Banned from the Urban Legends Message Board

The BBQ Pit
1

I have been banned from the Snopes board.

Here’s the little incident that started it off. A new poster submitted a page of pictures in the “Photo Gallery” section that Snopes didn’t approve of. I thought his reponse was a little snarky, but understandable:

A few days later, though, I catch Snopes apparently violating his own rule, and I use the exact same wording such that he’s hoist by his own petard. Note that my phrasing is exactly the same as his, and also note his Nixonesque follow-ups to my remark and to those of Doc J (Cheese weasel), who defended the point that I made:

I wasn’t able to view these responses right away, though, because the next time I clicked on the message board link I got the following announcement:

Sorry, either your membership has not yet been approved or the board administrators have removed your ability to post to this board.

That’s cold-ass shit. That’s like finding out you’ve been fired only when your key card doesn’t open the door one morning.

In order to figure out what was going on, I had to clear all the cookies from my hard drive and then go into the board as a new user. After doing so, I found that I had been permanently banned and DocJ was subject to a 2-day suspension for “immoderate dissing”:

So, is this Snopes guy an anal retentive little control freak or what? Sarcasm gets one permanently banned, and talking back gets one a “suspension”, like it’s fucking middle school or something? :rolleyes:

If any of you folks still frequent the Snopes board, you might encourage Barbara to grit her teeth and lay him once in a while just so the people around him don’t have to suffer from his assholery. It shouldn’t take more than a minute and a half every other week or so.

Never thought I’d say this, but now I really appreciate the fine job that the SDMB moderators do. I take back any harsh words I may have directed their way in the past. Good job, y’all. :cool:

2

The website that started all this was When Office Supplies Attack!

Funny as hell, IMO.

Carry on.

3

I wonder how many people who used to post here felt the same way that you did.

What a bitch.

4

I’m not sure to whom that last remark is directed, but I’m pretty sure that no one has ever been banned from this board for sarcasm. The process here is pretty transparent in comparison.

5

And above all, the mods here are not, by and large, hypocrites when it comes to the rules.

6

I suppose if you want to play with his toys, you have to play by his rules, but it would be better if he grew up though, wouldn’t it?

7

Eh. Snopes sure wasn’t very helpful with his OP (hey, just posting a picture without any text? Isn’t that a non-OP?), but you didn’t need to automatically go assume the worst.

Although the turnabout you pulled was quite amusing. Any person with the slightest sense of humor would have chuckled a bit.

8

Frankly, this is just more evidence that every board sucks except this one.

pan

9

I post on snopes and while I found the suspension and your banning to definitely be overkill, I think the new forum he started just to publicly list who has been banned/suspended is an even more depressing development. The moderation on that board is so arbitrary, it’s disturbing. Sometimes it seems like he’s not even bothering for about a month, then stuff like this happens. I think it took him longer to ban the troll who usurped his user name (didn’t hack the account, just found a way to work around and duplicate the name) than to ban you for daring to question him.

10

I’m somewhat confused as to the point of that forum myself. However, it’s worth noting that several people here have requested a similar feature to prevent the “Why was iamatroll banned …” and “What happened to iliveunderabridge ?” threads.

Thinking about it some more (while waiting for the hamsters to return my preview) perhaps using ‘time-outs’ for minor infractions and publicising this would be a good deterant.

I read snopes quite a lot and the man himself has a very dry, strange sense of humour. His posts tend to be very terse, which is often interpreted (sometimes unfairly) as snarky.

While I think you caught a pretty bad break there Doghouse I would question the wisdom of posting a response like that on your second post.

In the end it’s his board and he can do what he likes, for whatever reason. No reason not to bitch about it here tho’, so carry on everyone.

SD

Who’s wondering what would happen if snopes turned up here …

11

Good grief. Reading some of his/her responses to mistakes people make (accidentally trying to post to read-only threads, etc.), I see a moderator who’s actually mean in his sarcasm. He gives no quarter. I agree with kabbes, though I except my own board from the suckiness factor. (Not hard when a board consists of 12 people, all people you know)

12

:shrug:

I’m not crying into my beer about it. The low post turnover at that board, limited range of topics, and relatively small number of posters limited my interest in participating there. FWIW, I think I posted a couple of hundred times on the SDMB during the three months or so that I was registered on the Snopes board.

People rant about all kinds of stuff here, SpaceDog, and I think I’m entitled to put down my thoughts on just what a sad little man Snopes is–especially if it brings me an epiphany on how fortunate we are to have a board like the SDMB.

13

I didn’t mean to imply you shouldn’t be ranting. I was just offering up a few random, rambling, thoughts.

SD

14

No prob–par for the course.

DHR

15

Doghouse

You did get a bum deal.

Snopes-guy - What a hypocritical asshole.
Yeah, it’s his board, but one ought to follow his own rules. And lighten up. You get banned for throwing his own words back at him? Geez, what a baby!

Funny too, following his banning post, a bunch of posters repost the same image, altered in photoshop expressly for the purpose of ‘Ha ha, look at this funny picture’.
Loser.

16

Doghouse, I lurk over at Snopes and saw that thread develop, and I was sure glad that you stepped up the way that you did. I can’t stand places on the Net – be they bulletin boards, MUDs, or any other community – where administrators act as gods and the one real rule is “Don’t make the mods mad”.

I think I might have to send a little note to Snopes. I like his site, but that was truly out of line.

17

Ah Doghouse, I wondered if that was you (ya never know with usernames…)!

I’m a relatively heavy ULMB user and I really don’t like the whole “Penalty Box” development. Sure, bite back at someone in the relevant thread, or maybe even give out a warning, but a banning on the second post for the offence of spotting an apparent turnabout? Feh.

Doc J (or “the Cooler King” as he now styles himself :)) seems to be weathering the penalty in brave fashion, but the whole “name and shame” development kind of depresses me. The “Penalty Box” doesn’t even direct users to the offending thread - it really is just a list of punishments handed down: “Doghouse - out of here. Doc J: suspended for 2 days (for “immoderate dissing” if you please!).”

Nah, I am not a fan of this. Snopes needs a “Don’t be a jerk” policy, and it needs to be in the FAQ.

Embra

18

Ha! It’s funny 'cause it’s true.

19

Bear… poke… don’t.

20

It was only your second post Doghouse, perhaps a litle early to make such points, however valid. But the treatment of the guy who sought to say you had a point is a worry. I think this calls his judgement into question, and I’ll discount the site accordingly.