Slip I agree that the pit can be unsavory at times, and have nothing against that. It’s sorta the point of the pit. However, when I read:
posted by a Moderator (Manhattan) and it gets the following answer:
posted by Diane,
I think this goes waaaaay too far.
I have read insulting stuff in the pit before, but this is just gruesome.
I love the anger, the vitriol, and the colorful language of the Pit. While the fact that the “bunnies don’t play here,” or other such self-congratulary malarky, may excuse the bile, it certainly does not excuse genuinely poor behavior.
Therefore, Diane, I think you should spare yourself further indignities.
Okay Diane - would you like to draw the line between bile and offensiveness? Between screaming and abuse and bannable behaviour? Yes, Sultan was an offensive asshole to you and it’s pretty obvious he was trolling, but you’re hurling abuse at anyone at who disagrees with you and making cheap shots at someone because they haven’t been here as long as you rather than defending your position.
Being abusive makes you neither clever nor witty. I’m well aware that this is the pit and there are no bunnies or butterflies, but that doesn’t mean people can’t disagree with you without being subject to reems of bile.
(On preview, I see that Maeglin’s put it better than I have. Damn.)
Diane Way to prove my point by trying to insult me. Thanks, I needed the laugh!
First, you make a reference to my low post-count. Check.
Second, you insult me. Check.
Third,
Oh, yeah, the you don’t have to read it argument. You can throw that one right back at yourself. If Sultan’s ideas were so repulsive to you, you didn’t have to read his posts. Did you do that? No, you started a thread to share your disgust with the world. Practice what you preach.
Diane, I think the problem people (or at least I) have here is that one second you say, “This is Pit! Anything goes! Fuck you and your dead granny!” Then the next you turn sensitive and victimized because Sultan managed to push your buttons (did he burn your pwitty wittle eyes?), and you call in the Mods from over in ATMB to haul him out. Looks like you couldn’t handle the heat yourself, and had to call in reinforcements. If everything said to or about Sultan is fair game, then all his barbs about your dear and departed are open season too.
Egad, I always hoped I’d never have to resort to one of the dread SDMB cliches: Pot. Kettle. Black.
Without mentioning names, his style reminded me of another poster than had been banned.
In original poster had quite a following and played both sides of the “good cop/bad cop” pretty well. The new name seems to have missed the newbie period and gone straight to “bad cop”.
Look, Diane, just because you live in here doesn’t give you the right to be a pain in the ass, so knock it off. Just because you got all pissy about someone actually having the gall to disagree with you doesn’t mean that you get to belittle k.os. You’ve stated your point. Now shut the fuck up about it.
Well I was just about to add what k.os already did. The way she’s moving back and forth, Diane must be riding pretty interesting looking (moral?)horse with two fronts. Makes you wonder how her head can be so far up its ass in that case, doesn’t it.
Thank goodness a cross was already involved in this thread…though I think a lot more will be needed before all is said and done.
The Sultan also verbally spat on the graves of the victims of the mass murder, and dissed the praise hoisted upon Giuliani and the uniform workers at the WTC site. Let’s just say that he was lucky I wasn’t moderator.
Wow, Diane, is any of this registering with you now that posters with counts near or above 1,000 are railing against you? Or do we need to haul in a big gun?
I have an idea: Since it seems Diane possesses the super-power of impugning small post counts, perhaps if all us puny post-counters join together (a la Voltron) we can outnumber the vile Bile Breathing Dian-o-saurus.
Total=3001
Come on, gang, just 370 more and we overshadow the beast! Let’s beat this reprobate back to Hades where it belongs!
On second thought, this is a sad and pathetic creature. Let’s just release it back into the wild where it belongs.
Let’s not forget he was quoting Al Sharpton like it was gospel.
Not on the same calibur as the previous shit, just sad.
Pile-ons such as this are even more execrable than Diane’s conduct. You’ve all made your points, now leave off.
