Licki Chaarms has apparently represented himself as a Straight Doper in seeking to debate the White Nationalists on their home turf. I understand TubaDiva’s concerns about this practice in her desire to avoid incipient board wars and saw in her announcement header that she has banned him for doing this.
I have disagreed with some of Lucki’s arguments in the past, but he is a young and eager doper in seeking to fight most kinds of ignorance and I think a little mercy might go a long way in this circumstance. How about it TubaDiva. If he agrees to go forth and sin no more can you give him a pass this time?
I believe that the general course in these cases (though we’ve never had this exact thing before) is to let things cool down and then, if the poster emails and impresses the mods that theey are truly repentant, they can be reinstated.
It occurs to me that making this an *issue now when the mods certainly can’t relent is not in Lucki Chaarms’s best interest: it will be easier to quietly reinstate him later if there isn’t made into a huge big political issue. So I suggest we all drop this now.
It seems to me Emailing a mod expressing support would be a way to give effective support.
Fine. If that helps him more I will ask that a mod to lock this thread, and if anyone is so inclined that they email TubaDiva on his behalf.
Granted he may have been a bit headstrong in calling them out on their own turf, but even if his method was flawed I do respect his intent. The villagers may worry about pissing the dragon off, but sometimes you have go into his dark and smelly cave to take him on.
I’m pretty sure Lucki Chaarms is a girl.
Also, did Lucki go to the other side with links back to the board? I could see how that might not be the best plan if that was what was done.
As one who has been banned and brought back from the dead, I will say that to be reinstated, you must truly be repentant and sorry. The admins are nice people, they just don’t take kindly to those that dick them or the board over.
I’ll concede what Lucki did was somewhat dumb, but I don’t understand why such a heavy handed approach like banning was employed in lieu of a simple warning. Of course it’s not my call, but how will banning someone on this board solve the problem of them making comments on other boards?
No, in his thread at that site he referred to himself as a “queerboy”. (Oddly, a few members over there congratulated him on being gutsy enough to admit his sexuality.)
Plus I believe he’s mentioned he’s male at this message board, as well.
And no, he didn’t put up any links that I saw. In fact, only had two posts to his name when I was nosing around on this afternoon.
I have one, please, Tuba. Well, actually three. I post at other boards, including Fathom, FreeMarket, Indianz, FlashKit, and ThePizzaParlor.
Am I correct that you do not mean to say that, for example, if someone asks, “Are you the same Libertarian who posts at Straight Dope”, I am precluded from answering the question?
I know for a fact that Straight Dope is routinely referenced at the Pizza Parlor. (Polycarp is a moderator there). But neither he, nor I, nor anyone else ever associate ourselves in any offical capacity, or represent ourselves as Straight Dope moderators or administrators — just members.
I guess these are my specific questions:
Are we forbidden to type the words “Straight Dope” at another message board?
Are we forbidden to identify ourselves as members of “Straight Dope” even when asked?
I think this is really a common sense thing, Lib. I don’t see any harm in saying one is a Doper, but posting on another board under the pretense of doing something Officially Doperly or as a “representative” of the SDMB or similar would be, for obvious reasons, frowned upon.
This message seems crystal clear - don’t start a board war. The boards a fathom and pizza parlor don’t strike me as the kind of place where there would be much enthusiasm for trolling and other kinds of undesirable behavior.
Maybe Lucki Charms will be given some kind of suspension that will allow him to eventually participate on the SDMB again.
Libertarian , I’ll try to answer your questions as best as I can even though it is 7:30 in the morning. But the problem is that you’re asking general questions about a specific request.
Firstly, I think it goes without saying that if anyone goes elsewhere on the net and represents themselves as an official spokesman for TSD or the SDMB when they are not is going to find themselves in a heap of trouble here.
Saying that you also post at TSD is, I believe, not going to be frowned upon as long as an issue is not being made of it. But there’s a fine line between talking about the board on a personal level and “advertising” for the board which the proprietors here really would prefer to do for themselves.
