We don’t grill posters about their reason for changing screen names. Actually, we don’t even ask why, much less care. Apparently you do, since you’re all-fired certain about intentions. Changing a screen name doesn’t imply the slightest obligation to “start with a clean slate”, or anything else for that matter.
Then you compound your inanity by an accusation of trollery–based on your superior personal insight about (gasp!) name changes–and threaten to flame mods any time you can’t grasp a rule with a mind-numbingly obvious reason behind it.
You’re acting like a jerk, dropzone. This is a warning. Continue in this course and you face banning.
Joe, I may not understand what you’re saying. Liberal, the former poster libertarian ,requested a name change. He did NOT request a name change to a name that was used previously. That is what I thought you were asking about.
Oh noes! He criticized the administration’s willing to change Liberal’s moniker! Ban the fucker!
Lamest warning ever.
dropzone is frothing at the mouth, overreacting, and should calm the fuck down. But he has a legitimate criticism: If your name change policy is to accept any name change without consideration for the reasons behind it, maybe your name change policy sucks and should be re-examined. That might be a more constructive reaction then sarcastically insulting dropzone and then threatening to ban him.
Who cares why Liberal changed his username? And who cares what it means to him? Why should the administration of this board try to set a policy on what a poster’s intentions are for choosing a username?
Actually, I am not sure that the precedent was set for Liberal. I was under the impression that there had been more than one occasion when a poster had requested a username change and, in subsequent threads, was taunted by references to his or her original name. I had not thought that the “do not taunt with obsolete names” policy was unique to Liberal. I restated the policy in this thread for the obvious reason that both the policy and warnings related to it had already been issued regarding these usernames.
(Since most staff discussions take place via e-mail or IM/ICQ/etc., I do not have access to discussions prior to my becoming a Mod. I suppose that it is possible that only Lib has been the recipient of this policy, but that was not my memory.)
I believe I both understand your reasoning and the procedure behind your “moniker change policy.” It (apparently) simply boils down to “you want to change it? No big, we’ll do.” But having said that, and touching upon the case that occupies us at the moment – Libertarian to Liberal – do you not think there’s more than just a bit of a whim involved? Meaning that, as currently understood and accepted, there’s little in common between both political definitions? In fact a good case could be made for their being opposing viewpoints. Furthermore, since (in the neutral form), Lib, continues to both champion and spouse a political view that has nothing to little to do with the current definition of the Liberal/Progressive ideology, doesn’t the moniker itself reek of disingenuousness, and it is thus highly misleading of his true political bent?
Nota bene: I am not asking for any sort of equivalency between user name and ideology; your job is tough enough as it is without getting into motivational guessing games. Hell, I think most nicks tell us little about the owners of same – other than some whimsical moment where they found a fit…be it cute, smart, ironic, etc.
Having said that, in a round about way, all I am saying is that Lib’s current moniker practically jumps out as being incredibly hypocritical under current definitions of political thought. Thus while – again – I understand your overall point (and Tom’s) I can hardly fault those who bring forth the hypocresy contained therein.
Because it’d take a blindperson not to see it.
Lastly I’d also like to point out that this is not a major issue with me since I find typing LIB, a much more direct and efficient way to preface whatever criticism/derision I’m likely to send his way.
Just sayin’ I understand the “other side’s” argument in a much less dismissive manner than you do. That’s all.
Because “choosing a username,” especially when there are rules governing how other posters must treat usernames, isn’t always a benign action. You can express a lot with a username, and I think the administration of this board should recognize that and moderate it the same way they do other things on the board.
To an extent, they already do–they’d certainly reject obscene usernames, or usernames that were intentionally misleading in certain ways (for example, if I asked to change my username to “Cecil Adäms” do you think they’d let me?). It doesn’t seem that unreasonable to expect them to go a step further and expect them to at least give a cursory look at why a prolific poster is changing his screen name.
