Which resulted in him getting an official warning.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12669395&postcount=52
Anyway, my comment was meant as ribbing, not malicious. And I enjoyed his rebuttal about me being a violent person simply because I want to hire government officials to steal his stuff. So does the person being insulted actually have to feel insulted for a warning to occur? I wasn’t offended and didn’t want him to get a warning.
And where is the line between joking and personal digs? Or trolling vs. banter?
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the mods to enforce the rules based on their perceptions of how the person at the other end of an insult felt about it – you kind of just have to draw a line about what is and isn’t an insult and enforce the same in all situations.
That said, that thread kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Rand Rover gets called out by name in the OP, responds with a scornful but hardly abusive post, and gets warned for it. Given the mildness of the “personal insult” and the fact that I’ve seen similar levels of mockery consistently go unwarned in GD for years, it ends up feeling a bit capricious.
That’s a warning that needs retracting, Marley. Rand Rover got called out by name, and his riposte was relatively mild. If Wesley Clark gets off without a warning, then Rand Rover should, as well.
Especially since many libertarians make explicit connections between things like taxation and violence, arguing that the only reason the state is able to levy taxes is that the state can enforce its will using agents such as the police.
And, to be honest, even though i’m not a libertarian, that’s not an especially problematic argument, in my opinion. While the authority of the state derives, or should derive, from the people, its ability to enforce that authority is a key aspect of its viability. Most people recognize that if they don’t pay taxes, the state can come and take their stuff and/or throw them in jail; most people realize that if they break the law, the state can do something similar. States are, pretty much by definition, institutions that rely on coercive abilities in order to function.
I think i should be able to describe the libertarian worldview and libertarians as “selfish” and “utopian” in a GD thread; i don’t see why a libertarian shouldn’t be able to describe redistributive policies and those who advocate them as “violent” or “coercive.”
While Rand Rover’s “you aren’t man enough” comment might have been out of line for GD, i don’t think it was any more inappropriate than the OP’s gratuitous calling-out of Rand Rover.
I’ve always thought that if you want to call someone out like that, then the Pit is the place to go. And if you want to debate a specific topic with a specific poster in GD, then you should be a little more courteous in inviting them to the discussion.
Why does everyone assume a statement like mine has to be malicious? Its no different than saying ‘hey, me and these hookers are all going to go shoot heroin and worship the devil, want to come?’ to a religious fundamentalist.
What Giraffe said. It’s not practical or a good idea for us to enforce the rules differently based on how thick an individual poster’s skin is. After all most of the time we have no way to tell if a poster is going to be offended by a particular comment or not.
Wesley Clark’s post was a bad idea in my opinion, but he didn’t insult Rand Rover. Rand Rover unambiguously insulted Wesley Clark. The situation doesn’t sit very well with me either, so I’ll see if any of the other moderators get a different reading on the situation than I did.
I assume you’re interpreting this part as an insult, but I don’t see it:
Fear Itself describes your beliefs in a way I assume you don’t like, but that doesn’t make the post an insult.
He can describe the policies that way if he wants to. The problem is that made his comment at Wesley Clark, not at the policies in question. He called him “a violent person” who “[lacks] the courage of your convictions” and who “[isn’t] man enough to come take my stuff yourself.”
So raising a particular individual’s taxes to take his money and “spend it on ourselves” isn’t insulting, but lacking the courage of his convictions and not being man enough is?
I know y’all really hate it when I argue this, but to me, this appears to be a blatant case of letting a lefty skate while you hammer a righty. I thought we’d been making considerable progress away from that kind of thing lately. This is a step back in the wrong direction.
An important difference, though, is that you didn’t say it to him in the context of an ongoing debate. You called him out by name in a thread where he had not even participated.
Instead of:
why not write:
??
It doesn’t change the substance of your argument, and it has the benefit of not poisoning the well by taking a direct jab at another poster.
As breaches of etiquette go, it’s not the worst thing in the world, and Rand Rover has demonstrated time and again that his skin is thick enough to take it, as well as dish it out in return. But i just don’t see the point of needling someone like that in the OP of a GD thread.
Exactly. “We should raise taxes on [any poster]” is not a personal insult. “You are a violent person, and you make it worse by lacking the courage of your convictions” is an insult. I think that’s very straightforward.
But this situation doesn’t completely sit right with me and I understand why other people feel the same way. Wesley Clark’s post wasn’t an insult according to the rules, in my opinion, but it was a personal dig and it was not in any way relevant to his argument. I understand you were making a joke, Wesley Clark, but it does not come off as a clear joke and I’m not surprised Rand Rover took it the way he did. So if some of the other mods think this is not fair or not the right call, I’ll reverse the warning.
I disagree. I’d be most insulted if anyone attempted to take my money away from me, or suggested doing so. The thing that nudges it over the boundary is calling out Rand Rover by name.
Even if you think one is less bad than the other, the fair thing to do is call offsetting penalties, and replay the down.
The naming of a specific poster rather than a generic class. If he’d said let’s raise taxes on the wealthy, fine–I’d still disagree strongly, of course, but there’s no personal insult there. Let’s take Rand Rover’s money is getting personal with a specific poster.
Wesley Clark’s remark was needling, but it was not a direct personal insult. It deserved an admonition not to do it again, which you did.
Rand Rover’s response was a direct personal insult ("You are a violent person; You aren’t man enough). It was against the rules, and deserved a warning.
Fear Itself’s remark may have characterized Rand’s views in a way he disagrees with, but it was directed at the views rather than being a direct personal insult and thus doesn’t merit a warning.
That’s not fair. You’re saying posters are free to poke Rand Rover (or possibly all conservatives and/or libertarians) with sticks, even though they really shouldn’t, but if the conservatives/liberatarians fight back, even mildly, they get hammered. By this logic, someone can start a thread called “Let’s take Oakminster’s guns and melt them down for some dippy-hippy scheme”, and I can’t fight back.
If** Rand Rover** hadn’t been called out by name, he wouldn’t have responded the way he did.
Either both guys get warnings, or both guys get a “knock it off/no warning issued”. The latter is the better choice.
Oakminster, as always, if you feel you are being “poked” or insulted or any other word of your choosing, the correct thing to do is report the post, not “fight back, even mildly.” This has nothing to do with political orientation, and it’s too bad you are insisting on viewing it that way. I think that’s the last thing I’ll say about this topic until I hear opinions from more of the staff.
A policy discussion about taxes, where one matter on the table happens to include a situation where you would find your taxes raised, is “most insulting” to you?