In honeybadgers pit thread, he received a warning for posting climate change disinformation, a banned topic. https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-honeybadger/810183/583
It doesn’t sit well with me though, as he was also responding to a rhetorical point I made.
As I said in the thread, it reminds me, ironically, of the one-sided forum rules of climate disinformation and conspiracy theory forums.
I’m not really sure what the ideal thing to happen is though.
Speaking only to the big picture you identify, and not at all to your specific recent exchange with HDBC or the resulting warning …
We here are not dedicated to absolute free speech. An idea several other internet operators have pretty thoroughly demonstrated is unworkable and leads simply to runaway trollery and abject ignorance. Gresham’s Law applies to thinking just as it applies to money.
There is a difference between being dedicated to a free for all, and being dedicated to sound thinking and soundly constructed honest rhetoric. I don’t know how better to explain it.
To the degree this is really true for you, and not just a rhetorical device I’ll gently suggest you are focusing exclusively on bathwater and have ignored the baby. There is a difference between intolerance of unorthodoxy and intolerance of BS or hostility delivered for hostility’s sake. Motive matters. So does substance.
It’s not really fair that, in the Pit thread on Honeybadger, we can bring up global warming but he can’t defend or explain himself. I think the topic ban should be removed for that Pit thread (and only that Pit thread). Alternately, institute the same topic ban for every poster for that Pit thread (and only that Pit thread).
First, you need to explain why “fair” matters in this context.
I mean “fair” in the sense that, normally the Pit allows (relatively) unfettered back and forth. Sure, you can say harsh things about someone, but they’re free to defend themselves and say harsh things about you. Allowing everyone to attack him on climate change, but he has no chance to respond at all, violates my sense of fairness (and, IMO, defeats one of the purposes of the Pit).
Maybe it’s just me. In any case, I made my point; the mods are free to consider or disregard it.
In addition to the excellent points made by @LSLGuy, I think it’s pertinent that your post was a joke, while HBDC was responding seriously, and moreover was providing “facts” that were highly dubious (not about present-day Venus, but about ancient earth). Someone who has been topic-banned from the subject of climate change discussion should know better than to start talking about atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the effects thereof in any context, especially alleged enormous concentrations in the primordial past that could be taken to mean that present concentrations, in comparison, are nothing to worry about.
If that happened, that thread might become exactly the kind of cesspool of repetitive denialist nonsense that the board is trying to avoid. In fact it was already heading in that direction. And a good reason to avoid it is that denialists are seemingly immune to reason: no matter what scientific evidence you provide, they’ll have some trite and nonsensical response. Which then has to be refuted. To which they have another trite and nonsensical response. And so it goes, ad nauseum.
Then I think they should extend the topic ban for that thread (and only that thread) to everyone.
Because the subject can’t respond?
But they can. It’s the Pit!
Simple insults would be a response. Complex and nuanced insults an even better one.
They just can’t engage in that topic, a ban they earned. Not the rest of us.
Then ban him totally. This will almost certainly result in a ban anyway, since he’s unlikely to just totally ignore that Pit thread and not try to defend/explain himself. Maybe that’s the right answer.
This is just like a slow, painful ban. If we want to get rid of him, ban him. If we just don’t want him derailing climate change threads with bullshit, then keep the topic ban and mod the thread so posters aren’t attacking him in a way he’s not allowed to defend or explain himself.
All IMO.
Another way to explain what I mean by “fairness” – I’ve seen lots of criticism of the Pit that it allows bullying. I disagree – in the Pit there’s no power differential. Everyone has the same power to attack others and defend themselves. With no power differential, there’s no bullying.
But what if someone is stripped of their ability to defend themselves? Then, IMO, attacking them becomes bullying. Punching down, instead of punching = or upwards. Even people who are very, very wrong can be bullied, and IMO bullying is a very bad thing that shouldn’t be allowed, no matter the target.
Sometimes a good beat down, metaphorically speaking, is a way for some person to learn the error of their ways.
IMO
I disagree with your disagreement, but that’s a different discussion. “No power differential”? Are you genuinely unaware of what happens when someone is pitted? When one poster tries to defend themselves against a pile-on of dozens, that is precisely the power differential that is so often characteristic of real-life bullying.
Back on topic, if the subject of the topic ban cannot raise climate change issues, there’s little reason for anyone else to raise them, either. I could be wrong but I think most of the climate change stuff from others pertained to stuff that HBDC had said prior to the ban.
An internet pile on isn’t like a physical one - one on one is the same as one on twenty. It just depends on the arguments.
Strong disagree with the OP’s premise, but with nuance. It wasn’t (IMHO) so much justified for breaking the ban, but that a dozen posts earlier, @Miller explicitly gave them a pass on missing it was banned EVEN in the pit, and then, bam, still does it, even if they didn’t consider it climate change. Granted, it was 4 days, but only a dozen posts or so.
So more for breaking a recent and direct mod instruction.
ETA - And this was AFTER (as stated in the onebox) @What_Exit gave them a semi-friendly reminder.
I agree. If someone is banned completely, we close any dedicated Pit thread completely. This partial restriction just seems like a natural extension of that principle.
I think the topic ban here was long overdue, but it does not sit well with me that we can continue to mock someone for their past comments on this issue after they can no longer respond. The only exception that I think would be justified would be if there were any claims he had made that had not been adequately factually debunked.
I kind of agree with you in theory, but HB wasn’t defending an attack on himself. He was spouting off more denialism in response to a joke.
Mijin posted (in jest): “Well it’s fake news that Venus is a roasting hot pressure cooker.”
HB responded: “Venus has an atmosphere of about 960,000 parts per million of CO2. Earth had 155,000 parts per million when it became warm enough to melt the frozen oceans.”
HBDC should have known better than to respond like this, especially since he was a given a pass a few days earlier.
But I think the overall principle of whether a topic ban should extend to everyone in a dedicated Pit thread when the Pittee has been topic banned should be addressed separately.
If there were a more specific Pit thread “HBDC is an [XXXXX] on climate change” then wouldn’t such a thread be closed after the topic banning? So when there’s a Pit thread more broadly dedicated to HBDC, I think the partial restriction (topic ban for everyone just in that thread) is appropriate.
No, it’s exactly the psychological equivalent. There is power in numbers, and a natural human inclination to be part of the mob rather than to defend the victim. You see it all over the Pit, and it’s especially evident in certain long-running threads.
But as I said, that’s an entirely different discussion from the one the OP started.
From what I could see in a quick scan of that thread, all the climate-related comments from others were related to posts that HBDC had made recently shortly before the topic ban. If he can no longer post on the subject, don’t you think the mockery will quickly run its course? The problem with a “ban on everybody” is that the real intent of the “tired topics” ban is to avoid further pointless climate change debates with denialists, not to avoid any discussions of any aspects of climate change.
Yes, I raised the issue in the thread itself, but concluded that it probably wasn’t worth worrying about for that reason, it would naturally tail off.
Now that HBDC won’t be posting on climate, there is no need for us to discuss climate in his Pit thread either
He & we were basically caught in a closing door that is now fully closed.
No doubt HBDC will provide fresh non-climate material for on-going pitting. Or he won’t and his thread will fade into the sludge of all other dead threads.
There’s simply no legit reason for anyone else to continue to pound the rapidly aging rubble which was his climate denial oerve.
And he should violate that topic ban he’s probably promptly history. At which point his pit thread is moot too.
This isn’t hard IMO.