No - you are mistaking superciliousness for politeness.
Practically every debate December starts is a deliberate troll, unless he actually is as witless as his almost no-existent debating talents suggest.
Give me honest rudeness over creepy insinuations any day.
I personally don’t like censorship and if I ruled the world, no one would be banned except spammers. My POV tends to be in direct opposition to december’s, but he has been consistent in not attacking or insulting me.
Col’s posts usually show intelligence and perceptiveness. It’s a shame that he resorts to vitriol and name-calling. That is the essence of being a jerk.
At the same time, why are so many of you offended by his personal insults? Don’t rent them space in your head! Be responsible for the way in which you react to his childishness. If he is bigoted enough to generalize or stereotype a group, I can understand speaking out against what he has said. But his personal insults can be easily brushed off.
Whether or not I read his comments depends on the topic and if I think it might be worth it to wade through his trashing of other Dopers.
Non-jerks can attack a post by saying something along the lines of “You are mistaken for these reasons…” or “Why are you saying that when ‘this, this, and this’ are true?” We are kidding ourselves if we pretend that Col is not attempting to insult individuals. It is a sport for him.
He would have flunked my debate class for his jerkish behavior. But I wouldn’t want him or anyone with opposing views banned.
On thing’s for certain — any thread with Collounsbury in its title is guaranteed at least five pages.
Meeeowwwwwwwwww
Damnit, Lib! You’re not pulling your weight! Where are the Iraqi Squids? Get to work, man!
I wouldn’t cry and whine incessantly about it, that’s for sure. And honestly I don’t think you can inflict the same kind of deeply felt wounds as Col does with a tongue lashing. Firstly, Col’s weapon is naturally endowed with the sharpest of edges which he keeps honed with unseemingly casual use. And he keeps that tongue gleaming with a fine coat of caustic acid. Secondly, the sting of a Collounsbury wound last far, far longer than any lucwarm wound could because Col’s tongue lashings have the hard thrusting power of fact behind them. It is because he is usually right that the usual suspects get into such a panting, heaving sweat over him.
Lounsbury Porn. I like it.
Semantics, pure semantics. December is exceedingly polite in his language to other posters; the only way in which he is impolite (at least, that I have seen) is in his smug accusations of political irrelevance leveled against anyone to the left of Mussolini (a fault shared by many of his brethren) and in his perfect willingness to distort his opponents’ positions beyond all recognition.
These are errors of content, I’d say, not errors of form. It is what he says, not how he says it, that chafes my butt.
Collounsbury is the opposite. I largely find the contents of his posts to be fascinating, useful, and intellectually honest (even if I don’t always agree with them); they are largely couched in the language of a belligerent souse.
I’m temperamentally inclined toward the latter error: I try to remain intellectually honest in my posts a lot harder than I try to remain insult-free. So Collounsbury’s posts end up bothering me a lot less than December’s worst posts. At the same time, I recognize that the rules address the former’s errors more directly than they address the latter’s offenses.
Daniel
Sez I: “(1) You demand specifics”
Sez collounsbury: “No, I make fun of the whole thing. Reread the paragraph. Think in the context of the tar baby.”
Here’s your original words, in case you forgot them:
Let’s face reality: You said something stupid and now you’re trying to pretend it was some intellectual joke.
Go take your ritalin or something.
Noted, and my own apology offered for assuming you knew it was from a Pit thread.
I’m not sure if you’re referring to anyone, but certainly that characterization does not apply to me.
**
If you’re saying that he is a practiced jerk, I’d have to agree with you.
**
Nonsense, I’ve caught him in lies and/or being wrong on more than one occasion.
**
No it’s because he’s usually a jerk. But feel free to ask him to ressurect any debate we’ve had so he can demonstrate just how right he is. I’m confident that I’ll slaughter him.
C’mon, **Biggirl, ** go ahead, confess your longtime crush before God and the SDMB!
