# Gonzomax's banning **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 23, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824 "2011-11-23T00:45:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/41 "2011-11-23T16:55:13Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Since **gonzomax** can’t defend himself, please keep negative comments about him to a minimum. ATTN Marley: I posted my comment before I saw this note. I’m not actively trying to disobey a mod note, but at the same time, this is NOT a rule, it was an idiotic idea that Liberaltarian repeated over and over and over and over. And if there’s the thought to make it a rule, I’d argue against it. Anyway, sorry again, for what I posted. Had I seen your note first, I’d probably have opened up a thread questioning it instead of posting. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/42 "2011-11-23T16:55:47Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > PS–I just looked. There’s no actual rule saying we can’t badmouth ex-posters. It’s a board custom but it’s a stupid custom so, in this case\* fuck him, I’m glad he’s gone. Good job mods and good riddance to him. See, that’s what I mean. If gonzo had said that, he would have been banned. Oh; wait; he was. Buh-bye **Fenris**. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/43 "2011-11-23T17:00:51Z")
Except I don’t do it constantly. I’ve been here nearly 10 years with no warnings at all. Gonzo couldn’t go 3 months without a warning. So I’m not really all that worried. ---
**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:** [November 23, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/44 "2011-11-23T17:07:14Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > And the appropriate response to annoying behavior is to get annoyed. > > Or to put the annoying poster on "ignore.’ > > Or to pay scant attention to his posts. Or to ban the annoying poster. Why wouldn’t this be appropriate? > [@](#): > > My point is that banning is a big deal. To deal with annoyances, it’s way-overkill. Why? If I had parties at my house on a regular basis, and if one person in the group wasn’t actually punching people or groping them, but was constantly annoying everyone else, I’d stop inviting them to my parties. I think you’re suffering from [Geek Social Fallacy #1](http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html) > [@](#): > > Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil > > GSF1 is one of the most common fallacies, and one of the most deeply held. Many geeks have had horrible, humiliating, and formative experiences with ostracism, and the notion of being on the other side of the transaction is repugnant to them. > > In its non-pathological form, GSF1 is benign, and even commendable: it is long past time we all grew up and stopped with the junior high popularity games. However, in its pathological form, GSF1 prevents its carrier from participating in – or tolerating – the exclusion of anyone from anything, be it a party, a comic book store, or a web forum, and no matter how obnoxious, offensive, or aromatic the prospective excludee may be. > > As a result, nearly every geek social group of significant size has at least one member that 80% of the members hate, and the remaining 20% merely tolerate. If GSF1 exists in sufficient concentration – and it usually does – it is impossible to expel a person who actively detracts from every social event. GSF1 protocol permits you not to invite someone you don’t like to a given event, but if someone spills the beans and our hypothetical Cat Piss Man invites himself, there is no recourse. You must put up with him, or you will be an Evil Ostracizer and might as well go out for the football team. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/45 "2011-11-23T17:09:35Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > I’m not actively trying to disobey a mod note, but at the same time, this is NOT a rule It’s a policy that we’ve laid out in tons of threads about bans over a long period of time, and you knew about it whether you saw my post or not. I don’t particularly care about your opinions on the provenance of that policy, and if you want to propose new guidelines for how we talk about banned members, start a new thread. I’m giving you a formal warning here. For the record, here’s how I see it: this isn’t the Pit, it’s a forum for discussion of the rules and moderating, and sentiments like “fuck him” don’t contribute to the conversation or anyone’s understanding; it’s true that it IS sort of ugly on a personal level; but more importantly, we don’t want bannees to decide to come back and troll the board because people are bashing them when they can’t respond. I don’t think that’s particularly likely with **gonzomax** , but it’s easier to say “don’t do this” than to try to prevent it for posters who might start sock accounts and leave it alone for guys who probably won’t. We don’t need the headaches. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/46 "2011-11-23T17:26:10Z")
> [@Keweenaw](#): > > Bigger loss than Dio. Let me think about it.. Two seconds is enough. No, just no. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/47 "2011-11-23T17:53:47Z")
