If you’d bother to look in the thread, you’d see that many of the people asking for an apology/word from the mods didn’t even post in there. I generally don’t post to GD, but I read it a lot. When a poster misleads like that it is trolling, plain and simple.
I have no dog in this hunt and think is was underhanded, and makes december a lying, trolling twit.
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.
Daniel,
What I think trolling is is trying to get a reaction simply because it amuses you to watch people reacting to your posts. In this case, Freedom was making a serious point, by demonstrating the difference in reaction to one post vs. the other. (So he did not concede that he was trolling).
I disagree with your points 2) and 3). The entire point of the Freedom post would have been lost had people realized that his post was a parody. Most people do not consider themselves to be inconsistent, and if you put it to them directly, they are likely to think that they would respond in the same way in similar situations. By posting his parody without a disclaimer, Freedom presented people with the real-life actual situation that Stoid had, and was able to get a true contrast in reaction.
I’m all for honesty, but I think a bit of deception is OK if that is the only way to make a valid point. Psychologists doing studies are constantly misrepresenting their tests to their subjects for this reason.
All in all, I think this is kind of a borderline case. I agree that people have valid concerns. (And again, this does not concern SDMB policy).
Incidentally, in this thread, I’ve raised an administrative question: does the rule against calling a board member a troll apply in cases where the member has admitted to all the characteristics of trolling (i.e., having made a deceptive post in order to tweak other people)?
My apologies to the mods and admins if it does apply.
Daniel
When Alan Sokal disclosed that the article he had published in Social Thought was a spoof, did the editors thank him? Were they grateful that he had exposed a weakness in their peer review process?
No. They didn’t want to know that they had a problem. They attacked Professor Sokal for lying about his beliefs, for violating acadamic standards, for knowingly submitting a flawed article, and for anything else they could think of. As far as they were concerned, he had the problem.
Remember Abscam? Some government investigators pretended to be wealthy Arabs trying to get certain legislation passed. They found a few members of Congress who accepted bribes from them in exchange for votes. The perps were prosecuted and convicted. Did Congress appreciate it when crooks were weeded out from among their midst?
No. In fact, they passed a law against doing it again. Congressional misconduct wasn’t the problem; tricky investigation was the problem.
That’s human nature, I guess.
Izzy, fair points. The SDMB’s definition of troll seems to apply in this case, to me anyway. And given that the word derives from the practice of dropping a line in the water and hoping for a bite, and Freedom said, “I was putting a line in the water, but I didn’t think I would actually catch any fish,” his case seems pretty unambiguous to me.
There’s two different arguments, as you correctly point out:
I’d say yes, to the second question: although I think Freedom’s post would’ve been better served by a disclaimer, there may be some cases where you’re better off being a little deceptive in the beginning, as a rhetorical flourish.
December’s post fails on that criterion, however:
and
3) His point is very stupid: I’ve not yet seen any liberal agree with what seems to be his main point (Commie Pinko Democrats refuse to admit that the beloved Clintons are liars), whereas several liberals have said that sure, the Clintons were goddamned liars.
To summarize:
December seems to be in violation of board rules.
While sometimes deceptive practices can lead ultimately to making a good point, this is not one of those cases: the point it’s making is invalid, his rhetoric starts off extremely dishonest, and it never stops being dishonest, even when it gets to its ultimate point.
Daniel
Ah, they’re 1920s style death rays.
And they also maintained that his article was valid, in true pomo fashion. I maintain that you continue to be a liar, unlike Sokal.
You of all people shouldn’t be talking about weeding crooks out from the midst of people. You’re behaving in a dishonest, despicable fashion.
Your OP was clumsy in its lies; its point relied on failed logic; and had you asked your question straight-up (Are the Clintons liars?) you would not have gotten the answer from liberals that you seem to think you would have gotten.
Quit comparing yourself to people who are good at satire or good at rooting out corruption. You’re neither.
Daniel
So we’re backing off from our “The President”-is-an-entirely-valid-description-of-Clinton defence, are we? And by the looks of it, falling back on a fairly weaselly means-justifying-the-ends argument. Personally, I refuse to believe that the Hillary Clinton confusion was any such thing - you put that there because the date added confusing context to your “quote”, making it more likely to mislead.
Styling yourself as some sort of crusading “sting” investigator is laughable - your lie shows absolutely nothing about what the reaction would be to Clinton saying those words because a) he did not say them as presented and b) they are utterly out of context. If you wanted your little stunt to have any sort of validity, you’d have to track down Clinton now, get him to say your “quote” and then see what people said. If you think you’ve achieved anything other than making everyone think you’re an outright liar, you are severely mistaken.
Here poster december says
Wow! Not something I would have expected him to say!
I suppose I should point out that that is not the december we all know from this board, merely a person posting on a Yahoo! message board whose screen name is poster_december.
I feel it’s pretty much the same thing though, so it should be all right, right?
Whatami:
Was that the former December or the current December?
Desmo
Don’t be so hard on yourself. As a liberal, there was no way you could have taken the statement you quoted as it was intended.
Nightime
I understand your point, and it is well taken. But Clinton bears his share of blood and war and regrettable statements. Bush is Tweedle-Dee and Clinton is Tweedle-Dum as far as I’m concerned. It is too bad that government, like business and religion, is infested with politics.
I think it was “the” december, but it might have been The december…
To put it another way,
“I do not recall”
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.
december nice to see you still ducking any serious discourse. However, getting caught in such a poorly thought out lie and using such absurd Clinton-esce semantic exercises in a futile attempt at word-parsing have basically tarred you as an untruthful, non-rule following attention whore.
Given your current disaster, and your last disaster (as detailed with actual links on the previous page) you may want to start looking for a new message board where you are not known as the embodiment of the Joe Isuzu. Maybe the rushlimbaugh.com site has a suitible message board for you.
You know, this incident has made me think. I am pretty much immune to the little point that december was attempting to make, as I do not consider Clinton to have been that Fundamentally more truthful than our current President (I wonder, in fact, if it is possible for an honest person to even become president). Indeed, all that you can really say is that Clinton probably has a little less blood on his hands than Bush 2.0.
And yet, this incident really has been bothering me. I think that it is because it seems to be a case of december deciding that the ends justify the means, which is an attitude that I find deplorable. Also, my innate sense of justice and fair play are offended. It is clear that december deliberately mislead folks, bad enough in itself, but it also seems that this is a huge can of worms that the moderators and administrators are ignoring (I have, and I would be surprised if I were alone here, asked that they weigh in on the issue).
It seems that for a very long time december has been acting in bad faith, showing an appalling lack of respect for the rest of us and generally being a fine example of the things about humanity that are base and foul.
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.
Yeah, I am starting to think that he has naked pictures or something.
december is Ed Zotti’s sock, used to start controversy so the board will be more fun.
Truly you have a warped definition of “fun”.
Enjoy,
Steven