Harmonious Discord, you have GOT to be kidding me.

[Polycarp]

@Heffalump_and_Roo

Not that it’s any of my business, so I can understand why you wouldn’t answer, but why do you still avoid GD if badchad is no longer here, and that was the reason you backed off posting there?

I find this curiously difficult to answer without implying unintended criticism of the moderators. I’ve seen some truly hideous excuses for moderation on other boards, and by comparison the local Jackbooted Thugs are nonpareil – even when they screw up, they fix it and generally apologize. So I want to start my answer by stressing that’s not my issue.

But perhaps it’ best to say that there was a posting climate in GD in the 1999-2001 frame that has deteriorated, to the board’s true loss, and the badchad affair was for me the final straw in an increasing discomfort with how things have been going. Yes, GD has always had its share of chucklewits, and I’m not bemoaning a Golden Age when all was hunkydory and nightingales serenaded one’s every post. But what was there was genuine interest and respect on the part of most members towards most other members – a serious interest in hearing what this one person who may disagree with one has to say and to exchange views with him/her productively. There were no broadbased denunciations of all Something-ists as lamentable fuckwits whose purblindness is responsible for all the world’s woes – and I’d venture to guess that nearly every member can think of five or six people, most of whose GD posts are precisely that, with a different brand of Something-ist for each. Gaudere (then not on staff) was a “soft atheist” with an incisive wit who could disagree with others and yet charm them with a personality that came across and made clear that your ideas, not you yourself, were her target. pldennison, Liberal (then still **Libertarianb), Glitch, xenophon, Spiritus Mundi: all brought an attitude of “you have something interesting to say, which I enjoy reading, but disagree with, as evidenced by these critical comments on your post.” Wit, not snideness, was the rule. And it made for a wonderful exploration of the marketplace of ideas.

That atmosphere no longer prevails; instead, battle lines are drawn and woe betide anyone on the wrong side, for he cannot say anything at all worth listening to! I think that’s a huge mistake.

But it’s one created by the members themselves, not by staff. Tom~ is doing little different from David B and later Gaudere – and that’s to his credit. Heavyhandedness in moderation is nearly always a mistake, and his board has come remarkably close to the Platonic ideal of “All things in moderation, especially moderation.” I’m not out to pit those who have created the factionalism in place of discourse – I just, in general, choose to avoid it. And if I want a good fight, I look in the Pit, where, paradoxically, things do get examined rationally and resolved. There’s more than a little irony in that.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@Polycarp

But perhaps it’ best to say that there was a posting climate in GD in the 1999-2001 frame that has deteriorated, to the board’s true loss, and the badchad affair was for me the final straw in an increasing discomfort with how things have been going.

Thank you for your thoughtful answer.

I suspected as much. I figured that the badchad incident was not the only reason you left GD. I wasn’t here for the heyday of GD, but it does seem to have more of an IMHO flavor with lots of wide-sweeping generalities and intolerance. If there was, as you say, a time when people really were thoughtfully reading other people’s posts to gain more information, I’m sorry that I missed it. It doesn’t seem that way now.

@Polycarp

And if I want a good fight, I look in the Pit, where, paradoxically, things do get examined rationally and resolved. There’s more than a little irony in that.

To a certain extent, I agree with that as well.

[Contrapuntal]

@tomndebb

When it looks, walks, and quacks. . .

it might be a duck. Or a cartoon, or a dream, or a pull toy, or an insurance commercial. The problem with declaring that a thing can have only one possible meanaing is the high probability of being wrong.

Now, I will not claim that someone who uses that on some distant future date will be aware of all the ramifications of that line, but at this point, the staff is pretty much in agreement that any use of that line outside the Pit is to be interpreted as a cheap shot at OpalCat.

Why some future date? Why not tomorrow?

There are enough people who recognize it as an insult that anyone who is so clueless as to use it for some other murky reason will still be conveying the insult to a large number of other posters and deserves to be smacked down for general cluelessness.

Smacked down for clulessness? Wow! This is quite a remarkable statement. It puts a whole new spin on “Fighting Ignorance.” The next time someone displays a sufficient lack of a clue, can we all get in on the smackdown, or should we just report the post and let the mods have all the fun?

You mean as in this Mod Warning?

No, not really. I don’t see anyone being warned for harassment. Which, by the way, is certainly allowed in the Pit, as per Skip’s ruling. If 3.Buckeye is harassment, and *3.Buckeye *is allowed in the Pit, then it follows that harassment is allowed in the Pit.

@Q.E.D.

We. Not them. We. As in them…and me (well, YOU, but you know what I mean).

You’re hanging this on the word “we?” That’s might thin gruel, Buckey. You do realize that the rules affect everyone, right? And that it is a normal construction to ask why “we” have to do such and such, or are prevented from doing such and such, right? Now if I had said “I”, you might have a point. Maybe. But I didn’t, and you don’t.

I can only interpret that as you complaining about being forced to do something you didn’t want to do. Or somehow having your “rights” unfairly abridged.

