# For post-modern posters, truth depends on who said it **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 21, 2003, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740 "2003-08-21T18:29:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/141 "2003-08-22T18:40:29Z")
Could the silence from the mods be related to Lynn being in the hospital? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/142 "2003-08-22T18:59:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben Hicks \* > You’re ignoreing the oh so slightly pertinent fact that **Collounsbury** , fount of useful MENA info that he was, was quite possibly the nastiest piece of work ever to grace these boards. You must be new to the boards, then, if **Collunsbury** was your idea of “the nastiest”. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ooga booga_ > I’m mostly a lurker and casual observer here. However, I can’t help but find it remarkable that not only has december all but admitted to trolling with his original thread, but then posted a second thread here crowing about his success in motorized fishing. And yet the mods have been (and continue to be) completely silent on the issue. \< **Ben Hicks** voice\> This is at least in part due to the fact that this board is run by people who share his views, namely right-wing liars. \ 😉 (For the humorously challenged: No, I don’t believe the SDMB is run by right-wing liars…) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/143 "2003-08-22T19:00:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*If that post was directed at my post, then I think you misread my intent. I thought it was funny to see December use Clintonian tactics to defend his methodology. \*\* Actually, I wasn’t sure which way you were arguing – but the grammar geek in me saw a chance to ally with the politics-arguer in me, and I couldn’t pass it up :). Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/144 "2003-08-22T19:00:54Z")
> [@](#): > > And yet the mods have been (and continue to be) completely silent on the issue. Maybe the administration are worried that, if banned, **december** will set up SDMBwatch - an organisation devoted to monitoring the impartiality of this message board and writing all manner of reports that highlight the anti-American, Anti-Israel, pro-terrorist messages that the Mods do nothing to put an end to. Or maybe they’re just having fun watching him weasel. I am. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/145 "2003-08-22T19:03:25Z")
While staff members often explain their decisions, they usually do not continue to discuss things after the explanation has been posted. Nor do they weigh in when people start arguing about how big a jerk somebody is being and whether they should be banned. Those are properly internal matters for the staff to work out for themselves, not things to be debated and decided upon in public. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/146 "2003-08-22T19:16:33Z")
Personally, I’m not in any hurry to get a mod answer – but eventually I _would_ like some clarification on the issues this latest prank raises. I’m hoping december gets at the very least an official warning against trolling. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/147 "2003-08-22T19:43:04Z")
[Administrator Weighing IN] I have reviewed december’s email to me and found it unconvincing regarding adequate justification for deliberate misattribution of a quote, therefore his thread remains closed. In Great Debates I do not wish posters to be required to verify the source of every quote; there should be a reasonable presumption of truthfulness on the part of posters. If everyone pulled crap like this latest OP, deliberately misleading and conflating quotes so that posters have to independently verify the source and content of each quote in order to have an accurate response, Great Debates would become enormously unrewarding to debate in. Who said what and when and why and where DOES matter, and deceiving people about those sorts of things makes you a poster I don’t want in GD. In the past we have allowed some leeway for posters who are apparently lying or misquoting because perhaps they were merely stupid and got confused, but december has plainly admitted he intended to mislead the board. I think this is unacceptable behavior, and given that I thought one of his latest OPs was primarily shit-stirring this recent bit puts him on _very_ thin ice. december, remember you have been emailed before and asked to clean up your act a bit; keep your nose clean from now on or you _will_ get booted. Parody remains acceptable, although if a poster refuses to admit it’s a parody to make some sort of point I’d be inclined to take some action against him/her. Parody does still work when people know it’s a parody; everyone gets Jonathan Swift’s point without needing to beleive he’ll really eat babies. However, if Swift was a poster on the board and seriously tried to make everyone think he really did intent to eat babies, I’d think he was being an asshole. [Administrator Weighing OUT] ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/148 "2003-08-22T19:57:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gaudere \* > In Great Debates I do not wish posters to be required to verify the source of every quote; there should be a reasonable presumption of truthfulness on the part of posters. If everyone pulled crap like this latest OP, deliberately misleading and conflating quotes so that posters have to independently verify the source and content of each quote in order to have an accurate response, Great Debates would become enormously unrewarding to debate in. Without disagreeing at all with the spirit of this comment, I will note - without singling any particular posters out - that there are several posters whose posted cites I always independently review, because I don’t trust them to have accurately or completely reported information. (This cadre of scoundrels, I might add, has members from both the right- and left-wing). - Rick ---
**Author:** ![whatami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/85f322/32.png) [@whatami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whatami)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/149 "2003-08-22T20:01:32Z")
Thank you **Gaudere** I appreciate you coming in to the thread and letting us know what’s going on. **december** you are now apparently on your third or fourth (13th or 14th?) warning. Keep this up and you might eventually get punished. ---
