I post this here, because I have had no response from you regarding the apology I e-mailed you quite a while ago concerning your outrage at the thread I started challenging Collounsbury and December to debate a specific item raised in another thread, and the subsequent locking.
Frankly I was taken aback by the tone, and considering the fact that I have been described as fortunate not to have been banned long ago, I thought it best to apologize and meekly turn the other cheek.
However my memory has been jogged recently concerning a thread whereby myself and Fenris were called out to a “lets you and him fight” thread.
The real truth is that much of rules here are ambiguous, and a lot appears to get interpreted along the way - sort of the “seat-of-the-pants” approach. So that much depends on the feeling of the mod looking at the given situation. But - being that I am the type of guy who is always looking to help out my friendly moderator - I will point out a difference between the two cases.
In your case, your ostensible motivation in setting up a debate was to make a more direct clash between two posters than would otherwise have taken place - hence your request to have a one-on-one clash. And this was the only purpose - the debate was perfectly apropriate where it already was. Here, a moderator might feel that you were setting up a “fight” for no justifiable purpose.
By contrast, in the Fenris case, you were already engaged in a fight in the other thread. The ostensible purpose of the new thread was not to create a new or increased confrontation, but rather to avert having that confrontation derail a thread in which others wished to discuss other issues. This is indicated in the OP that you quoted.
One really apparent difference -
You placed your thread in GD, where MEBUckner is a mod. Binary’s thread was placed in the Pit, where he isn’t.
In addition, your thread, as you outlined in your OP was specifically just for those two posters, and was a duplicate of an already exisiting thread.
in the other, the thread in question was being hijacked by two people going back and forth.
and of course, for the final point - that thread didn’t have a moderator post in it, so it’s entirely possible that they didn’t notice it, and it died rather quickly. The pit is a fast moving place and a thread which stays open for three days and doesn’t even make it off the first page is really a slow moving one.
Here is a thought: Is it just possible that the thread that you mention was started by a more inexperienced poster (i.e. Me), and that when this was pointed out as a bad idea that poster (i.e. Me) apologized?
Also (and this is the really interesting part) as you participated in that very thread in which this was pointed out as something that is considered (as a matter of policy) to be bad form, one might wonder why you chose to engage in this practice.
Granted, when Anthracite pointed out that this may not have been such a peachy idea, she did not back up her claim that with a cite that Lynn had posted that people not do this, but being a face value kind of guy that I am, I believed her. Did you not?
Perhaps I was too sweeping when I said “not anywhere else on the Straight Dope Message Board”. As has been pointed out, a major difference between the two threads is that one was in Great Debates and the other was in the Pit.
At any rate, posters should refrain from posting threads of the “let’s get so-and-so and so-and-so to debate” in GD.
And grienspace, I did appreciate your e-mailed apology. Sorry for not responding to that sooner.
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