# Grow up, leander. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 19, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451 "2008-11-19T15:00:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/161 "2008-11-23T17:26:33Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > The summary I wrote a while back: > > [**handy**](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php?userid=90) > Usually talking [out of his ass](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=224983) **handy** had the record number of posts before his banning (17 000+, 03/12/1999 - 11/25/2003). He was under a warning not to post any medical related information. The health benefits of condom use was [good enough](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=223724&page=26&pp=2) for staff. > > He made one rather [sad peep](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=229062) for reinstatement, denied Damn, that was a real “because I can” banning, if I ever saw one. Ouch. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/162 "2008-11-23T17:49:15Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > Yawn. Trying to be the first to yell “troll” or “snarker” at other posters is just as retarded as trying to be first to respond in GQ. u = phail. no u.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/163 "2008-11-23T18:03:16Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > I would disagree with comparing **Q.E.D.** to **Handy**. Q.E.D.'s posting style is nothing like Handy’s. Handy often as not would just pull an answer out of his ass, and then never return to the thread when called on his bullshit. One example I recall was he claimed that the oil drain plug on a Volkswagen is a left hand thread. (It isn’t, I have done oil changes on them) when I called him on it, he never returned to the thread. > Q.E.D. in general does not do drive by posts, and his correct/incorrect ratio is way higher than handy could have ever hoped to achieve. To be clear, I was in no way drawing an equivalency between **handy’s** behavior and **Q.E.D.'s** **Handy** in fact did engage in the kind of behavior that **leander** attributes to **Q.E.D.** , that is, posting the first thing that came into his head, or doing a quick search and then posting the first link whether it was relevant or not. As you say, **handy** rarely returned to a thread to post additional information. It was evident that his only interest was getting his post count as high as possible. **Q.E.D.** , as you note, does not do this. He sometimes answers off the top of his head, and sometimes is wrong. But he usually remains engaged in the thread. His general batting average in GQ is quite high, and substantially higher than most posters. The only reason I mentioned **handy** was to counter the assertion, sometimes made, that standards on answering questions were stricter back in the halcyon days of **manhattan**. **Handy** engaged in this behavior for years and amassed some 17,000 posts while being rarely if ever called on it by the GQ moderators for most of the time he was here (although he was Pitted for it several times). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/164 "2008-11-23T21:27:09Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > What I do think hurts the board is the idiots that jump into GQ within the first hour a post is made to make a stupid and usually tired joke instead of a real answer or useful post on where to look. Then there are those that post what their Aunt Sally told them when they were a kid instead of waiting to see if a real answer from knowledgeable poster is coming. > > Almost ever other forum is open to opinions and dumb jokes, why can’t we keep a higher standard in GQ at least? It has been talked about before and I thought the GQ Mods agreed but it does not seem like the dumb jokes ever get even a Mod note. To respond to this, making jokes in GQ is not against the rules. We do ask that posters allow the OP to be answered before cracking a joke, and sometimes will issue a moderator note if someone is too quick to post one. However, even when they occur they don’t seem to be reported very much (so they don’t evidently bother most people all that much). So don’t assume we have seen it if you personally haven’t reported it. But I really don’t think most people would appreciate much it if we started to police GQ with a heavy hand. We would need a lot more moderators, for one thing. Besides taking action against a lot more posts, we would also have to deal with a lot more pit threads by posters accusing us of being humorless jackbooted fascists. (We get enough of those now.) And we would probably have more accusations of inconsistency - Why did you take action against this post, but not that one! And no, people wouldn’t get used to the new standards and adjust their behavior - with free posting, we will always have a stream of newbies unfamiliar with our conventions. In GQ, as in other forums, the quality of the discussion is largely due to the members who participate. As moderators in GQ, our job is to facilitate questions being answered by preventing fights from breaking out or other kinds of hijacks and distractions. It’s not now, and never has been, our role to ensure the facts are correct or the jokes are funny. That’s your job as posters. That’s not to say that if someone persistently posts misinformation or does nothing but post inane jokes we might not take stronger action, but we would probably do so only in extreme cases. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/165 "2008-11-23T21:38:57Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > To respond to this, making jokes in GQ is not against the rules. We do ask that posters allow the OP to be answered before cracking a joke, and sometimes will issue a moderator note if someone is too quick to post one. However, even when they occur they don’t seem to be reported very much (so they don’t evidently bother most people all that much). So don’t assume we have seen it if you personally haven’t reported it. > … > That’s not to say that if someone persistently posts misinformation or does nothing but post inane jokes we might not take stronger action, but we would probably do so only in extreme cases. Thank you for the detailed answer. I do appreciate you taking the time. I was under a misconception that the GQ mods had agreed that a GQ thread should be given time to be answered before the WAGs and jokes were posted. I now know this is only a hope and not anything normally enforced. I won’t bother searching for the pit thread that gave me this idea and I guess I am one of the few posters this annoyed though oddly enough I thought you were one of the others back when you were ‘just’ a really bright and knowledgeable science poster and not a mod. Jim (Please note there was no sarcasm or hidden meanings in my post.) ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/166 "2008-11-23T21:45:29Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > I was under a misconception that the GQ mods had agreed that a GQ thread should be given time to be answered before the WAGs and jokes were posted. I now know this is only a hope and not anything normally enforced. No offense, but do you have some reading comprehension issues? Right there in the post you were responding to, he says: > [@Colibri](#): > > We do ask that posters allow the OP to be answered before cracking a joke, and sometimes will issue a moderator note if someone is too quick to post one. However, even when they occur they don’t seem to be reported very much (so they don’t evidently bother most people all that much). So don’t assume we have seen it if you personally haven’t reported it. