What does that have to do with anything?
AGAIN with the appeal to authority–does no one learn basic debate any more? If MTV and Rolling Stone recommend Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” and assert that it’s the greatest song ever made, does that change the fact that it’s shit? If I put a chunk of dogshit in a tootsie roll wrapper and hand it to you to eat in good faith, can I get all butthurt when you call me on it, on account of “No, it’s not shit, it’s a tootsie roll, says so right there on the wrapper”? FFS, to quote Gallagher “If your cat has kittens in the oven you don’t call 'em biscuits.”
I don’t know if **AT **saying he’s leaving is all dramatics or not, but in case it’s worth anything, I don’t think people here were shrieking PEDOPHILE!!! at him. Well **elbows **was going off the deep end a little bit, but in case y’all haven’t noticed, elbows is crazy. As for everyone else, their outrage still far exceeded mine, but I think the overall point can be summed up as “Dude, you did a stupid thing, so please stop trying to justify it.”
Welp, whether or not** Mr. Towers** stays, I’m having another drink.
Wow. You’re lucky I’m not 13, or this would be all kinds of creepy.
And I don’t care if the ‘respected author’ let his 13 year old read it because he supported it. Your appeal to authority doesn’t mean it’s okay to share with children.
You’re really not getting it, are you? Tell you what. Actually read the thread with some attempt at objectivity. Try to see the issue from an angle other than yours. Come back with something other than song lyrics and whether it’s legal or not.
I understand your viewpoint. I was only quoting you to make a case that yes indeed, one could read this thread as mobby. That was not my original post though! I originally was not pointing at you, but more so to the OP, which I feel was inviting a pile on towards AT.
I was not meaning to attack you for your own viewpoint, Sarahfeena.
ETA: Regarding elbows being crazy…really? Some of her posts have been so well put that I had to resist dick riding posts like “Well done, elbows!”
I appreciate that, Nzinga. The problem is, the “mob” as you call us, is all made up of people with their own viewpoints, all of whom in this case seem to agree. I think it’s more a case of each of us trying to express it in a way that we were hoping would make sense to AT.
Ok. I’m jaded then. I guess in my heart of hearts, I don’t believe everyone that piled on did it to ‘make sense’ to AT.
Well fuck, we might as well start singing “Kumbayah.” 
FTR, my kids picked up their filthy language from their mother.
So it’s okay for you to make assumptions about the motives of posters in this thread, but not okay for said posters to possibly have made assumptions about the motives of AT. Okay then, good to know where you stand.
Here we go on this endless wheel. Let’s ride:
Yes, SmartAleq. It is ok for me to make assumptions about the motives of posters, it is ok for said poster to make assumptions about the motives of AT, it is ok for me to express distaste at pile ons, it is ok for you to take me to task for expressing that when I haven’t read the thread…it is all ok.
Are you competing with Buckety for being the biggest ass in the thread? If so you need to try a little harder, but damn fine effort. You’re a clear second.
Fuck. Is Veb lurking in this thread? I bet she is. Veb! You stop reading right now!
The word “fuck” is perfectly okay in the Pit, as long as it is not followed by a singular, second-person, personal pronoun. Yeah, as rules go it’s kinda silly, but it’s also simple and easy to follow. 
I’m beginning to wonder who the offenderatti are in this thread: those who object to AT’s IMs or those who see any rules as attacking their rights (and Syntropy, you aren’t one of them). When I started here we had a few self-styled “anarchists” who felt pretty much everything was an attack on their rights. Things seem to have gotten more specific.
Yeah, how dare I reference a Nick Cave album which was implicitly recommended to kids to point out how far overboard people have gone (though it is calming down now).
For that matter, we have had threads speaking highly of specific porn sites, which is recommending those porn sites to all the kids on the board.
My point with the line you quoted is that we don’t know the age of everyone we post to here, and many things that are said would be inappropriate if the other party was a kid. But we tend to post without even thinking about that, especially if the other person comes across as (and probably is) much older.
Carmady, you remain [del]clueless[/del] [del]deliberately obtuse[/del] completely fucking STUPID as to what people in this thread are objecting to. I have recommended “Murder Ballads” on this forum and was not taken to task for it because I did it in a public forum. HOWEVER, and for Christ’s sake NOTICE the HOW-FUCKING-EVER, I’m not stupid enough to PM a CHILD, or someone who claims to be one (the “Honest, yer honor, he said he was 13 but I could tell he was 43” excuse probably adds YEARS to your jailtime), suggesting he listen to it, despite his parents’ wishes. The former was within the rules of the forum and society and the latter leaves me open to all sorts of shit. Were I to PM a person seen as a child under the laws of the land and suggest he listen to it and to ignore his parents would be to cross the line for all but the most negligent parents, and would open both me and the message board that brought the kid and I together to lawsuits that, even if they failed, would cause the board to be closed down by The Powers That REALLY Be.
In the future, kindly figure out what everybody is talking about before shitting all over a thread. We are not asking that the board be censored. We are asking that members like AT get Clue #1 to how the rest of the world would react to their off-board, but associated with the board, actions might be interpreted by people with their heads less far up their self-centered asses.
AT knew the guy was 13, and specifically singled him out. So you’re point is irrelevant.
The Murder Ballads album had a Parental Advisory sticker on it in the US. It was, for all intents and purposes, censored in the US.
Did you read the thread? It’s not about how AT said “hey, OP that I am not familiar with, you should read Hogg.” He invited someone he knew was 13 to PM with him about a book depicting graphic child molestation (among other things), then argued with him about going behind his parents backs to read it, because he thought the kid should be schooled.
I’m not making assumptions, either. AT has said that’s what he did and he said he’s sorry he did it.
Argent Towers has been here nearly 5 years and made almost 11,000 posts. He made a mistake which drew special attention due to the current events of pedophiles and their bannings, and from what I’m reading here he owned up to the mistake unreservedly. He doesn’t have an unsavoury history, nor one of trolling, and so I for one vote that folks give him the benefit of the doubt at least this one time, and try not to have it colour future interactions with him.
Most of us screwed up online, on the SDMB, or elsewhere at least once. A general note to whom it may concern: don’t give up on him as a Member here; I believe he deserves it.
Argent, take a couple days off as a break, don’t post any further no matter how much you want to, and just come back and start over.
This might have some bearing if the troll in question was here as a LE sting operation to trap pedophiles. It might even be peripherally of interest if Curtis Lemay was here as one of those internet vigilante stings (I disremember the name of the douchebags in question) in order to out and harass pedophiles.
Except that it doesn’t appear that either of those are the case. So, I guess you’re just being dramatic because you don’t want the excitement in this thread to die off until you, personally, have had your fill of it.
AT’s major malfunction was feeding a troll.