It would be helpful if YOU would go on the record about your intention to apply the above points to **your own ** posts - with possibly the addition of
5/ From this time on you will not harass members to give out personal information that they have clearly stated that they don’t want to provide ie. that you will respect the privacy of other members
Well, 2 and 4 don’t apply to me, but I can promise to do my best to live up to 1 and 3, as can we all.
I don’t harrass members at all; I’m dismayed you’ve accepted Debbie’s theory that I am harrassing him. If you don’t accept the explanations of myself and many others in this thread as to why Debbie should reveal which country he’s posting from, then we just have to agree to disagree.
So you honestly don’t see that mocking him by calling him Debbie makes you look like a classless shit? Well I guess we are just on completely different wavewelengths.
I have seen for myself that you harass Aldebaran - I’m not just taking his word for it.
Perhaps a literary allusion might finally clarify this burning question of Aldebaran’s nationality and why he holds it so close to the vest.
There’s an F. Scott Fitzgerald story called “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”. It involves a modestly attractive but socially clumsy would-be flapper of the '20s. Our heroine takes an acquaintance’s advice and begins using as a conversational line, her dilemma about whether to bob her hair (a kind of short cut considered daring at the time). She parlays this line into a sure-fire conversation starter and source of allure to young men. Eventually, she is pressured into taking the plunge and getting her hair bobbed - at which point she becomes ordinary and ignored once more.
Aldebaran’s “mystery” about his nation of residence is his version of bobbed hair. It’s his cachet, of sorts. Once he reveals where he lives, he reverts to a fairly ordinary, if annoying poster of the rant-and-stereotype mode. It is unfair to expect him to give up the little he has to make him special.
Let’s give him a break. He’s just trying to walk upright on two legs, like the rest of us.*
*another literary reference.
Portia, I knew who made the reference to to a man, but irony was not my main point in that particular post.
When a person has just accused someone else of having a gender bias, the use of to a man does seem ironic. If to a person conveys something different to you from to a man, then you have illustrated my point. Then the old chestnut about the personhole cover coupled with the scarcastic emoticon indicate that being mindful of gender references is not necessarily indicative of understanding.
Or maybe you do understand and just aren’t showing it in this particular thread.
Or maybe you are showing sensitivity and I am not picking up on it.
Jackmannii, love that story. There’s a wonderful version on film with Shelly Duvall as Bernice.
I disagree with your premise, however. At one time Aldebaran told us where he was living at that time. (Or, at least, that’s what I understood.) And he was just as interesting and controversial then as now.
Wow. You two have stopped giving each other rimjobs long enough to notice? I feel honored.
Seeing that this thread is not yet closed, I take the opportunity to post a question regarding this whole issue.
First of all let’s take a look at
SDMB registration agreement as of 3/24/04
(emphasis mine.)
I told Mehitabel more then once that her fantasies about my “nationality” and/or “location” means that she consistently, repeatedly and non-stop posts false information. I told her so once again in this thread.
I also asked her more then once to stop these harassments which have as only goal to spread false information and to make people focus on “what my nationality could be”, while that is nobody’s business at all.
It is obvious that Mehitabel started this little game 17 months ago in the hope that I would finally become that irritated about her non-stop harassing and disregard of my right to privacy that I give in to her little obsession for finding out “where I live”. Just to put an end to her harassments and her wilfully spreading confusion by posting false information.
Now my question:
What would happen if I started to do the same with an at random chosen member who does not give his location in his profile and who in addition declared over and over again to me and to others and to the moderators and to the administrators that he does not want to give his location or any lead to it, for his own reasons.
I then go on with this harassing for 17 months and claim that I have every right to do this because that member does not want to say where he lives and I do not like his posts for whatever reason I can invent and hence he must say where he lives…
If that person then makes a thread to ask me to stop these harassments I post my “conditions” to him and if he does not start posting like I tell him to do, I shall tell him that I go on with what I am doing and that this is all in line with the SDMB rules.
Can someone clue me inn in what would happen if I did this? Is this against the above quoted rules or not?
Salaam. A
Aldebaran, e-mail the mods and show them the situation. Let them sort it out, this is their job.
And you really, REALLY need to find another word to put in place of fantasy.
Let’s turn this back on you for a second, do you or do you not have a history of knowingly posting defamatory, innacurate, abusive, and hateful remarks aimed at Dopers from the US and the US population in general?
You’re acting like the pot grower who calls 911 to report that someone stole their marijuana plants.
If someone guesses or make an inaccurate assumption about another poster based on a lack of information, is that the same as posting “knowingly false and defamatory” information? I don’t think so. Is it true that Mehitabel is posting “non-stop” about you? I don’t think so. These are exaggerations.
If you are defaming posters based on their country of residence and someone wants to know yours, is that harassment, or is it a relevant question to the debate? If you refuse to tell, and the other poster leaves it at that, and in no way attempts to find out where you live by any other means, is that really harassment, or are you maybe overreacting?
And to go along with what Lute said: Are you defaming Mehitabel by accusing her of fantasizing about you? Yes. Are you defaming her by comparing her to a foolish high school girl who has romantic feelings towards you? Yes. Did you open a Pit thread that deliberately states that Mehitabel is a stalker who should leave you alone because you are married, thus making it sound as if she’s trying to get you to commit adultery with her? Yes.
