That actually was a compliment. I guess it was a creepy compliment. Sorry.
I thought you were the one who had a beef with me, considering–well, no need to go into the reasons, but I’m glad you don’t.
In my opinion, it’s better than most message boards precisely because we discourage people from deliberately and dishonestly provoking negative responses from other posters. YMMV.
I don’t.
I thought “quirks and outrageous remarks” were *good *things on a message board.
I don’t really care whether the dearly departed was a sincere or insincere screaming asshole (although I strongly suspect insincerity), but he was pretty much a screaming asshole all the same. If I want to read a bunch of screaming assholery, there are plenty of other places on teh intarwebz for that. But I would rather have intelligent and articulate discussions, so I hang out here instead. Note that I didn’t say I want everyone to agree with me on everything; there are quite a few posters here that I disagree with on any number of things. But most of us manage not to be screaming assholes about it.
Welcome, bucketybuck, that’s one of the best first posts I’ve ever read. Please sign up.
It’s also a very good thing that the warnings and bannings are public. Another board that I’m a member of does everything behind the scenes, so someone is acting like an asshole in public and (possibly - who knows?) getting warned in private. This isn’t like work where all disciplinary actions should be private; I think it’s important that everyone sees where the lines are and what it takes to go over them.
Hey, it’s just a message board. Being banned doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, it just means you don’t fit in with the particular culture of this board. There are plenty of other boards out there.
I might suggest the same to you. Dude, it is just a message board. The moderators are just trying to keep things civil, within certain boundaries that have been set. TLDR long since stepped over those boundaries, so he was banned from just this message board. It’s not the end of the world for him, and maybe he’ll find another message board more suited to his “interestingness”.
Yes, folks, some of the standards around here are somewhat arbitrary. Yes, the mods are not perfect in enforcing the rules. It’s just a message board, I really don’t get where people get so worked up. Especially about TLDR; he had been skating close to breaking the rules from the very moment he arrived, he was warned, suspended, and finally banned. Personally, I’d’ve banned him long before now. And if you think he was dealt with unfairly, well, go start your own message board where TLDR and his like have free reign. I’m not saying this to sound rude nor am I trying to give off a “don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out” vibe, I’m saying that if you find something in the culture of this board wanting, then you can always do something different.
Seconded!
::Reaches for jackboots and angry stick::
Did anyone else realize that VCO3 joined in July 2005, by the way? I know it’s right there on all posts, but I usually don’t notice. He did his thing for a pretty long time.
You guys are right, we immediately ban every poster with an unpopular opinion. We’d never tolerate anyone on this board who posts about a 24x7 d/s relationship with children in the house. We’ve never had any Christian posters last for more than six minutes. And we’ve banned all conservatives. When an anti-vaxer or creationist shows up, the mods automatically reach for the ban stick.
There are unpopular opinions we do drive away, not by banning, simply by many of us not even listening to the point people are trying to make - its got to be darn hard to be a politically conservative religiously conservative Christian around here. Hell, its hard around here to admit you don’t like cats. But I’ve never seen anyone outright banned for those opinions. Lekatt has been a member of this board for years consistantly posting what most Dopers believe to be a rather flaky opinion repeatedly. Catsix has been in more than her share of threads where she apparently stands alone, spitting in the wind, while she professes an unpopular opinion - and I don’t recall noticing her ever even getting warned.
The difference, in my observation, between people holding unpopular opinions and people who troll is that people who hold unpopular opinions successfully don’t start a lot of threads - they defend their opinions in other people’s threads (while avoiding threadshitting).
This isn’t a democracy - its a moderated board. The moderators get to make judgement calls about the quality of behavior. In the past, on occation, they’ve made a bad call - and they have changed their minds. This one, based on the rules of the board, doesn’t seem to be a bad call.
A number of years ago I participated in an unmoderated board…and left. When you let the jerks be jerks, the jerks trounce all over everyone else - conversation becomes unpleasant if not impossible. I participate in another board that is frankly overmoderated. It takes “supportive” to places I’m not terribly comfortable with, and disappears or locks threads if they start getting contentious. I haven’t agreed with every decision made around here - but I’ve agreed with far more over the years than I’ve disagreed with.
