The forum default is to only display threads from 2 days go and earlier. ATMB sees a lot less traffic than the other forums so that thread you read on Monday may not be displaying. If you change it to display from a week or a month back, I suspect you’ll find those missing threads.
It’s a fair question and I meant to answer it earlier. The gist of it is that even Der Trihs’ biggest broadsides are usually 50% on topic and 50% ludicrously over the top. So he’s more likely to get a ‘tone it down’ type of mod note than a warning. Maybe that pattern has been repeated too often.
Exactly. Threads are very rarely moved or deleted, and the ones that do get moved or deleted (trolling, sock stuff) usually aren’t posted to ATMB.
So, Oak’s post was greater than 50% over the top or ludicrous? 
Again, different issues.
Actually:
Wat?
Dammit, AU, now I’ve got Whitesnake running through my head:
Here I go again on my own
Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known…
I think that’s the point being made. Even if his posts are related to the topic, they are over the top and designed to infuriate rather than make a valid point. It is the old “is this trolling?” question.
I don’t think they’re designed to infuriate, although they certainly accomplish that. If I thought he were aggravating people on purpose I’d handle it differently.
Do you believe he does it to entertain?
Admittedly, this isn’t the topic of the thread and if you feel that my question is inappropriate and that this hijack should be dropped I’ll understand, but it seems to me that suggesting that Der Trihs doesn’t realize that his comments about women, Christians, Republicans, Americans and just about any other group of people he sees as an “other” and therefore evil(or words to that effect) isn’t going to aggravate people and that he’s not doing it to deliberately aggravate people after doing this for years, then you’re without meaning to, grossly insulting him because if that is the truth then he’d have to be grossly lacking in awareness.
In fact for what you’re suggesting to be true he’d have to be even more lacking in awareness than anyone I’ve met with Aspergers.*
*. That isn’t meant to be a knock on people with the condition.
Ibn: Thanks for your response. I’m not going to dig into Der’s worst behavior as I was trying to characterize the bulk of his behavior - the center of his distribution if you will. I’ll add that I don’t frequent IMHO too much and my impressions are shaped by GD.
Q: Why do Republicans oppose the Equal Rights Amendment?
Der A: Because they are enthralled by the Christian right who have a long history of supporting everything from spousal abuse to forced sterilization.
See that’s a substantive comment, unsupported by facts or citations. An nonsubstantive comment would be, “Because they are Republicans, whadya expect?”
mlees: Yeah I was using words with the same root in different senses. Substantive is different from substantiated. The first means, “possessing substance; having practical importance, value, or effect: substantive issues under discussion”. The second means, “With supporting evidence, generally in the form of links on this message board.”
(The dictionary wasn’t too kind to what I was trying to get at with the first word, substantive. Basically I was drawing a distinction between “I disagree” and “I disagree for these reasons.”)
Incidentally, those who think “Boo hiss” is fine as a joke (I agree) should link to the thread and check out Oakminster’s signal to noise ratio, volume of responses and reluctance to answer the OP. I think it merited a mod note. Less quantity and more quality please.
I think he does it because that’s what he thinks. Which doesn’t mean everything he says gets a free pass, and it doesn’t, but it means it generally isn’t going to be treated as trolling.
This is kind of absurd; you’re calling him a troll and saying I am insulting him by saying I don’t think he’s here just to annoy people. I didn’t suggest he was unaware of what people think about his posts. I’m sure he’s aware. I said I don’t think annoying people is his intent. On these issues we moderate people who are either posting just to annoy others or who are hijacking discussions by misbehaving/posting off-topic remarks/etc. Posting an opinion that annoys people won’t get you modded on its own even if you’re aware people won’t like it.
Fair enough. BTW, the post wasn’t meant to be taken as a criticism of you, but honest surprise.
Admittedly, and I know for all reading this thread I sound like a broken record, so much about this is going to be subjective.
I personally was quite shocked when people threw Elucid and Der Trihs into the same boat which makes little sense to me. Elucid can certainly be quite forceful in his remarks, but I don’t think his behavior is all that comparable to Der Trihs other than they’re both somewhat left-wing and comparing the two would be like putting Shodan and Starving Artist in the same boat. However, clearly many reasonable people disagree.
Similarly, I’ll be honest and admit that I’m more than a little disturbed that people seem vastly more concerned about Der Trihs’ statements about Americans, right-wingers, Republicans etc. more than his statements about women. That being said, I’ll freely admit that I understand why many would disagree with my finding his comments about women far worse than his comments about others, to the point I’ll admit that in my question of Marley I only included Christians and Conservatives in the post to avoid having to deal with people demanding why I didn’t include them.
Again, reasonable people disagree.
Fair enough, upon rereading what you wrote I clearly misunderstood your comment. Sorry about that. As to what his intent is, I’ll disagree, but recognize that reasonable people can disagree about people’s intent.
I’ll also recognize that the Dope does give people quite a bit of leeway and the benefit of the doubt when it comes to posting objectionable material before deciding that the person is trolling or being a “one-trick pony”. For the people convinced you’re somehow suppressing right-wing beliefs, I’ll say that IMHO, the posters given such leeway are generally right-wingers unless one wants to argue that our resident scientific racists and most have posted more objectionable material than Der Trihs.
To be honest, I think the mods give too much leeway, but I understand the reasoning and I don’t see any overt political bias in the way it’s applied.
YMMV.
Unless you happen to be me and/or conservative, in which case you’ll get randomly modded for no justifiable reason, and Marley will refuse to acknowledge his errors.
Just like the infamous “gun grabber” incident. No rule broken. Just say something Marley the Moderator doesn’t like.
Oak, you need to quit it. You were overly snarky and personal, and drew a simple mod note. It’s hardly worth a thread of this length.
I’m well known on the Dope for a specific set of views that I have, and they definitely tend to diverge sharply from a “liberal” gloss. As long as I follow the board rules and/or don’t ramp up hostility in a thread, I never draw so much as a whisper from the mods.
Infamous? Get over yourself, dude.
Marley has modded me on a number of occasions(some of which disagreed with some of which, in retrospect, were deserved, and all were justifiable) and I’m not a conservative.
I got the message and have made a point to modify my behavior.
Frankly, I think it was for the best and I’d recommend doing the same.
Beyond that, let it go. In the long run, most of us are strangers, aren’t going to meet each other, don’t even know each others names and the opinions of strangers really shouldn’t mean that much to us.
“Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”