Looking at the linked threads (didn’t see any happen in real time). IMHO 3 didn’t deserve formal warnings. Two did. Not enough for a banning.
A pity.
But honestly he would have been sitting right near the top of “long-time poster banning pool”, if I had such a thing. It might just be my own faulty memory and misperception, but it seems like at some point over the last couple/few years that he began to not really give a crap any more. He seemed to rev up the snark and aggression, while arguing substantively less often. And unlike Collounsbury, who truly did/does have all the self-control ( and not infrequently, manners ) of a wolverine with a UTI, I sorta got the impression Weirddave was pushing the boundaries a bit more deliberately. I kinda wonder if he’ll even be upset or annoyed by being banned at all. But I don’t know him that well, so like I said maybe I’m just blowing smoke…
Regardless, it’s still unfortunate. Hope he finds a more entertaining venue for himself elsewhere.
He was the one who always started it. I mostly tried to ignore him (even though I’d often end up taking the bait). I can’t remember one useful exchange or civil word he ever had for me. I’m not the one who reported that last post he got warned for, nor have I ever asked for his banning, but I don’t think he was banned just because of his attacks on me. I wouldn’t resist his reinstatement, but I’m not going to advocate for it either.
I do think a suspension is the appropriate punishment here, but it’s the mod’s call.
I’d never really noticed Wierddave, don’t remember reading his posts only knew the name. But after seeing the collection of warnings, especially the fourth one of 12/29/08, I agree with the banning.
I disagree. I disagree so strongly I’ll have to rethink my own time here. I, as I hope most people realize, am not one for message board drama but sometimes one must speak out.
From the announcement thread:
Warning #1 was in response to a statement of truth and smacks of little more than management ass-covering.
Warning #2 seems hardly worth the warning, frankly. Any adult discussion of that particular book will end in political discussion.
Warning #3 was a political comment that crossed into the personal.
Warning #4 seems over the top.
Warning #5 is a drive by smartass comment or dig of the sort I’d see in Congressional debates three days out of five.
In short, three out of five of the warnings seem pretty lightweight. I think this should be reconsidered. Was Dave an acerbic poster? Certainly. But I think at least a part of this banning is due to political considerations and not behavioral.
You absolutely, positively have to be joking. Seriously, spend a few minutes actually LOOKING at the thread warning #5 came from and you’ll easily see that it wasn’t some kind of drive by anything.
He received TWO warnings from Ed in the same thread.
Warning #1 came in post #183 for changing the wording of a quote by another poster.
In post #311 he comes in with the ridiculous notion that he will BORROW money he doesn’t have to send DtC overseas to say some ridiculous stuff to “prove” that DtC would be killed for speaking his mind. Borrowing money to send someone off halfway around the world to prove something to someone on a messageboard?!? I’m starting to understand how Bush got elected again if this is the kind of financial chops some of these people have. Yikes.
After his “brilliant” idea of borrowing money to prove his point, he becomes quite proud of this nonsensical notion and crows about it ad nauseam in posts #315, #317, #321, #322, #324, #352, #376 and #378. Drive by? Perhaps thy should look a little closer before you are willing to stick your neck out for someone who got himself into the position he finds himself in now.
If anything, I think the mods gave him too much leeway. Like, a lot. A whole lot. As long as he’s been here he should know that he broke a serious rule there. Sometimes I think people are here so long they think they won’t be bounced. Wrongo.
This one’s okay, but could we bring Satan back?
Dave wasn’t a new poster 18 months ago; he was coming off a suspension, the point of which was to tell him he needed to stop crossing this line or he might get banned. The message didn’t take, as shown by the fact that he continued to get warned regularly in the period that followed. People disagree with warnings all the time, but I don’t think the rules here are a huge mystery: if you get warned and think we screwed up, life goes on, but if you get warned over and over, doesn’t that show you change what you’re doing?
I don’t have a link handy, but during a previous discussion, someone in authority made clear that this prohibition did not apply to people after they were banned, or at least, subjectively, they weren’t so concerned about it, as the point was now moot. Caveat, I vaguely recall that the banned individual had joined relatively recently and was a definite stirrer of shit, and he/she wasn’t really going to be missed, so the context was pretty different. I don’t know if the rule was being overlooked out of convenience at the time, and that this situation, a longtime member who used to be a contributor until he started going off the rails, argues for a different standard of enforcement. But it is not unprecedented, and the harsh rebuke is uncalled for.
And for what it’s worth, I think Weirddave has serious anger issues, and that whatever he used to bring to the boards, he stopped adding value a while ago, choosing instead to use the boards as a place to vent by spewing meaningless and over-the-top venom. I don’t know if that meets the banning standard, but I also don’t know that I’ll miss him overmuch.
