Manhattan's Mass Banning Fucking Power Trip

The BBQ Pit
1

Well holy fuck Manhattan.

Did you have that much of a fucking bad day at the office??? Sure there were some GD opinions posted but you could have MOVED THE FUCKING THREAD instead of a mass banning. I hate pitting mods for doing their job, but that is one fucking high horse you are riding there, and way beyond.

Smarten the fuck up already. I don’t give a shit what crawled up your ass and died, but you have a problem and I hope that you fix it.

Get a grip already.

I hate doing this. Thanks for making me all pissy.
:mad:

2

Oh, in case this does get turned over, those banned in one shot were:

TheeGrumpy, Krokodil, Rob V, and javaman.

3

Uhhh…Manny can’t ban. He’s just a mod.

4

Oh. Sorry about that then Manny if the blame was misplaced. But insert the name of whomever it should be. They are the Fucktard.

5

It’s been coming for a fair while. There’s a sticky thread in GQ telling people about it. It’s been there a fortnight.

I hope those folks are given an opportunity to promise to behave, and I agree they have been made an example of. But it’s about time IMHO.

6

I think it has something to do with this:

(which is posted at the top of the forum)

The people banned were all taking political pot-shots in a GQ thread. I can’t think of any specific behavior from the banned posters beyond their behavior in the linked thread, but their behavior there was obviously against the rules. Assuming that they’ve been otherwise law abiding, I’d agree that allowing a return following a “time out” would be fair.

Nonetheless, I’m glad to see the crackdown in GQ: frankly it would be nice to have one forum that could be read without the incessant yammer of partisan hysteria.

Fenris

7

I’ve read the thread in question. Tell me there’s be an error, a bug in the program, a typo … BANNED? FOR WHAT? Expressing an opinion in GQ? Oh puh-leeze. MUCH worse has been tolerated many, many times before.

8

I know that someone always says this in these threads, but that’s because it is true: There are probably facts involved here that are not evident in that thread. If forced to guess, I’d suspect one or more admins e-mailed the offenders, and they responded badly. Or perhaps some of them had been warned about such outbursts previously. Or some other thing us non-mod/non-admin types don’t know.

Personally, I’m as tired as manhattan is of the political soapbox nonsense in GQ. I don’t have any opinion about the bannings, however, due to incomplete information.

9

It does seem that this thread was chosen to “make an example” of people, but in all honesty I really don’t think this was necessarily the best thread to do it in, nor was the behavior the banned members all that egregious. Human conversations wander and while it would be nice to have Britannica like responses to every GQ OP, banning non-jerkish regular Joe SDMB members for wadering off topic makes the board administration look petty which is not a good thing.

10

From the OP:

A thread that may have some bearing on the debate that followed: A note on politics in GQ.
The combination of religion and government has a great deal to do with politics. What are the mods and admins supposed to do, ignore their shiny new exposition of the rules in order to make it harder for people to get straight answers to touchy questions ?

11

…hence the Sticky at the top of the forum saying, yet again

IMO, a mass banning is pretty heavy-handed, but they gotta make a point somehow. Better on newbies than on old-timers. We’ll bitch and moan, Godwin’s Law will be invoked, but eventually, just like the “raise the tone of the board” fiasco, we (users and mods) will figure out where we stand, negotiate through our posts, and come up with an improved set of guidelines, and GQ will be better for it.

12

Nitpick: javaman was not a newbie.

13

“Originally posted by Troy McClure SF -
Better on newbies than on old-timers.”

Glad to hear you approve of that stand… Ever read Animal Farm?

“All pigs are equal…”

14

First things first. Whilst Reeder is correct about how we go about bannings here and someone else did indeed pull the trigger, it was on my recommendation and I take full responsibility for the action we took this evening.

Yes, but I didn’t. Why is that?

Because the Original Poster asked a factual question which deserves a factual answer. Heck, he practically begged people not to hijack it.

Several posters offered factual information, some of which was directly on point and some of which questioned some of the assumptions contained (or possibly contained) in the question. This is good stuff – this is fighting ignorance and this is, and I really want to emphasize this as much as I can, why the Straight Dope Message Board exists.

Then all of a sudden we have inflammatory opinions, factually non-responsive to the OP and specifically intended to run the thread off on a rail, popping up. Who do you think I should favor in this instance? (Hint: If you said “those people spreading ignorance to make a political point”, you’d be incorrect.) I’m not going to move that thread.

OK, so why ban them instead of warn them? Because there’s a big huge warning already stuck at the top of GQ, that’s why.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, including those who were banned. I’ve been warning, whining, cajoling and even banning for weeks and weeks on this subject.

Can they come back? Actually, yeah. We’ll be looking for emails acknowledging the forum rules and their intent to follow them, of course. But this isn’t like banning a spammer here, or even a troll. This is a statement that we have real live rules in GQ, that we have other forums for those who feel they have to post their political agendas, and that those who can’t separate the two are not going to be around GQ for long.

I hope this clears up any questions you might have had.

15

Isn’t there some way of only banning them from GQ?

16

Hey, you read the rules, you choose to break them, you take the consequences. (Well, actually I suppose we can’t prove they read the sticky at the top of GQ).

Even if that was the only reason for banning, then it is a satisfactory reason.

People (in general) have been warned over and over and over again not to do this, so when they flung their shit through the door, the door was slammed in their face.

Bravo Manny.

17

Yes, but to be 100% clear on this, not many times forward.

18

Glad to hear this is negotiable - I’d hate to see some good posters leave the board for want of forethought :slight_smile:

19

I dissagree. They broke the rules and if they see no consequences from it they will continue to break the rules. The mods are here for the 95% of the people that can follow the rules, and not to babysit the 5% that can’t.

20

I suppose one could see it that way. In my day I have joined in many GQ conversations that became GDish or IHMOish and it’s sometimes a slippery slope where fact ends and opinion begins. I enjoy participating in GQ if I feel I have something to contribute, but per Gobear’s note I think I’ll be steering clear of GQ for the foreseeable future. The slope is just a little too slippery and with mods and admins on the warpath about walking the staight and narrow re topicality, it’s just not that enjoyable a place to be (for me) at this point.