I was wondering why Anal Scurvy was absent from these threads. I think this thread explains his absence. He made an off-color attempt at a joke. Had it been done verbally, he would have gotten blank stares indicating that something stupid was said. Alas, on a message board, it sticks around longer. A. Scurvy has made his apologies and resumed life. Llamapoker, there is no need to step up for him. We all sometimes need to pick and choose our battles more wisely.
catsix, don’t sweat it.
Q.E.D., I was referring to the implication that my opinion doesn’t really exist, but is only something I made up to get attention, as in jarbabyj’s story.
I’m sorry that she and apparently some others feel that way. I wish I could show that that is not the case. I don’t know how.
One of the great things about this board is it’s ability to maintain civility of opinion and disharmonious discourse in appropriate settings. As someone who primarily lurks, I appreciate the rules of the board as a whole and the subset of rules for different forums, as I read the prose of the contributors. To do this, there are rules that are enforced.
And guess what? You can complain about those rules!
And it occasional it changes things. I can remember when there were no forums, we just threw rocks at each other, in a couple of settings …
Anyway. Sick behavior is not arbitrarily defined, it is a standard this board has set and most members agree with. I think this board would change, if enough members supported change.
But at the end of the day, this community, comes to a rough agreement as to the rules of discussion. Otherwise, it would not continue to grow as a refuge for intelligent dialog. And if Mikehassexwithananimalrochenelle (I would normally bold the name, but it doesn’t deserve the respect) wants to take pot shots at the admin, fine. But you. sir, are flat out wrong and a complete fool. This board allows an astounding amount of variety and opnion.
MY skin crawled, Jaade.
I think that if the average poster here finds something offensive enough that they don’t feel the dark humor aspects of the joke are valuable enough in terms of helping someone to deal with a hurtful situation to overcome the offensive aspects of it, then “we know it when we see it” seems a reasonable yardstick to go by.
Of course, without polling the entire community, it is impossible to determine with any accuracy how the average member feels. That is one reason why we have more than one moderator, right? It seems safe to assume that if the majority of the staff feel something is offensive, a majority of the board membership is quite likely to feel the same way.
I have an appreciation for dark humor, and when I read that OP I recognized that it was intended as a joke. I also didn’t think it was funny, and I can see why some members might find it quite offensive. I didn’t find any redeeming value in the fact that it might be helping the OP deal with a difficult situation. If it helped for him and his girlfriend to joke about it, then fine. Posting it? How was THAT going to help anything?
While I don’t think the author of the OP should be banned for posting it, I totally support TubaDiva for closing the thread. I’d have done the same thing, and it is my opinion that the average member here would have done so also.
And yes, this is just my opinion. I could be totally wrong, and everyone quite possibly thought the whole thing was hilarious and quite possibly I am a humorless prude. I don’t THINK so, and I think that the fact that the thread was open for well over an hour and no one came in and said “Ha, ha, that’s a good one, AS…you’re SO funny” supports that opinion.
In any case, just to reiterate…I support TubaDiva’s action in this matter completely. And I think that it was good of Ed Zotti to admonish ALL of us to (as Jaade said so succinctly) USE COMMON SENSE. Which appears to me to be what he was saying.
I somewhat agree. Indeed, it was precisely that which made it slightly amusing to me (and I’m pro-life, so if I was actually taking it seriously I’d probably be more offended than most around here.) The girlfriend’s response was the joke. I didn’t really find it all that offensive within the context of a conversation, but of course I’m one of those who almost never takes anything seriously.
But I haven’t had the same experiences as some people on this board, experiences that would make such a jokingly delivered anecdote all too real and serious, and lead to a justified taking of offense at it. While I do occasionally complain that some people take certain issues too seriously, I’m not in the business of judging anyone’s sense of where the line between humor and offense lies, because personal experience plays too strong a role.
That said, I understand that the admins and mods of a message board like to shape the atmosphere of the boards uniquely. The bit of humor that the admins here found offensive would have been par for the course over at SomethingAwful, but the mods/admins there don’t tolerate alot of stuff (specifically racism/anti-gay remarks) that gets a slightly more indulging treatment around here. It’s up to the board owners, admins, and moderators to shape the feel of the board to their tastes.
Mockingbird
Yearly? When you’ve only been registered for a few months?
Look up the posts I made under “ModernRonin” and “ModernRonin2”. I’ve been around a bit.
Jaade
I think they are just saying use common sense.
