As indicated in this warning issued by GFactor, it appears we are not allowed to refer to Cesario’s pedophilia at all. That doesn’t seem right - when Evil Captor was restricted from talking about his favourite subject everywhere, I don’t recall us getting a gag order that we weren’t allowed to reference him and his predilection in relevant threads. I understand Ed Zotti’s ruling to mean that Cesario is not to be talking about his pedophilia any longer, and we are not to provoke him into doing so, but a comment in a thread calling Cesario a pedophile is just stating a fact, not provoking him. Surely we aren’t censoring facts here, are we?
Was that a warning or a note? Could it be that the timing of things makes things a bit more sensitive? Could the nature of the references (one is almost guaranteed to be an insult by default) be the difference? And lastly, what content does a post lose by not bringing up the particular poster?
I suspect that it would be rare for someone to state a simple fact such as “Cesario is a pedophile” without it being part of a larger commentary. If Cesario happens to disagree with the larger commentary then it is very unfair on him because he is not allowed to comment.
Another problem of note is that certain “facts” posted about him aren’t true and he’s powerless to correct them.
I don’t understand why it’s necessary to mention Cesario at all. Why do you care about him? What possible thread could there be where it was absolutely necessary to bring him up? Why not just leave him out of any discussion?
Also, why is this board so focussed on kiddie porn and pedophilia now? It’s getting kind of gross.
I will defer to the mods on this, but I think there’s a difference between saying “Cesario is a pedophile” (IIRC he has self-identified as such, or at least not objected to others’ use of the term as applied to him) and saying “Cesario has said X and Y but does not agree with Z” about pedophilia or sex with children. The latter statement characterizes his specific statements, and he has no opportunity to respond if a mischaracterization is made. Even quoting Cesario’s old posts is probably not fair to him because a quote can be misleading if it’s out of context.
I’m sure certain topics get a rise out of people for a while then disappear. This time it’s pedo; next time will be something else.
Why not simply not mention him at all?
Yes, the board is able to make up its own history about him at the moment and no one is there to nitpick the little inaccuracies to keep the history somewhat truthful. Imagine if every other thread was about you and you weren’t allowed to make any comment. And yes, I know I’m playing my small part in it all just by commenting in this thread.
Yeah, I agree. I was responding to the OP’s question, not suggesting that we should be mentioning his name.
Agreed.
Just to confirm, that is a Moderator Note, rather than an official warning. Gfactor did not issue any infraction to any of the posters involved. I am not speaking for Gfactor, but it seems to me that was intended to head off further specific discussion of Cesarioin that thread.
I would also note that Contrapuntal had not merely mentioned Cesario’s predilection, but described what he thought was Cesario’s position on the age of consent. This would open the door to further discussion of Cesario’s position, to which he would be unable to respond.
I think a serious consideration is that people searching for such things (e.g., googling) are liable to find our Message Boards, and be attracted to us like flames to a moth. My suggestion: stop discussing this.
That is a very good idea.
This. It was clearly marked as a moderator note. And it was required by Ed’s post, to which I linked. We’ve already disussed the merits of Ed’s decision on this topic in several threads. I’m at work right now and will be unavailable tonight, so any further responses from me will probably come after that.
Yes, I must admit I was guilty of that, wandering into a thread, admittedly only hearing of his “infamy” through what is said about him rather than what he actually posted (as I haven’t seen hardly any of his own posts, he and I usually hanging out in different forums). I then mentioned something that I thought was true, but wasn’t. I was reminded of Ed’s ruling, and quickly left the thread. 
(I was hoping to stick around to thank the Dopers who fought my ignorance, as they did indeed deserve my thanks, but I figured once the warning went up I figured it was best to high-tail it out of there posthaste, my record seems to be clean for now, hope to keep it that way … )
I personally think it’s crazy to have rules that apply only to an individual poster, and discussions mentioning that poster.
If a poster is highjacking, warn them. If they’re being jerks, warn them. If they continue, ban them. If someone is making spurious claims about another poster, or baiting them, same thing - warn/ban.
The individual rules are just frustrating, and I think it’s unfortunate (but also unfortunately unsurprising) that the rules here have been gamed into their current nebulous complexity.
My point is that he seems to be getting a special treatment that he doesn’t deserve - in the similar situation that I noted in my OP, that of Evil Captor, we weren’t bound to not talk about him like we seem to be getting bound to not talk about Cesario. I have no particular interest in talking about either of them, but after Evil Captor was restricted, we still did reference him quite frequently.
It’s just the topic du jour. It’ll blow over.
I agree, smoke, but I’m trying to work with what we have now.
I guess what I’m aiming for here is clarification of a rule that seems to be taken from a previous one, but is being interpreted differently this time. Is any reference to Cesario okay? Can we say things like, “We’re a board that has self-admitted pedophiles as members, like Cesario”?
There’s your problem. It’s not “taken from a previous one.” It is similar in some ways to the Evil Captor rule, but it is an individual one specific to Cesario.
Depends on the context.
I’m having trouble imagining exactly why you would want to say such a thing. What is your point?