Curious when enough is enough? [Der Trihs]

I know it is, I meant the tag would make sense, to distinguish that a borderline case had been modded as a note, not a warning. As for modding clear cut rules violations as notes - I’m sure it happens, but I also think this is a classic situation for confirmation bias. I think the mods tend to get it right a lot, you and others think otherwise.

In DT’s case for instance, I checked his mod notes linked in this thread, and only two seem like rules violations, and neither are clear cut (“you and your fellow veterans”, political jabs in GQ, both are by different mods).

OK. Now, why did you chop off my post and not answer the question that people are asking over and over again in this thread?

If the answer is: forget it, we’re not going to go there; or we aren’t going to be any more clear on this than we already have; that’s OK. But it looks like you are answering every question except that one that this thread is actually about.

Well, racist and misogynistic ideas, anyway. And it’s not the worst thing in the world because those people have their misguided theories shredded and discredited.

My apologies (putting aside the issue of what the thread is “actually about”). The answer is that other than those instances he hasn’t made a post we’ve considered a personal insult as opposed to an attack on a group. He was warned for the direct insults and mod noted for the comments about religious people/political parties/etc. when those were particularly over-the-top or not on topic. You’re correct that the notes haven’t escalated to warnings, but we also didn’t jump between notes and warnings at random; in that situation warnings are usually repeated and they’ll often be followed by a suspension.

Since I am sure I’ll get asked about this: yes, I mentioned the formal warnings earlier and I said they’re not totally dissimilar from the posts he is sometimes mod-noted for. The point I was trying to make is that he has received warnings from the mods (I think at least one poster said otherwise) and that we don’t overlook this behavior when we feel it clearly breaks the rules. When it’s borderline or poses more of an attractive nuisance as a thread hijack, we’ve opted for mod notes because we’ve felt that’s the appropriate response to a post that’s potentially inflammatory or could cause a hijack or provoke people but which is not on by itself a personal insult or completely off-topic or completely jerk-ish. I understand that the related complaint is that Der Trihs does it a lot, but see the preceding. That’s been my understanding of our rules and of the way we’ve agreed on dealing with these posts and posts like them, and if tomndebb feels this shows a flaw in the way we’ve handled it we’ll discuss that and go from there.

I was not aware of his warnings prior to creating this thread. But I think that just reinforces the original question. I think if any other poster had racked up an additional 7 mod notes since his last warning, more serious measures would be taken.

I know that notes aren’t as severe as warnings, but since they can be cited as partial reason for someone being banned, it is obvious they have some weight. Why not with DT?

I know you keep mentioning that the warning was for something different, but shouldn’t it all be taken in its entirety? Or does each rule have its own independent severity track?

Not if they’re for something else. (Similar rhetoric, different rules.)

Let’s not get overly technical on this. Saraya was a jerk. Given her short stay here, the two warnings would have been reason enough for a ban. Idle Thoughts mentioned the other notes as a way of saying she did the same thing in plenty of other threads and could’ve had several more warnings - the point being that she was told to stop doing that a bunch of times and didn’t listen at all.

Though I think the question still remains, as others have pointed out, why the totality of his mod notes for the comments about religious people/political parties/etc. and his inability to stop don’t fall under the “Don’t Be A Jerk” rule?

I understand what you’re saying they don’t violate the personal insult rule, how does attacking a group of people (that includes posters on the board) over and over and over again, told to stop, then resumes over and over again not being a jerk?

My feeling has been that if the individual comments come very close to the line but usually don’t go over it, which is usually the case, the totality wouldn’t be over the line either.

And again, how is that different from what Der Trihs is doing? The reason I listed all his notes in the first place was to show that he isn’t doing much listening to the warnings and notes.

Remember.. I’m a conservative. Explain to me in terms that a child a would understand what the difference between the two are. :slight_smile:

Saraya was told to stop posting slurs and general hate speech and did not. Der Trihs is often told to stop posting stuff that’ll probably lead to threads hijack, and in context of the individual thread, he does. I asked him earlier about simply not making those comments in the first place since he can clearly do it and the matter has been brought to his attention many times, and I eagerly await his reply.

