Seems like not only are dopers bailing left and right from any of the quarantine threads that he’s been threadshitting in, but also, just the fact alone that he’s disseminating such toxic and potentially dangerous shit, without being held accountable for it, strikes me as odd. Sure, I’m a little odd, myself, I spose, but this doesn’t seem right, in any way. Quite befuddled how this isn’t being regarded with concern.
Even people who’ve ignored the subhuman are complaining that they’re still seeing his poison getting quoted in posts.
Has any mod given, like, any explanation as to why the painfully obvious troll hasn’t been, um, permanently banned yet (whenever he’s reported)?
Care to provide an example of the horror that they post ?
The situation is, although people complain about him, they generally haven’t reported any clear rule violations. Making bad arguments is not in itself a warnable offense. Whenever I have checked reports they don’t appear to me to be actionable.
We’ve said before that it is not the job of moderators to verify information, or to adjudicate the quality of an argument. It’s up to posters to dispute what they regard as erroneous information.
If you see outright rule violations, report them. But make sure they are not just posts or opinions you disagree with.
And let’s refrain from insulting other posters outside the Pit.
“I have zero wish to dive into the numbers on this issue. Zero. I imagine that the surveys on this matter are (very) limited, at best.”
Stated after already having made claims at numbers, then weasels off from it.
“Here’s a little more grist for the mill.”
…and then disengenuously going on to quote from an article (that was basically a second hand anecdote published in a far right magazine) about the supposed horrors of lockdown affecting the plight of a mother and her children at a clinic that, in no way, addressed the larger picture of um, yeah, the absolute necessity of, yes - requiring lockdowns.
Really, I could go on.
Aye, acknowledged.
You’re letting that fly?
As I said, bad arguments are not really the purview of moderators.
You are not contractually obligated to respond to posters you believe are posting in bad faith. Don’t engage with them, or else ignore them.
Agreed. I was just figuring that if these bad arguments exist in thread about covid, that might warrant some extra concern, I spose. YMMV.
It might be nice if he had his own QZ thread. He drags every other one off topic to repeat his own 3 or 4 talking points.
Huh? No, what you guys have always said is that as mods, your job is to moderate the conversation and not just enforce the rules. There are tons of situations where a poster isn’t violating the rules but you guys will pop in with a mod note, and once there’s a mod note, any violation of such can be a Warning. The mods always are allowed to use their judgement and try to maintain threads.
If the guy’s posts are harming discussion, you have every precedent in being able to deal with him. Heck, you’ve done so before, with this particular poster. People tried to say you were wrong to do so, but you stuck with your guns.
And that’s not even considering the changes where you guys came up with other punishments you could use, like thread bans whenever a particular poster is causing problems. That was for those not violating the rules (which would be a Warnable offense) was it not?
This statement seems completely at odds with how I’ve ever seen this board moderated. It’s never been a situation where it’s “he didn’t violate the rules, so we can’t do anything.” You’ve never stood for bright line rules and rules-only moderation.
What about a topic ban to prevent every thread from being derailed?
I have seen people express the opinion that he shouldn’t be banned, because that gives them the opportunity to refute opinions that are held by a significant portion of the population.
Do you mean SayTwo? (never heard of him, but I see a Pit thread)
If the threadshitting is only in QZ, and he/she is a good poster elsewhere, maybe a forum ban would be better.
ETA: ninja’d by Babale
~Max
I have banned him from the Breaking News thread. If you see him hijacking other threads where his arguments are not relevant, then report it. But I really haven’t seen many reports on those grounds.
Will do
Yes, I have, and am willing to take that tack when appropriate. But as I said, most reports I see about him are not actionable, in my opinion as a moderator.
Sure, good point.
(I just hope I don’t see too many more posts from people saying they’re exhausted from dealing with him and then just end up putting him on ignore instead.)
People kinda are. This is an important issue, and letting misinformation go unchecked is causing almost direct harm. Somebody has to be there to refute false information when the spread of that information is killing people. Posters don’t come to QZ to have a fun discussion, but to give information and fight ignorance about a very serious issue.
There may be some value in refuting a false claim once, but not when he ignores the refutation and repeats it. People are in part getting tired of debunking the same falsehoods over and over.
I understand people get frustrated refuting the same points again and again, and “don’t want to let false information stand” in case some lurker is swayed by it. But in a long thread, once that information has been refuted multiple times, I don’t think a lurker is going to keep reading indefinitely.
And I’ll quote a classic:
Cite? The misinformation here is being checked.