The troll turned out to be a troll, but that does not negate the fact that a thread was “disappeared” without any explanation and a poster was banned before there was any evidence of wrongdoing, simply because the topic of pedophilia was raised. Raised in a polite, intelligent and enlightening thread, I might add.
(Of course, repeatedly callling transsexuals “deluded schizophrenics” rates nary a tut-tut from the Mods).
You Mods and Admins want to please give us a list of your phobias, hot-button topics and “ick factor” subjects so we won’t accidentally say the wrong word and find ourselves vanished with no explanation? This whole matter was handled in an unprofessional, knee-jerk and hysterical way. “Let’s hang Scott Peterson first, and then try him!”
Didn’t Sam say the poster was a sock? Except for that, I would absolutely agree with you. There was nothing in that thread about anything illegal. I can see the concerns about it getting nasty though, but it would have been time enough to cross that bridge when it was reached.
But they didn’t know he was a sock till well after the thread was eliminated and the poster was banned. It was a good two days after the fact they confirmed it. The whole thing happened only because someone used the “P-word.”
Which, again, I would not object to had there been some kind of reasonable explanation, and the thread had been locked, not just vanished.
I’m with you, Eve. I was disappointed to find the thread completely gone the next time I went out to read it. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find it closed, with a note to indicate that the OP had answered enough questions on the subject and it was being closed to prevent the inevitable flame war.
As long as it stayed polite, and when I read it, it was very polite, then it would’ve been very informative. We can’t put our hands over our ears and scream “la la la la, I can’t hear you” in the hopes that pedophiles will go away. They won’t. So the best thing to do is understand them.
Mostly I’m disappointed that a board dedicated to fighting ignorance would disallow even a proper discussion of this one topic simply because it’s disgusting.
I very much agree with Eve. Peadophiles excist. Whether we like it or not.
This was a guy who didn’t do anything illegal. I’ve seen posts seeking information about the price of marijuana. That’s illegal around your parts, isn’t it? Nothing was done then.
It’s possible and even probable, he was a sock, or a troll, but you could at least have explained at that thread.
I feel very disappointed and silly. And I am curious about his answers. If we ban a human being for giving us some insight in the less pleasant - for him as well - aspects of life, please delete all the posts of minorities.
Especially considering we have had threads of the ilk of ‘what’s this yukky stuff coming out of my boils’,‘what’s wrong with my sexual organs’ etc. etc… (some illustrated too )
Well, I for one am a long-time poster who isn’t around as much as she used to be, so I had no idea that the board has been drowned in a deluge of trolling pedophiles.
If the thread was started by a sock, then closing it and banning the poster is fine. But don’t expect me (or any other poster) to know a sock immediately, unless it’s someone with a truly distinctive posting style like Wildest Bill and some others.
Anyhow, I resent the implication that some of us were dummies for not knowing it was a scamjob.
Asa far as the discussion in the thread goes, I too didn’t see it heading south the last time I read it, but I can certainly see how it could have.
I see little that is unreasonable about Eve’s gripe. A note about a deleted thread is not asking for much.
I’m going to add my concurrence with Eve. Sam said that we long-timers should have recognized it for what it was. Well, not having access to IP traces and the other tools of the moderation trade, I didn’t. And while I am not overly excited about the idea of discussing things with pedophiles, and certainly support getting rid of a sock puppet playing trollish games, I have to agree that (a) an explanation was in order, particularly in view of the new “perestroika” moderation policy on “why we do what we do,” and (b) the psychological state, as opposed to acting on it, is not criminal – and getting a handle on why pedophiles are pedophilic might be beneficial – in particular to Dopers with children who can get a better idea of what to watch out for and what to relax and not worry about.
This guy did not seem to be a troll, nor to be advocating illegality (and let me be the first to say that anything you can come up with to do to an actual child molester, I will probably think is not adequate). But getting a handle on why someone is attracted to children or youth could be a valuable tool in combatting it – as in fighting ignorance on the subject.