I meant he wasn’t a PhD (and to be honest is showed). Dio had a Masters in religious studies and understood Greek. He was an addition to the board in a way that few are.

And saying, “Oh and he made a few contributions,” doesn’t cut it (Finn). The board lost a chunk of expertise when he left. And it wasn’t a matter of mood: he had uncompromising opinions in IMHO, but that surely doesn’t qualify as his core competence. On religious topics he certainly had opinions but they were well informed.

Heh. On the other hand, I see he was boxed at the other board for advocating miranda rights for the Boston Bomber and other hot button opinions in one sentence increments.

Bingo. Der follows mod instructions, which generally involve “Knock it off” within the thread in question. And when warned he doesn’t whine about it, in contrast to the majority of ATMB crybabies. Nor does he generally complain about the more or less continuous bashing directed his way in most forums.

A few poster here want him to receive stronger, longer term mod instructions. Well that’s one idea, but I fear that in this case such a policy might smack of censorship without some care.

I disagree with this, but it’s worth quoting. Actually, I think the issue is that most hot-heads lack the iron discipline that Der possesses. Witness his refusal to defend himself in most pit threads – though there is some evidence that he reads them.

And as a counter example, there are a lot of bat-shit opinions that Dio had that I was able to laugh off (eg, the Boston cops were pussies for not storming the boat that the Boston Bomber was holed up in). I mean that POV is not only insane and misguided, doesn’t really align with the biases of basically anyone. Except perhaps those with a twisted sense of humor such as myself.

You still don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what the details are. When someone is asked to “stop doing x” and he keeps “doing x”, what is the point of asking him to stop if there are no consequences? Either stop asking him to stop or do something about it.

And this goes beyond the poster in question. This arose because of perceived bias in favor of certain posters over other posters. If a newbie come on board and did what DT does, he’d be banned in a few months.

Now, maybe you don’t care about perceive bias, but if that’s the case, then let us know and we (or I, at least) will drop it.

As I said in a subsequent post (and a :smack: on the misplaced plural here):

The notes are usually intended to prevent a thread hijack, and to that end they work.

[QUOTE=Measure for Measure
]
I meant he wasn’t a PhD (and to be honest is showed). Dio had a Masters in religious studies and understood Greek. He was an addition to the board in a way that few are.
[/QUOTE]

He was, and I was sad to see him go, though I rarely agreed with him. But it was militantly unsurprising that he was finally banned…he brought it on himself. Simply being worth while to the board isn’t enough if you are constantly being a jerk AND butting heads with the mods.

He doesn’t whine and complain…but he repeatedly breaks the ‘don’t be a jerk’ rule, IMHO. And he gets away with it. Perhaps your understanding of the board rules is better than mine, and when mods warn a poster they only mean in the specific thread the infraction was given in. In which case you are right…he rarely breaks the rules in a given thread after he’s been warned or noted. If that’s the case, and the mods aren’t looking for posting trends then I’m puzzled by other bannings I’ve seen.

He doesn’t respond to Pit thread because, frankly, there are (or used to be) so many of them. And he really doesn’t seem to care what others think of his opinion. I respect that, though I think most of his opinions are far from rational. His view of the world is so ridiculously black and white it’s usually laughable…or cringe-worthy on the rare occasions we are sort of on the same side of a debate. There are a few notable exceptions, such as his extremely good and quite interesting posts concerning 9/11 Truthers and the like…and some of his gaming insights are quite interesting as well.

I’m not one calling for his head…I don’t want to see him banned. I would like to see him have to be more rational, or at least more circumspect in his postings about theists and religious types, Americans, Republicans/Conservatives and women, however. There are many posters on this board who can and are critical of many of those things without having to resort to his, um, style of criticism.

When I say such things I don’t generally think that it is a “thread hijack” in the first place; I think that it’s a matter of other people ignoring the actual issues. Probably about 2/3rds of the time I just abandon the thread in question after such a mod note because there’s nothing else for me to say on the matter if what I think are the important issues are forbidden.

