Well I’ve been physically attacked by 3 guys, and I’ve been internet-attacked by dozens at the same time… they were pretty damn different. The former was one of the most intense and frightening experiences of my life, and the latter was no big deal at all, and it certainly didn’t feel like bullying. I was free to engage each attack at my leisure, and however I wanted, or bypass them altogether.
But I’m fine with leaving it here.
Outside the specifics of the warning which I already addressed, I am apparently in the majority opinion that taunting HB over the issue when he cannot respond is certainly in poor taste and should be avoided. And I appreciated it in thread when @Riemann explicitly called it out. They were too modest to quote themselves, but at least @wolfpup did.
In fact, the discussion was slowly moving towards how / why others evolved their POV on the issue off-board, as well as other complaints about the poster before HB popped back in to get the last word. Which is understandable of course, but … well, what have you.
As I said, I kind of agree. As a principal of fairness, I don’t think we should be baiting a poster by ridiculing them on topics they’re banned from discussing. It’s the need for a specific rule that I don’t agree with.
What about clear jokes that aren’t directed at him, like this example? What if HB posts somewhere about how we need to open up everywhere for drilling, increase coal production, reduce gas milage requirements? He’s not violating his topic ban, but am I forbidden from commenting that of course he’d want to do that because he doesn’t believe in climate change? That creates a different kind of unbalanced dynamic.
I thought your posts in the Pit thread were the right way to handle it. We can all shame each other to quit picking on someone who can’t defend themself, without making a rule. It allows for more nuance.
Basically, what iiandyiiii said.
I have no issue with a topic ban in isolation. The issue that I have is with people being allowed to bring up a topic, and then when another person responds, they get a formal warning.
Several posters have remarked about how my comments about Venus were meant in jest. Indeed they were. But if you scroll up, I and others were talking more substantively about the evidence for climate change.
No-one has to listen to my opinion on running this forum, of course. But I am free to say it’s a bad look IMO.
Granted completely that any pitter attacking the pittee HBDC now over climate change posts he wrote back then is a turdbird. That is not nice poster behavior and deserves community censure if not a mod note.
There’s inherently going to be a short interval of a couple days while everybody catches up to the current state of play. As I said in my second post.
We can move on to pitting about other things as and when those other things arise. And it would be appropriate IMO for a mod to fuss at anyone now who continues to beat HDBC’s immobile corpse about climate change. That’s not appropriate now, although it certainly was totally appropriate just before the topic ban, and continued to be decreasingly so for a short interval just after the topic ban.
As always, @iiandyiiii is wise beyond his years.
IIRC, there is precedent for this with lissener and Verhoeven; he got a topic ban and everyone else was told to quit prodding him.
It’s the Pit, it’s inherently not fair.
I vote “No” to both of those.
We can still freely mention them in other Pit and even ATMB threads, though. It’s not like they or their past posts become totally off-limits.
Not that I agree with the closing of banned posters’ Pit threads, anyway, but that ship sailed long ago.
I agree with the first sentence but not the second. When there’s a pile-on (in the Pit or GD or wherever) the single person has to struggle to respond to every post timeously, especially if they need to back things up with quotes or cites. Not responding timeously is a losing tack.
It’s worth noting that climate denial is only a fraction of what they’ve been pitted for.
They are free to not respond. They are free to never post in their Pit thread again, in fact, as some do.
Now, bringing up the banned topic in, say GD or FQ should be verboten. No argument from me there. But the Pit shouldn’t be constrained that way.
“Meh” to the former, if that’s how people feel (but people bring up past posts in the Pit all the time)
“Hell no!!!” to the latter. It’s not Miller’s job to enforce popular opinion.
In the Pit?
Same here. I had extremely limited interaction with that poster, so limited it wasn’t even memorable. It really should have been memorable, though, given the odd take on science on display. Then my recent thread regarding the creation of the American Climate Corps, a rather important issue IMHO, was defecated on, highjacked, and run straight off the bridge into the chasm solely by the guest of honor here. That poster is presumably an adult and thus knows how to follow instructions. They made a couple of choices in rapid succession and found out that there are consequences for certain actions.
If the topic ban doesn’t work, they have nobody else to blame. And it shouldn’t matter that they’re banned from a particular topic for others to discuss said topic.