I really don’t see how anyone can claim any of those warnings were undeserved. All of the posts he made out of the Pit that got warnings were full of nasty vitriol and unprovoked snipes, and the one in the Pit was even further over the line. He simply couldn’t confine his personal hate for certain other posters to the Pit, and judging by his response to the moderators giving the warnings, couldn’t understand why it was unacceptable.
I also hate to lose Weirddave, but JC, I have to take issue with this. While I agree with your characterization of #5, the point remains that the comment was so clearly over the line for Great Debates, which has (I would hope!) a higher standard of conduct than congress. Dave HAS to have known this, yet he still posted. I feel for him - having to extremely often be on the minority side of debates here has to wear on a person, but still, doesn’t excuse the comment.
If any of the more liberal posters, with the same kind of posting history (say Elv1s or luci or even DtC), had made a similar comment in GD, they’d have been warned or banned as well. If you, or anyone else, can find counterexamples to this, where liberal posters got away with comments like this, I’ll definitely reconsider my stance. But I just don’t see this as political.
Please note that I’m not really comparing any of the three above to Weirddave in specifics - just using them as examples of some of the more, shall we say, controversial liberal posters.
Ditto. Having said that, this might be the first banning I ever really disagreed with, at least given the evidence provided.
There are four “prior offenses” listed. Two of them are over a year old. Two of them do not make it clear he is getting an Official Warning.
If that’s all they have – IF – it’s awfully weak.
Every single post has the word warning in it, without “This is not a” preceding it. Pretty clear.
Besides a moderator saying “warning” or “this is a warning,” what would it take to make it official?
I protest too. I don’t think he’s any better or worse than some others around here I can name (but I won’t, because this isn’t the place.)
I think Dave’s response to most of those posts made it clear he understood he was being formally warned.
However if the word Warning in bold print is not clear enough we could consider alternative suggestions. Skywriting is prohibitively expensive it today’s economy, but perhaps you can get us a good deal on a singing telegram to the warnee?
I think some people are assuming your warnings reset to zero after a suspension. That wouldn’t make sense and that isn’t how it works: they’re not a prison sentence where you pay your debt to society and then you’re all square. People get suspended because we’ve warned them repeatedly to no effect, so they get a suspension as a last chance before banning. If they don’t have any more problems after the warnings/suspension, in time it becomes less of an issue.*
If someone gets suspended, comes back and keeps getting warnings on a regular basis, sooner or later it becomes clear this person isn’t, or can’t, change his behavior. That’s what went on here: after a handful of warnings and a suspension, Weirddave came back, got another handful of warnings, was told he was at risk for a suspension or ban, and then got another warning.
*It’s also true that we don’t hold warnings against people Forever. Over time, if they don’t repeat the actions they got warned for, they don’t count as much. But the “repeat” part is what makes the difference.
But it’s not all they have- Tuba’s thread makes it clear that he had a formal suspension, at the end of which he was told he was on his final warning. Still, they gave him five more… even if four of them were old and/or not even worth the effort of typing the word “warning,” as long as one is worth it and after the suspension, the banning stands.
It’s worse than the parents who tell their misbehaving child “If you do that ONE MORE TIME, I’ll spank you!” but never follow through on their threat. Everyone around them bitches about their misbehaving child (out loud or in the privacy of their own communications) and wonders why the parents don’t do anything, but GOD FORBID the parents actually pull their head out of their asses and finally enact the punishment. Then all they hear is "WHY ARE YOU PUNISHING YOUR CHILD??? Sure, he made a lot of dumbass mistakes, and you’ve been warning him all his life that this day may come, but really- SHAME ON YOU.
I think it’s a shame that WD couldn’t keep his snarky attitude in check so the board could have an opposing view, but we all know that the least effective way of getting your message across is OTT sniping.
I agree with the banning. If you have repeatedly show that you cannot behave yourself, out you go. I’m sure weirddave was not stupid. It seems to me that he was continually pushing the envelope to see what he could get away with. It’s the (relative) lack of people like him that throw random vitriol around that make this a nice place to post.
No, but they should reset after 6 months or so. Honestly, maybe even less for an active poster.
Dave had 2.77 posts per day. Three hundred and twenty one days between warning 2 and warning 3 averages out to 889 “good” posts between “bad” ones. The next warning came 189 days later. Closer, but still 524 good posts between bad ones. That’s an unbelievable ratio (especially if you’ve ever read any other message board on the internet) and should count for something IMO. Someone should not get a lifetime ban for a few minor offenses among over 1500 inoffensive posts. Another suspension? Sure. But you don’t get the death penalty no matter how many misdemeanors you commit. It is just made incredibly inconvenient and counter-productive for you to keep committing misdemeanors.