenris
*IE, the most recent example: the fake anti-Semitic quotes that Aldebaran posted and defended even after they were debunked. At least JDT didn’t hide his: ‘Mohels and the Jews are trying to UNMAN us ALL!’ message behind bogus quotes.
I think bluecanary was referring to JDT’s obsession with circumcision.
You think right
All I know is that I’m tired of the “he had such a different perspective” babble. What, he should be treated differently because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy to keep a pet from a different culture? The way people are minimizing this person as being a human being turns my stomach/
A jerk is a jerk, rule are rules (albeit grossly subjective here at times), regardless of your origin. I don’t care where he comes from, and do not see why it factors into it.
Can anyone remember one of those messageboards (in every conceivable language, it seemed) that Alde said he frequented? I’ll miss him, for all his faults, but the ban has been an inevitability for a while IMHO.
Fare thee well, Alde, and may you widen the horizons of many others as you have mine.
Biexk my baaqqalahw. Salaam,
UselessGit
Fare thee well A.
You were a better poster than I could hope to be.
Salaam.
Farewell, Aldebaran.
I wish he would’ve shaped up, like I asked him to in a few different threads. Even so, I’m glad I wasn’t the one making the decision. The only complaint I had with Aldebaran was his unswerving pessimism. If he reads this thread (which he almost certainly will), he will likely ignore all the positive things people have said about him and choose to be enraged about the negative things.
If you’re reading this, Alde, please try to flip it around and look at it the other way. If only temporarily, try to ignore the negative things and smile at the positive.
Salaam.
Ulp. I’m going to argue with a mod. First time ever, IIRC.
A simple “I was drunk” apology is easily done. If no remorse is forthcoming, it can be assumed that there are no extenuating circumstances.
And while I am sensitive to the “he paid his money” line of reasoning, I would like to think that there should also be consideration to the rest of us who paid our $15 and deserve the no-nonsense modding that made this board good in the first place.
If someone wants to bitch give them their damn money back. But letting trolls and liars stick around damages the product and drives away the good customers.
Fair enough; but none of these apply to the cases Fenris was talking about. They were people who engaged in the same jerkish behavior for weeks or months on end, laughing off warnings all the while.
And this, I believe, is utterly wrong.
First, it rests on the assumption that we can identify who the “special cases” are, and we can’t. It basically amounts to a stated policy that trolls will get more slack if they can successfully pass themselves off for awhile as belonging to a non-western ethnic group, a non-native speaker or something else that will merit “special case” treatment.
Secondly it rests on a profoundly condescending assumption that the standards that apply to the “us” are simply too lofty for “them.” The many problems with this should be manifest.
Finally, I’ve taught ESL professionally, and I’ve had several students say horribly rude things to me without understanding what they were saying. When I’ve explained the error, they’ve apologized, and I never once took it personally. That was never the case with Aldebaran. He did occasionally say things that could be attributed to poor English; but when told how his remarks were percieved, he rarely if ever backed down or apologized. Instead, more often than not, he simply confirmed that yes, he did mean it that way.
**Aldebaran ** was indeed a “special case;” but ISTM the mods weren’t cutting him slack because he was having sincere difficulty expressing himself well or was breaking rules inadvertantly. He was kept on as a pet Arab Muslim. He was permitted to spew insulting racist venom for months, saying things that differed only in target from what we’d expect from a Fred Phelps or a Louis Farrakhan; followers of whom I’d expect to see banned far quicker that Alde was.
In short, it appears to me that he was a special case not for his manner of speech but its content; he was a special case because the mods decided that his ideas were somehow deserving of special consideration or respect in a way that others are/were not. And I think that – the mods deciding which “minority perspectives” deserve protection and which do not – to be a very bad sign.
I will miss Aldebaran, despite the fact that he often allowed his resentment of western policy to color everything, even his ability to see what was in front of his face, such as people agreeing with him.
When he wasn’t being political, he could be a delightfully witty and surprisingly sweet person. And his politics, however much you may disagree with him, were a good insight into how a very well educated Middle-Eastern Muslim may think. I doubt his viewpoints were unique. I notice that most of the people who seem to think he should have been banned some time back are people who also support current western policy toward the Middle East; it’s not nice to have one’s face rubbed in the fact that actions one expected to be seen as liberating are instead viewed as oppressive. Hey, his posts often made me uncomfortable, and I’ve been vehemently against US foreign policy since Bush took office.
Aldebaran was not kept as a pet, and it is absurd and insulting to both the Mods and Aldebaran to suggest that he was. It was equally ridiculous to suggest he was a troll. Whatever else you may say of his style, he was obviously not posting for the sake of getting personal attention. I think he used extreme rhetoric sometimes because he was desperate to draw attention to issues he felt we didn’t understand - and from his standpoint, he was right - most of us can’t understand. What is too small to even make the news back here in the States can make a huge impact on everyday life in another nation, so we often don’t even know what our actions have been or what the effect of them was. And of course, we lack the cultural perspective.
I hope the Mods will reconsider, and also that Aldebaran will see this thread and recognize that many of us, even when he pissed us off, did not want to see him go.
Thanks, Oy – best explication so far of how I see this as well.
Aldebaran, if you’re reading this, pluck the cats from your keyboard and go forth to be stepped on by your favorite horse!
It took far too much for him to be banned. His posting from day one until his last day here was filled with hate.
It is nice to see the mods finally admit that he was basically given much more slack than anyone else because of his unique background. I always assumed this had to be the case. No regular poster would have gotten away with so much for so long.
I wonder where he really is from. I still would not be surprised at all to find out that he was a sock puppet of a 13 year old poster from New Jersey who pulled everyone’s leg the whole time.
Well, everyone boat has been lifted by the rising tide. We’re all much better off without him. I can only wonder how many potential posters we’ve lost because of the trail of wrecked threads left in his wake. I can say for sure that I never would have registered on this board if the first couple of threads I read were all about him and his hate.
Oh no. The openness is a great improvement. The SDMB is the admins’ responsibility, but the board also belongs, in small parts, to the contributors, and I think we deserve to know the cause of these situations. Either we’ll be left wondering, or the mods will field the same email about fifty times, and I also don’t think it’s necessarily awful if people voice their opinions on a banned user (civilly, naturally) because it helps us understand and refine our notions of what’s acceptable in the community. Post-ban pittings are easy to get into but aren’t something I’m proud of. However, lamenting someone’s loss here in ATMB is a very reasonable thing, IMHO.
And given the (appropriately) subjective nature of the rules, these do help us to evaluate our own conduct to ensure its acceptability, since no one can really view their words from an objective point of view.
Really? And yet you later post
Congrats-- Using extreme rhetoric get attention is one of the basic usages of the word “troll” on the SDMB. “Personal attention” isn’t required, just attention.
To return to the archtypical SDMB troll, Jack Dean Tyler didn’t want personal attention–most of us who were around at the time saw his personal home-page which was even worse than his rhetoric here–he really believed his stuff. Tyler "used extreme rhetoric sometimes because he was desperate to draw attention to issues he felt we didn’t understand "–check his old posts: (paraphrased) “If you only KNEW what circumcisions did, then you wouldn’t be a baby-mutilating butcher!” Jack Dean Tyler was obsessed with circumcisions, Aldebaran was obsessed with hating Western culture but they were the same sort of poster.
Fenris
Has this ever happened? If it’s possible, I hope the mods will reconsider.