Your interpretative powers need a bit of shoring up there, Bub. Not every disagreement with a mod decision is the complaint of a martyr, or you would have more piercings than Dennis Rodman.

In any case, calling it a personal attack is fair bit of hyperbole, at best.

Well, it was defamatory, which makes it an attack, and it was directed at me, so that makes it personal. Sounds about right to me.

@Polycarp

IMO, that was most definitely harassment, and I raised objections to it repeatedly. I presume that the moderating staff gave badchad enough rope to hang himself, with private advisories to knock it off that I was not privy to. Results were that he was suspended, came back and used a signature targeting me, I complained about the siggie, and he was banned.

So after repeated instances and complaints by you, he finally was warned, then suspended, then banned? Do you recall if he was warned for breaking the “No Harassment” rule? I don’t remember it that way.

At any rate, he was allowed miles and miles more rope then the first poster to use 3.Buckeyes was, which makes me suspicious of this whole harassment thing. Why wasn’t badchad’s first instance of harassment sufficient, or the tenth, or the twentieth?

[Q.E.D]

You sure are going to great lengths to avoid simply admitting you were bitching about something entirely inconsequential–which, again, was my sole point. The whole martyrdom strawman is your doing.

But, whatever. Bored now.

[Contrapuntal]

@Q.E.D

You sure are going to great lengths to avoid simply admitting you were bitching about something entirely inconsequential–which, again, was my sole point. The whole martyrdom strawman is your doing.

But, whatever. Bored now.

Right. **I **brought up the whole martyrdom thing. Interesting.

As to whether it is inconsequential, I suppose it is of no consequence to you. That hardly makes it inconsequential.

[eleanorigby]

@featherlou

I bet Eleanor is feeling sheepish now at her mistake.

Boy, you sure can ladle on the mockery, eh? You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, though–you’re spooning up a steaming mess o’ baaaa-d jokes in here.

(Sheep I can work with, but you try to come up with a synonym for ladle!)
All this word play has made me crave some Buckeyes.

And, in the you didn’t ask but I thought I’d share category: if the 3. Hi Opal! thing didn’t start as a slam, it had shades of it by the present day*. Frankly, I am more than ready for a different meme, which buckeyes fits, having naturally evolved from Opal herself. To me, it’s not a slam. YMMV.
*or maybe it was just tiresome, old and stale. Or all of the above.

[Q.E.D]

@Contrapuntal

Right. **I **brought up the whole martyrdom thing. Interesting.

Yes. You still don’t get it, do you? Fine, I’ll spell it right out just for you: I was calling you a drama queen. Not a martyr. A martyr would have used real nails.

@Contrapuntal

As to whether it is inconsequential, I suppose it is of no consequence to you. That hardly makes it inconsequential.

It’s inconsequential to everybody. Case in point.

[Contrapuntal]

@Q.E.D

Yes. You still don’t get it, do you? Fine, I’ll spell it right out just for you: I was calling you a drama queen. Not a martyr. A martyr would have used real nails.

And you still got it wrong. Merely disagreeing with you does not a drama queen make.

It’s inconsequential to everybody. Case in point.

Everybody? I don’t think you understand what that word means.

Where in the linked post is there a comment on 3.Buckeyes ?

[Ludovic]

@Malthus

I’ve been eating my dessert and a cookie with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain

My dessert isn’t a cookie, it’s a cake and it IS in the rain.

[Q.E.D]

@Contrapuntal

Where in the linked post is there a comment on 3.Buckeyes ?

Put down that shovel and leave the goalpost where it is. Your complaint, such as it was, as about tiptoeing around the word “buckeye.” Stop pretending it’s something else now.

[Contrapuntal]

@Q.E.D

Put down that shovel and leave the goalpost where it is. Your complaint, such as it was, as about tiptoeing around the word “buckeye.” Stop pretending it’s something else now.

I retracted that. Stop pretending you’re reading this thread when all you want to do is take pot shots at me.

[Q.E.D]

So, what exactly is your complaint then? That not being allowed to deliberately post “3. Buckeyes!” in a list is somehow going to significantly impact your message board experience? In what way?

[Contrapuntal]

@Q.E.D

So, what exactly is your complaint then? That not being allowed to deliberately post “3. Buckeyes!” in a list is somehow going to significantly impact your message board experience? In what way?

My complaint is that declaring by *fiat *the a particular phrase can have one and only one meaning is absolutely stupid. Furthermore, this particular declaration seems to have come out of nowhere; I have never hard of the “No Harassment” rule, (although of course that in and of itself doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist), but certainly countless much more egregious examples of harassment have been allowed to pass without comment. And thirdly, to then state that said harassment is allowed in the Pit seems silly to me. It’s either harassment or it isn’t. Finally, Opal wasn’t even participating in that thread. For all we know, she was unaware of the “offending” posts. How can it be harassment if you don’t know you’re being harassed? As **Polycarp **mentioned, it took numerous occasions and subsequent complaints by him before **badchad **was warned, and even then it wasn’t for harassment.

This whole thing smacks of legislation on the fly.