Okay, popping up for this one. I’ve been reading the boards for years and generally scroll through everyday, to the point I feel almost like I know some of you (not in a creepy way). Mainly I lurk because I don’t feel confident in my ability to contribute thoughtfully even on threads I actually know something about. There’s always the fear of getting outed for the idiot I often am in real life 
Hopefully I’ll get a bit more brave in the future.
Yeah, but I usually get away with it. As far as I know. 
I mean, it never stopped the rest of us.
Wait . . . I’m pretty sure most of us are admitted idiots. Can you be outed into being part of the majority? 
Welp, I’m on my way to getting banned. The Trolls r Us crowd are displeased with my right of center views of the Supreme Court.
I gave it a shot, but i should’ve just stayed lurking
Stand your ground. Don’t read the Pit, don’t react to it, there’s no rule saying you have to. If other posters are jerks to you or about you outside of the Pit, they’ll be flagged and the mods will step in.
You don’t have to go there. I just unsubscribed from that thread because I’m tired of newbies getting attacked. It really is a different experience when you stay out of that stuff. You can even mute the whole thread so you never see it again.
Just remember. The different fora have different styles. Being confrontational is cool in the pit (some would say required) but not so much in Great Debates and P&E. The rule there is debate the issues not the posters. Challenging people to defend positions they don’t necessarily endorse or setting “gotcha” traps ofttimes comes off as antagonistic.
I for one would love to see more conservative viewpoints here. But, not and the expense of civil discourse.
Thanks for that input, but i honestly don’t know what went wrong in my Judicial Activism thread. other than being right of center.
Hey, I was “right-of-center” too when I first joined. But somehow, during my almost 21 years here, things changed. Don’t assume the worst. What we don’t need here is an echo chamber.
It’s quite hard to fight ignorance when I’m ignorant myself (I was sheltered for the longest time, so I don’t know much, but I’m willing to learn 
).
I started reading the Straight Dope books in 1988 during a hospital stay (had my spleen and gall bladder out) and found the website several years later. I lurked for a long time. My creeper face is a nod to things that lurk. 
I admire lurkers, I wish I could be one myself, but no, I always have to open my stupid big mouth and dispell all doubts.
Well, I’ll have plenty of time for lurking when I get banned.
I am going to apply a tiny bit of constructive criticism here, because I am happy to see some alternate viewpoints here, and it may help other lurkers down the line.
First, a modnote is only a step towards banning in the same sense that getting pulled over by a cop and being told to slow down without any citation is a step towards losing your license. It means they’ve seen something that could become a problem, but because of ‘reasons’ (they like your face, they feel it was borderline, or as the mod stated, you are new) they are not making an issue of it. In that case, they felt (and I’m not a mod, so I’m not going to evaluate) they felt you were not arguing against other arguments, but against posters themselves, which is against the prime part of the board rules, not being a jerk. Even if they had given you a warning, it is more like getting a traffic ticket. Not fun, but it takes a pattern, and/or repeated different issues over a relatively short period of time before you get a forum ban/short term suspension/final ban. Unless you hit certain hard points like admitting to trolling/socking/etc.
And yes, if you are arguing an unpopular POV, people will bring up any rules violation (or what they believe to be one) to the mods readily. So, do read the rules for each forum, it will protect you. And in a catch-22, if you read the rules back to them, you get hit with another violation, for Jr. Modding. So if you think someone is in violation of the rules in their attacks on you, flag it and let the mods step in, or ignore it out of existence.
Second point of general info for Lurkers coming into the open. The PIT is/can be toxic. There is an entire thread where the Old Guard track suspected trolls and socks. And they are GOOD at it. Having said that, one of the criteria that they watch is people with a short board history (or largely inactive one) that suddenly start posting, especially on controversial issues. I suspect this is what happened with you.
Which is the final point I wanted to mention. And please, please take this as constructive criticism. Your language in your OP for the thread was very confrontational. I found the substance of the debate fine, and it’s an issue I have concerns about myself although we’d probably disagree on several points, but when you have the pattern I mentioned prior, and the OP is confrontational, you will set off troll sensors, even if that isn’t your intent.
Putting this behind a summary shield, because if you don’t want to get involved, you shouldn’t have to be, and other Lurkers likely don’t want to be involved in a specific fight when I’ve already pointed out the general issues.
Summary
Specifically the line “But my poor delusional liberal friends have always been pro Judicial activism.” You already know the board learns heavily left, so calling liberals delusional as a whole, rather than being delusional on Judicial activism is not going to make them think you’re arguing from a reasoned POV. They’ll think you’re already writing off all liberals and going on to try suck on liberal tears, IE Trolling.
I was still “right of center” when I join but “right of center” was moving to the right at the time and I was drifting left.
Thanks. all good advice. Honestly i should have just avoided a political thread. i kinda knew it wasn’t gonna end well. Should have listened to myself.
I do!
When asked.
Hey, it was a valid concern. It could have been phrased better, but far better than some of my earliest threads (I will only excuse them on the basis that they were in the middle of the 2020 crazies and I doubt I was at my sanest).
Just give it a little time before jumping in the deep end. Every forum here has its own weird culture.
What’s the cutoff for lurker status? I checked, and I have 1400 posts under my belt. Conserning that I started frequenting here around the year 2000, that’s not much at all.
The level of discussion here has been so high at times, that I’ve been somewhat hesitant to participate, using second language and all. I know I will be shot down if I don’t present my case in an airtight fashion (or even if I make spelling / grammar errors), and often I’m not up for it. Consuming is way easier than producing, and time here is supposed to be free time, not a work task.
On the other hand, when I did dig up a dozen cites for a single post and presented my case semi-brilliantly, it did feel I made a difference in other people’s points of views, which was rewarding.
All that being said, I’ve learned tremendously here over the decades, especially about the U.S. and Americans, who have always fascinated me, for some not so clear reason.