As patriotic Americans it’s possible Frank and Giraffe didn’t think of a third way to interpret Wildfire’s point, ie that this would be a good day to reflect that what brought terror to the United States was a terrorism based foreign policy and support for friendly brutal dictorships. That’s why I think AirmanDoor’s comment is unfair:
What better point and time? On the 20th Anniversary? Change the coup’s birthday to the 12th? Frank’s comment was particularly disappointing:
Only Chileans should worry about American sponsored coups?
I know that the OP was short on content but that was the point I took from it, even if I don’t entirely agree. Was it closed because there have been some specific warnings to Wildfire**MM in the past?
With a little more content, the post would probably not have been closed. As written, WildfireMM** came off like a childish ass trying to stir up shit.
I used to work with a Chilean engineer who was a student in Chile when 9/11/73 happened. Some of his friends were killed when the student radio station was bombed and it was just his good fortune that he didn’t happen to be there when it happened. When he emigrated to America, he started his college education from scratch because he was scared to have any connection to being a student in the 70’s there. Although many of us had known him for years, he never shared that story with us until exactly five years ago today.
When I saw Wildfire’s post, I knew exactly to what he was referring.
My point was that I would be mildly surprised if anyone outside Chile really thinks that date is important. After all, American sponsored coups are a dime a dozen.
That said, I didn’t close the thread, nor did I post in it as a moderator.
That that said, I’ve seen no evidence in WildfireMM**'s history here to indicate that he has any ability to have any deeper meaning in that OP other than trolling.
But all such interpretations are left solely as an exercise to the reader. If Wildfire had actually meant anything by what he posted other than to provoke and piss people off, surely he would have actually attempted - in that horrible, unintelligible way of his- to say something, right?
Fuck, I don’t even know if the Chilean coup was the thing he was getting at. Do you? It was the second poster in the thread who appended all meaning to that. For all we know, Wildfire had a kid born that day. Or a certain song he liked was written/recorded/released on that day.
The OP is solely the word “1973”. No other information at all is given. Such threads are closed normally.
And when a poster has a defined history of posting stupid, somewhat incoherent one-liners as OPs or as responses to threads not necessarily even tied to the subject of that post, we tend to call them a troll. Or rjung.
Seriously, which mod does rjung have incriminating photos of? I can’t think of any other reason why such an obvious troll hasn’t been kicked off the board.
CarnalK, you are correct that there could be an excellent pitting about US involvement in foreign Coups and rebellions. It is not the best day for it, but that part does not matter one bit. All he posted was 1973 without any explanation. That was stupid and trollish. I am sure I am not the only member that reported it.
What you posted is very worthy of debate. We have done much in this country that we cannot be proud of.
So? People were doing that anyway. It’s also entirely possible the OP would have returned to clarify sooner or later. I guess I just don’t get the point of closings like this. Sure, the OP was virtually content-free and I’ll grant you the OP gets minus several hundred points for effort. But, threads like that will either die on their own very quickly, in which case closing it would be unnecessary, or they will recover and thrive in which case, what’s the harm? I understand closing trolling threads–and if that’s what this really was, then say so–and flamewars that get out of hand and way off topic and other closings like those. But this seems like moderation for the sake of moderation, if you take my meaning.
That’s enough, I would think. If you want to say something, say something. Don’t just dangle a single word or number or link, implicitly saying “Hey, everybody, guess what I mean by this!!”
Better to just close it. If Wildy wants to elaborate on what he meant, he can always email a mod with an explanation.
I wouldn’t say that. I think discouraging lazy and/or content-free OPs keeps the overall quality of threads higher than if we let people drop cryptic turds all over the board. Without a clear starting assertion, as much of the discussion is going to focus on possible interpretations of the OP as it is going to be about the topic at hand. What’s the benefit to leaving such threads open? Anyone interested in the (possible) topic of the closed thread is welcome to start an actual discussion in a new thread.
Yeah, but why? Surely, if people were not interested in it, it would just die on its own, very quickly. Most such threads do; every now an again one takes off and thrives. It’s kind of an interesting sociological phenomenon. What makes one thread like that thrive while most others wither away? Well, it’s their board and they can close whatever threads they want; I’m just curious about the reasoning behind it. Seems like a discussion was beginning to take form despite the lack of content in the OP.
I’ve largely tended to ignore WildfireMM**'s posts because they seem to have only one or two purposes: Confusion, or provocation. I have yet to be able to read a single one of his posts that didn’t make me say “WTF?” or “Who is this asshole?” So I tend to ignore him.
For the OP, if his post history can be used as a benchmark, then I don’t really think his intentions were any deeper than anything else he’s posted, and here he was simply going for the latter of his two modus operandi. Any attempts to read more into it is, I think, giving him too much credit.
Sure, but is it really that much of a problem if you don’t close them? I’ve been on many message boards, on both sides–as a poster and moderator, but even on more or less unmoderated boards I can’t say that much more than about 1 thread in 100 was a “turd” like this. And like I said, most of them died quietly on their own. Assuming that figure is about right, that’d mean an average of about one or two such threads on the front page at any given time. Does that sound like much of a problem to you? Guess it depends on your level of irritability.
What, you need some sort of prompting to start a conversation? Why don’t you petition TubaDiva to incorporate a random post generator into the board software that randomly posts numbers, words, links to random web sites …
Like I said above – perhaps you missed it – if you want to say something, then fucking say it!!!
Dang, I kinda hoped more stuff happened in 1973 or that I could come back with this list from Wikipedia. Lots of interesting things have happened on this day. In fact, I bet America is somehow to blame for all of them. Let’s see:
1185 - Isaac II Angelus kills Stephanus Hagiochristophorites and then appeals to the people, resulting in the revolt which deposes Andronicus I Comnenus and places Isaac on the throne of the Byzantine Empire. Obviously another American-supported coup.
1297 - Battle of Stirling Bridge: Scots led by William Wallace defeat the English. Wasn’t Braveheart produced by an American company?
1541 - Santiago, Chile, is destroyed by indigenous warriors, lead by Michimalonko. Damn that American support of Michimalonko.
1919 - US Marines invade Honduras. Wait a minute…
1926 - An assassination attempt on Benito Mussolini fails. There we are, at it again.
1970 - The Ford Pinto is introduced. No comment.
1987 - 9-1-1 Emergency Number Day. Wow, those terrorists really dropped the ball by 14 years.
Yeah, the mods were right to close the thread. Even though I could’ve found out what he was talking about, it is still the kind of stupid drive-by posting that should be stomped.
Obviously, that’s not what I’m saying at all. But, the thread was posted, and a discussion was ongoing. What’s the harm in leaving it open? That was my question right from the beginning which no one is answering. Everyone’s telling me why it should be closed, but that’s not what I’m asking. Yes, those are all great reasons for closing it, but I’m asking about the other side of the issue.
Really? Oh, OK. That’s what it sounded like to me. I must be slow today.
Obviously, I can’t speak for the mods, but my guess is: This isn’t MPSIMS. But more than that, an OP really needs to be distinguishable from a random number generator, and in order to discourage such behavior, such theads should be closed down. The conversation itself can easily be restarted by someone willing to put a bit more effort into an OP. That’s my guess, anyway.
Wait - rjung doesn’t interrupt threads to make personal attacks?
Bwa-hah-hah-hah!
Oh, wait, wait, wait - personal attacks on W don’t really count, even if they’re brought up in Cafe Society and IMHO threads that don’t have anything to do with politics. I forgot.