When a poster is found to be lying as in the cancer thread that is closed, why isn’t it deleted from the boards entirely. Alternate, delete all replies to the thread, mark the individual banned. Post reason for the banning and close the thread.
But the threads are such wonderful study of the human condition! I’ve gained tremendous insight in the thought processes (and what passes for thought processes) of various posters as I see them react and evolve to events revealed as the thread progresses. And it’s renewed my own personal commitment to prescribe more anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, and antidepressants for my patients! 
Qadgop
Good idea. That’s what would happen at an normal board.
If you say it sounds counter productive to do that, you’d be right. But they actually like to keep the dirt here. Ed likes it. He also likes to see the spiteful talk it generates. By framing everything as a power struggle, the locked threads means he’s “won” in some sense.
Or rather you could take it as Ed’s way of allowing history to stand, and people to be educated, even if they weren’t there at the time…
I think the quote is… Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it?
-Doug
Yup, that’s right Ma Parrot–Ed Zotti’s always skulking around the message board, saying stuff like “Let the hate flow through you! Become one with it, let it nourish you!” and “Good! Kill him! Your hate has made you powerful! Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father’s place at my side!” and “Your puerile skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side!” Then he laughs maniacally and shoots lightning bolts at us from his fingertips.
Well, if we were to delete all despicable lies, we’d lose this gem.
The idea has been brought up, but the admin here doesn’t feel comfortable with simply going back and rewriting history. They get rid of some stuff, but not much. Also, it’s useful to have evidence around, so that MO’s can be recognized, and, if necessary, ISPs can be fully informed.
Or at least that’s the official story. If you want to engage in wild conspiracy theories like some people, without any evidence, or even logic behind them, be my guest. But keep in mind that the people around here generally are the type to recognize that as patent BS.
I don’t normally quote entire posts, luckily this is a short one that speaks, er barks, with definate needs of refinement:
:rolleyes:
Polly need a dog biscuit? Or would that be a human leg to chew on a while?
Various reasons. One of which: we sometimes want to keep some evidence in case we report a poster to their ISP (yes, we occasionally do that in the more severe cases). In the case of Little Tassie, keeping it as evidence seems logical to me.
And folks, don’t worry about Ma Parrot - she loves the attention. Although she did make me think about a policy change we might have to go through with someday. It would sound something like this: “If you don’t add anything to the boards other than baseless bitching, unfounded whining, and general assholishness, don’t be surprised to find your posting privileges removed one sunny morning.”
Now that would be a cool rule.
Hasn’t it been said that the Admins frown on people who do nothing but whine whine whine?
Although I agree with you, Mr. Cloggo… it would be a nice official policy. Or, at the very least, a very strong suggestion.
.
::intones::
Beware the dread wrath of ZOTTI
Thank you Ma Parrot for warning us. I, of course, knew, but many on the board aren’t aware that ZOTTI is an ancient, undead psychic vampyre who feeds on the emotions of poor innocent posters, like Ma Parrot. He FORCES them to post through threats or intimidation. He has one of my cats held hostage. If I don’t post a certain quota a day, he sends me one of their whiskers in the mail! Who knows what hold he has on Ma Parrot: a pet? No, animals cannot tolerate the stench of holiness that radiates from Ma Parrot. A loved one or friend? No, problematic for obvious reasons. Who knows? All we know is that, terrible monster that he is, ZOTTI is feeding of Ma Parrot’s trauma from being forced to post here.
All we can be certain of, whatever ZOTTI’s hold on Ma Parrot, her obviously coerced posts prove that ZOTTI has her under his alien mind-control!!
But wait! By posting this, Ma Parrot has offered HOPE. ZOTTI would never permit a post such as this! A post which offers the terrible TRUTH about the board! Ma Parrot must have broken free of ZOTTI’s cold, implacible hold!
Flee, FLEE Ma Parrot! Run like the wind! Leave this board. Don’t look back! Go and never return! Remeber Lot’s Wife? If you thought the Wrath of the Lord was fearsome, it’s nothing compared to the Wrath of ZOTTI when one of his victims escapes.
Look upon his works, ye mighty, and dispair!
Fenris, who’s cat is gonna lose another whisker for this!
Comedy Ratings:
Ma Parrot: Ah, Conspiracy Theory Humor, my favorite category. Admittedly prejudiced, gonna give it a 9. But we are still waiting to hear from the other judges…
Buckner: LOL, endangering the mouthful of food, borderline splort. A Perfect 10.
Fenris: Eh, about an 8, needs work. Drink some more coffee (or is that decaf? Well, shoot, boy, switch to red label). 
He who has not told a lie cast’th the first edit.
You know it’s funny Coldfire, but every time you do this type of attack on critics you turn out to be wrong. I can’t see that Ma Parrot has not added to this board. Based on a simple check, I find her posts seem to be thoughtful and informed on a number of topics.
She is here to contribute. She chose to agree with Phobia. I chose to agree as well. It seems odd to me that you say you are worried about lawsuits from many things that are posted, and then leave them up. You say the trolls like attention, and then leave their words forever as monuments to their pranks. “Evidence”? No. If you want evidence, just save the page to disk before it’s erased. You don’t know how, perhaps, but it is right on the browser menu.
As to who is here just for baseless bitching, the ones I notice on this thread are the ones who came, not to comment on the OP, but to complain about “conspiracy theories”. Oddly enough, Ma Parrot does not seem to subscribe to conspiracy theories- she said simply, although perhaps too directly, that Ed determines policy, and if he wanted erasures they would happen, so if they don’t happen, that means he finds no problem with leaving the material on the board. Where is the conspiracy? Hard to have a one-man conspiracy.