Liberal is one of the most (if not the most) prolific posters on the boards. Using the currently used definitions of the words, he is not a liberal. He is a libertarian. His name change was clearly an attempt to push his little political and linguistic agenda on us. I’m dumbfounded that anyone would disagree with this. By itself, this wouldn’t be so bad. But when you couple it with the rules preventing people from calling him his old name–which accurately describes what his views really are–it kinda sucks, because it lets him exploit that rule to push his agenda even more.
Again, I think dropzone over-reacted, but I think his criticism of the apparent “we don’t care why a poster changes his name” rule is valid.
None that I recall and we’ve both been around here a long time and seen a hell of a lot of names come and go. In most cases it was for the aforementioned fresh start or, mostly, of the “I was drunk when I registered and I’d really rather not be known as GoatFelcher69–can I change it to Cute Li’l Pussycat?” T’was also a time when you had to ask Tuba real nice to change your name and generally folks were cool about it.
Lib chose a different route. Sure, maybe he asked nicelike but his intentions were patently obviously to misinform. To confuse. To lie. It took no Einstein or psychic to see through his lie and folks have been calling him on it for a couple years and gotten threatened for their pains because the administration stands behind his lie. I call bullshit on that, though I was less than graceful about it, and will continue to do so. You people are supporting a lying sack of shit that cannot stand the light of truth and it does not reflect well on you.
Like I said before: I’m amazed at the vitriol some posters pour out. [well, not so amazed at one or two who are notorious for their spit-sticky keyboards]
Oh well, Have fun, you sad little people.
Liberal Welcome home, man. I missed you. I hope you’re doing okay.
[btw: I got some things saved too, if you need it]
I pretty much disagree with every political belief Liberal has. And I’ve never thought that Liberal is the standard bearer for liberalism (nor was he the standard bearer for libertarianism under his previous username). But I don’t see how it effects me if he has his own political beliefs. If you don’t agree with his political or linguistic agenda, you should just ignore it.
I agree with those who are saying this has nothing to do with any real issues. This is just a bunch of people ganging up on somebody because they think they can push his buttons and because they feel safe in an faceless crowd.
Regardless of the reason for the name change, I hd thought that it was the persistent use of the previous name that had been forbidden. I could be mistaken.
I’m not sure why you are so worked up over the reason behind this request for a change. Clearly, it was to make a point, but I just don’t see the need to get worked up over it. YMObviouslyV
If people feel that way, it’s because of Liberal’s behavior. Do you think that the posters in question just drew his name out of a hat and decided to hate him en masse because of it? If Liberal is indeed so explosive that he can’t handle the response to his own unpleasantness, I’d say that’s his problem. For awhile one of his games was to make spurious allegations that I was violating board rules - was that okay? Should I smile and say, “Liberal, you make this place more interesting,” and offer up a nice big ass-kissing, when he’s got a history of attacking me? The problem for Liberal is that he’s got a history of attacking half the people on the board - and most of them are no more inclined than I am to let it go. If Liberal is incredibly unpleasant to interact with, I don’t see why the onus is on everyone else to walk on eggshells around him. He reaps what he sows, and Liberal has a bad habit of sowing dogshit.
Do you honestly believe that the reason Liberal is so hated is because of his politics? This board actually has a pretty strong libertarian leaning - perhaps not quite so strongly as Liberal’s, but it lurks somewhere between credulous and disingenuous for you to claim that Liberal’s long, long history of misbehavior isn’t the reason people don’t like him.
No, this is a bunch of people whom Liberal has personally pissed off responding to his triumphant return with something less than alacrity. Like I said, he’s got a history of making false allegations of rule-breaking against me. Given his prolificacy and tendency to be incredibly unpleasant, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the people who don’t like him have some sort of very personal history with him - though in my opinion his general misbehavior is more than enough reason to merit some animosity. If Liberal had cleaned up his act at some point, this thread wouldn’t have to be here. But he didn’t. I don’t think he needs to be coddled like a temperamental child. Clearly you disagree.