# Fighting Ignorance? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 31, 2003, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707 "2003-08-31T00:02:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/21 "2003-08-31T01:08:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Millen \* > \*\*I am not familiar with this member. Was he banned for his political beliefs, like **december**? \*\* He was not banned for his political beliefs. And neither was **december**. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/22 "2003-08-31T01:12:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Millen \* > \*\*\*\*Coldfire, could you tell me why december was banned? \*\* Read **CKDexterHaven** ’s post, in the “December banning” thread. I might add that CK is probably one of our most conservative members of staff. ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/23 "2003-08-31T01:21:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Millen \* > \*\*I am not familiar with this member. Was he banned for his political beliefs, like **december**? \*\* :smack: Incidentally, I’ve got to give credit to **mhendo** for spotting **Joseph**. He was here and gone so fast I wouldn’t have known he existed. Although, come to think of it, that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. There’s this rule, **Millen**. No, not the one about enforcing the board’s blatant liberal agenda. The rule of which I speak is “Don’t be a jerk.” **G.I. Joe** (and his leetle friend) is a jerk. He came in, slagged homosexuals, and left us with nothing more than a nasty smell of sock. Find a better martyr. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/24 "2003-08-31T01:23:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Millen \* > \*\ ***Coldfire** , could you tell me why **december** was banned? \*\* Dex has already explained in detail why december was banned. Do you have difficulty reading, or are you just plain stupid? ---
**Author:** ![Millen89](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Millen89](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Millen89)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/25 "2003-08-31T01:24:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben Hicks \* > **I’m sure you know this Millum but just incase, G.I. Joe = Gastro** I **ntestinal Jos** e\*\*ph \*\* I withdraw my OP. My faith in the impartiality of the SDMB is somewhat restored. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/26 "2003-08-31T01:25:12Z")
This **Millen** guy is really fuckin’ with my head. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/27 "2003-08-31T01:28:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Millen \* > \*\*And if **G.I. Joe** hadn’t been banned, you could be asking him that question right now. \*\* I doubt he’d have any answer besides ones evoking the Bible and “gays are icky.” Besides, YOU are the one who called the opinion “un-PC,” as if it were something laudable. ---
**Author:** ![Millen89](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Millen89](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Millen89)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/28 "2003-08-31T01:33:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben Hicks \* > **I’m sure you know this Millum but just incase, G.I. Joe = Gastro** I **ntestinal Jos** e\*\*ph \*\* Then why was he originally banned? ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/29 "2003-08-31T01:58:06Z")
Hey, didn’t you just withdraw your OP? Yeesh. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/30 "2003-08-31T02:19:06Z")
Good god, where are they coming from? Is there something in the drinking water? ---
**Author:** ![cheddarsnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cheddarsnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cheddarsnax)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/31 "2003-08-31T02:28:50Z")
Geez, for a second there I thought I might be stuck with the stupidest pit thread of the night. Thanks, **Millen**. On a more serious note… I’m not 100% sure on this, but I suspect **G.I. Joe** was originally banned in no small part because of this post: > [@](#): > > Actually, that is a really good question. I have not seen it answered. Why do some men feel the desire to insert their rigid rods of throbbing man-meat into other men’s feces-encrusted sphincters, then thrust rhythmically until their engorged balls and rock-hard erections erupt, spewing forth copious amounts of hot sticky love-juice into their partners’ eagerly awaiting rectums? ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/32 "2003-08-31T02:44:44Z")
Hey **cheddar** …what movie did you say you saw that in? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/33 "2003-08-31T02:46:16Z")
Coldfire said: > [@](#): > > It truly baffles me, how some people seem convinced that we’re a bunch of neo-hippies, banning conservatives left and right. In the days before the Web, I moderated the FidoNet Politics conference for quite some time (along with conferences on Church/State Separation, Skepticism, Music, and others). That’s where I learned my kind and generous moderatorial ways. And I always found it amusing to no end that when I would ban a conservative idiot rule-breaker, the right-wingers would whine about me being a liberal. When I would ban a liberal idiot rule-breaker, the left-wingers would whine about me being a conservative. Finally, when I banned a conservative and a liberal at about the same time, and got whining from both ends, I told them they should just get together somewhere and figure out if I was biased against the right or the left, and get back to me when they came up with an answer. The moral? When you ban an idiot rule-breaker, there is always going to be somebody whining that you had ulterior motives, even if it’s obvious to 99.99% of the others that the only “motive” was to enforce the rules. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/34 "2003-08-31T02:51:56Z")
Sheeeeesh. People are not banned for their political views, they are banned for their behaviours. Sock-puppetry, for instance, or repeated name-calling, or posting advertisements or links to porn sites, etc. We normally do not discuss individual bannings, out of respect for the privacy of the individual. In case of sockpuppetry, for instance, we usually make all the posts disappear, so you can’t actually track what the offense was. In short, you either trust the mods to moderate, or you go to some unmoderated board, and never dark on our door again. There is, I grant, one valid argument that says that we tend to ban right-wingers more than left-wingers, and that is that we do not permit hate-posts. We don’t permit hateful comments or threats against religious or racial groups, or against people for their gender or gender-preferences, etc. I think it is probably true that most of the hate-groups are on the far right rather than on the far left. That is, the racists and homophobes tend to be fundamentalist on the extreme right. So we probably do ban more right-extremists than left-extremists. Having said that, I don’t much know what we can do about it. We’re certainly not going to reverse our stance in allowing hate-posts. I can only re-iterate that we are not banning based on the political stance. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/35 "2003-08-31T02:52:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Miller \* > \*\*This **Millen** guy is really fuckin’ with my head. \*\* I thought he was you. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/36 "2003-08-31T03:01:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by C K Dexter Haven \* > \*\*I don’t much know what we can do about it. \*\* Just keep on doing what you have been doing: moderating and administrating in an even-handed, thoughtful, and responsible manner. ---
**Author:** ![cheddarsnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cheddarsnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cheddarsnax)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/37 "2003-08-31T03:09:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Xploder \* > \*\*Hey **cheddar** …what movie did you say you saw that in? > > 🙂 \*\* I just watched, GI’s the one who picked it out. Ask him. ---
**Author:** ![JerseyDiamond](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JerseyDiamond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerseyDiamond)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/38 "2003-08-31T03:10:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben Hicks \* > If, as you say, derogatory opinions on homosexality are strictly verboten how do you explain the fact that **JerseyDiamond** isn’t banned? > > - Probably because I don’t post as much anymore. Give it time. ---
**Author:** ![cheddarsnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cheddarsnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cheddarsnax)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/39 "2003-08-31T03:10:46Z")
Aww, damn. Insert your own joke about **Xploder** ’s name above. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707/40 "2003-08-31T03:16:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*Good god, where are they coming from? Is there something in the drinking water? \*\* What’re we gonna blame now that school is in session? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighting-ignorance/198707.md?page=3)