I think the warnings should be evaluated per number of posts rather than time. If one post per thousand is shitty that’s different than someone who can’t go 50 posts without getting a warning. That said, I’ll miss Gonzo, he was often right, but didn’t always argue it well. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/48 "2011-11-23T18:12:03Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > It’s a policy that we’ve laid out in tons of threads about bans over a long period of time, and you knew about it whether you saw my post or not. I don’t particularly care about your opinions on the provenance of that policy, and if you want to propose new guidelines for how we talk about banned members, start a new thread. I’m giving you a formal warning here. Would you mind clarifying exactly what you are warning Fenris for here? His post about gonzomax, which he made before reading your mod note and immediately apologized for disobeying mod instructions? Or for positing that you were incorrect to tell people not to bash gonzomax, given that there isn’t a formal rule in place saying such behavior is expressly forbidden? If the latter, that seems a bit harsh, given that we are in ATMB and said prohibition was already under discussion in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/49 "2011-11-23T18:22:05Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > If one post per thousand is shitty that’s different than someone who can’t go 50 posts without getting a warning. Why should some acceptable posts should buy you a free pass to insult people? Many of our most prolific posters have very few warnings or none. It’s not as if warnings just happen as an inevitable consequence of racking up a lot of posts. > [@Giraffe](#): > > Would you mind clarifying exactly what you are warning Fenris for here? His post about gonzomax, which he made before reading your mod note and immediately apologized for disobeying mod instructions? Or for positing that you were incorrect to tell people not to bash gonzomax, given that there isn’t a formal rule in place saying such behavior is expressly forbidden? Both. I was not “incorrect” to tell people not to bash **gonzomax**. Like I said in the warning, there’s a longstanding policy that we not get overly personal in criticizing people who’ve been banned. **Fenris** was aware of that and said so upfront. We’ve moderated threads about banned posters that way for years. I had also just moderated **John Mace** for a more mild post and explained what was kosher and what wasn’t. What was kosher stopped well short of “fuck him.” And we rarely accept “I didn’t see the mod note” as an excuse. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/50 "2011-11-23T18:28:27Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Why should some acceptable posts should buy you a free pass to insult people? Many of our most prolific posters have very few warnings or none. It’s not as if warnings just happen as an inevitable consequence of racking up a lot of posts. I was thinking that slipups are inevitable. If you write a thousand posts you’re gonna say something stupid. Well, maybe not _you_, but I would. 😃 Also, if one post in a thousand is shitty, you are hopefully bringing more to the board than you are weighing it down. Just a thought mind you, I’m not a mod and haven’t given it a great amount of thought. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/51 "2011-11-23T18:45:29Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I was thinking that slipups are inevitable. I don’t think so, but either way, we’re forgiving of one-time or very rare slipups. The way we approach these situations is that it’s not a serious problem until the rules violations become a regular occurence. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/52 "2011-11-23T18:48:16Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Both. I was not “incorrect” to tell people not to bash **gonzomax**. Like I said in the warning, there’s a longstanding policy that we not get overly personal in criticizing people who’ve been banned. **Fenris** was aware of that and said so upfront. We’ve moderated threads about banned posters that way for years. I had also just moderated **John Mace** for a more mild post and explained what was kosher and what wasn’t. What was kosher stopped well short of “fuck him.” Longstanding policy or not, the line is not quite as bright as you might imagine. [The ATMB thread on prominent posters](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=632024) had quite a few negative comments about banned posters that went unremarked on for two pages and as many days, before Tuba simply asked people to get back on track. **twickster** recently took an [out of the blue shot at Diogenes](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14472156&postcount=16) in IMHO. It happens all the time and is almost always quashed with a mod simply asking people to stop. Handing out a warning for the first such post after years of never warning anyone for the same behavior seems kind of unreasonable. As for the second issue, what exactly are you asserting? That posters can get a warning for disagreeing with mod actions in ATMB if the mod thinks they’re in the right? I’m not trying to play gotcha, I honestly don’t understand what you’re saying Fenris did to deserve a warning on this side of things. 