# Is there a left/right bias in dealing with hyperbolic posters?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-left-right-bias-in-dealing-with-hyperbolic-posters/526571>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [January 26, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-left-right-bias-in-dealing-with-hyperbolic-posters/526571 "2010-01-26T21:22:54Z")\
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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-left-right-bias-in-dealing-with-hyperbolic-posters/526571/5 "2010-01-27T00:08:49Z")

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[quote=“Shodan, post:2, topic:526571”]

A couple of examples from my own immediate experience -  
[ul][li]I was semi-officially warned for characterizing a left-leaning OP by calling it “a steaming pile”. In the same post where the mod semi-officially warned me, he called **my** post “bullshit”. The distinction escapes me.[/ul][/li][/quote]  
Gee, can we roll the tape of that one, again?

First, Shodan sets the tone of the thread with [this post (#2)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8794343#post8794343) that opens “Your post is a very large, steaming pile, . . .”  
There follow 35 more posts displaying, more or less, the same hostility, at which point I interrupt wth the following Mod note:

> [@"Class warfare" has a legitimate place in American political/electoral discourse](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-warfare-has-a-legitimate-place-in-american-political-electoral-discourse/412325/37):
>
> **[Moderating]**
> 
> My, my. Isn’t THIS thread off to a great start?
> 
> I seriously hope that everyone’s bile ducts have been cleared and that there will be a lot less bile flooding into this thread.
> 
> And, while the rule is and remains, “attack the argument, not the poster,” the number of times that “arguments” have been dismissed as stupid or fecal or that named and unnamed persons have been called stupid (presumably on the grounds that they do not post here, despite the fact that they were called stupid for holding opinions congruent with opinions expressed by posters), has now reached critical mass.
> 
> In this thread, we do not need to see any more statements regarding stupidity, lest we lead our fellow posters into intemperate responses.  
> Everyone remains free to express their opinion (suitably supported by citations, of course), that one view or another is in error, but the insults allegedly directed toward arguments (or directed toward non-posters representing the views of posters) are now off limits in this thread.
> 
> Behave yourselves.
> 
> **[/Moderating]**

(Note the vicious attack on Shodan on that post.)  
Shodan then comes back with a whiny complaint that I am picking on him in [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8797214&postcount=43), despite the fact that I issued no Warning to anyone and selected no poster or post as an example of bad behavior.  
I responded with a [clarification of the rules for that thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8797367&postcount=48)–imposed because I thought that the thread could be interesting to all the posters, but that it was in danger of being locked. I explicitly noted that no poster was in trouble (at that point) for behavior to that point.  
Shodan posted a sanctimonious, _well I’m glad you were not talking to me, then_ reply in which he twisted my words to his own end, at which point I [called him on his games, clarified my point once again, and told him to stop threadshitting](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8798295&postcount=62).

And this becomes an example of favoring the Left?

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