And in this thread, too, many people are also stuck on the fact that I said she was “beautiful”.
Pretty easy to avoid controversy if you don’t say anything that’s interesting.
You’re equating being interesting with being controversial? That right there is going to make things problematic for you.
I find useful information interesting, especially things I have never heard before. Settled facts are the opposite of controversy (or should be). That’s why I got interested in the Straight Dope in the first place. Not because it’s the place where people like to stir things up.
By the way, the warning wasn’t so much bizarre as it was surreal.
Maybe if you insulted people in this thread, too, that would make your case appear more sympathetic.
I think there’s being an accidental asshole and there’s being a genuine low-grade asshole. The OP was probably the former, but not necessarily the latter.
It’s also pretty easy to get banned by being an asshole. Not too damn intriguing, though.
And yet here we are.
If you knew it was wrong, then don’t defend someone who did the wrong thing.
I understood, too. It still remains an attack on someone who is eulogizing someone and grieving their loss. The vast majority of posts that get Warnings are understandable. It doesn’t make them less jerkish.
It’s never been okay to threadshit in a mourning thread. Instead of the usual Note for threadshitting, such is likely to get a Warning. That has been the case since I’ve been here, and Surreal has been here almost twice as long.
Also, I note that Surreal themselves did not actually make the argument you are making. They didn’t argue they were fighting sexism, just that it was too trivial a comment to moderate. And I note the poster does not appear to have any history caring about sexism. Those two together suggest that was not the reason for their post.
Great post.
Warnings for threadshitting were part of the old normal, as well.
And take a look at the date I joined.
Hah, I’ve invited lots of controversy in my posts, and have gotten into quite heated arguments. Admittedly, I’ve got a pretty prickly, argumentative personality. It was bred into me by my family. My wife honestly thought my familiy’s normal dinner table conversations equated an argument, and she thought an actual fight might break out. That was really just conversation in that house, as long as you weren’t an abusive shithead, we could discuss anything - with varying levels of civility depending on how the group perceived the idea under discussion. Even though my wife will often scold me for things I say in public, I’ve never been warned here. IIRC, I’ve been mod noted three times, and it was valid each time. The only thing that prevents me from posting more of my controversial ideas is that it takes quite a bit of time and involvement once a thread gets going and you want to actively participate and defend your controversial idea.
Seriously, it wouldn’t have been hard to start a new thread if they wanted to honestly discuss whether we remember attractive people more fondly than unattractive people. Asking that pointed question in the thread was absolutely threadshitting and jerkish behavior. Do you go up to the widow of a philanderer at his funeral and ask how she felt about his mistress attending it? Even I know the time to ask that is years later, if ever. However, if you want to talk about it with your buddies at the bar tomorrow that’s pretty much fine, if still not really tasteful unless you do it in the abstract. The same principle applies here. I am terrible at knowing when it’s appropriate to talk about certain things, and the line is usually crystal clear to me on the SDMB.
So yeah, when in doubt, start a different thread in the appropriate forum.
Damn you. I actually read though this entire thread to make the same post.
I didn’t have a problem with the OP of that thread talking only about beauty. I think for high school crushes is typically a shortcut summarizing the entirety of the feelings.
Really? The Straight Dope has by far the most even-handed and fair moderating I’ve ever seen. I’ve been in groups where the mods were all but tyrannical. Although yes, there are the occasional head-scratching warnings or mod actions here and there at SDMB.
There’s one mod in particular who is so systematically clueless I don’t know how he ties his shoes in the morning. I think everybody knows to who I refer. Most of the other mods do stupid shit like the one that caused this thread on a regular basis.
There’s a phrase that’s going to find its way into my vocabulary.
mmm
Most of us do stupid shit from time to time. But the moderator that caused this thread was 100% correct when they issued this warning.
If you want to roll your eyes at a eulogy thread do so privately. Or if you absolutely, positively have to be that guy, do it in the Pit.
Miller?
Just kidding, Miller! 
Seconded. “Being a jerk” describes that post perfectly.
And in this thread, too, many people are also stuck on the fact that I said she was “beautiful”.
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
Sharing a memory of a person in a time and a place, a person who was in the context of that time and place dear to you, that’s not an invitation for other people to shame you for those feelings for that memory today.
Finding such eulogies and testimonials simply crass statements of social culture misses the point entirely. It’s not that being beautiful makes us loved; Loving someone makes them beautiful. Wanting to share that with other people is not a bad thing.
Jenny