I’m not feeling all that much dismay here for them.
Answering my own question: apparently not in the Pit:
A difference, of course, is that lissener’s topic ban is for him alone, whereas climate change denial is off the menu for all posters, across the board. This had to be specifically called out for HBDC, but I’m sure the same would be done for any other denialist if they didn’t stay told.
Pit threads are usually one person the pittee, sparring with twenty attackers simultaneously many of whom are verbally assaultive towards the pittee.
Indeed! Not sure what you’re disputing, but I agree.
IMO, in the majority of the cases, the pittee never responds in the pit thread. When pittees do respond, it’s often a precursor to them getting banned.
That’s a pretty misleading way of putting it though (plus insult).
I obviously wasn’t aware, and not trying to beat up on someone who couldn’t fight back, otherwise why would I have made this thread? And I don’t think others were aware either.
We could say: “Well, now you know” But in the meantime, HB got a warning.
Sure, we’re free to have unfair rules on SD. But again, I think that’s a bad thing for the forum.
I’ve often promoted the straight dope elsewhere as what a real free speech marketplace of ideas should be: where the only prohibitions are against things that aren’t really stating an opinion or fact, like ad hominems, racial pejoratives, bringing sex into non-sexual discussions and so on.
But …
If we’re allowed to point out the evidence of climate change and anyone that disagrees gets banned. Or if we’re allowed to debunk anti-vax but anyone pushing antivax gets banned.
…we’re going down a road where people will say we’re no better than truth social.
No. Poor argument. It assumes both sides have credibility. But they don’t.
You can use you exact same line of argument for allowing antisemites free reign here. Or open misogynists. Or anti-homosexual tirades. But you clearly think they’re different - how so?
Some shit has already been proved wrong. We did the work already. Our posts, thousands of them, across every forum, for the entire existence of this board, are our cites
Why would you do that, when we’re one of the most heavily moderated forums I’ve ever been on.
Which is exactly why my next paragraph said (in both my posts) that there is a completely reasonable transition period after the topic ban occurred and before the rest of the members became aware of that ban. During which time reasonable posters will inadvertently beat that now-dead horse.
You happened to slip in under that very wire and are feeling a bit remorseful that it happened. Hence this thread. Which feeling on your part is commendable. But stuff happens and as long as folks collectively don’t keep beating the dead horse for days and weeks, this too shall pass. You meant no harm and made no material foul IMO.
@MrDibble I covered that in the post you’re responding to.
Racial pejoratives, ad hominems etc aren’t debate and there’s no issue with moderating that.
A thread on why homosexual marriage should be banned or whatever though, I think should be fair game (even though I vehemently disagree with the position of course), as long as the OP can put their point without descending into hate-filled diatribes.
Because what I said: that the moderation isn’t about suppressing opinions it’s about encouraging civilized debate.
Neither is climate change denial nor anti-vax propaganda.
And I said nothing about pejoratives. Antisemitism, like other racism, has usually not been phrased pejoratively here.
That’s the same kind of argument that used to be advanced for debating scientific racism.
Which kind of overlooks that the very argument itself, and others like it, is hate-filled, regardless of how politely it’s worded.
I can think of various now-departed racists, misogynists and transphobes who’d probably differ on that.
I still think you guys are giving HBDC too much credit. I want to note that this is @Mijin’s thread, and perhaps due to some (misguided? admirable?) sense of personal guilt. HBDC could have created an ATMB thread about the topic ban. No such issued.
Instead, they participated in a thread and touched on the same arguments again, without apparent care, despite how recent the ban was. And in the thread, and I’m repeating myself here from upthread, got a semi-friendly “hey this is touching on your topic ban which isn’t allowed even in the Pit” from a mod (no mod color), a FORMAL note from a mod (in mod color, saying a warning would be next), and then the Warning.
That’s… pretty egregious for this place. I would be more understanding of the unfairness guilt and argument in this thread if this had resulted in a ban (which doesn’t seem to be on the table right now), or if the poster hadn’t had TWO mulligans immediately prior to the warning.
Honest question, would any of those suggesting the warning was undeserved or unfair at least, have objected if the warning had been for failure to obey mod instructions instead?