So, you’re saying nothing would change?
Creating a forum for them would only bring more of them.
Bug or feature?
“Poster X, what you’ve written here makes a certain amount of sense. Don’t do this again. Thread closed.”
“The Box” on Giraffe’s board works quite nicely as a time-out or permanent forum for the nutters.
On the SDMB, the various forum rules and their interpretations get a bit Byzantine, but the penalty of warnings leading to permanent banning is severe enough that the rules and enforcement are often vigorously protested.
A forum set aside for folks who don’t play well in the sandbox would make it easier to remove problem posters from the regular forums when they are acting up, without having to go down the very serious path of warnings and bannings.
Would I push for such a forum? No, but I think it would be worth trying for a year or so to see if it could be helpful.
You misspelled confused climatologists.
I would enjoy starting wacky threads in this new forum. Also it would encourage drug and alcohol use – what could possibly go wrong?
In case anyone has missed it, here’s a nice wacky current thread for you: Why placentas are really, really, **really **special and important (and ought not be used as food): Could the placenta continue to function? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
With bonus points for being written in a weird prose poetry style.
I’m going to click on this. Og help me…
I think the idea of an outright lunacy forum is premature. Perhaps we could start with an Ask the Outright Lunatic thread and see how it goes.
We could have a lot of fun with that as each of us normal (?) folks vie to play the best loonie.
And yes I realize I’m opening myself for a snarky comeback.
That thread does seem to be the current canonical example of a lunatic thread which would, at some level of development, be segregated into a theoretical “Outright Lunacy” forum.
But, like many lunatic threads, it didn’t start out with enough focus to identify as lunatic. It started out with an (apparently) sincere GQ-type question. The lunacy arose out of the unstated premise behind the question, and the OP’s assertive defense of that premise after it surfaced.
As pointed out, that’s the real weakness of a segrated space for loonies: they don’t self-identify, and often warm up gradually to full spittle-flinging madness. A sincere thread will never start there, because the lunatics don’t think they qualify. A troll thread will never start there, because why would a troll play according to the rules? Every qualified thread will start someplace else, and be migrated there. And frankly, if we’re going to move lunatic threads, we might as well (A) just close them, or (B) move them to the Pit, where we can at least actually have fun.
ETA: cited thread’s OP is gravely underestimating how tasty placenta stew can be. Just sayin’.
My serious contribution to this thread’s OP’s idea …
The problem with a loonie forum is that there are very few “harmless” loonies. No matter how charitable we each want to be towards the deeply confused or mentally unstable, the fact remains they don’t play well with others.
Most turn downright hostile pretty quickly. And there’s really not much fun in arguing at that point; it’s similar to he said/she said: the same points get repeated with no progress made.
Finally, there are plenty of places on the internet which specialize in lunatic spew and the bear-baiting in response. We could never hope to equal the likes of 4chan or Fox news. So why try? Our members who have the (questionable IMO) taste for such things can go find it elsewhere and leave our Olympian heights unsullied.
This one was just weird. And not “ha, ha” weird. More like I think he/she’s been skipping their meds for awhile weird. Which I guess falls into the OP’s premise.
But I still think we should just stick with what we’ve got. No need to get fancy. Great Debates for Witnessing and other general wackiness. The Pit for everything else.
Anyone remember who the poster was who insisted that only he could define the meaning of words? I think he got banned before he got Pitted. Pity.
I am a little bummed that the 9/11 thread was closed before I saw it. The video that was linked to in the first or second post of an F4 hitting a wall was a test that my Dad ran.
For the record, the biggest piece of fuselage after the test was about the size of a fist, according to my Dad.
Planes do not do well when hitting things.
Sleep
I do remember him, but in deference to the rules, I won’t mention his name. He sort of got pitted. He had a thing for hijacking every SSM thread with semantic arguments. One of the many SSM threads he derailed got moved to the Pit, so that was basically his pitting. I was very glad to see him go; I was sick of seeing him eat three threads a day.
We can and we do have people with diverse opinions posting here.
But wackadoodle threads or hijacks have certain well-defined characteristics: the poster implies that he is uniquely in possession of The Truth about a major issue which is unknown to everyone else in the world including the subject matter experts, who are alleged to be either ignorant or engaged in a conspiratorial coverup. Such a position is not an “opinion” – it’s more like the manifestation of a mental illness, or else it’s deliberate trolling, and either way, it’s immune to evidence and logic. This makes discussion with such an individual pointless. Furthermore, such threads tend to be repetitive, appearing again and again on common conspiracy themes, often from new joins who aren’t bright enough to realize that their amazing insights have already been raised and refuted dozens of times before. There is absolutely nothing useful about any of this.
I see “they” got to you, wolfpup.
Remove witnessing from great debates and give it its own forum. Let the nutters (religious, political, personal, whatever) have it out with each other there rather than crapping up other fora, and minimally moderate it so that those who are frustrated can vent.
Meh, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of this crap clogging up the works. Certainly not enough to justify its own forum. And it’s not like said nutters are going to notice it and say “Ah! There’s the appropriate spot for me to post my incoherent ravings!” The mods will still need to move posts and their shadows will stick around in GQ where most of said posters tend to first mark their territory.
Besides, the occasional loony post is entertaining. It’s cute to see one here and there in another forum. But I’m not sure I’d find a walk through a funhouse full of such posts anything but disturbing.
Also, why legitimize such posts by giving them a dedicated forum?