So:
(1) Lock the thread with “this guy’s a returning troll” should have been the way to go in this particular case.
(2) I have no problem with attempting to get a better understanding of what motivates such people – particularly the ones who seem to have some moral sense and are dealing with their perversion in a way that doesn’t harm children. A real, non-trolling such thread ought to be left open, well moderated and with people volunteering to make rapid reports if problems arise – making clear that no advocacy of illegal behavior and no flamefests are allowed.
If he was a sock, it stands to reason that opening a thread about himself on a very controversial subject is nothing more than trollery. If he asked a question about the motives of pedophiles, perhaps closing would have been wrong. Claiming he IS a pedophile and claiming he can give insight into this condition, while being a sock, is a different story.
I didn’t get to read the thread, but I doubt there is much point to continuing if the premise of the thread is bad. That said, I probably would have locked and commented, rather than deleting entirely, but I’m not a mod.
A similar thread (I think, I never opened it) was disappeared from Great Debates last year, and I started a similar thread to this one. I wonder if it was the same guy.
Well, there was a thread in GD started by two gentlemen from a man-boy pedophile group. They both chose usernames that made their proclivities fairly obvious. One in particular was well-spoken. But, IIRC, Lynn Bodoni went on their message board (Mods should be paid…) and found a link to the SDMB thread, which prompted her to close it and ban the (foreign) participants. There was a subsequent pit thread started by a sock from one of the banned participants in which he sniped at Lynn. There was a followup pit thread by a SDMB member calling for an explanation, and Lynn gave one.
If I had to guess, I’d say it was the same people…
Let’s make believe Mr RitzBitz wasn’t a sock: What was the benefit or potential benefits of keeping in view a Q&A thread that discussed his sick fantasies?
Did anyone who read that thread or asked him a question think they were going to have some type of epiphany and get a better understanding of what goes on in the mind of the poor, depraved soul?
How many people who viewed the thread just wanted to see the proverbial car wreck or freak show in the making?For anyone who has a real desire to understand what makes a potential child molester tick, I suggest they find more accurate, scientific, off-board resources – not the ramblings of an anonymous poster.
On this message board, everything’s relative. If a thread entitled ‘Ask the Tax Accountant’ gets closed - shouldn’t a thread that discusses a person’s, illegal, evil & deviant sexual fantasies get erased?
People on this board discuss their various mental illness’es all the time. I don’t recall a specific “Ask the” but I’m sure there has been.
It is OK to discuss mental illness A but not mental illness B? Even if the discussion was not by experts in the field, as most discussion on the board do not have that pedigree, as long as the discussion on the subject remains as tasteful as possible*, I don’t see why it can’t take place. IIRC the op of that thread stated that they had the desire but had not acted on it. I’m one of those people that don’t believe that thoughts are a crime.
*meaning no graphic descriptions of the behaviour and of course no witch hunting.
I thought the thread was interesting, but I also thought “there is no way this thread is going to remain open”. It just had too much potential for nasty fallout.
I never insuated fantasies should be illegal – but then again, there’s very little similarity between legal/illegal activities IRL and what constitutes subject matter for discussion on these boards.
Even though I don’t fully comprehend your desire to have a better understanding of what makes people like Mr Ritz Bitz tick, my support of the decision to erase the Q&A thread in no way impedes your quest. Perhaps I don’t have as much compassion for such depraved souls - or maybe I take comfort in my ignorant belief that prospective child molesters don’t need to be better understood (or that they’re somehow more complex). That’s a job better left to mental health professionals.
A small hypothetical aside: If it was I who offered a tea invitation to the OP & then discovered upon my arrival that a child ended up getting raped down in the basement of our meeting place, my sympathies would lie with the victim and my guilt would be most assuredly overpowering.
Is your parentetical thought an additional rant (I don’t understand the comparison or how it ties back to your belief that an ‘Ask the Pedophile’ thread should have remained in full view.
)