I guess I’ll grudgingly put up with Lounsbury Porn, as long as it doesn’t actually involve fishnet stockings. Or spike heels. Or vinyl clothing. Maybe some whips and chains, but only if done tastefully in muted colors and in an appropriately WASPish manner.
No matter where one draws the line, there will always be something where “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference” between what is acceptable and what is not, and you can bet that somebody will complain about what isn’t covered in that $0.10 worth of difference.
Nevertheless, what you describe) appears to be the rule as we have it (though the “not surprising you made it” bit would seem awfully close to going over the line, if indeed it doesn’t do so). The powers that be have decided to err on the side of linguistic tolerance, apparently for the sake of a freer exchange of ideas in the forum. That approach is fine with me.
As Guadere properly notes, there are times when it is entirely appropriate to point out that another poster’s position arises from ignorance of the subject or from personal/political bias. Unless you want the staff making judgment calls about when it’s appropriate to say such things and when it’s not–and god knows the exercise or failure to exercise that kind of discretion would turn into a nightmare for the staff–then you have to allow all such criticisms, even when they’re strongly worded or not warranted at all.
Now that hardly means that you have to let Collounsbury or december or me or Sam Stone or anybody ruin your enjoyment of the forum. If somebody’s behaving poorly, tell them to shape up (Collounsbury has responded appropriately to such rebukes a number of times), put them on your ignore list, or just don’t pay any attention to them. There are dozens of active threads in GD. Unless you’re the type of person who falls to pieces at the barest hint of personal displeasure (which you clearly are not, given that you’re here in the Pit), you can safely navigate the vast majority of those threads without the slightest affront to any delicate sensibilities.
Okay, how about this test for whether Collounsbury’s behaviour is acceptable:
What would Great Debates be like if everyone behaved the same way? Would it retain its character? Would it be a place in which you would want to hang out?
Perhaps rather than getting Collounsbury banned, the proper solution here is for everyone to simply respond in kind. The next time Collounsbury posts something we disagree with, we should all just put on our flame retardant suits and start blasting away.
There are plenty of moronic posters that I’m just itching to unload on. They may be nice people, but they say such stupid things sometimes. And that seems to be the test - flaming is okay, as long as the victim deserves it. The Anti-globalization threads in particular are just ripe for a good-old Collounsbury-style flamefest.
God knows, there are about a dozen people who personally attack December whenever he posts and get away with it, but the consensus seems to be that December is a valid target, because he deserves it. I wonder if that’s the official unwritten rule of the SDMB? Flaming is bad, unless people deserve it? The enlightened must debate civilly, but the ignorant may be attacked with flaming arrows?
Incidentally, every obnoxious asshole on the internet thinks that the targets of his wrath deserve it.
Is there anyone here who thinks Great Debates would be a better place if we all did that? Would the mods tolerate it? If not, then Collounsbury’s behaviour is over the line.
BTW, I can’t remember, but did Wildest Bill behave as badly as Collounsbury? Because he sure was out of here quickly when he started misbehaving.
Frankly, I think a lot of the people who support Collounsbury do so because they live vicariously through his insults. They agree with his POV, and it’s rather delicious sometimes watching him come along and hack apart someone that you think deserves it. Hell, Collounsbury and I are usually on the same side when it comes to matters of economics, and his attacks on other posters don’t seem as offensive to me when he does it to someone who I wish I could have flamed for stupidity.
This is a natural human reaction. If you’re a conservative and Rush Limbaugh flames some Liberal, it’s hilarious. If Al Franken flames a conservative, it’s obnoxious behaviour. And vice versa.
None of this changes the fact that it’s against the rules, and has a chilling effect on debate - especially when the person being flamed does not have the right to retaliate in kind because there is special treatment.
Besides, if I want to go somewhere where the rules of the game mean that personal insults are the preferred mode of debate, I’ll wander over to Usenet. There’s a Straight Dope group there, and it’s a lot faster than the SDMB. But I don’t, because I prefer the more civil atmosphere of the SDMB. Too bad that it’s degrading so badly in Great Debates. If that continues much longer, this place will lose its advantages.
