SqrlCub, but basically yes.
Yes, a mere 15 years ago.
Creepy thing happened this morning, what got him banned
For the formerly banned people who now have socks.,what got him re-banned.
That has to be the thread with the highest ratio of banned posters to not banned posters.
Now I’m confused. handsomeharry was banned for trolling. According to you, here, trolling involves insincere posting, and I agree, that’s what trolling is. So, how did you guys come to the conclusion that a guy who chose an “HH” user name 15 years ago was insincere in his claims to be a Nazi-sympathizer? That seems like an awesome amount of lead-time for a troll.
I’m not awfully upset HH got banned, but the stated justification seems weak. It seems more likely HH posted an odious but sincerely held view, became disliked by members and mods alike, provoked an uproar which he refused to do anything to quell, and got banned for it. I think there’s an unwritten rule around here that if you kick over an ant hill, you better stick around to deal with the swarm.
Maybe you should just Bush v. Gore this, and say decision stands, but should not be treated as precedent in the future. HH may have done something worthy of banning, but it wasn’t trolling.
Shodan does, in fact he would say that supporting advocating rick rolling is the equivalent to Nazis.
This is way I don’t engage with him.
The sincerity in question isn’t about whether he’s really a Nazi, it’s about his intentions in revealing himself as a Nazi on the board. If he’d shown up here with the idea of identifying as a Nazi, and demonstrating the dangerous of Jewish Banking Cabals, that wouldn’t have been trolling. If he’d shown up here to identify as a Nazi, and rail at us filthy liberals for letting so many Muslims into the country, that wouldn’t have been trolling. Instead, he showed up here with the idea of identifying as a Nazi, and then giving out only enough insults and information to keep people engaged and enraged with him. Like I said back on page 2 (?), his intent here was to deliberately become a pariah on the board.
It’s that deliberate part that’s important. There are a lot of posters who are widely unpopular on this board, who we don’t ban, because it’s not obvious that their intent was to become disliked. A good example (and I hope he doesn’t mind me using it here) was Starving Artist and paper towel tubes. SA got a lot of people angry with his posts in the Joe Paterno thread, and that spilled out all over the board for a while, to the point where it was disrupting entirely unrelated threads. It was a huge headache for the mods, one we could have solved pretty easily just by banning SA. But it was clear that SA wasn’t trolling - he was legitimately trying to convince people that his position was correct. So we made a bunch of special rules and rapped a lot of knuckles to get people to stop taunting his with posts about paper towel tubes in other threads, and to get him to stop replying to them.
So, to handsomeharry. It was clear that handsomeharry wanted the sort of board-wide anger that Starving Artist attracted for a while. It seems impossible to me that harry’s admission in that Pit thread would not be brought up frequently against him in inappropriate threads. We’d probably end up having to note or warn otherwise good posters who understandably lost their temper with an honest-to-God Nazi - and probably lost a poster or two permanently, because we’re “protecting” him. And what are we protecting? A troll. Why? Why go to the effort to keep around someone who’s deliberately trying to fuck up the boards?
I’d be fine if the mods really banned him because he declared himself a Nazi. It was the trolling, wink wink. HandsomeHarry doesn’t get to claim a kinder, gentler Nazism. The word already has a meaning.
Why not discriminate? If someone wants to promote Nazism, or pedophilia, or the KKK, well, fuck them. Go somewhere else. What’s the upside of tolerating that shit? Some make-believe world of absolute free speech? It’s actual evil that does actual harm.
Exactly. Look, no one would have been upset if he had been suspended and warned. Then, when (as is super likely) he repeated his behavior*, then* ban him. 100% support for such a action. But this was wrong and sets a bad precedent.
Cite? The only rep I know we have is that the Stormfront folks hate our guts. Which is kinda a badge of honor. actually.
It’s not as if mods have been holding themselves back from banning people at the drop of a hat due to lack of precedent.
The alternative interpretation is that this was a singular case that was handled in this fashion. FWIW, there was recently a long time poster who banned without note or warning for racial hate speech. I can’t recall who it was off the top of my head, however.
I haven’t posted in this thread so far, but I agree 100% with every point Ascenray has made.
Note that many of us, like you and I-* are paying customers*. So, yeah, they do owe us.
“unpleasant place”? From* one thread*? In the PIT? The whole fucking Pit is a " unpleasant place ", if they wanted to make the SDMB a more pleasant place they’d just dump the Pit altogether. You can (like I do) simply rarely venture there, then how was HH making the board unpleasant for you?
No one said HH wasn’t breaking the rules. We disagree with the disproportional punishment.
Miller, you have the patience of a saint. At this point, I don’t think you’re going to convince the rules-lawyers of anything.
That’d be a fine argument if there wasn’t in fact a sub forum called The Pit whose purpose in part allows one to post as an irascible asshole. As long as one is part of the majority point of view. Otherwise it’s trolling. Outside The Pit I don’t think there’d be any debate.
The upside of tolerating that shit is that exposing hateful ideas to logic and ridicule can be a good way of combating them. It’s part of the mission of fighting ignorance. It’s also fun!
The other reason you tolerate that shit is because there is no bright line separating the KKK from Donald Trump or Jerry Falwell. Without a clear line, you risk discouraging speech on other controversial subjects.
Obviously, the Board is free to do whatever the fuck it wants. People who think they’re clever for pointing that out are missing the point. If you think the Board is better when we get to pile on Nazis and when people with unpopular political opinions feel free to express them, then we should proceed cautiously when insta-banning someone based in part on their views. That’s all. That’s not a “make-believe world of absolute free speech.” It’s how humans actually work in real life.
Yes, it truly takes extreme patience to, uh, start a thread inviting comment and then leave that thread open for comment and debate?
I trust you know this given your wording, but it’s worth mentioning that the core function of the Pit is to act as a safety valve for the rest of the board. That it is a haven for assholish behavior is a side effect. Sure, it’s entertaining to some in its own way. But that’s not its core purpose.
Personally, I think it’s pretty rude to purposely create problems for the volunteer mods. Whether or not you pay, what? $15 per year? Give me a break.
Oh I doubt that would receive 100% support. But I get that you disagree with the calibration of the punishment. There’s a lot of that in this forum. Folks render their opinions based on some abstract sense of justice. My take is that the extent to which posters create disproportionate problems for the volunteer mods -i.e. practical issues - don’t get enough attention by the ATMB gripers. Or hardly any attention at all really.
The precedent is fine. And apparently it’s not brand spanking new anyway according to Colibri on the previous page.
This board has an exceptionally high tolerance for public discussion of moderator decisions.
I wonder if he anticipated all the asinine, pettifogging rules-lawyering he be subjected to, though.
And you don’t see how The Pit itself could be the problem? Unless it’s meant as a safety valve for a subset of the rest of the board.
I’m sure he expected rules-laywering. And probably some pettifogging rules-lawyering. But you’re right, I’m sure he would never subject himself to asinine, pettifogging rules-lawyering. That would truly be akin to death.
Whatever you say, chief.