# In which Miller oversteps his bounds... **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 23, 2011, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068 "2011-07-23T07:20:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/61 "2011-07-23T22:39:59Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Am I no longer allowed to challenge anyone’s post for fear that other posters will turn it into the “Starving Artist Show”? Am I being ‘disappeared’ - essentially forbidden to post but without a formal banning? That’s right. By telling you to shut up, **Miller** has made you an unperson. In a single Orwellian stroke, you have been fully and completely silenced, confined to the message board equivalent of Guantanemo Bay where you will languish for all eternity, unheard and unremembered. Jesus Christ. Could you make a bigger mountain out of this particular molehill? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/62 "2011-07-23T22:45:08Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > And if he’d left it at his first post, he wouldn’t have gotten that mod note. The problem is, he made a bunch of posts after that, which had nothing to do with the thread, and which were part of his continuous pattern of injecting of his personal politics into threads that have, _at best_, only the most tenuous connection to politics. Then _also_ call out **Bosstone** , who actually started the hijack. It wasn’t until post #67, after being prodded several times by **Bosstone** , that any sort of **SA** hijack starts. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/63 "2011-07-23T22:49:54Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > Then _also_ call out **Bosstone** , who actually started the hijack. It wasn’t until post #67, after being prodded several times by **Bosstone** , that any sort of **SA** hijack starts. So we agree it was a hijack - that’s good. Your issue seems to be that others should have been called out as well. That may be the case but **SA** went well beyond anyone else in steering the thread off course. I believe **Miller** has agreed to be more informative in the future. That should aleviate your concern. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/64 "2011-07-23T22:53:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Actually, the concern is more that the vast majority of Pit threads in which **Starving Artist** participates, become about **Starving Artist**. We could populate an entire new forum solely with threads that **SA** has turned into yet another tiresome political hijack. Far from being the start of an unseemly trend, it was the continuation of one that had been going on too long with this particular poster. But there’s a problem with this. You have a poster that swims against the current, like **SA**. He makes a relatively innocuous post, correcting a misstatement by someone else. He gets shit for it. He explains/defends himself, another poster chimes in, he does the same and…Voila! The infatuating meme that **Starving Artist** hijacks threads is laid out with the majority angrily shaking there pitchforks, screaming, “Yeah, you always do this. Stop doing this.” When, in reality, he had done nothing wrong. Yet he gets shouted down and shut up. Then, to add insult to injury, after he saw people were getting inflamed and said he’d back out of the discussion, in comes a mod issuing a direction that was no longer called for—if it ever was. Like I said, if you had posted with you did sand mod hat, no problem. I don’t think he did anything wrong in that thread. He corrected someone. He was right to. Then he got shit for it. It seems to have gotten lost that 1)he was correct and 2) the hijack was created—at least as much—by those engaging him. Those who scream “DON"T HIJACK!” Which is kinda funny. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/65 "2011-07-23T22:55:30Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > So in light of **Miller’s** last post, I’m in something of a quandry. Am I no longer allowed to challenge anyone’s post for fear that other posters will turn it into the “Starving Artist Show”? Am I being ‘disappeared’ - essentially forbidden to post but without a formal banning? What? This is the problem that arises when you have a moderator taking it upon himself to quash a specific poster rather than simply following the board’s rules, which should be the same for everyone. Given that this is a public message board open to anyone, I should have the same right to post as often and on as many subjects as I like, just like everyone else. **Miller** , this is one of the points I was trying to make in my previous post. It’s probably clearer here. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/66 "2011-07-23T23:04:16Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > So we agree it was a hijack - that’s good. > Your issue seems to be that others should have been called out as well. That may be the case but **SA** went well beyond anyone else in steering the thread off course. > I believe **Miller** has agreed to be more informative in the future. That should aleviate your concern. I would say **Bosstone** was the cause of the hijack, and his posts were simply because he doesn’t like **SA** ’s politics, not because of what **SA** actually said. Call out both or call out neither, else **SA** (and **magellan01** , **Shodan** , _et al_) are right and they are being targeted simply for having a minority opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Ostrya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/35a633/32.png) [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/67 "2011-07-23T23:06:28Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I just read that thread. It demonstrates the problem with having a board that is so heavily weighted to one side. A poster who is identified as one of the more vocal minority simply corrects a point made by another poster and he gets jumped on. Then the meme flowers that “you’re always doing this”. The poster in that thread that made it more about **SA** was **Bosstone**. But, given the way things are stacked, **SA** is the problem. Yeah, right. > > As far as **Miller**. I rarely have a problem with his moderation. His moderation in this instance seems strikingly unMiller-like to me. It seems uncharacteristically—and unnecessarily harsh, especially given **SA’s** post fifteen minutes earlier saying that he was going to back out of the discussion. > > Also, I could see **Miller** maybe making that statement as a poster, but it seems particularly odd with his mod hat on. I chalk it up to a mistake. I think this post sums the whole thing up well, at least as I see it. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/68 "2011-07-23T23:07:41Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > And if he’d left it at his first post, he wouldn’t have gotten that mod note. The problem is, he made a bunch of posts after that, which had nothing to do with the thread, and which were part of his continuous pattern of injecting of his personal politics into threads that have, _at best_, only the most tenuous connection to politics. At that point I had made 6 posts to a 94 post thread, and the first one of those was the innocuous post correcting **ladyfoxfyre’s** distortion of **Susanann’s** post. So there were actually five posts involved in my supposedly taking over the thread. :rolleyes: > [@Giraffe](#): > > That’s right. By telling you to shut up, **Miller** has made you an unperson. In a single Orwellian stroke, you have been fully and completely silenced, confined to the message board equivalent of Guantanemo Bay where you will languish for all eternity, unheard and unremembered. > > Jesus Christ. Could you make a bigger mountain out of this particular molehill? You don’t seem to understand. Based upon **Miller’s** action in that thread, and the reason for it, it appears that I am no longer allowed to post in the same way I always have. If my postings to that thread constitute creating “The Starving Artist Show”, and “making it all about” me, then I’m at a complete loss as to how I’m to be allowed to post from here on. **Miller** seems to have decided that the time has come to crack down on me and stop me from triggering poster responses. And it’s rather hard to post, as an against-the-grain poster, without triggering other poster responses. Of course this whole situation could have been avoided simply by allowing me to post according to the board’s published rules, as I always have, rather than being singled out for targeted mod action. ---
**Author:** ![Ostrya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/35a633/32.png) [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/69 "2011-07-23T23:15:10Z")
Missed the edit window, also agree with D\_Odds on this one. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/70 "2011-07-23T23:15:12Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > Then _also_ call out **Bosstone** , who actually started the hijack. It wasn’t until post #67, after being prodded several times by **Bosstone** , that any sort of **SA** hijack starts. Actually, I would track the beginning of the hijack to post number 31. I do not find the argument that holds **Bosstone** ’s single line of snark responsible for the derailment to be remotely persuasive. **Starving Artist** , yet again, entered an unrelated thread and used it as a forum for an extensive defensive of his particular politics. > [@magellan01](#): > > But there’s a problem with this. You have a poster that swims against the current, like SA. He makes a relatively innocuous post, correcting a misstatement by someone else. He gets shit for it. He explains/defends himself, another poster chimes in, he does the same and…Voila! The infatuating meme that Starving Artist hijacks threads is laid out with the majority angrily shaking there pitchforks, screaming, “Yeah, you always do this. Stop doing this.” When, in reality, he had done nothing wrong. Yet he gets shouted down and shut up. The _infatuating_ meme? 😉 Regardless, the issue is not specific to the nature of **Starving Artist** ’s politics, but to his insistence on turning every thread in which he participates into a soapbox for another of his lectures. As I noted earlier, this behavior will get you moderated regardless of your position on the political spectrum - the last poster I had to moderate for this sort of behavior was **Le Jacquelope** , who could hardly be called right wing. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/71 "2011-07-23T23:32:04Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > At that point I had made 6 posts to a 94 post thread, and the first one of those was the innocuous post correcting **ladyfoxfyre’s** distortion of **Susanann’s** post. So there were actually five posts involved in my supposedly taking over the thread. :rolleyes: That is all true, and you do have a valid point about how other posters were at least equally (if not more) guilty than you were for hijacking. But it’s also true that each of your posts in that thread were getting progressively more TL;DR. Simply pointing out the number of your posts, while not acknowledging their greatly increasing length, is leaving out a significant aggravating circumstance. I wouldn’t be surprised if that factor is at least part of the reason that caused Miller to blow a gasket. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/72 "2011-07-23T23:36:38Z")