One last thing - Most people with good educations and lots of experience, the kind of people we want on the SDMB, do not enjoy flame fests. Collounsbury is an exception. I wonder how many people who have as much to offer as Collounsbury wander into the SDMB and then leave because they don’t like the atmosphere? Over time, we’re just going to pick up more and more people who like Collounsbury’s debating style, and filter out the ones who don’t. And this place will continue its slow slide downhill.
Sam, not for nothing, but yer whining. Col treads the line real close, but he doesn’t… quite cross it.
I mean, how is it much worse than my tendency to say really nice things about people when I’d much rather be calling them impacted fuckwads that have their head so much up their ass that they see the world through the plexiglass window surgically implanted in their navel by a kind and generous syphillic maniac that sodomized them in both ears and their left elbow?
Ah yes, what an excellent way to elevate the forum and promote discourse, Sam. Or perhaps you could just acknowledge that while everybody can live right on the edge of the rules, it would not be desirable to do so?
The purpose of GD is to be a forum for the discussion and debate of issues, not to “retain its character” or “be a place in which you would want to hang out.” You know, Voltaire and all that “defend to the death your right to say it” stuff?
Their posts sure as hell can be attacked with flaming arrows. Their persons, not so much. Though december certainly sets himself up for roasting of his sources, methods, and biases, I very much doubt that you can provide examples of posters in GD insulting december as a person, not for the content of his posts, and getting away with it.
He was banned for repeatedly posting political rants in GQ, not for anything he said in GD.
Get this through your pea-brained skull,* Sam: What you and the rest of the Collounsbury-Bashing Society have been throwing on the table here is not against the rules of GD. Gaudere even descended from on high to make that perfectly clear. If you want to argue that Col’s behavior should be against the rules, hey, knock yourself out. But claiming that it is against the rules is quite pointless–that argument has been considered, and rejected by the only people authorized to make that determination. If that determination renders the forum intolerable for you, there’s always that handy little “Ignore” function. That, and the door.
*I can say it here because it’s the Pit. 
Comprehension has nothing to do with it. Calling names in GD is against the rules. You drew attention to it but did not appologize, either after the twit posted (and he IS a twit) nor after warned by Gaudere. Ignorance of the posters status is irrelevant. Insults are not allowed in GD. I’m not attempting to hammer home any point, I simply found it ironic that the two threads coincided time-wise.
**
My intention is not to hurt. But I have long been annoyed by your posting style. It is jerkish and offensive. You don’t have to be ignorant to fight ignorance. It would be quite simple to don a Collounsbury posting mask and sling around insults in the guise of posts. However, that is not what GD is for.
What annoys me most is that you get acolades for your Middle Eastern knowledge and experience. Yet people are put off by your words so much so that it makes it impossible to gather the meaning. And that is just a damn shame.
Ahhh, the real problem. The “natter on like a moron” statement. For fuck’s sake that was so predictable. I’m surprised you didn’t mention Bernard Lewis. GD is not a forum for experts. While individuals with expertise in areas are of great value, there is no required reading list or IQ requirement for GD. Some of the greatest ignorance fighting OPs are started by people who only have a “semblance of understanding”.
Er, why? There are examples in this thread.
Yes, it is perfectly acceptable for you to post that you disagree with a moderator. Should I have added “[font****=5]” and [color****=red]" to my earlier already bolded, underlined and italicized portion of post? It seems that you are still not quite clear on the subject of whether or not it is acceptable to post a disagreement with a moderator.
Well, ther were three people who offered their opinion. Gaudere, IIRC did not warn Col for what he said, and IIRC stated in this thread that it was not a GD-specific Direct Personal Attack to say that someone is usually or always wrong. I didn’t think it was a Direct Personal Attack. You did. That’s 1/3, for what that’s worth.
You are the most daft person I think I have ever seen post on this MB, up to and including the antics of several trolls and one thread wherein people had their cats post. Are you unable to grasp, evidently, what I bolded, underlined and italicized (not to mention put in all caps) in my previous post?
