# New Deal Democrat's (very welcome) banning **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 3, 2012, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063 "2012-07-03T03:51:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/21 "2012-07-03T05:06:00Z")
I think the mods did a decent job with **NDD**. A year or so ago when he was hijacking every thread about Africa or any US social problems with the same generic screed, the mods managed to corral him into limiting his racial views in threads specifically about race. That allowed his views to be expressed without over-running the board with the same repetitive argument. And he more or less kept the race stuff in those threads until lately, when he started pretty clearly just posting to get peoples goat, they banned him. In any case, I like the general rule of allowing any view to be expressed as long as its done civily. I wouldn’t want a blanket ban on racists, or any other unpopular view, even if I personally don’t think much of the people that subscribe to those views. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/22 "2012-07-03T05:10:47Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I think the mods did a decent job with **NDD**. A year or so ago when he was hijacking every thread about Africa or any US social problems with the same generic screed Ahh, so he has a history of ruining any attempts to have actual discussion. I guess it is thankful that the people running this place only gave him another year to continue doing that before dealing with him. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/23 "2012-07-03T05:13:31Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > I guess it is thankful that the people running this place only gave him another year to continue doing that before dealing with him. We did deal with him. We warned him several times and got some improvement. That’s what moderating is. And like I said, we try to give people multiple chances to shape up. He’s not the only person to benefit from that. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/24 "2012-07-03T05:16:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > We did deal with him. We warned him several times and got some improvement. That’s what moderating is. And like I said, we try to give people multiple chances to shape up. He’s not the only person to benefit from that. Of course not. It just illustrates the inexplicable collection of behaviors that are all thrown into the same “forgivable” basket, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/25 "2012-07-03T05:23:33Z")
I think I’ve done a semi-decent job at summing up how we treat these kinds of things and why we do it. I’d rather we didn’t have to put up with people who spout this kind of idiotic garbage, but we do think the broader principle of allowing a broad range of discussion is important. That includes allowing some discussion of disagreeable ideas because the alternative - declaring some topics or viewpoints totally off-limits - is somewhat out of sync with the principles of this message board. And it also gives a gift to bigots and nutjobs because it suggests the rest of us don’t know how to argue against their views. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/26 "2012-07-03T05:24:36Z")
> [@MG-42](#): > > Telling people who do not agree with you to leave is also counterproductive. I personally use the ignore function on people that spout too much nonsense. Works for me. [godwin]You know who else relied on people ignoring him until it was too late?[/godwin] Personally, I’m glad - hell, I’d have banned him just for his irritating formatting of quote-mined wiki responses 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/27 "2012-07-03T05:38:11Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I think I’ve done a semi-decent job at summing up how we treat these kinds of things and why we do it. I’d rather we didn’t have to put up with people who spout this kind of idiotic garbage, but we do think the broader principle of allowing a broad range of discussion is important. That includes allowing some discussion of disagreeable ideas because the alternative - declaring some topics or viewpoints totally off-limits - is somewhat out of sync with the principles of this message board. And it also gives a gift to bigots and nutjobs because it suggests the rest of us don’t know how to argue against their views. Let’s be clear: one of the moderators made it explicit that it is totally okay to suggest that another poster is a rapist on the basis of his national origin. Given the weird way this place operates, this apparently is okay. I don’t get why this is accepted here, but it’s obvious that it is. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/28 "2012-07-03T05:38:33Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > [godwin]You know who else relied on people ignoring him until it was too late?[/godwin] First they came for the racists… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/29 "2012-07-03T05:44:23Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > Ahh, so he has a history of ruining any attempts to have actual discussion. > > I guess it is thankful that the people running this place only gave him another year to continue doing that before dealing with him. Meh, your just ranting. My entire post was about how they did deal with him, and that the solution worked, at least until recently. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/30 "2012-07-03T05:48:26Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > My entire post was about how they did deal with him, and that the solution worked, at least until recently. And now we’ve dealt with him in a more permanent way. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/31 "2012-07-03T06:00:46Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > Let’s be clear: one of the moderators made it explicit that it is totally okay to suggest that another poster is a rapist on the basis of his national origin. Given the weird way this place operates, this apparently is okay. I don’t get why this is accepted here, but it’s obvious that it is. **Miller** explained his opinion elsewhere. Asking if someone is a rapist is disgusting, but it’s the Pit - you can say a lot of disgusting things there. That’s one of the things it’s for. In this situation, we decided the poster was trolling and handled it that way. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/32 "2012-07-03T06:15:46Z")