That’s the problem - common sense isn’t as common as some people seem to think. Codes of conduct vary wildly across cultures, and even within. I have groups of friends with whom I hang out and there is NO topic that is sacred and nothing is out of bounds no matter how poor taste. Now it appears a different set of rules applies here at the SDMB. That’s fine, but if I’m to hew to a set of rules, it kind of helps to know what they are, yes? This whole “you should know already” stuff is BS. How am I supposed to know?? Am I supposed to be psychic? I wish I was, (damn do I ever!) but I’m sorry, I’m not. So what am I supposed to do?
hawthorne
Kindly define “unreasonable”. Precisely, please. Given this quote, you must be able so to do.
Thought I just did. Though a full definition would take too long to type, as it pertains to the current situation, “unreasonable” is telling someone not to engage in some vague kind of behavior under penalty of whatever, but then refusing and/or not being able to explain what that behavior is, or even give examples.
“By the way, don’t orglakturn or we’ll kill you.”
“Uh… what’s orglakturn?”
“Dude, if you don’t know, we’re NOT going to tell you. You were warned!”
Ice Wolf
Neither is the term “pillock”. I think most of us here know one of them when we see one.
I don’t know what a pillock is. Some kind of military emplacement? If I wanted to know, I’d have to go look it up in a reference book of some kind - a dictionary or an encyclopedia. Or ask someone. But if there isn’t a reference on pillock in any dictionary or encyclopedia, and nobody will explain to me what one is, how am I supposed to know?
Kal
What Mockingbird said.
Thanks for evaluating my argument on its merits, instead of making ad hominim attacks that have little to nothing to do with the subject at hand. I love the high class level of debate I find here on the SDMB! It’s nothing at all like being back in Jr. High school, where the cool kids got to tell everyone else their worth simply because they were cool. After all, time spent on the board and post count DO define a user’s worth to the exclusion of all else! Nobody could possible have anything worthwhile to say unless they’re in the 5k post club, could you?
Shayna
I’m just curious whether or not the administration is aware of your name change, is all.
I have no idea. I assume that they’re on top of things enough that they are well aware of every word I post, but who really knows? I posted as ModernRonin or ModernRonin2 for a while before I left the first time, in protest of what was done to llamasex. I believe I read somewhere that unused usernames are deleted after 90 days. I remember doing the math before I came back here as MikeRochenelle and thinking that ModernRonin/2 ought to be well gone by now. I was rather surprised when I reflexively typed in my old username one time and got “wrong password” instead of “user unknown”. I mean, those handles should have been auto-deleted months ago.
If the mods want to delete all my handles, including the current one, for that, then feel free.
Ginger
Seems the OP has more posts under this name than he did for the whole time he posted as ‘llamasex’.
We’ll get to the “you’re just a sock-puppet of llamasex’s” in just a second here. Stick around…
astro
You have a grand total of 142 SDMB posts under your belt at this point,
And again that’s so relevant, because the number of posts and the length of time on the board DO determine the worthyness of ideas posted - right?
and yet you feel qualified to call Ed Zottie and Tuba Diva goose stepping retards
I didn’t call Ed goose-stepping, and I didn’t call Tuba a retard. I said that Tuba, not Ed, was a goose-stepping fascist with a VERY narrow sense of humor. And I stand by that statement - I think her past behavior has proven it. I also said and believe that Ed is being arbitrary and unfair in this case. And I think I’ve made a decent case for that as well.
I also think both of the above are ironic on a board ostensibly dedicated to eradicating ignorance.
And for those of you following along at home, remember: These beliefs make me a BAD, BAD, BAD, EVIL person.
*because their sense of humor is insufficeintly capacious to make room for a little jesting about inducing abortion in a pregnant girlfriend by beating the fetus to death?
How old are you 13, 14?*
27, though again I would say that my age is largely irrelevant to whether my ideas are correct or incorrect. But again, thanks for the ad hominim attack! Keep raising that level of debate!
Bill H.
So, let me be sure I have this right: Restricting jokes about punching a pregnant woman with the intent of killing her fetus is detrimental to fighting ignorance and fostering intelligence how?
Considering other ideas, even if we find them distasteful, is a hallmark of high intelligence. Even if we ultimately conclude they’re wrong, at least we have a reason for doing so. This approach shows thoughtfulness, emapthy and the capacity for deep reflection. These traits are usually (not always, but USUALLY) associated with high intelligence.
On the other hand, making snap judgements and banning things simply because we don’t like them is usually (again, not ALWAYS, but usually) a hallmark of low intelligence. It implies a person ruled by emotion instead of rationality. This is a trait usually associated with “lower” beings - animals. And the people who display these traits are usually of lesser intelligence.
On a completely different note, how’s the employee hunt going there, eh Bill? Found anyone who’s not a complete lazy bum yet? And have you pirated any good computer games lately? ;]
Road Rash
*I have never seen a pic of TubaDiva, but I can visualize a stern dominatrix in an SS outfit, top buttons of the shirt undone to tease with just a little cleavage, black heeled boots, and a crop ready to administer humorless discipline to any doper who dares express any difference of opinion.
