The question “Is there a Cecil Adams?” came up again in GQ and, once again, Una is pulling her usual gimmick of “the ways of Cecil are mysterious, and so is he, as I talk to him all the time.”
No. You don’t. Ever. Cecil Adams is not real, as demonstrated by a link in the thread to a trademark filing where the Chicago Reader admitted he wasn’t a real person and the name applied to no single person.
This has to stop. At the very least, Una’s responses run afoul of the “Don’t be a jerk” rule.
How is Una being a jerk? It’s like calling someone a jerk for insisting Santa is real.
Unclench the sphincter.
No, they don’t.
The facts are out there, but the question of Cecil’s personhood is at its root a playful one. The Cecil/Santa Claus analogy is probably a good demonstration of this. Sure, one can be a killjoy and shout “There is no Santa Claus!!!” from the rooftops, but musing about the spirit of Christmas and childhood is probably a more artful way of addressing the situation.
Besides, the truth about Cecil is out there, as you demonstrate. Una isn’t denying this, just having a little fun. If having fun talking about Cecil Adams is jerkish, I am in the wrong message board.
It’s an irritating attitude. That’s it. I don’t care enough to have a fight over it, I just think it’s irritating. And since we can’t pit mods/admins, this is where I had to post.
Do you get angry in CS when people talk about the character traits of TV, movie or book characters? Do you get pissed off at the mention of Mark Twain, since he doesn’t exist either? How about Carolyn Keene - a name used by several authors - do you experience rage at the mention of that name too?
This is a message board affiliated - by name and with the same stated purpose - with a newspaper column written by someone(s) going by the name of Cecil Adams. Since that name is as much “The Straight Dope” as “The Straight Dope” is, I see no harm in entertaining the idea that Cecil Adams exists. This whole messageboard is entertainment provided in the name of Cecil. Clearly someone is writing the articles; whether it’d Ed or someone else doesn’t really matter.
There are enough people providing a factual answer to the question that the comments made by staff can be dismissed as those of, well, staff - charged with keeping this environment going. No reason to get all angry about it. It’s a bit like getting mad that there isn’t a literal goat and/or squid to induct the newbies with.
Una isn’t a mod or admin, she’s SDSAB. And to quote the Pit rule (as posted by some dude named Ziti or something):
“All comments or complaints about SDMB administration should go in the About This Message Board forum, not in the Pit. Pitting of SDMB staff is permitted for views they express as ordinary posters.”
(my bolding)
Having said that - your attitude on this seems awfully humorless and literal.
If you want to play this game in certain forums, I think it’s stupid but I’ll go along with it.
You can’t play it in GQ, though. That’s for factual answers. The answer we know to be factual given all the evidence, just as in any other GQ thread, is that Ed Zotti is Cecil Adams. The mods have made it clear in dozens of threads that you can’t lie, obfuscate, or deliberately mislead in GQ. That’s what Una does with her answers. You can’t excuse them by being joke answers. She knows what the truth is and then taunts us with dangling non-answers in front of our faces.
This is jerkish behavior. I don’t go into most of the threads about mod behavior, because being a mod is a tough job and even when they make mistakes they do so because they’re human and subjective judgments can’t be 100% right. Of course, they do need to be told when they are obviously wrong because that’s the only way they can improve. That’s fair to them and fair to us.
But Una is not a mod. She is a poster, with no special title. She acts like a jerk and does not get a warning even when others object to her behavior.
She knows the answer. Either she gives it or she shuts up. Anything else in GQ should be given an official capital W Warning. She has to act within the same parameters as every other poster on the board. When she doesn’t and gets away with it, that’s an insult to every other one of us who has to play by the rules.
For one thing, you can still pit mods and admins for their actions as posters, and for another, Una’s not a mod or admin, so it’s a moot point anyway.
And how do we know Justin_Bailey is real? The only “evidence” I have are some words stored in a database on a remote server. For all I can tell you don’t exist!
We choose to believe in a world where there is a Cecil Adams, a world where truth and science will win out in the end, a world where our ignorance will be fought and we will be enlightened! Yes, Virginia, there is a Cecil Adams!
Justin_Bailey doesn’t exist. It’s a nom de Internet. Just like Cecil Adams.
Bingo!
Unfortunately, if you want to play around here, you need to play by Cecil Adams’ (or Ed Zotti’s) rules, including:
(1) All this nonsense about whether Cecil is real or not, and
(2) Cecil being able to insult people in his answers in ways that we mere mortals cannot.
Yes, it’s annoying – but this is Cecil’s (or Ed’s) little playground, and he/she/it/they make the rules. If you don’t want to play by the rules, there are lots of other playgrounds on the Internet.
Apparently, “Cecil Adams” is the name given to a specific assembly of writers and researchers. The assembly exists. Therefore, Cecil Adams exists. It is possible to communicate with “Cecil Adams.”
Other assemblies of persons operating under a name for the collective:
State of California
Dallas Cowboys
Duran Duran
ACLU
Congress
General Electric
They and Cecil Adams are real.
Nope. It’s not against the rules to counter people who keep revealing personal information about Cecil without his permission. In fact, there’s actually against giving out said information. It’s just never enforced about this issue.
And it’s never been against the rules to play along with the game, something you very well know seeing as you’ve brought this up plenty of times before. I know, it’s a rule you don’t like. It isn’t written down as that would ruin the game. And it offends your sensibilities about what GQ is for.
It doesn’t become against the rules just because of that, however.
By this logic, Abigail Van Buren doesn’t exist and neither did Ann Landers. Never stopped people from writing to them.
*And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. *
-Terry Pratchett, Maskerade
What do you think 13 exclamation marks means?
If Cecil isn’t real, who left this walking stick in my new house?
The whole “Cecil/Santa” thing is silly as all get out – in fact, I can see how it can get to be annoying if you actually get involved in threads on the “topic,” especially in the supposedly sacred GQ forum. But as others have said, it is simply one of the unwritten rules around here, and one that’s not going to go away. Zotti’s playground and all that.
Solution? Stay the fuck away from those threads. Or join in the mystical “fun.”
I know what my choice is.
The underpants are badly soiled.