He skated that line pretty well. maybe he just got bored of the board two night ago.
I did notice his join date though. He joined shortly after I did.
Yup. I have neither the time nor the inclination to put up with asshats like whatshisface - I got plenty of 'em in real life. I don’t particularly feel like PAYING to be around them. And frankly, his last thread was unforgiveable. I’m glad he’s gone.
I recognize that you’re reconsidering, at least in some of the fine details, your position on the banning, but I still want to address this specific point.
The problem with making specific, bright-line rules is twofold: First, you end up with a huge number of them, which makes observance difficult; and second, it encourages rules-lawyering. The first point is obvious: few will read the whole list, and it will begin to be perceived as a minefield deliberately designed for catching people out, rather than an enforcement tool, thus breeding resentment. The second point, however, demands a more focused discussion.
Let’s say we make a specific rule against posting links to offensive images. The intent is to prevent stealth-linking goatse, tubgirl, and the other classics. And yet, the word “offensive” is itself subjective. Who decides? Does the picture of the lotus-seed-standing-in-for-grubs-in-the-breast picture (see snopes) qualify? How about a picture of corpses after a suicide bombing? (And does it matter of they’re Americans or foreigners?) How about a hunter field-dressing a deer? Or a medical line drawing of human genitalia? Or the Vietnam-era photo of the naked girl running from the napalm attack? It’s conceivable that any of these images may be considered acceptable or offensive to different parties, so right away, you’ve got a subjective rule, requiring interpretation.
Okay, so you make it more specific. Thou Shalt Not link to any of the images on the following list: goatse, tubgirl, anything on Rotten.com, and so forth. But: is that an immediate banning offense? Or do you get one chance to not realize the rule is there, and receive a mod slap and a probationary status? Is the rule written that way? “The first time you post a link to an offensive image, you get this smackdown; the second time, you get banned.”
It seems straightforward, but then we can imagine a mischiefmaker who breaks the rule, gets warned, and then, upon consideration, posts another link to an altered version of goatse that shows only, say, three-quarters of the image, but not the whole thing. “You can’t ban me!” the mischiefmaker will squeal, “I didn’t post the image a second time, I’m only up to one and three quarters!” And then argument ensues about whether a banning is warranted over a violation of the intended spirit of the rule (which, again, is subjective), or if the mischiefmaker will be allowed to survive (no doubt to continue looking for similar loopholes).
Now: imagine several pages of those kinds of rules, which will have evolved over time in response to various efforts at button-pushing by mischief-minded people like the example above. “Thou shalt not post excessive smileys, defined as more than twenty in a single post in which no other text appears, or more than thirty in two messages consecutively, or more than fifty in a single thread, or more than an average of five per message when all posts boardwide are considered in the aggregate.” And “thou shalt not begin more than one ‘TMI’ style thread in any given month (see section 72, paragraph C, for a definition of ‘TMI’ style threads).” And “thou shalt not ‘bump’ more than one ‘zombie’ thread in any three month period (see section 34, paragraph B, for definition of ‘bumping’ threads, and section 41, paragraph E, for definition of ‘zombie’).” And so on. And so on.
You go down the road of making specific, unambiguous rules, that’s what you end up with: a giant lawbook nobody fully understands, and which provides a playground for chainyanking bozos who will dance against the line of transgression and use hair-splitting interpretations of overwritten regulation to escape punishment for their offenses.
Sort of like the American legal system. 
Or: you can take a step back, wipe the slates entirely clean of the fine-grained rules, and institute a broader standard: if we, collectively, determine that you are disruptive and/or destructive of our community, then we reserve the right to evict you. Period.
Neither approach — agonizingly detailed lawmaking vs. the simple but subjective behavioral standard — is perfect. The problems with the former are described above; the problems with the second are on display in this very thread. In human history, the second approach is what has allowed close-minded communities to persecute minorities and eject drifters and outsiders in the name of stability and identity, which, in virtual microcosm, is exactly what those opposed to this banning are arguing has happened. I concede that, by supporting the ban, and by siding with the relevant authorities, I am aligning myself with the “defend the community from disruption” model which has proved so troublesome over the centuries.