So, Llamasex…uh, I mean MikeRochenelle, are you ready to bend over and take your punishment? Or are you just going to wimp out and walk away in a huff.*
Now see, THIS is the kind of ad hominim argument I like! It may be totally beside the point and silly, perhaps even a bit offensive to some people who are prude or intolerant of opinions unlike their own, but I think it’s funny as hell! We could use more posts like this. Come on, let’s get to the part where she fucks me in the ass with a strap-on! 
But, again - stick around. We’ll get to the part about how I’m just a sock puppet for llamasex verrryyy shortly…
Coldfire
Dear Mikie. I took the liberty of banning your previous incarnation, llamasex. In the future, contact an SDMB administrator (like that fascist Tubadiva) should you wish to change your name.
Alright!!
Now then, Mr. Coldfire - I demand that you do one of two things. I know that I cannot make you, of course, but never the less I demand thus:
EITHER
A) You IMMEDIATELY and ABJECTLY apologize to both myself AND llamasex (I’ll give you his email address, but I have to hunt it down first - he still posts at Mr.Cranky.com occasionally, so I can get ahold of him there) for falsely accusing me of being him, without the due diligence and investigation that you should have employed as someone with the power of a Mod.
OR
B) You post EXHAUSTIVE logs of the IP addresses that both myself (ModernRonin, ModernRonin2 and MikeRochenelle) and llamasex posted from, and then show that they are ANYWHERE FREAKING NEAR each other, or point out any other connection, (time of day of posting, style of posting, subject matter, etc), no matter how tenuous, that you possibly can.
In short, if you wish to accuse me of being llamasex, then you better have some goddamn evidence. I’m a lot of things, but anyone’s sock puppet I am goddamn NOT! And if you want a phone call from me personally, just tell me the number. And if you’ll pay for my airplane ticket, I’ll fly to wherever you live and tell it to your face. I’ll also post a scan of my driver’s license (with the Colorado license # and SSN blanked out to make it a little harder for people to steal my identity), and you can use whatever means you wish to verify it, and then go do the detective work on llamasex yourself. And then if you still are convinced, you can post about how we’re the same person.
***FOR THE RECORD: Though I have read llamasex’s site (llamasex.com - now defunct) and have posted on some of the same sites with him, I am not llamasex, and anyone who says I am has NOT done their homework - or even spent ten minutes thinking about the idea. Our posting styles, choice of topics, punctuation, capitalization, choice of markup tags, etc, etc, etc are all very, very different. There is no good reason to think we’re the same person, and I’m having a hard time thinking of any bad ones. Except that I chose to defend him because I hate to see anyone trampled on, just because someone else didn’t like what they said. (And, of course, remember that this tendency I have makes me a bad, bad, evil, nasty, bad person.)
Although perhaps, if you keep this kind of behaviour your norm, the name change discussion might soon be rather academic.
You’re welcome to ban me for any reason or no reason. Indeed, your actions show your core nature quite well…
'Tis a pity you falsly accused me, because prior to this, I have had no problem with you or basically any of the other Mods. You seem, as a bunch, to be good people. I don’t even really have a particular problem with Ed, though I stand by what I said - he’s being very aribtrary and unreasonable here.
But this tendency several of you have to defend TubaDiva’s misplaced and over-reactive snits is really quite strange. It seems so weird to me that people who seem quite rational at other times, suddenly get a “kill 'em all, take no prisoners, we’re right, you’re wrong - PERIOD” attitude when Tuba’s involved.
Well, whatever…
catsix
*I was referring to the implication that my opinion doesn’t really exist, but is only something I made up to get attention, as in jarbabyj’s story.
I’m sorry that she and apparently some others feel that way. I wish I could show that that is not the case. I don’t know how.*
There is no way. If people don’t believe that you’re being honest, they don’t believe it. For some reason certain people find it impossible to accept that poor taste humor could possible be funny to anyone - and that anyone who says otherwise MUST be trolling. Maybe it would trouble them to consider the moral implications of their actions if they were performed upon non-trolls, and so it’s far easier to dismiss something as trolling than to consider whether they actually might have a valid point.
-Ben
Aaaaaallright! So, you’re not llamasex, but ModernRonin and ModernRonin2? Yay!
Moderator’s Note: OK, so you aren’t llamasex, but you are ModernRonin2? (Not to mention “ModernRonin”, which you never used because you messed up the password.)
At this point, you need to contact one of our admins (like, say…TubaDiva) and discuss which, if any, of these names will have posting privileges in the future.