His second suspension was for a month, not week. That seems to be the common practice for longtime posters.
Waah! There is a bias against liberals here!
In any case, what purpose was served by his banning?
Yes, he will “continue his behavior”, which is what- one warning per 10000 posts? So? I am willing to accept those odds. Anyone who contributes as much on controversial topics - that sort of ration isnt really bad.
Sure, suspend him, let him cool off. But those last two warnings were weak sauce.
There simply is no reason for this banning.
Look back at any old zombie controversial thread in GD, and you will see "Banned’ on a lot of old time active posters.
No reason, or no reason you agree with? He was banned for exactly the same reason as most other long time posters who got banned. That is not “no reason”.
OK, no purpose.
Should the number of posts be taken into account-maybe they are, I don’t know-the implication does seem to be that it is warnings per unit time which matters, not warnings per post. If we do focus on the latter figure instead, how high a ratio is too high?
No purpose? We won’t have to hear about what Michael Lind thinks anymore, so there’s that!
Apologies: I did not mean to misrepresent your views.
In the OP, I tried to make a distinction between posters who cause problems (“That said, BG didn’t get into mod faces and didn’t generate too much board drama. (Admittedly, some objected to his new thread style: I didn’t have a problem with it.) He may have been caught up in the rising civility tide.”) and those who happen to rack up a given number of warnings.
Not all posts that get warned are likely to lead to equal amounts of board drama. Not all board drama is warnable. Not all problem posters should be banned. I define a problem poster as one who generates board drama around them and takes up a disproportionate amount of moderator time and trouble. It happens to be correlated with warnings and notes. But it isn’t quite the same.
John Mace argues that the rules were justly applied. I agree and tried to express that in the OP. But if we keep banning posters who are not problem posters then ISTM to be time to think about re-tuning the regs. If. So far 1 example (which may not even apply -see Bone’s post) doesn’t imply such a situation.
That’s a good example of problem poster behavior, regardless of whether it is noted or warned.
I think the number and membership length should both be considered. I expect they do- to a extent. Newbs are likely given short shrift .
To be fair, the warnings linked in these two threads (which I had not reviewed when I wrote the OP) were far more egregious IMO than the 2 warnings that led to BG’s ban. This weakens my case.
I do perceive that a haze of drama did not follow BG around on this board. But it’s not like I stalked the guy. Bone: could you obliquely characterize the substance of your pit thread, bearing in mind that the poster in question isn’t here to respond to direct attacks? No response is acceptable.
It’s my impression that, once you have been suspended, your posting behavior is subject to closer scrutiny and stricter interpretation vis a vis getting warnings, than if you had never been suspended. More so, I imagine, if you have been suspended twice.
I didn’t have any particular problem with the banned poster, we scarcely crossed paths apparently. But I don’t see any reason to dispute his banning.
Kind of sums up my view. I was surprised to see the ban, but I didn’t exactly follow BG’s career here. There are posters who have been disappeared with what one can only presume was a great deal of approval by all, considering the trashing they got in the Pit, but BG didn’t generally seem to have that kind of flagrantly disruptive influence. I suppose it was a matter of just chronic inability to conform to the rules. I do recall one thread he started that was immediately closed because it was so completely incoherent that he must have been on some serious substance, and I don’t mean alcohol, so who knows what his problems were. He never bothered me so I never considered him a problem.
I usually don’t like seeing posters get banned (I was even disappointed when Dio was banned), and I don’t celebrate BG being gone, but it’s just not that hard to post within the rules here. You get banned, it’s no one’s fault but your own.
Cite for both the above claims?
Ditto. I’d like to see cites for these claims.
I disagree with this principle and I’m one of the longest timed posters around. There shouldn’t be a double standard dividing established posters and newer posters. It should be one set of rules for everyone.
If I broke the rules enough to get suspended twice, I’d call it a fair warning. I’d either change my ways or I’d stop posting here. If I instead came back and kept breaking the rules, I’d expect to get banned.
Everything is considered.
He received multiple warnings and two suspensions. He then returned and racked up two more warnings. I’d say that answers the description of “problem poster.” YMMV.
Again, he received multiple warnings and two suspensions. If you haven’t found “comparable examples,” then you haven’t really been looking.
Your feelings are acknowledged. As you say, none of this is relevant.
I honestly have no idea what any of this is supposed to mean. What does it have to do with BrainGlutton’s ban? If you are saying that he “[threw] in substance and softeners in longer posts,” then I don’t believe you are familiar with his posting history. Because what you have written does not describe his body of work. At all.
I would guess that a poster who racks up multiple warnings and two suspensions does not qualify for a label of “low maintenance poster.” YMMV.
I don’t know what any of this is supposed to prove.
Again, we are talking about a poster who received multiple warnings and two suspensions, then racked up two more warnings.
It really is as simple as that.
The whole point is that it is not his argument or even his words. I don’t even disagree with half the stuff he linked to, but continuing to drop links without further comment does not constitute a “contribution” to the board in my opinion.
I don’t necessarily think he should have been banned, but I don’t think he is part of what makes this board great (inasmuch as it is.)