This is something I’ve never done in my five+ years of membership here and my 6,600+ posting history, and that is to ask a moderator WTF in regard to a warning to me. In this thread on Famous People You Dislike Totally, I made a comment here to the effect that Rush Limbaugh was talented and good at what he does, but was a mean-spirited asshole to boot and that he had lately become something of a parody of himself. Hippy Hollow asked me here what evidence I had that Limbaugh was smart and contrasted him with George Will and Christopher Hitchens as people he regarded as smart. I responded here with the reason why I thought Limbaugh was smart, but contrasted him with Will and Hitchens (and also Bill Buckley) who I would categorize as intellectuals and more effective as political commentators than the likes of Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Olbermann (who Hippy Hollow had brought up) and Maddow.
In return for answering Hippy Hollow’s question, I received the following command from Czarcasm:
“Off topic. Drop it.”
Now, just how in the hell was that post off topic? It was answering a question that another poster asked me, and that question was not deemed off topic! So, WTF!? Did you even read my post, Czarcasm, or did you just see Limbaugh, Buckley and smart in the same couple of sentences and just decide to twist off without even reading what I said?
I thought it was more appropriate. I wanted to know if by some miniscule chance I was truly in error, and therefore in need of guidance, as opposed to getting into an angry name-calling session that most likely wouldn’t accomplish much.
P.S. - Some of us who are talented in that way can still get pretty pithy even without Pitworthy language.
And there are also some of us who can go to a Pit thread and not get into an angry name-calling session.
We are, however, given much more latitude to bring in other issues without getting tagged for being off-topic or getting the dreaded asked and answered closing.
My recollection is that **Czarcasm ** doesn’t like debate in IMHO. The forum’s about putting down your opinion and reading others, not about criticizing others’ or justifying yours.
Of course it was off-topic. Said thread was about famous people one hates, for whatever reason. Starving Artist as is his wont, wanted to turn it into a lengthy argument about how conservatism doesn’t get a fair shake in the media. Clearly off-topic.
It was a stupid ruling. Apparently Czarcasm wasn’t happy with the level of bitching, you said something positive (especially about Buckley) and you dissed Olbermann. It’s pretty arbitrary, but…
Regards,
Shodan
If only today’s moderators where as awesome as they were back when Things Were Super. Good people like StarvingArtist never got any backtalk then. Everything’s gone to shit now.
Wow, until this moment I had no idea that there was a Moderator conspiracy to suppress positive discussion of William F. Buckley and negative discussion of Keith Olbermann this board. I’m shocked. And appalled.
I think I’ll test this:
Keith Olbermann is a pinch-faced, pointy-nosed, foghorn-voiced blowhard, and I don’t care who knows it.
The topic of the thread was “Famous People You Dislike Totally”, and the purpose of the thread was to post the names of “Famous People You Dislike Totally”. Debating the personal choices of others was not an option.
A simple “hawthorne was correct” would have sufficed. Perhaps a sticky in IMHO would be a good idea. Also, it would be good to edit the forum descriptions that now read “For frank exchanges of views on less-than-cosmic topics” to indicate that whilst frank exchanges of views are welcome, reconciliation or attempts at reconciliation are best left to other forums.
While I’ve no dog in this hunt (I post in IMHO maybe twice a year), this seems odd to me. I’d think a little byplay between posters would be tolerated (and, this being the SDMB, perhaps even expected).
What if the thread had been about “Foods You Hate”? Poster A states a dislike for cream cheese. Poster B quips, “Man, cream cheese is the greatest thing since Chicken McNuggets!” or somesuch. Would this be beyond the pale? In other words, did the fact that that thread was about personalities perhaps shade your judgment?
If Poster B would then add that a dislike for cream cheese is an obvious sign of the ongoing decay of our society, that liberals are solely to blame for the lamentable state to which we have sunk and then, when several people object to this absurd viewpoint, write a half-dozen 750-word essays addressed to each respondent individually, all essentially rehashing the same points over and over again, I think most people would consider that to have completely derailed the thread. That’s the sort of thing Starving Artist tends to do, and, I imagine, why Czarcasm decided to step in fairly early.
For what it is worth I think Olbermann is as embarrassing a representatives of the left as Windbag and O’Reilly are of the right. They are all sad jokes. They all disgrace the idea of fair and even reporting. At least Windbag is not part of a news organization. In that regard he is less of disgrace than Olbermann and O’Reilly.
Did Cronkite lean left or right? We don’t actually know. All newsmen should be held to that standard. Now get off my lawn you damn kids!
WTF??? “Uncle Walter” was a commie pinko! Why do you think he came back from Vietnam and said, “I can see no benefit to a continued US presence”? Its because he was working for the Kremlin! (That or the damned hippies who run CBS forced him to say it.)
WTF? Where in the OP is it stated that he wants bare lists? In fact he himself gives several reasons why he dislikes certain of his choices. Hw on earth did you divine that he did not wish others to exercise the same freedom?
And there are also some of us who can go to a Pit thread and not get into an angry name-calling session.