No, choosing not to engage meaningfully with people who only want to establish their outrage cred and hurl insults (granted he gave as good as he got) does not mean troll. It means not feeling like giving out more ammunition to a vastly larger force.
There are certain topics on this board that one cannot broach without being dove on by internet-defenders-of-the-right. It becomes an immediate pecking party comprised of people waving the flag of “Righteousness” in order to veil the fact that they are little more than bullies.
Czarcasm Are you suggesting I suffer from a mental illness? If so I find that both insulting and offensive.
'Sides just because you are paranoid does not make you wrong.
Problem is that any subjective decision is going to, by definition, hinge on personal opinions and biases. I, for one, didn’t get the sense that he was trolling. But that is neither here nor there.
I got the sense that he was wrong - certainly. But his purpose was to tee-off on a couple of posters, the thread got derailed by the rush righteousness and he responded in kind (misguided though it be.)
The Pit is not the place for rational discourse. That is what the rest of the board is for.
Personally, I think there were multiple trolls in that thread and he wasn’t the worst - just the least popular.
No, I didn’t overlook it. It is a meaningless distinction. Some political declarations are met with an insta-ban. Not with more speech, as Miller claimed.
Perhaps it is time to have an official list. We pretty much already do since any poster who threatens a moderator or the ownership with a lawsuit is going to be gone right then and there.
Put the OP in question in any other board and we have an instant banning, that’s pretty clear cut. Not even a hint of trolling is allowed, discourse is to be polite, or take it to The Pit. Now trolling isn’t allowed in The Pit either, however the line isn’t as clear. What’s the difference between name-calling and trolling?
… but some subjects and name-calling make particularly poor combination … it’s just never going to work out …
So ban certain subjects in The Pit, if a poster wants to discuss Holocaust Denial, they’ll have to be polite about it and post elsewhere (may God have mercy on their soul). The intent would be to solve part of the problem with HH’s banning, and give the moderators a clear concise answer to the concerns raised in this thread, and in any future thread should this come up.
Either that or state HH has a well documented history of limit-testing, such that he knew he was way over the line … Death by Moderator …
a) If you believe that everyone has cause to believe that constant surveillance is a danger then you are paranoid
b) I believe constant surveillance is a danger to everyone
c) Therefore I am paranoid.
Had you meant that I was wrong you could simply have said so rather than implying that the entirety of a group I belong to is paranoid.
By saying people who feel as I do are paranoid you say that I am paranoid.
I don’t see why you felt the need to bring mental illness into it in the first place and I object to the label being applied to me - directly or by weaselly implication.
It is easy. I do not believe that you suffer from delusions of security - but I do think you are wrong. See, easy.
Simple, to discount anything someone says because of a mental illness is discriminatory and dehumanizing. One can be paranoid and still have legitimate reasons to fear.
If you choose to infer from that anything other than what I explicitly said is your choice.
How would you propose we remove the subjectivity? Keep in mind that Miller didn’t ban this guy. It was the consensus of the mods. I’m not certain, but I suspect we don’t require unanimity among the mods to ban someone. So, some mods might have agreed with you. But it’s more or less like the SCOTUS in deciding what “reasonable” person would do. The mods are selected based, in part, on their ability to minimize the effect of their own personal bias, and then decisions are made by the group, as a whole. I’m not seeing how can you do much better than that.
We already have that list, but the mods are trying to talk away that we do. It is not against the rules to insult people in the Pit (unless you say you are a Nazi). It is not against the rules to refuse to engage in the Pit (unless you say that you are a Nazi). The best response to repulsive speech is more speech (unless you say you are a Nazi). It is not against the rules to Pit inactive posters (unless you say you are a Nazi). You don’t get insta-banned on a first offense (unless you say you are a Nazi). It isn’t against the rules to tell other posters they are too stupid to be worth engaging (unless you say you are a Nazi).
But it’s not official. Sure, that’s how it happened. But it’s not official.
Perhaps the test would be to scour The Pit for anything that could be construed as trolling and see if the mods act consistently with regards to perceived trolls.
I think you guys are over-interpreting what “trolling” is. Just calling someone out and insulting them isn’t trolling. If I scream at you in the pit that you’re a blithering idiot, and really think you are one, then I’m not trolling even though you might have a very negative reaction to my comments. But if I do so just to get a rise out of you, or others, and keep doing so more or less pointlessly, then that’s probably trolling.
As noted, it’s a subjective judgement on a third party’s part to determine the difference, but there is a difference.