😕 > [@](#): > > And we rarely accept “I didn’t see the mod note” as an excuse. Given the longstanding policy of mods explicitly labeling their official requests with “Mod Note” post titles or tags, I think you might reconsider your stance in this case. Looking back, I see that none of your posts prior to Fenris’ were labeled as official instructions, so it’s not unreasonable for him to have missed them on the first read through. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/53 "2011-11-23T18:54:32Z")
Is it against the rules to bash a banned member in the Pit? ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/54 "2011-11-23T18:58:37Z")
Well, I hate to post this in the middle of an interesting discussion about a new transgression, but I’ve got to leave my desk for a while, and I wanted to get this into the thread. Please continue as you’re going, then come back to my idea later. I’ll check back. I’ve been reading this Board since well before my join date. I still lurk far more than I post, but I’ve had spirited discussions (ahem) with **gonzo** and others. I’ve never been warned (have I?) because I’m pretty good at modulating my behavior, face to face or through a keyboard. Such sometimes comes with age \. There are certainly bans that are an unmitigated benefit to the Boards; some posters bring absolutely nothing of redeeming value. And I don’t object in particular to **gonzo’s** banning, or **Dio’s** , or **mswas’** , or others I could name. I’ve sometimes scrolled past their posts when they particularly annoyed me, and seen them all derail threads I would otherwise enjoy. Banning them was certainly justifiable. But as this thread demonstrates, such bans are perhaps more of a mixed blessing. Something of the special flavor of this place is lost when long time posters, even cranky, contentious, sometimes annoying and occasionally insulting posters, are banned. We lose their jerkish behavior, and that is good. But we lose a bit of that edgy, sharp, even snarky attitude that makes this place worth my reading time. And that isn’t so good. I’d like to add my voice to the suggestion that suspensions should be more commonly used in such situations. Again, spammer – ZAP!! Troll – ZAP!! But for long time posters who have made positive contributions – notes, warnings, suspension, yes. Moderation is necessary, and here, by and large, it’s quite good. But why is a ban absolutely necessary on the next offense? Why not another suspension? Not, mind you, a stepwise progression, as suggested above. That seems like a pain to keep track of and I don’t see the increments as being useful. But more like this: As is present practice, you accumulate your notes and warnings to the point of suspension, and WHAM – gone for two months. You come back and – after a day, a week, a month or longer you offend again. WHAM – gone for another two months. This could be almost open ended, as far as I’m concerned, with allowance for Mod discretion. You come back from your suspension (whichever suspension) and the worst thing (from the perspective of the Board) is you immediately offend again, so you immediately get bounced again. If it was a really egregious new offense, then BAN. But maybe the returnee was baited, in which case he’d have another two months to think about avoiding the temptation to reply. Other returnees might go months or longer at a time, making positive contributions, before flying off the handle again. And getting bounced again. What’s the down side? Some poster, soured by his suspension, comes back and posts something really ugly? He’s immediately banned and his post deleted. Clearly he’s a lost cause. On the up side, posters like the subject of this thread could continue to make some positive contributions in between their outbursts. Even if those positive contributions are simply to contribute to the special ‘flavor’ that is SDMB. If the period between those outbursts grows longer and longer, everybody wins. If that period grows shorter, everybody will see that a ban is really necessary. And again, everybody wins. What about it? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/55 "2011-11-23T19:20:10Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > But for long time posters who have made positive contributions – notes, warnings, suspension, yes. Moderation is necessary, and here, by and large, it’s quite good. But why is a ban absolutely necessary on the next offense? It’s not automatic. **gonzomax** received five warnings between his suspension and ban. **Diogenes the Cynic** had several, too, in shorter order. That’s usually how it goes. As I said earlier, we say the suspension is your last chance, but it often doesn’t play out that way because we usually end up giving people extra chances. That’s really what the suspension itself is. These are all steps that were added to the banning process over time. It’s usually better