I agree with you that it is okay to publicly disagree with the moderators. I truly do not see where in any of my posts you have gotten the sense that this is not my belief (and it seems from a few of my posts that you are materializing this claim as a way to still find something to argue with me about). And it does not seem to me that ANYONE else is so unable to grasp this about my posts that they have continued on about it.
Are you, perhaps, reading some other post wherein the person posting is clearly saying “I do not accept the practice of publicly disagreeing with any moderator(s)” and then switching windows to this thread and quoting my post instead of one that actually said that?
Is there anyone other than lucwarm in this thread (or who has read the comments in question but not posted) who agrees with lucwarm’s assessment that, despite my “protestations” (one of which was typed in all caps, bolded, underlined and italicized) I believe there is no place, or it improper, or it should be avoided to publicly disagree with moderators? I have maintained that position a number of times when questioned on “do you really think/is it your position that we should not post disagreements with moderators?” by lucwarm. I am utterly unable to find justification for this continued questioning, unless lucwarm has a severe issue with reading comprehension and another with short-term memory.
I did not say that you should not post a disagreement with a moderator. I said, in this particular case (paraphrased), that acting as a Junior Mod when you have already been told you are incorrect about a potential rules violation does not endear any moderator to you or your cause. I again do not see how you are reading “don’t ever publicly disagree with a moderator”, though I suppose in your next post I will see that heavily emphasized as evidence that I believe that phrase to be what one should do.
Absent someone else agreeing with you on this issue, I give up. It is impossible to teach someone who cannot see to read print. I see that this is common-enough now with your other posts in this thread. I only wish I had known in advance so I could start with something simple, like “this is a message board. People post to it”, which is clearly less advanced than what I had been expecting you to properly parse: “I believe it is acceptable to post disagreement with a moderator”.
Let me know when you are able to think.
In the sense that he did not post “I apologize to the SDMB for calling this person a twit”, this is correct. However, let us revisit what he said:
So it would appear, based on my ability to parse sentences and comprehend what I read (lucwarm, no doubt, has already sent for the correspondence course in this. More’s the pity), that Col admitted his error, explained the situation leading up to it, and said he was wrong.
It would further appear, as Gaudere nor any other mod or admin have not commented again on that matter in the thread, that his response to the warning was acceptable.
It would be possible to attempt to emulate Col’s posting style. Other than one or two people on this board I doubt his knowledge could be similarly emulated, and that is where you would be lacking (unless you happen to have extensive knowledge of the MENA situation, of water-borne diseases, etc. As I haven’t seen many of your posts I wouldn’t know).
Oh, for crying out loud.
Look y’all, someday Col will have one too many, and he’ll go over the line and flame some jerk and he’ll be banned again. Might not happen next week or next month, but eventually he’ll have to go.
Which is too bad. If it were up to me, I’d rule that Col is well within the lines of acceptable discourse. However, on this board he is right on the line. Since people have moods, eventually Col is going to misjudge the line again and he’ll be gone and you all can throw a party.
Until then, why get upset? Were your feelings REALLY hurt because Col insulted you? Sad either way.
Col breaks the rules? No he doesn’t.
Should Col change? Maybe, but that’s up to him. If he doesn’t change he’ll eventually be banned again. That’s his choice.
Why can’t you insult people like Col does? You can, but SHOULD you? If you do, you’ll eventually be banned too. And besides, he sometimes hurts himself by imputing base motives to the genuinely ignorant. If Col annoys you, why would you copy him? If your neighbor jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff too? Better to stick to your own voice, and let Col deal with the consequences of his voice.
[nitpik]
This is a most confusing post. Please define liberal, liberal in outlook and conservative in outlook. I really believe you’re confusing political with personal two wholly different concepts. I find myself getting more conservative (politically speaking), and more liberal (personally speaking) as I get older, but YMMV.
[/nitpik]
I hope you’re not a teacher. 