Your protestation of sarcasm notwithstanding, I know neither you nor Mehitabel and I came into this thread because I really thought one poster here was actually stalking another poster. I was concerned. I feel misled, and I think your thread title is inflammatory and ridiculous.
If you expect someone not to knowingly defame you or accuse you wrongly, then maybe you ought to practice what you preach. Model the behavior you wish to see-- do unto others and all that. Her bad behavior does not legitimze yours.
My rolleyes was toward the condition of Garnd River Ave, which MI dopers from this area will recognize as constantly torn up and under construction but never seeming to be finished or even improved. But it’s an unavoidable road if you need to get many places in the southeast part of the state. That’s why I put the emoticon after the road name, not the mention of the person hole cover. As I said before, I used a phrase in its original wording just because it flows better and sounds less stilted; I guess I could have used ‘Man’ as applies to humankind instead of ‘man’. ‘To a person’ conveys nothing different to me except not being the wording used for decades until late.
I wasn’t going to post but someone else bumped the thread so what the hell.
I wanted to kind of soften my last post. I really don’t think you are some big jerk Mahitabel. It’s just certain rhetorical tactics I detest. “My little XXX”, “you see sweetie,…”, implying someone is gay or of the opposite sex, questioning age, etc.
Aldebaran, like you say, has plenty of BBQ threads that should make him self-reflect - brickwall appearance notwithstanding. This is your chance. 
Rubystreak, judging from Mehitabel’s responses in this thread alone, she is aware that for whatever reason, Aldebaran does not wish to reveal his country of origin. We are not required to reveal that information at SDMB anymore than we are required to reveal marital status, age, weight, religious affiliation, gender, sexual preferences, political affiation, prior felony convictions, income, real name, celebrity status, number of times in rehab, level of education, psychological profile, or number of warts on the end of our long, long noses.
Nothing justifies deliberate and repeated personal taunting about something that a Doper has made clear that he wishes to keep private.
Now if Mehitabel had gone to Vanderbilt instead of on of the Seven Sisters, her lapse in judgment would not have been so utterly shocking. 
There’s that too. Trying to flip stereotypes back on people is not the only way to argue against them, so everyone should get over not having this easy handle on the mystery men of the board.
I agree and I have advised her repeatedly in this thread to leave it alone. I wish she would, because it’s getting a little ridiculous.
At the same time, Aldebaran’s wailing and kvetching about his persecution is pretty obnoxious too. There is a thread of hypocrisy that runs through this-- he claims to want Mehitabel to leave him alone, yet the very title of the thread is an ad hominem attack designed to provoke the very kind of response he claims not to want. If he sincerely wanted her to leave him alone, I’m betting a civil, reasoned request would have accomplished that end much more quickly than Aldebaran’s immature taunts ever will.
Also, you do acknowledge the infuriating hypocrisy of a poster who attacks America and the West over and over while never revealing his own country of origin? I personally don’t care, because for some reason I rarely post in the same threads as he does, but if he and I happened to travel in the same SDMB circles, I’m sure I’d have more than a little sympathy for Mehitabel’s aggravation. As Chris Rock said, I’m not saying it’s OK-- I’m just saying, I understand. I think both Mehitabel and Aldebaran should cease and desist their obnoxious behaviors, but I think the former is far more likely to do so than the latter. Hence, my sympathies with one and not the other. Also, Mehitabel managed not to insult me once in this thread; can’t say the same for Aldebaran.
Thanks for that, Rubystreak, that’s pretty fair.
When Debbie started this thread (Mojo’s nickname, I think it’s cute but I’ll only use it once) I did a :rolleyes: and came in, guns of sarcasm a’blazing, ready to cut his illogic, hypocrisy, and rudeness down to size once and for all. But, although I think his replies proven my case for me a bit, I have been forced to examine myself as a member here too.
He’s the only one I’ve ever tangled with here since 1999 (I was McKenna before Our Winter of Missed Content). I’ve never had a disagreement with anyone that hasn’t been solved with a laugh or a shrug or, at the most, “Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree about that.” Compared to the great rivalries and flamewars on this board, this spat is nothing; for the Pit this is a school picnic with children holding hands and singing “It’s a Small World After All”. But as I’ve said before, he’s like the homeless man who calls the help services to taunt them. His worldview is impermeable, and it’s really got nothing to do with you as a person.
Still–HE called YOU. I’ve never been pitted before and don’t quite know what to make of it.
But after a while, what does it say about the person who keeps the manipulative but hapless homeless man on the phone, playing mind games with him, like we all used to at my old job? That person might be ‘justified’ in some ways, but she’s also wrong. I never intended to be that person but this thread has made me understand that I just might be turning that way. I don’t want that.
So, while I didn’t break through to the mind that invited me into this thread, I hope I’ve come out a better poster. Let me know, nicely, in other threads if I start screwing up–I’m only an alley cat, remember.
But please don’t use the word ‘fantasy’, I’m kind of tired of it.
Very, very classy Mehitabel. It’s a testament to your character that you took something positive away from what could have been an overall negative experience. That’s so very wise. We should all take such stock and follow your example to be better people.
Here’s hoping this helps Alde as well. One good turn deserving another and all.