Don’t forget Satan! 
The interest and entertainment value of this SDMB is diminished without Dio. That said, I can see why the mods made the choice they did.
Well, the infertility thread, at least, was not about comforting the afflicted.
The mods didn’t really make a choice; Dio did.
Sing with me, brothers and sisters. Tom Petty didn’t know he was writing about Dio when he wrote this:
I agreed with about 99% of his arguments. But I don’t particularly care if I’m right or wrong about any given thing, and I care even less about what someone else thinks about whether I’m right or wrong.
Dio cared too much. It was all too important to give ground on.
A commendable epitaph, with which I agree entirely.
Nonsense. Both sides had choices to make.
BRAVO! I can’t believe TPTB finally had enough of him, but I’m glad to see the end to his posting here. I can’t begin to count the number of threads he ruined for me as a reader. Not as the OP, but just an interested reader.
Most people don’t register on my radar screen out here, but he did, and too often. And before someone comes in and tells me I didn’t like his politics or his opinions, don’t waste your time. I didn’t study Dio enough to be able to feel educated about his politics or opinions. I remember a few things about him that he seemed to work into a post whenever possible, but Dio was not someone who rubbed me the wrong way because I thought he was wrong all the time. He simply rubbed me the wrong way because of his posting style, his continual overtaking of threads, his word-game posts that added nothing more to a thread than to infuriate people and his enjoyment at doing so. He did this all the while getting the approval from TPTB - even though Dio continually approached the “line” (of good taste, of being a jerk, or actual rules violations), he rarely crossed it. My feeling on that is and always has been “rubbish”.
This has been long overdue, and like him or not, agree with him or not, he was someone that many people felt he received different/preferential treatment from TPTB. I was one of those people. Given that partial list from TubaDiva in her OP on the subject, I think it’s pretty clear that the perception that there were different rules for him than for most other posters out here was easy to understand. Those were his latest warnings. How many more did he deserve and not get? How many more did he have in total? It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone. He earned it.
From my limited POV, he added far less than he added to the board.
I, for one, will not miss him.
Yes, and the board has fought less ignorance since then, due to the withdrawal of Collounsbury’s specialist knowledge.
Our ability to fight ignorance on certain topics has been diminished. Dio had detailed knowledge of the scholarly literature on early Christianity, buttressed by fluency in ancient Greek. The board’s mission is advanced by substance more than style.
Thankfully, Dio didn’t make a habit of challenging every mod admonition or warning. But these seem to be warnings about excessive snark[1] , not direct insults. Hey, the DNBAJ rule is broad, deep and well conceived. But I oppose this particular application.
[1] Though there was the Sep 4 “F—head” incident. That was a direct insult.
Man. I hoped he’d shape up, not ship out.
He was warned last month that his posting privileges were under discussion (in the second thread TubaDiva linked) and so it’s not surprising that he was shown the door when it happened again. Overall, I feel it was a proper call (I won’t say a good call, but proper).
While I thought Dio certainly kept everyone on their toes, and will be missed by many, he did establish a recent pattern of behavior over the last couple of years, of making every thread his personal Pit thread, without much regard for forum rules, polite discourse, or peoples’ feelings. I don’t recall that he was quite this… aggressively insensitive several years ago (I could be wrong, as my attendance here has gone in fits and starts over the years).
I concur with Starving Artist (did I just say that out loud?), in that I hope Dio will find something that gives him more pleasure than the Dope. While these boards can be a very special little corner of the interwebs, it can be a bit hard to disconnect yourself from - now that disconnection has been done for him, I wish him all the best.
Here’s to hoping he doesn’t call anyone a [bad word redacted] while discussing the weather in line at the supermarket.
I always considered his user title a mild form of trolling. Coupled with his posting style, I’m surprised TPTB didn’t also.
He may have been a nice guy but he also made a habit of personally attacking posters outside of the pit, disingenuously presenting his opinions as fact, repeating the same tired rant instead of addressing opposing viewpoints, and ignoring the rules of the board.
It was way overdue.
My God. I don’t want to feel sorry for the guy, but contributing over 57,000(!!!) posts to a website to have them say they don’t want you anymore? Regardless of whether he deserved it or not, that’s gotta be heartbreaking. 
I agree with whoever said the line about smacking around ignorant christians. His knowledge of biblical languages and biblical scholarship was far greater than mine and provided me with many interesting posts. On other subjects and threads, I simply ignored him and it worked great; I highly recommend this method.
(I’m not shedding a tear for him, because dude, it’s a messageboard, but I’m not cheering either because I don’t see it as some great event and anyway my pom poms are in storage.)
Wow, I just looked at his profile, and he averaged just shy of 18 posts per day for 9 years! That’s at least a post per every hour he was awake - if I was on the Dope that often, and that consistently, my wife would have strangled me by now.
I really do hope Dio finds something to fill whatever void the banning leaves.
That’s why I posted earlier that I suspected he was really unhappy IRL.
I’m also still surprised by all the people professing that he was an “expert” when it came to religion.
He certainly knew about early Christianity than most and did a good job at coming across as authoritative, but considering the mistakes he made and the way when you followed his links you found on many threads he deliberately misrepresented things, I have little confidence in the idea that he was “an expert” as opposed to competence.
Similarly, I’ve had more than a few people treat me like I’m an expert on Israel, the Middle East, or Islam, and while I know more than most on the dope, I think it would be ridiculous to call me an expert.
He wasn’t banned simply for being rigid.
Except himself.
Amen.
Sorry, he did it with an intensity and tenacity that to me indicated it wasn’t just a schtick.
He used to bug me a lot, but he responded to a post of mine in the Pit in such an over-the-top contrary-to-reality way that afterwards I just couldn’t take anything he said seriously at all.
Posting discredited cites, however little they may be worth, is NOT against the user agreement. Using personal attacks and being a jerk are. It’s as simple as that.
Personally, I’m relieved.
But which came first: being an extremely spirited poster (to put it mildly), or being a jerk?
Why not just restrict his posting to The Pit? Seems like 95% of the bannable posts would have been fine there. The majority of reactions here seem to be saying “Wow, that’s terrible. Sure, he deserved it, and then some, but still just terrible…” That way he could have continued posting without running afoul of the rules.
So, I was wondering, if a person gets banned, are they allowed to come back as another name? Not to continue trolling or whatever they were banned for, but like they learned their lesson, yada yada yada, and wants to come back and made a new name for himself. Or will he be banned if any mods find out its the same old guy?