But you’re not the banned person. He might see things differently. Surely you have been misunderstood before, or misrepresented, or even misattributed. What if you were subject to attack from people who simply don’t like you, but you could not respond?
I’m just asking in what circumstance you believe it is called for, and so far, all I’ve heard is that its well deserved or (and I’ve lost track now of who said it) that there is a basic human need to vent. Well, there was hardly a poster I liked any less than Collounsbury and yet, upon his banning, I said not one negative word about him, and in fact offered the same opinion I’ve offered here. Why should I be the one to decide that he deserves it, or that my need trumps his?
Anyone who can understand the GD rule about attacking the post but not the poster can understand what I’m saying here. Discuss the banning to your heart’s content. Say why it’s smart or stupid in your opinion, but direct that criticism to the administration, not the defenseless former member.
Left Hand of Dorkness, I believe that I have demonstrated to you my willingness to go to great lengths to accomodate you and to earn your respect. I believe also that I have demonstrated a willingness to hear a compelling argument that is contrary to my own view and admit my error. At this point, you and I must simply disagree. For what it’s worth, our disagreement in no way diminishes my respect for you. I do have one question though that, as an aside, has arisen from this discussion: has it ever been the case that I have made an argument that you found compelling? Have I ever changed your mind? Or have I always been, in every instance, wrong in your view?
Most likely you have; I’m sorry, but I just don’t keep track. My agreements or disagreements with your positions are based on the positions, not on you personally.
If I were misunderstood repeatedly, over and over and over again, for a period of five years, then no, I wouldn’t be hurt if the misunderstanding continued on after finally being unable to respond. Are you seriously stating that milroyj was just misunderstood? I can understand where you’re coming from in a general sense, but you picked a really bad poster child for your pet project.
Actually, my argument wasn’t either of the above. I stated that when his defenders invite comparisons, they will get them and when people challenge a ban, others will step up to show why it happened. If the comparison is between asshole A and bigger asshole B, stating that B is a much bigger asshole, and providing evidence that that is the case, is a perfectly valid response.
If someone had come along and said Collounsbury shouldn’t be banned unless we’re also going to ban Shodan, then pointing out that both could be pretty predictable in their particular leanings on given issues, but that Collounsbury was a lot more coarse about expressing his leanings would have been perfectly acceptable. I liked having Collounsbury around here quite a bit, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t all of the things that people have said about him. He was, in most cases. Heck, he’d probably agree that he fit many of the negative descriptions applied to him.
Bannings are a reflection of a former member’s behavior, so it’s rather difficult to say that a banning is smart unless you’re able to show why the former member was a jerk. Personally, I’m all for letting bannings stand unchallenged and uncommented on, but as long as people are allowed to challenge them, or make comparisons, I’m going to feel free to respond accordingly.
Finally, the former member is not defenseless. They are almost always (and definitely in this case) given considerable leeway and time to adjust their behavior and remain members in good standing, and we both know that it’s not that difficult to retain our membership status.
Liberal, if you’re willing to listen to something I have to say, this discussion - at least in the form it’s taken - is not resolvable. The argument has fallen onto a matter of basic morals - essentially, you’ve asked Leftie to listen to an argument for your moral viewpoint and justify it if he doesn’t adhere to it (or support its enforcement.) Moral principles simply do not tend to be amenable to change in this way; most of them can’t be fundamentally supported by logic or rhetoric (or if they can, the results are unsatisfactory) and they exist in such a variety of forms because people essentially can’t justify their own morals, nor are they generally willing to.
So argument that Leftie here ought to agree with you (or explain why not) is fruitless. From a rhetorical standpoint, it’s not fair to ask him to justify not adhering to your beliefs, and from a pragmatic standpoint, you can’t expect others to be won over to your principles (on such a basic moral level at least) through argument, no matter how brilliant.
I should note that I used Shodan above purely as a debating device, and am in no way comparing his behavior to Collounsbury’s. I doubt that I agree with Shodan more than 1% of the time, but I don’t recall him ever doing anything remotely warranting a warning, much less a banning.
Though I suspect he doesn’t want to be called “Leftie”, and I don’t believe you’ve characterized the discussion correctly since I’ve never once raised the issue of morality — nevertheless, I take the thrust of your point that no one’s mind is likely to change. I also disagree with your prior assertion that it “doesn’t seem appropriate to decide it’s a mod’s duty or right to set down standards for good behavior”. That is in fact what they do everytime they judge whether someone is being a jerk.
You’re mistaken. As This Year’s Model has pointed out, this is nothing new for me, and as Uncle Beer has pointed out, it is nothing new for the board. Never have people been allowed to bash people who were administratively prohibited from responding. Once again, it is not a question of who was banned, but that they’re banned.
