But when the additional factors are themselves pretty subjective, and when the penalty is a ban imposed with no warning, then I don’t think the various racists, 9/11 Truthers, homophobes and other SDMB punching bags have to be especially paranoid to think twice before posting about their repulsive ideas.
And I’m sure lots of posters would be fine with that! But I think the debunking and general abuse of wrongheaded views is a good thing that ought to be encouraged, as Miller recognized in the OP.
This is kind of a drive-by, but is there any history of handsomeharry acting in this way even a little? It seems so out of character from what I’ve seen on the board, my immediate thought is he has a brain tumor or something.
I’m not sure that would change the outcome of this decision. But I’m more concerned than mad.
Look, yes, he was trolling. Trolling like that should get a warning. No one denies that. But trolling in* the Pit* from a long established poster? Getting a insta-ban?
It was a factor in Miller’s thinking but the actual banning was discussed by the whole staff and as Tomndebb explained in his response above the majority of mods said that his political views were not an element in the decision.
You’re right, of course they don’t, that would be terrible. But my point is that they can. They don’t have to follow precedent or cite some arcane rule found in a lenghty dusty legal tome. The guiding rule is “don’t be a jerk.” If they feel like you are being a jerk, you can be banned. Now if someone who is normally pretty cool is just acting out–maybe they had a bad day, maybe they had one too many before posting, maybe someone is pushing their buttons–they don’t want to ban that person immediately. Hence the practice of notes and warnings. If someone is melting down they can give them a suspension, a recent innovation in board history. But that’s only because you don’t want to ban a useful member for a single transgression. If someone is obviously just going to start trolling hard, why waste time with the preliminaries?
I wish they would do this more often. Think how the** Cesario** debacle could have been avoided if they had banned him the moment he started to spew his pro child molestation garbage.
Up to now, for an established poster, the modus operandi has always been to warn him to knock it off, or face further punishment, suspend him first if he keeps it up, then ban only after it is clear that he cannot stop being a jerk. Can any of the mods explain why he didn’t deserve at least that normal progression of mod correction here?
As I understand it;
Posting something that I hope will piss “you” off, not trolling. (Following a poster from thread to thread trying to get a reaction is a different thing and it isn’t exactly a bright line.)
Posting something that I hope will piss a segment of the board off, not trolling. (That is the Pit.)
Posting something that I hope will piss off most of the posters in a thread, that’s trolling. (Even here it isn’t a bright line. There needs to be some kind of indication that you are taking a position for the sole purpose of causing drama. There are any number of threads where just one poster is arguing for a position, and no one gets a warning for trolling.)
Handsomeharry didn’t say “I’m a fascist” and try to defend that position he said “I’m a Nazi! :p”.
On 21st century Earth people who don the swastika (in black and red*) or dress up in white sheets do that to get a reaction. And I, at least, have noticed that when these folks don’t want a negative reaction they wear suits and downplay their Nazi/Klan backgrounds, see Tom Metzger and David Duke et al.
*The swastika on my doctors door isn’t because he’s a big fan of Mengele, it’s almost certainly 'cause he’s a Hindu from India!
Our fine board already has a reputation for being far too friendly to 911 deniers, racists and pedophiles, sadly, et al, I’m not sure we really want to extend that to Holocaust denying Nazis too. My preference is to argue them to dust . . . but I’m not even a little upset when the mods take our punching bags away with a banning.
I just really don’t get some see this as a slippery slope that they just have to plant their banner on.
By the same logic, if a bunch of guys went out a beat a gay dude to death and were charged with a hate-crime they could reasonably use the defense of, "well, we knew he was gay, but we decided we weren’t curb-stomping him for gayness but because he was wearing a Lakers cap. We all agreed, the gayness had nothing to do with it. Then you would buy it?
A bunch of star-chamber folk announce that "we broke with long-standing tradition and precedence in this one case because his trolling - absent the subject - was so outlandish that he needed to be toast. So we went against every rule and defense we have ever raised and banned him. It’s okay though because we all agreed it wasn’t because of his views. See it wasn’t because of his views.