I think his banning was handled fairly. What a creep. It scares the crap out of me to actually know there are wannbe “intellectual” racists who probably think they’re superior even over other racists, all because they bought a racist textbook. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/33 "2012-07-03T06:23:58Z")
> [@Covered\_In\_Bees](#): > > About fucking time. > > Allowing him to stay and spout his bullshit for this long is exactly why I continually call this place a troll’s paradise. > > If he made any sort of intelligent contribution elsewhere in this message board, he’d be just fine (like say **Der Trihs** ), but no. Allowed to constantly just spew his vomit. > > Even **kanicbird** , with his “off the wall” ideas about things I’m fine with allowing to be here because he (she?) does actually post noncrazy things in other threads and if you didn’t know better, you wouldn’t even be able to tell he’s got some interesting ideas. I don’t doubt that NDD was a racist. Most of the posts _that I read_ of his however were not of that subject. (I didn’t read his pit thread for example). So I’d like to clarify that he had many posts that were not drivel.\* I’m not objecting to the banning: I’m just clarifying the record. I can’t remember ever reading something noncrazy by kanicbird, but again that’s just a matter of what threads I visit. Generally speaking, I am comfortable with the amount of rope that the mods feed to less worthy and necessarily transient participants at this board. - That said, I just skimmed his posting history: I think that maybe 48 of his past 50 posts were in racially dubious threads. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/34 "2012-07-03T11:22:01Z")
I’ll swim against the current here and say that when he wasn’t talking about race, I agreed with NDD quite a lot. Whenver he commented on policy matters not involving race, often I found him to be quite insightful and spot on. Of course he couldn’t keep off his favorite pony, which is quite unfortunate. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/35 "2012-07-03T11:36:46Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Of course he couldn’t keep off his favorite pony, which is quite unfortunate. I just hope the foal is raised in a good home. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/36 "2012-07-03T11:54:58Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > Why exactly am I supposed to tolerate racist opinions? Because, responding to them results in: > [@mister\_nyx](#): > > ruining any attempts to have actual discussion. Do you really think you’re going to logic the guy into giving up his views? Don’t be [this guy](http://xkcd.com/386/). It’s not worth wasting your time and ruining a decent discussion to respond to a guy who is doing nothing but shitting in the thread. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/37 "2012-07-03T12:05:22Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I’ll swim against the current here and say that when he wasn’t talking about race, I agreed with NDD quite a lot. Whenver he commented on policy matters not involving race, often I found him to be quite insightful and spot on. Of course he couldn’t keep off his favorite pony, which is quite unfortunate. When he wasn’t strangling women and burying them in the desert, Ted Bundy was a pretty charming guy! ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/38 "2012-07-03T12:09:02Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I’ll swim against the current here and say that when he wasn’t talking about race, I agreed with NDD quite a lot. Whenver he commented on policy matters not involving race, often I found him to be quite insightful and spot on. Of course he couldn’t keep off his favorite pony, which is quite unfortunate. Case in point: [here’s](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=15221023#post15221023) an entirely inoffensive post. Of course, I had to go four pages back in his post history to find it. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/39 "2012-07-03T12:24:53Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > We did deal with him. We warned him several times and got some improvement. That’s what moderating is. And like I said, we try to give people multiple chances to shape up. He’s not the only person to benefit from that. Here’s my concern: You have hate-speech rules. I think, in general, “hate speech rules” is a dumb idea, and I wouldn’t mind if it went away. But since it’s not, _why is it so hard to enforce_? There’s a big, huge, gray area with “hate speech”, and I get that that gray area is hard to moderate. But when you have someone asking a black person if he’d raped white women, or a guy seriously spouting that because black people don’t have neanderthal genes like white folks do so that they’re closer to monkeys than us(???), there’s no gray area at all. If _that_ doesn’t trigger the “hate speech” rules, _what does_? I say, either enforce the hate-speech rules and ban the obvious, over-the-top racists, or get rid of the rules. It took you guys years to get rid of Sevastopol, years to get rid of New Deal Democrat, but you all once instabanned Seven (retracted it after some second thoughts and a lot of outrage) for talking about (but not linking to) the Snackpit. Like, within an hour. Even though it’s not against the rules. But you let NDD post for years despite the fact that if the rules mean anything, he was constantly breaking them. Why is it so hard to moderate the obvious, really obvious extreme cases? Why the incredible reticence to actually moderate on the clear cases of hate-speech? ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063/40 "2012-07-03T12:28:21Z")
It’s funny, but NDD has made me realize that I find Neo-Nazi dirtbag racists less boring than scientific racists. This may be because I’m a real scientist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-deal-democrats-very-welcome-banning/627063.md?page=3)