DING DING DING! We have a winner! You’ve just discovered one of the great truths, Diane is a bitch. There are some good things she writes on occasion, but mostly, she’s just a bitch. One time I showed a thread to my wife which Diane had posted in, we just scrolled past Diane’s posts because all she ever did was spew venom.(If you’re curious, look up the “TMI Why did I fall for HIM” thread, she backpedealed a little after finding out her assumption was wrong, but she still treated the OP as if she was a juvenile moron for considering the sexual history of her new boyfriend significant)
Diane, it seems, doesn’t believe in different strokes for different folks, or at least doesn’t believe they should be allowed to express these beliefs. She is one of the reasons I am hoping the virtual board code implements a score/killfile soon. Right now I still read what she writes, occasionally there is a nugget of wisdom, but usually you have to dig through the bile and bitchiness to get to it. The cost/benefit is ratio is very close to the threshold, soon I probably won’t read her stuff at all, which of course won’t bother her because I probably don’t have anything to say that she would want to hear. So once I can block her posts she won’t bother me, and I won’t bother her and it’ll all be golden.
To get away from the hijack and back to the topic of this thread, I believe Sultan did not deserve to be banned. Locking the thread with a warning would have been enough. If he posted another thread to pick up where he left off, sure, ban him. But there was one valid part of his position which I believe was not addressed well. The cross is not a good representation of the beliefs of the victims. When they build the WTC memorial, I would be against it being in the shape of a cross because it does not represent the diversity of the victims accurately. I believe having a cross at the WTC center site is fine right now if it helps the rescue workers at all. I felt the same way about seeing the American flag on the remains of a wall. If it helps people, and it helped me I know, then go ahead. Right now isn’t about the victims, it’s about the rescue workers. The victims will be memorialized soon, the rescue workers need relief RIGHT NOW, and any place they can find it, be it in religious symbols, or whatever works for them, is fine with me.
The distinction between what is being done NOW to comfort the RESCUE WORKERS and between what would be politically correct to do to memorialize the VICTIMS in the FUTURE was not made forcibly enough. I believe Sultan was trying to make a point about our increasingly PC culture and how it is hypocritical to disallow mandatory prayer in schools because it does not represent the beliefs of all the students and yet to celebrate the erection of a cross over the WTC site where it does not represent the beliefs and values of the victims or even all of the rescue workers. The point which was not made is that the cross is a temporary measure to make a very bad situation more bearable for many people. If it were understood that this was not an official statement on the position of the rescue workers and was something some individual did to feel better and hopefully help comfort/inspire others, I think the thread might have progressed differently. I don’t see this as much as a departure from the ideals of political correctness(BTW, PC is not a bad word even though it has been taken too far on many occasions) as much as a temporary measure to bring a modicum of relief to the rescue workers, an action I applaud.
Steven
If I can just interrupt this feeding frenzy to make a minor observation:
Diane rightfully hauled a major fucking asshole into the pit to let him know that he was a major fucking asshole.
Feelings ran high, and in the heat of the moment some things were said that should not have been said.
So now that things have cooled off a bit, let’s have a pile on party.
This is so much fun.
So what? That wasn’t the question presented. The question presented was whether the “Iron Cross” was acceptable/appropriate right now. Are we supposed to FORCIBLY rebut issues that aren’t raised?
Besides, I think the emphasis that I and others made about the cross being a source of comfort to the rescue workers (and Sultan’s vile attacks on the rescue workers) made clear we were all speaking in the present tense.
Me, I found the whole Sultan business very educational. In the time I’ve been on these boards, I have heard much about trolling, including stories of famous trolls of the past, but I had never actually witnessed trolling in action. Until Sultan came along.[sup]1[/sup]
Forget the cross business and nuance of symbolism. Do any of you really think that Sultan believes that the rescue workers at Ground Zero are “idiots” or “hypocritical fucks”? And if he did not believe those statements, than he was posting statements he did not believe in in order to instigate a reaction. That is, trolling.
And, on the slim chance he actually believes that about the rescue workers, he is simply psychotic. Under the precedent of Jack Dean Tyler v. The Straight Dope Message Board, offensive psychosis is a bannable offense.
Sua
[sup]1[/sup]And I fell for it. 
Sheesh! Why is it always me that has to come in and pull the plugs on these things?
You all stop it. Now.