Gun Control Poll Closed - That Sucks

[RTFirefly]

@Czarcasm

I have no control over your imagination, but in the real world the infraction stands.

Reviewing the bidding, so we can determine who’s imagining what:

In the PM you sent me to notify me of my warning, you indicated that I was being warned for disobeying your instruction about debating gun control in the original thread. You specifically quoted my post #39 in that thread.

Full text of warning message:

@Czarcasm

Dear RTFirefly,

You have received a warning at Straight Dope Message Board.

Reason:

Failure to follow a moderator’s instructions

Failure to follow the Moderator’s instruction not to debate.

Original Post:
[post]12183317[/post]

I’d argue for the registration of handguns, in addition to current laws. Let semi-automatic rifles remain unregistered, just so that the gun nuts know that if the U.S. turns into Amerika, the jack-booted thugs won’t know where all the guns are, and the gun nuts can fantasize about being able to fight back.

But handguns? They’re all about either committing crimes, or being able to defend oneself against criminals. Might catch a few more of the criminals if they were registered, and it wouldn’t hinder those law-abiding citizens who feel the need of a handgun for self-defense.

Warnings serve as a reminder to you of the forum’s rules, which you are expected to understand and follow.

All the best,
Straight Dope Message Board

The moderator’s instructions were not to debate gun control in the original thread.

Czarcasm, in post 46 of this thread, you said:

@Czarcasm

In post #39, RTFirefly gave the reason he voted the way he did. A little over the top(“Amerika”? Really?), but it was his reason for voting-no problem so far.

So: per your own words, what I said in the post that was originally cited as my infraction, did not rise to the level of an infraction.

Therefore that infraction not only does not stand, it doesn’t even exist as an infraction.

All that’s left, it seems, is the warning from the nonexistent infraction. An odd state of things, wouldn’t you think?

But then you took that warning, and attached it to another post:

@Czarcasm

In post #41, RTFirefly responded back instead of doing the obvious, which was reporting the previous post to the Moderator

That’s all you have said about my infraction since making post 41 the reason for the warning.

There are only two possibilities I can see here for the infraction:

1. The infraction consists of failure to report Doors’ post #40, which seems pretty improbable, or
2. it consists of something I said in post 41 - but what? And how does it violate the rules?

What we do know is that I didn’t debate gun control in post 41. At all. What I did in that post was to disagree with Doors’ assessment of my previous post, but I stayed away from gun control altogether:

@RTFirefly

Invective?

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Hell, I’m not sure what you mean at all. I just think you’re kinda confused here.

Maybe ‘invective’ to you means ‘someone expressed a mild opinion in “In My Humble Opinion” that I disagree with.’

If that’s not it, then fuck-all if I have any clue as to what you’re about here.

So the original warning has nothing to do with post 41. I did not commit the infraction you originally warned me for in post 41, and you say post 39 wasn’t a problem in that regard either. But those are my only two posts in that thread.

So, once again: why have I been given a warning? What was my infraction? Is the language in post 41 too strong for non-Pit fora? Because people frequently get more riled up than this in GD, and no one thinks twice. Or is there a different standard for IMHO? And if so, where is this differing standard stated?

The original infraction, whatever it was, took place on March 3. Czarcasm closed the thread that same afternoon, and issued his original warning on March 4. Now it’s the morning of March 6, and I’m still in the dark as to what conduct I’ve been warned for.

This is ridiculous.