Nevertheless, I would defend myself by asserting that, in this case, the banning is warranted, and that this individual’s behavior crossed the line of reasonableness and community acceptance. Further, I say that although, admittedly, the “defend the community” approach is dangerous, and has lent itself to abuses in the past (here and generally), vigilant attention with respect to that danger, and case by case debate about the criteria being applied, will serve as the best guard against abusive overapplication of the subjective standards. In other words, the current argument is potentially divisive but ultimately healthy; it is how we define the community that we love, and how we, individually, determine whether or not we want to be part of that community.
So, yes, some people will choose to depart, and will seek alternative pastures. That’s fine, in the long run, because by clearly defining ourselves, we will attract additional membership, whose personal preferences align with the community’s self-determined identity.
It comes down to this: We can’t be all things to all members. Some won’t fit in. That’s normal, and entirely expected. At the end of the day, we have to make choices about the kind of environment this should be. If the choices alienate too much of the membership, and strengthen the bonds between only a small subset of the population (the “tiny insulated village” model), the boards will turn into a self-absorbed echo chamber, and wither and fade into irrelevance or oblivion. On the other hand, if the choices alienate only a small segment of the membership, and foment a large but loose association of like-minded but argumentative people who are willing to engage in this kind of self-examination every time a collective decision results in controversy, well, it may be difficult, and sometimes painful, but nevertheless I think that’s preferable to the alternatives.
Your mileage, as they say, will vary.
Fuckin’ hell, Cervaise. I have no opinion on this either way, but that was a damn fine putt.
::golf clap::
Hmmm, Cervaise, let me guess…you’re a lawyer? 
Not sure where to start with all that. I guess I’ll start by saying that, generally speaking, I agree with you. I have had some limited experience on other boards, one in particular that is known for very heavy moderation. Full disclosure: I was banned from that board, as I have mentioned here before. (In consideration of this, I’m wondering if this could be a trigger for my outrage? Perhaps… ) Anyway, aside from my personal annoyance at being banned, my observation is that when you have such heavy moderation, it causes infighting, sucking up of the highest order, rampant cliquiness, and generally a lot of unpleasant feelings. I think it’s counter-productive to what is supposed to be achieved by the moderation in the first place.
On the other hand, I have never had the patience to spend more than about 30 seconds on some of the larger and barely-moderated boards that seem to be popular with text-speaking teens.
Clearly, there has to be some middle ground, and for the most part, I think the SDMB has found it, and for that I commend TPTB, as well as the posters who have been around much longer than I and have made the board what it is.
I think my point about the vague rules might have been a little lost in this. I don’t have a problem with the rules as written, and for the most part, as they are interpreted, either. My point was that sometimes…just sometimes…I think that the warnings seem a little capricious and arbitrarily enforced.
Nope. I work in IT, and I have a fine-arts degree. Years ago, though, I did spend a while working in a law office, providing administrative support to a small group of attorneys, so I have a glancing familiarity with the field.
Which is as I described. If you have subjective rules (the second approach in my long post above), you will have argument about how they are applied.
Again, that’s the tradeoff. If you have specific and unambiguous rules, you won’t have much argument about their application, but you have to have an imperial assload of them to cover all eventualities (and an assumption of constant growth as new circumstances require new rules). If you have one broad and timeless standard, you dispense with the giant lawbook, but you invite constant debate about where the lines should be drawn.
For this environment, I like the second approach, even though it means ongoing argument is an inevitable, unavoidable given.
oops.
Cervaise, how DARE you be all reasonable like that!
Feh. I didn’t really like him, but I thought his barista OP was sheer genius.
I’d like to go on record as saying I think insulting another poster outside the Pit, sockery, and blatant threadshitting (like popping into every Hilary thread to post the word “banana” forty times, or something) should be the only bannable offenses.