I think it’s cute that \*\*SA \*\*has a little crush on **Susanann**. But he was messing up a pit thread to defend ‘his lady’. Arguing the same minutiae over and over about one small point in the OP, of many, which was really just about a choice of words rather than a genuine attempt to misrepresent anything \*\*Susanann \*\*had posted. When that served it’s purpose, diluted the context of the thread and generated some snark, **SA** ’s responses went further off the track, were laden with personal political commentary unrelated to the thread, and had nothing to do with a genuine concern to set the record straight about one slight misstatement in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/73 "2011-07-23T23:42:38Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Regardless, the issue is not specific to the nature of **Starving Artist** ’s politics, but to his insistence on turning every thread in which he participates into a soapbox for another of his lectures. As I noted earlier, this behavior will get you moderated regardless of your position on the political spectrum - the last poster I had to moderate for this sort of behavior was **Le Jacquelope** , who could hardly be called right wing. For the record, I did not mean to imply—at all—that your actions were due to his politics. I was only pointing out what the inevitable result will be when the board moderation, intentionally or not, slaps down a minority poster when he is being attacked and did nothing wrong. The concern of his that I reposted summed it up clearly, I thought. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/74 "2011-07-23T23:45:38Z")
Bah… A warning (that at least appeared official) with a rude and uninformative “shut up” for a thread thats basically a “lets make fun of the stupid person that disagrees with most of us pile on”…for threadshitting/drift…after only a few posts…in the Pit?! Glad the mods are on the ball here. Be nice if they’d stop some of the epic trainwrecks that end up with locked threads that actually go on in places other than the pit. ---
**Author:** ![Ostrya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/35a633/32.png) [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/75 "2011-07-23T23:50:55Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > I think it’s cute that \*\*SA \*\*has a little crush on **Susanann**. But he was messing up a pit thread to defend ‘his lady’. This a perfect example of the catty cheapshot shit that is way too common around here. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/76 "2011-07-23T23:55:48Z")
> [@the lone cashew](#): > > This a perfect example of the catty cheapshot shit that is way too common around here. This is a thread that was settled on about the 4th ot 5th post. All the rest are more examples of hair-splitting minutiae used to dilute a topic that is way too common around here. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/77 "2011-07-23T23:57:57Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > This is a thread that was settled on about the 4th ot 5th post. All the rest are more examples of hair-splitting minutiae used to dilute a topic that is way too common around here. > [@Crazyhorse](#): > > Well, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you wouldn’t be wasting everyone’s time with a point that you already knew was completely moot, and had already been addressed Then shut up, maybe? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/78 "2011-07-24T00:04:26Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Then shut up, maybe? “Maybe”? ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/79 "2011-07-24T00:06:01Z")
> [@the lone cashew](#): > > This a perfect example of the catty cheapshot shit that is way too common around here. But the rest of the post is spot on. > [@Crazyhorse](#): > > Arguing the same minutiae over and over about one small point in the OP, of many, which was really just about a choice of words rather than a genuine attempt to misrepresent anything \*\*Susanann \*\*had posted. > > When that served it’s purpose, diluted the context of the thread and generated some snark, **SA** ’s responses went further off the track, were laden with personal political commentary unrelated to the thread, and had nothing to do with a genuine concern to set the record straight about one slight misstatement in the OP. **SA** pulled the thread further and further off the rails. I said it before and I’ll say it again; yes he has some help but he went above and beyond anyone else in the derailment. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/80 "2011-07-24T00:22:06Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > Roll eyes away mate, roll eyes away. I feel quite fine about my intellectual integrity here, versus people who excuse terrorism because it doesn’t match their prejudices. Wrong thread, friend. Try going back to the one that your intellectual integrity is being revealed for all to see. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068.md?page=5)