Figure of speech, glee.
You said that US Democrats were centrists by Euro-standards, I opined that they were center-right. Like you just said.
Sorry for the poor phrasing.
Perhaps not lately, but there was a time a couple of years ago when the four mentioned, along with a few others such as Collounsbury, were totally out of control in Great Debates. I think that was when we lost a lot of the conservatives, and a couple who were banned, such as December, were in my opinion essentially railroaded until they snapped. December used to be a very good poster, and was a great asset to this board in other forums than GD. Over time, I watched him get more and more frustrated untill he started playing the games that got him turfed. But the people who did the railroading got warning after warning after warning but nothing more. Even Collounsbury was allowed to return after being banned for outrageous behaviour - after which he promptly engaged in the same behaviour and managed to get multiple warnings again before having the plug pulled. I don’t think I’ve ever seen other posters get the kind of leeway those guys have had over the years.
To this day, I cannot understand the tolerance the SDMB staff has had for some of these people. They are clearly a detriment to Great Debates.
Now, perhaps the SDMB mods need some more tools in their belt to deal with this stuff. A banning is pretty damned harsh, especially for someone who has spent years contributing to this place. Instead, how about bannings from certain forums, cooling-off periods for people who aren’t committing bannable offenses but are clearly antagonizing the member base, etc.
Why not just announce that someone may not post in GD for a week? Repeat as necessary. Most of the people I mentioned, such as Elvis and Dio, are fine posters in the other forums, and an asset to the board.
If a ‘cooling off’ period was seen not so much as a personal rebuke but as a general way of just keeping Great Debates sane, it might have value. Get a little too crazy in a thread, and you get a day off. Get really crazy, and you get a warning and a week off. Not from the whole board, just from GD, or even just from that particular thread.
Would something like that work?
I second this suggestion. I’d love to see more vigorous modding in GD, but the current system of “warn a few times then ban” seems ill-fitted to a more actively moderated GD, where the mod ruling would be far more subjective then the other forums.
There was also a time a couple of years ago when many otherwise reasonable conservative posters went apeshit crazy over the ‘threat’ posed to America, and America’s children by Saddam’s proven stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. You were no innocent at the time yourself.
It was the runup to war, and we knew we were being bulshitted. What’d you expect, hugs and kisses?
Now that you’ve reminded him and being the honorable man that he is, I am sure Sam Stone will now ask for a retroactive banning – or, at the very least, refrain from posting in GD for at week.
BTW, it’s getting mighty tiresome to see all these accussations being bandied about with nary an example. Reason I mention it is because the last time I asked for a cite, in what appears to have been the original, trendsetting, Whine and Cheese Fest , turns out the OP didn’t have much of an OP.
So, how about it? Love to sample some of your whine. Besides, said samples might finally convince the liberal candy-assed SDMB moderators to put on their jackboots as is apparently your desire – and that of many others.
Me? I think this place is fine as is. Otherwise I wouldn’t have renewed my subscription.
“I love her but…” is usually a good indicator that you shouldn’t marry the lady. Works in many other facets of life as my own two divorces have taught me.
I expect you to be civil to your fellow dopers. More importantly, it’s what the SDMB staff expects. If you can’t handle the fact that people disagree with you, perhaps you should just go hang out on Democratic Underground so you don’t have to have your oh-so-deeply held beliefs challenged by others.
To say that I despised manhattan would be an understatement.
I agreed with him once, and felt like a crackwhore for having done so.
This is a man who threw the epithet “pro-terrorist” around in GD as if this were perfectly acceptable.
He should have been banned right then, no questions asked, for that epithet.
That he wasn’t was a disgusting show of cowardice.
So there, you SDMB sluts! A stern lecture from the only virgin in the room!
Pot, Kettle, Sam
Really? Do you you have some examples of my being abusive to others? Outside of the pit? It may have happened, and if it did I hope I apologized. I certainly don’t make a habit of it.
And are you seriously trying to tell me he’s not?
Hey, Bricker! Hey, Shodan! You guys gonna let him talk about you like that?
I couldn’t let that one slide by. 
Let’s be specific:
Collounsbury was banned for flaming a racist in GD. [sup]1[/sup]
I would call such behavior bannable. I would not characterize it as “outrageous”.
Clothahump
----- And are you seriously trying to tell me he’s not?
Not sure. Relative to those in power, fiscal conservatism (i.e. budget surpluses), declines in federal spending as a share of GDP may be classified as “far left liberal”.
I would prefer to call it, “public policy formed by responsible adults”.
[sup]1[/sup]Example (from memory) of the flame: “Why don’t you try reading a f*cking book sometime?..”
No, its just a matter of calibration. Clinton is a far left liberal, Calvin Coolidge is a centrist, and friend Clothahump leans a bit to the right.
That would be the consensus of every intelligent educated person in the U.S.
Death penalty? pro
Gay marriage? con (OK wiith civil unions)
Anti-military? no
Workfare over welfare? yep
NAFTA yep
A controlled budget? yep
Despite the ravings of a few lunatics, he was never strongly in favor of gun control.
In fact, aside from the issue of abortion (a perspective he shares with a number of (now disenfranchised) moderate Republicans), I cannot think of a single position in which Clinton is seriously left of center. The closest that he ever came to “liberalism” was his intent to tell the military to stop barring homosexuals and his proposed health care plan. It should be noted, however, that he did not draft the health care plan* and at the time that he proposed it, it was, indeed, a hot topic favored by a broad spectrum of the U.S. population.
- Hilary Rodaham Clinton obviously had a direct input on the health care proposal, but she is clearly left of Bill on most issues.
Don’t forget to allow for windage.
Here’s an interesting thread, which was fairly typical of the time:
Uranium Seized In Turkey - Made in Germany?
Bias, tinfoil hattery… Who was right and who was wrong Sam? Who was making unjustified claims about other’s analytical abilities?
Unlike december I don’t think you ever accused the pope of supporting terrorists, but you did join a common cause with those who did.
Outside of war and peace Sam, you seem a fairly reasonable fellow. That Bush space initiative thread you did was great, and you’ve added a lot to some of the discussions of economic matters, but you were wound up awfully tight over Saddam in those pre-conquest months.
I haven’t been in GD recently, so I can’t comment.
However, the idea sounds interesting. Perhaps we could have some reasoned discussion (ha, just kidding!) about this in a dedicated thread.
(Incidentally, I know of one board where the admin hands out ~1 week bans at the drop of a hat: I’ve even seen moderators banned there.)
Nonsense. december was an opinionated agitator who frequently (not to say typically) got his facts wrong, who posted thread after thread of an IMHO nature in GD. Saying that he was a good poster in other forums is like saying that he was a good poster twice a month. His sole saving grace was his polite demeanor. I will agree that I would like to see such manners demonstrated by rather more people than typically do so, (especially among a number of the participants in these three related threads), but good manners hardly overcame the massive amount of uninformed and erroneous opinion he spewed in Great Debates.
I will also note that his “good manners” were used to good effect to cover a rather mean-spirited view of the world, in which every group with which he disagreed at one time or another was characterized as evil or as deliberately choosing to do evil things.
I rest my case. But just for fun, name a Democrat you consider ‘moderate’ . Extra credit if it is not Zell Miller.