You knew the risks when you accepted the hat, jackboots and all the perks of the job!
Whenever a mod has to say:
You could follow it up with “or it’s BANNED To The PIt with you”
He seems, to me, an angry man. Even though I agreed with him, at least in part, on many issues, I didn’t think he was the best standard-bearer for a cause. I remember from the American Idol threads the way he seemed to post more about hating performances, and performers, than anything he liked. Needlessly mean, and he would say how he could tell what the contestants and judges were thinking - the sort of things that made me think more about Diogenes than the person he was commenting on. “This one thinks she’s amazing. . .”
He could argue like anything, though. Great Debates will be a different place. Maybe better, maybe not.
So if someone is perceived to have “value” as a poster the rules should not be applied to them?
They are exempt from being civil, from having to follow moderator instructions, they can be big ol’ jerks and that’s acceptable behavior?
That seems, well, capricious and unfair somehow, seeing as everyone else is expected to follow the rules of the road here and to disregard them at their peril.
And who makes this grand determination – who decides?
That attitude is actually a slap in the face to everyone else – the great majority of everyone else – the many Teeming Millions who strive to post by the rules, the people who are thoughtful about what they say and how they say it.
It’s not okay to treat these people poorly, it doesn’t matter how big an “expert” or a “genius” you might be. A brilliant jerk is still a jerk. (Note that I am not specifically naming anyone as brilliant or a jerk or a brilliant jerk.)
It’s okay Tuba- you can name me as brilliant. It’s something I have put up with for a long time 
On the merits of the banning, I think the mods have made their case. To add another example not cited by the mods, consider the recent thread, Ancient Sources and Christian Evidence. Dio repeatedly disrespected Calculon, saying, for example, “Take an intro class to the New Testament.” Whereas, to my mind, Calculon was making plausible arguments which showed he understood the issues. Dio chased him away and Calculon abandoned the thread. Our loss, I say. And I say that as an atheist who thinks Calculon is mistaken.
Also, although not related to the banning, I have to say I found Dio’s repeated invocation of “Cite?” when he gave so few more than a little annoying.
I have no problem with the guy, but I realize on a board like this there are a lot of folks with thin skins who he might offend. Sorry to see him go, but rules is rules.
Any old thread that you read here is riddled with banned posters and long-gone former regulars. The question should not be “Did poster X break the rules?” but rather “Why is it that bannings happen so regularly?”
Every time a banning comes down to being a “jerk”, another bit of colour is drained from these boards. As storyteller0910 alluded to, this need to enforce politeness and decorum is absurd for grown adults. Something’s terribly wrong when interesting people keep getting the flick.
I would say the majority of those bannings are for socks or other reasons, as opposed to bannings for being a jerk. You are seeing a problem that doesn’t actually exist.
To be honest, I don’t see what the fuss with socks is, either.
But if you’ve been reading these boards as long as I have, you’d know that there have been many colourful characters lost over the years. Some were obnoxious, it’s true, but in their own way they kept things more interesting.
Geez, I didn’t think he was offensive at all. Most of the warnings were over triflings. He was a good contributor. This seems a bad thing.
Triflings my (not inconsiderable) backside.
In those few examples Tuba Diva posted have a look at his abuse of other members and then his comeback of “Sorry- thought it was the Pit”. That was what he did.
What abuse? Seems like he thinks sexual or fetishized choking is repugnant, and was simply commenting on that, vociferously and a bit selfrighteously maybe. And calling Opalcat on the pills… well, I just wish I could have been as vocal as him before my nephew overdosed and killed himself last year. I tried with him, but apparently I wasn’t vocal enough.
In the first example he called An gadai a “fuckhead” and retreated to the excuse of “I thought it was the Pit”.
Your research needs a bit of work, unless you omitted that for a reason.
In Irieland, “fuckhead” is practically a term of endearment
If only I had known that when I was in Clonakilty last year!
Some people are interesting jerks.
But the SDMB’s prime directive is Don’t Be a Jerk.
The Dio saga does indeed illustrate the tension there. But the SDMB ultimately presents itself as a fact-based, rational forum for discussion - and interesting jerks often find it too hard to color within the lines.
The attempts and level of tolerance in Dio’s case - his variant was “Don’t Be a Jerk Too Much” - was clear and admirable.
Hoist by his own petard, he was.
I agree: grown adults should be able to be polite and decorous without it being enforced.
That’s been discussed extensively in other ATMB threads.
And others were obnoxious in a way that made things less interesting, because their obnoxiousness tended to shut down or drown out intelligent discussion and drive away the less pugnacious posters.
Dio, in my opinion, had plenty of times when he fell into both of these categories.
What you say is certainly true, though “jerk” is pretty subjective. Some of my favourite people IRL were the types not to colour within the lines. I’ve come from a long line of “stirrers” (on both sides of my family), and I tend to have a high tolerance for certain forms of “jerkishness”.
I’ve also found that more lightly moderated boards and lists tend towards a more relaxed and (ironically) respectful atmosphere.
It’s pretty fruitless for me to argue about the very core rules of the board in its present state, but the Olden Days of SDMB seemed to have a much more carefree nature than now. I just feel it’s getting stuffy in here, and the idea of “a fact-based, rational forum for discussion” is an unenforceable, pleasant fiction.
This is the thing, for me, though. I don’t want a board full of people who don’t register on my radar screen. What a banal, colorless place that sounds like. I can go to wikipedia for information written by anonymous people.
My problem is the Haskellization of the boards. As long as you don’t call someone a poopyhead, you can really be a jerk as much as you like. You can disregard all the evidence in the world and just hammer away mindlessly, and that won’t be considered unacceptable, as long as you are not “mean” in doing so.
You can offer nothing more than an ad hominem dismissal of someone’s argument as coming from the Usual Suspects, and that will be perfectly tolerable here, even though you contribute no new knowledge while doing so and at the same time offending those who do.
Some people are just good at being jerks while also saying “please” and “thank you” to Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver. Boy, we really need those folks to predominate here!
Let’s just say that this has not been my experience. The reason I’m here is because of the moderation, not in spite of it.