Having been instructed to move a thread here, here it is.
My opinion is that Der Trihs rightly earned the suspension. It does appear that there wasn’t a lot of warnings issued to him very recently, but his steady accrual of infractions over the years eventually accrued just enough to warrant the decision. Warnings on the SDMB do not expire.
Thoughts?
I don’t think it’s a good idea to post in this thread just to bash Der Trihs. But I think discussing the accrual of infractions leading to the decision may be worthwhile.
I think it’s a perfectly understandable and reasonable policy that infractions are not allowed to expire, and a significant accumulation of them, even over years, leads to moderator review of posting privileges.
That’s fine for a warning, where the person being warned can participate in the discussion and give their side of the story, but when a person is suspended they do not have the ability to do so. Seems somewhat unfair to me.
Infractions that do not rise to the level of official warnings are hardly justification for suspension. As many pointed out in the other thread, most of the “infractions” don’t even seem worthy of rebuke. It appears the justification is more like, “Well, everybody knows he deserved it!” without much concrete moderator action in his permanent record.
That’s why discussion should be limited to the mod action and the cited poster behavior that gave rise to it. The issue isn’t whether so-and-so is obnoxious or deserving of a smack (or not); it’s whether the cited behavior warranted the mod action. Not to be pretentious, but think of it as an argument in appellate court - the defendant isn’t on hand for that.
DT has never bothered me much, and I’ll admit that’s probably because I don’t seem to be in one of the many groups that annoys him, but he has a long history of skating right up to the edge of the rules, and in the linked post, he is pretty clearly insulting another poster. In particular, he claims that the poster has expressed a wish for Greeks to die of mass starvation, which, as far I could see, is entirely false.
Given that DT has a years-long history of this sort of outraged hyperbole, I can easily see this being one straw too many on the camel’s back.
Sorry, don’t have time to look it up but he’s already gone on record here as stating, more or less, that Mods asking him to dial back the hyperbole is tantamount to damanding that he lie (a bit hyperbolic in itself). Perhaps after the last warning he sent off a blistering, defiant PM in protest. Who knows?
Bottom line: a) I don’t have a problem with this particular suspension;
b) given what I’ve seen of the poster in question, I seriously doubt it will change anything, and DT is basically a dead man walkin’.
In the world of criminal law, to draw an analogy, sentencing decisions can be based on a wide array of past conduct – conduct that can fall considerably short of prior convictions.
You confidently declare that infractions that do not rise to the level of official warnings are hardly justification for suspension – where did you come by this understanding?
DT has never bothered me much, and I’ll admit that’s probably because I don’t seem to be in one of the many groups that annoys him, but he has a long history of skating right up to the edge of the rules, and in the linked post, he is pretty clearly insulting another poster. In particular, he claims that the poster has expressed a wish for Greeks to die of mass starvation, which, as far I could see, is entirely false.
Given that DT has a years-long history of this sort of outraged hyperbole, I can easily see this being one straw too many on the camel’s back.
Sorry, don’t have time to look it up but he’s already gone on record here as stating, more or less, that Mods asking him to dial back the hyperbole is tantamount to damanding that he lie (a bit hyperbolic in itself). Perhaps after the last warning he sent off a blistering, defiant PM in protest. Who knows?
Bottom line: I don’t have a problem with this particular suspension.
ETA: sorry ment to edit rather than copy post. Many apologies.
This isn’t the was it’s been applied or moderated in the past as I’ve perceived it, so to me, this is huge change for the better. Thanks Ed. Seriously–you and I have had some disagreements < cough > in the past, but I like the changes being made around here right now, quite a bit.
I think its odd that we have a mod pretty much gloating over the suspension in a closed thread over in the Pit. While I understand mods are also posters, it seems to me that the appearance of impropriety of a mod doing this, or in this case a guy who works for the SD, confirms that a bunch of people are out to get him, wrongly in this case, and for a bunch of crap in 2012 and 2013 too.
And that fits the model here, too: there was a mod Warning, which is the analogy for a conviction. In determining what action to take as a result of the Warning, it’s permissible for the mods to consider other conduct that did not quite rise to the level of a Warning, just as a sentencing judge can consider uncharged conduct when imposing a sentence.
Not wrongly. For years, he had a special exemption from getting modded for stuff that even the mods point-blank admitted would get other poster warned, especially newbies*. Now that terrible exemption is gone and he’s subjected to the same rules as others. And I’ll note that I’m one of the people who got mod-noted for the same behavior that got Der T. suspended. And I still think this is a good rule.
The forum is supposed to be Great Debates, not “See How Close To The “Insult the Post, not the Poster” line without getting warned” Forum**.
For the better part of a decade Der T has been doing the “All Xs are Y, oh, YOU’RE an X? Gosh!” gimmick and he’s gotten a free pass because of his magic special exemption (again, see cites in the Pit thread. It’s specifically stated he’s got a magic pass). Those days seem to be over and he’s subject to the same rules as everyone else. And good for the SDMB for fixing this special Der T. loophole/pass.
*See Pit Thread for cites, I don’t want to keep reposting links to dead rules.
**Although, I would personally love to see such a forum.
Without bothering to microanalyze the board rules, I would say DS needed a time-out so he could cool off. He sees every issue in extremes and becomes way too adversarial for civilized conversation. Even though he’s so over-the-top he can’t be taken seriously, he still needs to step away from the SDMB so he can lower his blood pressure a bit.
