This is the forum for questions concerning the administration of this board, and this is one. I’ve been a moderator elsewhere before, and believe me, I know what a pain it can be to deal with the occasional hothead, so I don’t bring up a point of apparent criticism lightly. But, having been invited by MEBuckner (not specifically, but a general invitation to all) here to take discussions of the latest december eruption to the Pit, here it goes. Click if you like, but all you’ll find is another example of a juvenile tossing a stinkbomb into the room and stifling giggles when the grownups get annoyed. Usually it goes on to feigning a hurt innocence when accused of it.
This isn’t intended to be a bash-december post; those have been done rather often without effect and frankly there’s no point - he actually seems to enjoy them. This is simply a question to the moderator community, which has decided, either actively or by default, that the best interests of SDMB (fighting ignorance and all that) are actually served by continuing to allow him posting privileges.
Well, why, people? What redeeming qualities do you see in him that aren’t apparent to virtually any of the rest of this community? How is it possible to judge his behavior conducive to the spirit of this board? I am genuinely curious as to what we may be misunderstanding here.
leaving aside an annoyance factor, can you give an example of rule breaking? He used to post large pieces of text, was informed that it’s not allowed, and stopped. He’s never (to my knowledge) flamed a poster in GD, and even at times has admitted he was wrong (not often enough of course, but he’s done it).
No, the most you can go for some level of attempted geeking up of liberal posters. However, I don’t frankly recall you suggesting that stoid be banned back during the elections when she was posting new threads prolifically.
nope, while I might mentally pound my head on the keyboard at a ‘cite’ that is an op ed piece, or worse yet, the whole OP’s that are cribbed from same, I’m not really seeing any specific rule being broken here.
None of us are likely make public our opinion of him anyway. And certainly not in this fashion. Some of us might have something to say about any specific opinion he holds, but that would be done as a poster, not a moderator. You’re asking us to show bias; that’s something we try (not always successfully) very hard to avoid. For obvious reasons. And for those same reasons, this is a rather ill-advised question.
I’m more or less with wring and minty green. I do believe the SDMB is infested with a small handful of prolific yet savvy trolls who are jerks without obviously breaking any explicit rule. I’m not saying december numbers among this group, but that is the point. It’s a very difficult call to determine who is awfully good at tweaking people, and who is simply trying to participate in their own (if unique) way.
Flames me be justified, but a call for banishment is awfully treacherous ground.
December posts poorly framed OPs, but so do posters from the left end of the spectrum, such as Pjen. Should not ElvisLives be even-handed in condemning them, too?
The only action that you can really take in protest with someone like this is to totally ignore their posts. I’ve thought about doing that often. But then I’ve thought - what if someone less informed reads such a person’s posts? If we don’t put an opposing argument, theirs is the only voice the less-informed person will hear. Which is why the boards are here to fight ignorance I guess.
But I am with you on the frustration thing - to have someone continually post the same, narrow viewpoint, even to the alienation of others on their “side” as it were - it can be quite infurating.
{upon re-reading, it may appear that I am calling for stoid to be reprimanded. I am not. While I may prefer less ideologically laden OP’s, I don’t think such OPs should be disallowed at all, nor should the poster get sanctioned}
Well, yeah, but the OP here seemed concerned about the quality of December’s inital post in that thread–“another example of a juvenile tossing a stinkbomb into the room and stifling giggles when the grownups get annoyed”–and I responded to that.
I could mention his “the dog ate my citation” style of debate and his lack of clarity on the difference between facts and opinions, but that didn’t seem relevant. If we’re just complaining about inflammatory GD threads, then Pjen and others ought to be criticized also. For my $.02, December is addled but harmless, and always entertaining
Hey, I’ve seen december turn into a pretty interesting, engaging fellow over the past few months. I like his perspective, which is very different from my own. Moreover, his debates are improving and he is usually fairly polite considering the drubbing he sometimes gets.
I’d like to see anyone say the same for me.
(He’s also edging around to something else which I don’t care to mention here.)
How about you quote the relevant portion of the registration agreement where it requires redeeming qualities and behavior conducive to the spirit of the board. Perhaps the mods consider it incumbent upon those who are annoyed by december to ignore him or learn to live with him, as long as he’s not being a jerk.
Exactly. I may not be keen on december, but I can’t think of a time that he’s violated board rules. Maybe there should be an extension of “don’t be a jerk” to include at least some minimal adherence to the rules of debate when in GD, but there isn’t. And the IPU knows the mods’ job is complicated enough already.
I’m glad to be on a board where the administration requires that rules be broken before posters are banned, and I’m glad that protection is applied without regard to ideology.
Just as an FYI, I’d like to take this moment to inform all that I went back and counted during the election, since I was getting such shit. I was, as I knew, the #1 new thread starter. From the day of the election to resolution, (what was that, 5-6 weeks?) I posted, IIRC 14 separate threads (might have been 12, but I’m going with the highest number). About 8 of them became multi-page discussions, again, IIRC. That averages, over 5 weeks, 2.8 threads per week.
The second most prolific thread starter posted 9. I can’t remember now who it was.
And there were a whole bunch of folks who started 5-7.
Just thought I’d share that.
Stoid
who hasn’t even read this thread, I just did a vanity search
He hasn’t been a Jerk yet, Elvis. That’s why he’s still here.
I guess I’m one of the few people who doesn’t find him hysterically annoying. And you have to admit, his OPs aren’t really that incoherent, at least, there’s a logic to them. He’s not just in there spouting off about the True Meaning of Omicron Phi or Sumerian Astronomy or whatever.
