How about an insanity forum where completely insane threads could be moved to for a week before being deleted? Basically any thread that had to be deleted, but wasn’t viagra spam/obscene racism or whatever.
Moderators will (I assume) be able to see what I posted in most recently before posting this thread. That kind of thing would be interesting to leave hanging around for a week or so, if only for amusement, in my view.
(The thread was http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=551650 btw - not visible to me but presumably so to moderators)
The specific post you’re asking about (another “atheism is dead” thread) is spam, so I removed it. But we do leave some entertaining craziness around when we can. See this thread for an example.
I don’t know that there’s enough of the crazy threads to justify a separate forum for them, but the ones that get to live for a bit are often highly entertaining.
We occasionally leave one open in MPSIMS – most of the nutjobs aren’t all that interesting, actually.
Can I moderate it? Can I? Huh?
You mean this isn’t it?
I kid, I kid.
Sorta.
Oh how wonderful. A thread for the purpose of ridiculing paranoid schizophrenics, other “nutjobs,” (mod’s word, not mine), and those with brain injuries such as mental illnesses. Can’t see any harm in that.
How does this differ from pitting liberals, conservatives, libertarians, anarchists, old people, kids, shoppers, clerks, police, fatties, religions, posters, drug addicts, teetotalers, the handicapped, and the hundreds of other target groups that have been pitted?
Aside from you not having a sensitivity to the plight of those groups, I mean.
As a whole, you are not going to exacerbate the circumstances of a liberal or old person or person who is handicapped by ridiculing them. More than likely, they won’t become more liberal, older, or more handicapped because of your taunting. They may be annoyed, but more than likely, they won’t suffer any great consequence from your words. And the playing field has a chance of being fairly even. Liberals can argue their political points, the handicapped can advocate for themselves, and old people can tell you to perch and rotate.
Mental illness is often a terminal illness. When you take it upon yourself to play with the mind of a brain-damaged person, you risk making the illness worse, prolonging the illness, or doing permanent damage that might end in death. And the person has no way of dealing with what you are doing. More likely than not, the judgment center of his brain is at least temporarily damaged.
It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened via a message board.
There is no playing field when you taunt someone whose mind is deeply disturbed. If you haven’t experienced that kind of mental illness exposed to deliberate cruelty, then you may not understand what I’m talking about and think that I’m exaggerating. Others will know that I’m not.
The idea that they meant legitimately crazy people never even crossed my mind. Of course that would be stupid. At least as stupid as allowing medical or legal advice.
When I saw the title, I was thinking something along the idea of a place where people could be “crazy”, as in not making sense. Or a place to keep obvious scams that a child could see through.
But if you really mean making fun of the ramblings of people who need mental help–well, that’s far worse than being a jerk. I’d actually support you being prosecuted if something bad happened because of it.
It is rare for a thread to be deleted and I think they pretty much only delete spam.
Now you’re talking! That would probably help to prevent mental illness.
Maybe not a whole new forum, but perhaps some sort of rule or regulation about it? Perhaps, move it to MPSIMS, laugh about it for a week, and if the OP doesn’t come back to explain/if a real, honest conversation doesn’t start (not just ridiculing the OP), close it after that week?