Our posts are our cites "
This you consider reasonable?
If you do then I suggest that there are a fair few posters who have been guilty of worse trolling in the past that have been treated significantly less harshly and I ask you to explain the sudden hammer-of-God for “trolling”
The fact is that now anyone expressing an opinion in the Pit - or elsewhere - can be banned for essentially saying, “No, I’m not going to dig up a bunch of cites for you because you won’t believe them anyway. In fact you will hand-wave them and then insult me some more. So I’ll just insult you back.”
Take a look at the thread and you’ll see that he was almost universally (I qualify because I don’t want to re-read the whole thing to confirm my memory) silent and or civil (sometimes the two can be the same) to anyone that was non-insulting to or about him - this board is great for insults by proxy.
In short, taking the mods at their word - as you seem to, they decided to break a long-standing tradition in order to insta-ban a longtime poster because of his style of trolling in The Pit.
This is not a public forum, no one has a right to post here, and the administration doesn’t owe us constitutional levels of due process.
They should have the freedom and flexibility to ban people who make this an unpleasant place without jumping through hoops, which is exactly the flexibility that the “don’t be a jerk” rule is intended to give them.
So for people demanding detailed explanations that are subject to trial level cross-examination or strict reconciliation with comparable but conflicting past cases—that’s just not something this board owes you.
I want the system to run in such a way that it preserves the nature of the discussion here. I really don’t expect for them to create iron-clad defenses for instabanning a self-declared Nazi who used that declaration to troll the board. “We didn’t want the miserable fuck around any more” is a good enough explanation in some cases.
What about a self-declared pro-lifer who trolled* the board in the same exact way? Or a gunslinger or a Randian capitalist?
What, aside from being a Nazi - and he differentiated himself from the German Nazi’s on the grounds that pure Nazism/Facism is not inherently anti-semetic**, form did his trolling take that was so unprecedented and egregious as to warrant an insta-ban?
Who - other than the subject - did his behaviour differ from the countless, “You’re an illiterate fuckwit! Yeah, well you lick donkey balls and your mother’s a whore” threads that exist in the Pit?
Zeke
*Obviously I don’t feel he was trolling
** I’ve no idea what - if any - basis he had for this claim, nor do I care about its veracity. Orwell objected to Nazism/Facism and that’s good enough for me
There’s certainly precedence for insta-banning long term posters. Starting a sock account is an insta-ban. So is threatening to sue or hack or otherwise attempt to damage the boards. There isn’t any precedent for insta-banning a long term poster for trolling as far as I’m aware, but then, there isn’t really any precedent for a long-term poster to start trolling the boards as hard as handsomeharry did.
Ultimately, there is no policy or other requirement for the administration of this board to explain this to any one person’s satisfaction. You can vent, you can question endlessly, you can walk away, you can get over it, but no one is required to spend their time and energy endlessly addressing this or any other issue for the sake of one or even a number members. Especially not a bunch of volunteer mods. They ain’t getting paid to argue with anyone.
Still – and all of that is perfectly true – we, like little children, feel better when we understand our parents’ discipline.
Yes, that leads some kids – and adults – to play the boundaries game. “You said I couldn’t call him a liar, so I called him a prevaricator instead.” Yeah, well.
We get it, really: “Because Daddy said so.” But we also live in a country that adores a good courtroom drama. Even in our role-playing-games, we do the “legalistic wish” thing. Kids make up their own rules for play. “No come-backs!” “Didn’t say ‘Not on Thursday!’”
So…it’s perfectly natural for us to natter on, as long as the thread is open, about what the rules “really” are. Consider it a form of entertainment!
No more correct than “unless you are handsomeharry”, or “unless you resurrect a 5-year-old thread, lash out about it in the Pit, and insult every person that asks any questions about your positions”… unless there is another example of the latter that DIDN’T result in a ban that I am not aware of.
"