[list][li]This wasn’t an attack. You’d have known if it was, believe me.[/li][li]I’m sure you’re right. But then again: I only said that her post made me think about that desired new rule. Reading Skills 101, pal. Besides: claiming Ed Zotti gets a kick out of petty fights on the message board does constitute baseless whining. Trust me, I know my boss. You, and Ma Parrot, obviously don’t.[/li][li]In short, there’s no way in hell M.P.'s post can be interpreted as adding value to these here boards. Sorry.[/li]
Agreeing with Phobia is fine. Suggesting one of the administrators of the SDMB gets off on fights between posters is an entirely different thing altogether. Why can’t you see the difference between the two?
Removing them may work against us as well. Think about it. The only constructive thing (legally) we can do in case of a legal threat is alienate ourselves from the aggressor. Banning them. Not that hard to understand, IMHO.
Untrue. A lot of threads by repeat offenders get deleted on the spot. It’s just that system speed doesn’t always allow us to remove it all. Then again, a locked thread is out of sight within a day. Monuments? Hardly.
Thanks. We’d never have figured that one out for ourselves. :rolleyes:
The way I see it? Many people chimed in to tell M.P. how baseless and ridiculous her statements were.
Here’s what she said. Read it slowly:
“Good idea. That’s what would happen at an normal board.”
Lesson 1: Our boards are not normal. Hey, we’re not exactly holding her down - buh-bye!
“If you say it sounds counter productive to do that, you’d be right. But they actually like to keep the dirt here.”
Lesson 2: “we” (whomever that is) like ‘the dirt’. Uh-huh.
“Ed likes it. He also likes to see the spiteful talk it generates. By framing everything as a power struggle, the locked threads means he’s “won” in some sense.”
Lesson 3: M.P. knows something about Ed that’s new to all of us. Ed’s in it for the sheer POWER of it!
Look, barflyer. I have no idea why you feel compelled to defend Ma Parrot in this case. But you sure as hell aren’t making any sense trying. MP is talking out of her arse, and it shows. Why would you associate yourself with that? I mean, do you get off on posts directed at you by the administration?
IANAL nor am I familiar with the inner working (technologically speaking) of the SDMB, but I don’t know that this claim holds up. All that saving a page to disk would do is create an HTML file – something that anyone could whip up in a few minutes. What’s being lost is by deleting a thread is quite a bit more than that, including, I think, a tracable IP. I could save this page to disk and edit it to say anything I want. I would have quite a bit more trouble inserting the appropriate data in the database to have a thread appear, even if I were a systems person at the Reader. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but it is a better piece of evidence than a saved HTML page.
Just for perspective, remember the instances where new posters wondered, “what happened when…?” and regs had different memories of exactly how something shook down. The latest Honesty cancer hoax was pretty horrendous but it sure wasn’t unprecedented. Leaving that evidence in place for posters to view doesn’t in any way imply endorsement of her actions. (Ma Parrot’s vile little cheap shot is so cynically, deliberately stupid it’s beneath contempt.) Yes, it’s distressing but it’s a fact: it HAPPENED.
In all fairness, where’s the line? Deleting blatant spam, illegal material, etc. is common sense. A drag, but necessary. But deleting horrendous board behavior would probably just spawn worse paranoia, not that some people won’t spin the absolute worst interpretation possible onto ANY action. How many times have we had dreary rehashes like, “X shouldn’t have been banned; I don’t remember that; it didn’t happen; it DID happen but you know how evidence conveniently disappears, ad nauseum.”
What people write, good or bad, stays for all to read and make their own judgments. Obviously this can be viewed different ways. I view it as tough, genuine honesty and a measure of the trust and respect posters deserve.
Veb
Saving the page wouldn’t save the IP numbers. And one of my administrative tools allows me to see if one poster’s IP numbers match any other poster’s. If I deleted the posts and/or threads in which bad behavior occurs, I don’t have the IP record in the database.
This doesn’t mean that we LIKE having it around, just that we need to have it here so that we can look up things.
… heck, if we deleted EVERY despicable lie, we’d have to delete around half of Great Debates, and probably about 25% of MPSIMS and IMHO and the Pit.
The biggest problem with deleting ‘despicable lies’ from this message board is that it’s wholly subjective; there is no manual that explains exactly what makes something despicable. In fact, whether or not something is an actual lie can be debated to the ends of the earth. So, since it’s so subjective, you’d then be asking the administrators and moderators to be even more vigilant than they are now. Do we want more vigilancy? I’m not so sure we need it. If obvious lies are perpetuated on here by someone, then dozens jump on that person, asking them to prove their claims. We police ourselves in that way! Let’s not make this into a Big Brother situation in which the management has to censor all of us. Let’s face it; they’re overworked as it is, with determining the propriety of threads and messages. Do they have the time, patience, and passion for this enterprise to take on such a task? Probably not, and I wouldn’t want them to have to do it, either.
One more thing on deleting threads of the nature being discussed here. Many posters are going to refer to this incident, or similar ones, at some point in the future; others will then ask what they’re talking about. As TVeblen has said, if we delete the thread(s), no one can any longer simply point to it in making an explanation. Also, deleting the original posts leaves the incident subject to misrepresentation through faulty memories. Finally, others may choose to purposefully revise, or twist, the incident in their own minds for whatever nefarious intentions happen to suit them.
So there’s three individual and valid reasons for keeping those thread around, in addition to the IP Addresses brought up by Coldfire and Lynn. Whatever any of you may think, we don’t really operate on whims around here; policies are discussed and debated between the staff, some of them at great length, and we believe our rules to have sound reasoning behind them. You may not agree with our policies, but if you choose to post here, you do have to abide by them.