And on occasion I do speak with more heat than I should have so I back down on that but keep posting. I’ve never claimed to be the most even-tempered of people.

I’ll also say that sometimes what I say unintentionally comes across as accusations that my opponents are crazy, when in fact I think they’re just lying. But we can’t say “I don’t believe you” in GD, so the rules of GD essentially force people into implying that other people are crazy - because after all if they say things that they know are false but aren’t lying, then what else is there for them to be but “crazy”?

Actually it’s because being piled on a dozen-to-one never turns out well for the one, and because of the various rules-skirting indirect wishes for my injury or death.

No. You have stated that you want to maintain a certain level of seriousness, for lack of a better word, in GD. Hence the sanction against “gun grabber” and “libtards”, etc. Those, like DT’s posts, don’t threaten to hijack threads. They cheapen the discourse.

I don’t have time to research the history of the mod’ing at this time, but I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I don’t think I am, but we’ll see.

Has anyone actually taken the time to open the threads linked in the OP and read them, (and not just the single post in the links)?

Despite the implication that Der Trihs is constantly being Mod Noted for his abusive language, that is not born out by the actual links.

Taking the Notes that I posted:
05/09/12: Der Trihs is one of two posters who decided to use the thread as a platform to air their personal beliefs and began a hijack they were told to stop.

06/30/12: Der Trihs got into a pissing contest with another poster and both were told to stop.

08/12/12: Der Trihs was told to stick to the topic and not run off with a hijack on another rant against religion.

04/27/13: Der Trihs posted an insult at a group that clearly included other posters and was told to stop. (In this case,the insulting word was “bigoted”–a word that a large number of posters have claimed that they should be allowed to use in various discussions because (in their opinion) “it is true.” (There have even been expressions of that viewpoint in this thread.) I would see this as an extant example of the sort of Modding for which Finn has argued.*

I have not gone back over every Mod Note that Marley posted, but I would not be surprised to see similar results. Only one of the Mod Notes I handed out was for insulting language–and that was for language that a number of posters have argued that they should be allowed to use.

The problem with Der Trihs’s obnoxious comments is not that they are always more offensive than posts by other people, but that he employs them more often. I encounter comments along the lines of his comments on a regular basis, but they are scattered among different posters–posters on all sides of political and religious discussion. If we are going to hand out Warnings for that behavior, then we need to hand them out to a lot more posters. Clearly, this would remove Der Trihs from the board if he did not change his behavior, but it would also mean a change in approach to posting for a lot of posters. If the board wants that sort of change, I am open to discussing it, but that is a different discussion than the one that is going on in this thread.

  • And while Finn’s examples have generally employed insulting words, Der Trihs generally does not call the targets of his ire “scumbags” or “motherfuckers”; he simply identifies them as evil. Do we really want to prohibit any claims that a group has behaved evilly or stupidly from great Debates?

Along those lines… I perceive that John Mace wants to raise the general level of debate in GD. I perceive that he doesn’t merely have it in for Der Trihs. If this is the case, I would recommend that JM contemplate the sort of specific and enforceable policies that he would recommend for GD and post them in another thread at some point. Not necessarily now: I understand that crafting rules is harder than shooting from the hip. We have plenty of the latter in ATMB.

Tea and Crumpets
Another option would to start another forum which happens to have heightened civility, though frankly that seems unnecessary and imprudent to me.

General rule: if you think someone’s being dishonest, discourse with them is already over. But another general rule: everyone thinks their opponents are being dishonest, because why can’t that motherfucker see the obvious point you’re making and admit you’re right? You, like every other human being who’s ever lived, privilege your own opinion and stand by it.

The vast majority of people you’ll encounter on a messageboard aren’t being dishonest or crazy, even when they refuse to accept the totally freakin obvious truths you lay on them. They’re privileging their own opinions the way you privilege yours.

If you’re hoping to have productive conversations with other people, you need to admit at least the theoretical possibility that they’re approaching the issue from a principled standpoint, and you need to listen to them. If all you do is call them insane liars, it does nobody any good at all.