I hate that he had to be banned, but I most heartily agree with his banning.
Think of the SDMB like you would a pub. It’s not entirely dissimilar. You have people with a lot of different interests basically shooting the breeze. You have lively debates–so lively in fact because like so many pub arguments, the stakes are incredibly small (proving who is right and wrong on a message board.)
What’s very similar is that a pub is a private enterprise. In a pub, you’re not just paying for alcohol–if that was all you were interested in you would not go to a pub. Alcohol is cheaper per unit from a supermarket than it is at a pub. You’re paying for the service provided by the bartender, sure–but you’re also paying for atmosphere.
As a private enterprise, it is in the pub’s interests to insure that its atmosphere continues to be an atmosphere that the majority of its patrons are comfortable with. The pub isn’t a public forum, nor is this a public forum. This is a privately owned forum, we discuss topics here at the leisure of this forum’s owner.
I’m as strong an advocate of free speech as you can find. I fully support the worst people in the world, the strongest holocaust deniers, strongest hate-speech types and et cetera being able to shout their opinions to the world. But, not on private property–private property owners have the right to eject people for objectionable behavior (or in many cases for any reason at all.)
To go back to the pub analogy, say you have a regular patron. Many people find him funny, but he has a bad habit of sometimes intentionally picking fights with other patrons. You’ll have him tossed out anytime he does this, but for awhile you won’t permanently bar him from your pub. But eventually it gets to the point where you do permanently bar him from your pub. Because eventually he has offended too many of your patrons, is blatantly just trying to stir up shit, and in short needs to be gone–permanently.
That is how I viewed the VCO3 situation. This isn’t a public forum. To me it is irrelevant if someone makes an interesting post or not, that doesn’t excuse bad behavior.
No offense to anyone in this thread, but if you think VCO3 was genuine in his feelings–you have been whooshed. I have never seen anyone so obviously craft threads to maximize how much it offends other posters, that someone could “coincidentally” hold so many opinions that were guaranteed to maximally offend so many people is just not a coincidence I’m willing to buy into.
Even if he genuinely held these opinions, he never had to specifically work his posts in a manner guaranteed to upset other posters.
Here is where things diverge a bit from the pub analogy.
Part of what makes this place what it is, is the arguments that break out. Lets all be honest, any of us that engage in these arguments enjoy them. But most of us can debate a topic, there’s a difference between debating a topic and just trying to stir up shit.
For the exact reason that part of what makes the “atmosphere” of this place is the argumentative nature of several of the forums, we have to foster as many divergent ideas as possible. If we all agreed on everything Great Debates wouldn’t really be necessary, and many threads in many other forums wouldn’t be necessary either.
So I generally believe we should give posters an enormous amount of latitude in what they say and how they say it. For example I’ll point to Der Trihs, he offends a great many people quite often. However despite some early problems with him, I think he genuinely believes what he is saying. I don’t believe he is posting to offend, he’s posting to get his opinion out there.
On this board, the sole criteria for banning shouldn’t be whether or not your words offend. In fact, I do not think that criteria is what is used. My words offend many people quite often, the words of many posters offends many users quite often. To my knowledge I’ve received one official warning in something like 5 years of posting. A lot of other posters that offend people have never been banned or gotten in serious trouble. I think that is because the mods do see a difference between someone voicing their genuine opinion in a reasonable manner, an opinion which happens to offend some and someone who is posting something that is primarily designed to offend.
I believe VCO3 was primarily using these message boards as an outlet for trolling. He was not genuinely interested in arguing his point, he was not genuinely interested in discussion. Someone like that undermines what a message board is all about. He was primarily about making other posters pissed. I always felt sorry for the people who were deluded enough to think he was just a “funny guy” who happened to offend some people.
He wasn’t, he was an asshole who happened to be capable of posting some non-assholish things from time to time. I honestly think it possible he only posted in forums other than the Pit in order to make it appear he had interests other than trolling. Maybe I’m wrong on that–I certainly hope so, because at least then he doesn’t come off as quite so pathetic.
To go back to the topic of the atmosphere of these message boards, the entity which owns the SDMB has a vested interest in fostering an atmosphere of open discussion. Trolling actually undermines that atmosphere. It may seem an odd stance that a forum which wants to foster open discussion would prohibit certain types of discussion. Open discussion only works if everyone is genuine. Trolling isn’t genuine, it’s an attempt to enrage. Not an attempt to persuade, not an attempt to voice opinion, it is an attempt solely to enrage others. That does not help open discussion, it hinders it. That does not foster the free exchange of ideas, it hinders it.
It’s also materially different from “playing Devil’s Advocate” for a few reasons. Playing Devil’s Advocate is done to explore sides of an argument that you don’t personally hold, in order to foster a better understanding of that side of the argument both for yourself and others.