**Author:** ![ooga\_booga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/b77776/32.png) [@ooga\_booga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ooga_booga)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/150 "2003-08-22T20:02:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > \*\*While staff members often explain their decisions, they usually do not continue to discuss things after the explanation has been posted. Nor do they weigh in when people start arguing about how big a jerk somebody is being and whether they should be banned. Those are properly internal matters for the staff to work out for themselves, not things to be debated and decided upon in public. \*\* Of course. I wasn’t expecting the moderators to come along and have a public debate over **december** ’s posting style for all of us to see. I just thought it was surprising that after he gets smacked down for deception and/or trollery in the original thread, he comes along here and makes a second OP in which he seems not only unrepentant, but actually pleased with himself over the whole thing. It’s clear that the moderators of this board normally don’t take kindly to that sort of “nyah nyah” behavior after giving out a reprimand, so to me their silence (until **Gaudere** weighed in above) was, as I said, surprising. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/151 "2003-08-22T20:10:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by 5-HT \* > \*\*Believe him on which part? Do I believe the hillary part was an honest mistake before he got called on it? I don’t honestly know. \*\* I woudln’t. december has a history of inaccurate posts then acts all innocent á la Eddie Haskell when called on 'em. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/152 "2003-08-22T20:15:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > \*\ ***wring** , > > They are not specifically polite or impolite - they can be either, depending on how they are presented. You can lie politely or rudely, and you can tell the truth politely or rudely. Essentially, honesty and politeness are two separate concepts and don’t affect each other. > \*\* Only if you’re framing your definition simply on things like “is not calling names, is not swearing”. For example, I find suggestions that some one should learn how to read rude in the GD forum (since participation there somewhat requires that ability). I found it rude to the extreme. Since the exercise involved is communication, I would suggest that intentional misdirection is counterproductive to that end, and that to engage in that w/o fair warning is rude, since the ‘victim’ of the ‘joke’ gets to engage in what they believe is meaningful dialouge w/o the advantage of knowing the original statement was intentionally presented unfairly. (“the president” is distinctly different from ‘a president’ in our language and generally accepted word usage). I note that in this particular post you don’t seem to attempt to defend the behavior, merely to refuse to call it ‘rude’. Does this mean that you found his behavior to be, in any way, less than admirable? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/153 "2003-08-22T20:26:08Z")
Thanks, **Gaudere** , for the clarification. Here’s hoping december takes it to heart – although I’ll be astonished if he doesn’t take your post as further proof that liberals run the world. ☹ Daniel ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/154 "2003-08-22T20:30:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > I note that in this particular post you don’t seem to attempt to defend the behavior, merely to refuse to call it ‘rude’. Does this mean that you found his behavior to be, in any way, less than admirable? As I said in my response to Daniel W, I appreciate people’s concerns, and consider this a borderline case. So I guess it would be less than admirable. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/155 "2003-08-22T21:24:11Z")
Daniel > [@](#): > > I’ve known for awhile that Libertarian had a huge, martyr-shaped blind spot in his world-view; I didn’t realize you did, too. Oh, why don’t you stop whining and climb down off your cross? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/156 "2003-08-22T21:26:42Z")
Huh? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/157 "2003-08-22T21:53:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by milroyj \* > \*\*OK. Now what about the rest of you that called Bush a liar based on the Clintons’ statements? Are the Clintons liars as well? Yes or no? > > **RedFury, Voyager, Reeder (how predictable), tomndebb, An Arky, Fear Itself** care to respond? \*\* If you can show me where Clinton had intelligence telling him that there most likely were no WMD’s in Iraq, yes Clinton would be a liar. But Clinton didn’t take us to war over it either. And why do you think I’m a Clinton apologist? I’m not even a democrat. And I only voted for him once. ---
**Author:** ![milroyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@milroyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milroyj)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/158 "2003-08-23T03:08:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RedFury \* > **For accuracy’s sake, make that FIVE for the time being. My post was in _direct response_ to the thread _title_.** Fine, five then. You still knee-jerked all over the place. To sum up your position, if Bush said it, it’s a lie. Grow up. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/159 "2003-08-23T04:09:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by milroyj \* > \*\*Fine, five then. You still knee-jerked all over the place. To sum up your position, if Bush said it, it’s a lie. Grow up. \*\* And, obviously, a mature poster such as yourself couldn’t possibly accept being wrong without getting a knee-jerk partisan comment in there. Even _after_ I explained that I am not an American and couldn’t give a fuck about your Party politics. To sum up _your_ position, if Bush said it, conditioning takes over. You crawl on yer belly towards yours Master’s side while howling in orgasmic delight. A submissive’s wet dream. Never mind that thousands of people died and continue to die due to his lies – creaming your pants (or panties as the case may be) at the sound of Dubya’s unintelligible utterances, clearly more important. Yep, I want to be just like you when I grow up. But in the meantime, lick my dingleberries, cumstain. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740/160 "2003-08-23T05:22:02Z")
> [@](#): > > **Libertarian** : What he did was a practical joke, and like all such jokes, it left humorless people angry and upset that their panties were pulled down in front of everyone. I think that if you read the original thread you will find that most people did not get their panties pulled down after all. Please consider that no one has defended Clinton’s reputation on integrity. Also, some of us who are _humorless, angry and upset_ did not even respond to december’s original deception. So you will have to come up with another reason for us to be disgusted. If december had been able to bring this off without getting everything mixed up – misquoting and misattributing and misleading, his “joke” stood a chance of being humorous and revealing. But it was clumsy and totally lacking in the finesse which is so essential to wit. Further, it was too bungled to make the point he was trying to make (which was something along the lines of _Resolved: the sun is hot)._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-post-modern-posters-truth-depends-on-who-said-it/196740.md?page=9)