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/167 "2008-11-23T21:53:24Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > No offense, but do you have some reading comprehension issues? Right there in the post you were responding to, he says: One of you does and I don’t think it’s jim. He is just clarifying what he admits was a misconception not continuing to argue… ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/168 "2008-11-23T21:58:21Z")
So, that makes two of you, then. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/169 "2008-11-23T21:58:32Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > No offense, but do you have some reading comprehension issues? Right there in the post you were responding to, he says: I guess I do but my reading from the complete post is that they don’t want to enforce the rule that much. I think the problem with parsing is that it often loses the overall message. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/170 "2008-11-23T22:00:39Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > I guess I do but my reading from the complete post is that they don’t want to enforce the rule that much. My reading of it is that it’s not so much an issue of wanting to enforce it, it’s one of it not being reported all that frequently. Not to speak for **Colibri** , of course, but I suspect if there were more reports in the future, there would subsequently be more enforcement. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/171 "2008-11-23T22:04:37Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > I was under a misconception that the GQ mods had agreed that a GQ thread should be given time to be answered before the WAGs and jokes were posted. I now know this is only a hope and not anything normally enforced. This is more in the nature of a request rather than a rigorously enforced rule. We do sometimes issue a moderator note if someone violates this. It’s not something that is as serious as insults, political jabs, or other posts that are likely to derail threads. But I agree it is obnoxious and we would prefer that people not do it. We also ask that people not make a lot of “me too!” posts in GQ, but that as well is unlikely to garner an individual caution. > [@](#): > > I won’t bother searching for the pit thread that gave me this idea and I guess I am one of the few posters this annoyed though oddly enough I thought you were one of the others back when you were ‘just’ a really bright and knowledgeable science poster and not a mod. Oh, it absolutely annoys me a great deal. But it would be a Sisyphean (or perhaps better, Augean) task to try to bring it under control. I wish people wouldn’t do it. I also wish they would read the rules and the FAQ before posting, and check Google and the archives before asking as simple question. But that ain’t gonna happen either. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/172 "2008-11-23T22:10:06Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > My reading of it is that it’s not so much an issue of wanting to enforce it, it’s one of it not being reported all that frequently. Not to speak for **Colibri** , of course, but I suspect if there were more reports in the future, there would subsequently be more enforcement. True. I don’t see all that many reports. Personally, I would be more likely to issue a note for that if I happened to catch it right at the beginning of a thread. If I don’t see something like that until a thread has been running awhile, I’m less likely to step in to deal with what is a fairly minor offense. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/173 "2008-11-23T22:23:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > This is more in the nature of a request rather than a rigorously enforced rule. We do sometimes issue a moderator note if someone violates this. It’s not something that is as serious as insults, political jabs, or other posts that are likely to derail threads. But I agree it is obnoxious and we would prefer that people not do it. We also ask that people not make a lot of “me too!” posts in GQ, but that as well is unlikely to garner an individual caution. > > Oh, it absolutely annoys me a great deal. But it would be a Sisyphean (or perhaps better, Augean) task to try to bring it under control. I wish people wouldn’t do it. I also wish they would read the rules and the FAQ before posting, and check Google and the archives before asking as simple question. But that ain’t gonna happen either. I think I understand and I’m glad I remembered correctly on you. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/174 "2008-11-24T03:43:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > But it would be a Sisyphean (or perhaps better, Augean) task to try to bring it under control. I don’t think there’s quite as much shit in GQ as this comment might imply. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/175 "2008-11-24T05:22:49Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > I don’t think there’s quite as much shit in GQ as this comment might imply. Certainly not as deep as in GD.😉 ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/176 "2008-11-24T07:43:43Z")
I appreciate the reasoned responses. It appears the consensus is that Google boy does do the annoying “me-first” Google thing, but not perhaps to the degree I accused him of. (I think **Cliff Clavin** is the most fitting description.) I can accept that, and hope he does too – and curbs his behavior accordingly. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/177 "2008-11-24T11:54:28Z")
> [@leander](#): > > It appears the consensus is that Google boy does do the annoying “me-first” Google thing, but not perhaps to the degree I accused him of. Unless they’ve changed the meaning of the word “consensus,” it appears this way only in your mind. ---
**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/178 "2008-11-24T19:51:26Z")
> [@leander](#): > > I appreciate the reasoned responses. It appears the consensus is that Google boy does do the annoying “me-first” Google thing, but not perhaps to the degree I accused him of. (I think **Cliff Clavin** is the most fitting description.) I can accept that, and hope he does too – and curbs his behavior accordingly. So you get pitted for cyber-stalking **Q.E.D.** around the forums, and get yourself _fucking owned_ in this thread, and **Q.E.D.** needs to curb **his** behaviour. … Unless I’m being whooshed, you’ve raised the douchebar pretty high. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/179 "2008-11-24T19:54:18Z")
Reality is just an abstract concept to some people. ---
**Author:** ![Burger\_Time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f07891/32.png) [@Burger\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burger_Time)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grow-up-leander/473451/180 "2008-11-24T20:05:14Z")
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