to have more tools at your disposal, but adding more and more required steps to a process is limiting. There’s a reason we don’t have a required number or warnings before a ban or a required period of time, for example. Someone mentioned three-strikes laws earlier, and those laws are widely despised - I think they’re very stupid myself - because they remove the discretion of human beings from the process. The same goes for mandatory sentencing laws. > [@](#): > > …But maybe the returnee was baited, in which case he’d have another two months to think about avoiding the temptation to reply. I really want to emphatically reject this concept. We expect people to do better than that. I understand they don’t always do so, and I understand that **Shodan** ’s post was provocative, which is why I gave him a mod note for it. I hoped that would stop **gonzomax** from responding or going too far, but of course, it didn’t. And more to the point, neither did any of the other times **gonzomax** was warned in similar situations, the fact that he’d been suspended previously, the fact that we’d told him outright he was on the verge of being banned, adn the mod note the previous day. The fact that he was “baited” doesn’t make all of that go away. We try give people a significant number of chances to shape up and stop breaking the rules because we do what we can to allow people to continue contributing. I think this sometimes gets lost in threads like this is the more second chances we give to people who can’t follow the rules, the worse things get for everybody else because they have to put up with stuff like this more often. It becomes more complicated for us when we try to hold everybody to the same standard, and it becomes harder and hard to keep things simple and understandable. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/56 "2011-11-23T19:22:43Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Is it against the rules to bash a banned member in the Pit? We generally close down Pittings of people who have just been banned in short order, although we usually don’t to that instantaneously. > [@Giraffe](#): > > Longstanding policy or not, the line is not quite as bright as you might imagine. Maybe not. But we’re not talking about a couple of different lines (was it a mod note or not, is it a rule or not, does it count if he saw it or not) that **Fenris** was all aware of because he’s been here a long time and because we know he keeps a close eye on the rules. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/57 "2011-11-23T19:24:23Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I was thinking that slipups are inevitable. If you write a thousand posts you’re gonna say something stupid. Well, maybe not _you_, but I would. 😃 > > Also, if one post in a thousand is shitty, you are hopefully bringing more to the board than you are weighing it down. Just a thought mind you, I’m not a mod and haven’t given it a great amount of thought. \*\*But you have over 6,000 posts … and only one warning. \*\*However did you manage that? You’re obviously slacking here. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/58 "2011-11-23T19:34:15Z")
I’ll note that ratios aren’t really practical because warnings carry less weight over time. And I also don’t like to publicly disclose how many warnings someone has unless they’re being banned or suspended. So I will say that if we DID work in any kind of ratio, there are posters who have 30,000 and 40,000 posts and zero warnings, which presents two problems: it lets you know any ratio would be extraordinarily high, and that it’ll be hard to create one in the first place because you can’t divide by zero. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/59 "2011-11-23T19:35:43Z")
I always thought **gonzomax** was one of the more mysterious and puzzling members of the board. He was _highly_ opinionated, and he seemed to be pretty acutely aware of the world around him - not some basement-bound shut-in. He was also, apparently, older (in his sixties?) and I always assumed he was a hippie or part of the 1960s political activism. The odd thing about him was his very stubbornly obtuse way of communicating. He refused to make any effort to type like a normal person - seemingly _proud_ of his weird use of the comma (placing it a space after a word’s last letter and directly against the first letter of the next word ,like this.) He never capitalized either, and his writing was always filled with odd mistakes and cryptic, truncated sentences. Because of this scattered, inarticulate method of typing, I always wondered what kind of a guy he was in real life, and what it would be like to talk to him. I’d bet that he’s probably a lot better at communicating verbally. I also always wondered what he looked like. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824/60 "2011-11-23T19:41:29Z")
> [@TubaDiva](#): > > \*\*But you have over 6,000 posts … and only one warning. \*\*However did you manage that? > > You’re obviously slacking here. 😃 If anything, the mods are slacking. [/dives\_for\_cover] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gonzomaxs-banning/603824.md?page=4)