Lastly, as someone else said, we’ve not formulated a general policy here and I don’t foresee one being made unless it turns into an unmanageable situation. The fact is that the management here asked posters not to do something in one specific situation because of it’s possible volitility. Someone did it any way and that’s why they were banned.
I don’t think Lucki’s intent was to start a board war. I think he went over in good faith to debate a strongly devisive issue. He states right off the bat that he is not a representative of The Straight Dope. He deserves praise for trying to Fight Ignorance; not banning because he said he posts at SDMB.
I’ve got to say that my irony meter is pretty close to being pegged. Those… people… over at the other board accuse SDMB moderators of silencing dissent on divisive issues, often by banning the poster. Given that many of them get themselves banned over here and then come back as sock puppets (a banning offense) I thought it was just sour grapes. But in Lucki’s case it seems that a person who went off to fight the good fight was banned just for mentioning that he’s a member of this board. One of their posters said “I actually thought that I could carry on conversations there. They have a banner on their opening page that says something like, Trying to stamp out ignorance since 1975. How do they define ignorance? – disagreeing with their point of view and not listening to those who want to debate them.”
From their point of view the SDMB staff did exactly what they accuse them of – silencing debate and prohibiting discourse.
There is a thread in GD started by one of them and it’s been polite. But banning someone for attemting to do exactly the same thing that is going on in these very forums is wrong.
I’m not advocating board wars; but I think that people should be free to discuss their views and to at least give some background as to where they’re coming from. We were asked not to start a board war; but does that mean that we’re under a gag order to not discuss anything controversial? I don’t believe that Lucki went to war. I think he accepted an invitation to engage in an actual debate.
In this specific case (and I use the word specific purposely) timing was everything. If he had not done it right after another poster from that site had been banned and if the possibility of a board war was not imminent, we probably would have not banned him.
There are some things that we will not put up with on this board, but dissent is not one of them. We are more than happy to host reasonable rational discussions on why some people may think (for an example) homosexuality may be wrong. When it turns to gay-bashing is when it gets turned off. Debate is one thing; mindless invective is another.
But as I said before, it was the timing that Lucki showed that precipated the whole affair.
Exactly so and intellectually aggressive and eager teenagers whether dopers or not, are not always known for their good timing and prudence. Yes, he should have been more sensitive to the potential ramifications and flags previously raised, but how many of us might have done the same thing when we were his age. I look back on the windmills I tilted at when I was his age and I could easily have made the same mis-step in my desire to take on what I perceived to be willful and evil ignorance.
Is it okay to reccomend the SDMB at other boards? Sometimes, people ask me where I post, and I’ll say where.
Or I’ll say, man, I hate it when my favorite boards are overrun by trolls! That sucks!
Is THAT bad? Cuz like, I was talking at a SW board, and we were talking about things we hate, and I said, “I hate that my favorite board the SDMB is being trashed by racist jerks who just want to start trouble. It SUCKS!”
astro, as somebody close to Lucki’s age, I don’t think mercy is in order at this stage of things. Being a teenager has never been an excuse for breaking SDMB rules before, it shouldn’t be one now. The fact remains that the admins posted a specific request for people not to go over there and start trouble. While Lucki was not looking for trouble, he didn’t think through the fact that going over to a board which we’re on the verge of war with and waving the SDMB banner, whether in “good faith” or not, could start a conflict.
I think that Lucki should be reinstated, but not at this point. Perhaps after things have died down with SF, and it’s all just a past memory, he can apologize and have his priveledges returned. But the fact is that he broke a newly placed board regulation, and went over there half-cocked. Whether the debate was rational or not really isn’t a factor; many of the SFers have proved that they’re not rational people, and would take any approach by a Doper as an attack. That’s how board wars get started.
Teenagers are known for being irrational and compulsive, yes. But one of the ways that we learn not to act like that, and turn into adults, is through trial and error. We screw up, we get shut down for it, we learn not to do it again. This should be one of those learning experiences for Lucki. Hopefully, when this is all over, he can make a return to the boards and show what he’s learned.