But why should you be calling people assholes at all who are not capable, because of administrative prohibition, from responding to you? Your opinion that A is a bigger asshole than B or vice-versa is completely worthless. B was not banned for what A did, at least not ostensibly. The only thing you should be questioning is whether the administrator made the right decision. It is not a matter of whether A was an asshole, but of whether the admin was competent. As discussed in the closed thread, there is a difference between quoting a poster and stating that you believe those quotes were ban-worthy, and opining that the poster was an asshole.
Well then, what are we to do? Wait for you to appear so we can know whether someone does or does not wish to be bashed by his former peers?
If you can understand the difference in GD between attacking a post and attacking a poster, then you can understand the difference in the Pit between attacking an administrator’s decision and attacking a man who cannot answer you.
While they are still here, flame away.
Now, as I have shown, you are wrong on all counts. Leave this post as the last word between us, and I will believe you are sincere that unilateral arguments and expressions of contempt are no big deal.
Liberal, I have not the time it would take to show just how very much I disagree with you on this thread, so I stood by and watched. Nontheless, I must now post.
Would the above example lead to a thread about a banning consisting of nothing more then people defending the banned man, and no one supporting the mod’s decision? After all, if the posters agree he should be banned, surely they will call a spade a spade, a la’ calling the hypothetical person an asshole.
Of course there’s a difference, just as there’s a difference between attacking an ex-member of the board who cannot answer you and attacking an ex-president who cannot answer you. I just don’t see a moral difference between 'em.
It’s simple. If you don’t want to be attacked without being able to respond, don’t act like a jerk. If you don’t trust the admins to make that decision (i.e., whether you’ve been a jerk), walk away from the board and don’t look back.
If you choose to act like a jerk, and then you choose to hang around to see what naughty things people say about you after you’re gone, well, you’ve made your choices.
Despite that you might have made all those choices, Left Hand of Dorkness, it is still possible that you ran afoul of someone’s judgment that differed from your own. If that someone is an administrator, and his decision was to ban you, then all your good intentions were for nothing. You trusted them, you chose not to act like a jerk, but they perceived you differently than you perceived yourself. Doesn’t the banning itself hold sufficient meaning to make the necessary point? Why should a man feel some need to compound it with his own worthless personal opinion?
But by your lights, Liberal, and also already illustrated by Shodan, all it would take would be one post attacking the bannee to cause the thread to be closed, thereby short-circuiting possibly healthy discussion. If a thread degenerates into nothing but bashing, sure, shut it down, but most of these threads start with perfectly appropriate talk about the pros and cons of whether the banning was merited. The pros must of necessity include examples of why the ban was merited. I honestly see nothing wrong with that.
This just seems unenforceable, or, if enforceable, overly prohibitive.
I’ve opened a couple threads here, essentially along the lines of “Mme Chaussette got banned…Was she/he a sock for Joe Blow Exmember?” Pursuant to the OP, the discussion revolved mostly around confirmations of suspicious, illustrative commentary about the banned poster, usually to provide corroborating oppinions, citing the sock’s indeosyncracies, and how those fit with the ex-member’s earlier behavior. As such behavior was more or less the very thing that got the ex-member banned in the first place, expressing a negative view about the ex-member (at least in regards to what made them bannable) was difficult to avoid. And why should we?
I don’t see anything especially unseemly about such a conversation. The subject wasn’t broached for the purpose of taunting the defenseless banned, and if some pejorative comments wound up in the mix, it hardly seems strange, or worthy of fastidious avoidance. Maybe post-banning discussion of this sort feeds their twisted egos or whatever, but I don’t know why I should be censored because somebody else is a deviant. Anyhow, discussing the banned needn’t always amount to “You got ba-hand! Neener neener neeeener!” Killing all “banned” threads because somebody might say something nasty about the poor miscreant who lost his privileges might stop some abject bullying, but it also would stifle interesting (IMO) discussion. And besides, sometimes it’s fun to solve such mysteries “It was DingleFritz all along! I knew it!”
In the past you’ve proven an ineffective judge of what Left Hand of Dorkness does or does not like to be called. Nevertheless, if he doesn’t like it, I’ll stop. I used it as a slightly more affectionate alternative to the more awkward abbreviation.
Nor did I say you had (though you referred to it as an “ethical” issue, and a “disgusting” practice. You weren’t using the word “disgusting” in a moral sense?) However, I believe it is essentially an issue of morals. I’m not sure what else you’d call it, as if it’s simply one of manners than your argument would be ridiculous as the pit has traditionally not been a place where good manners are expected (or, for that matter, received well.)
Because, as I stated, opinions like these are not the kind that are subject to change in anyone.
You’re right, and I stated my point inadequately here. The point is that the mods have their powers to ensure the smooth functioning of the board. They are here to ensure that disruptive people are given notice, that spammers are kicked out, and so forth - all because the very basic functioning of the message board is compromised when a few people decide not to play along.
I can see no plausible danger posed in allowing folks to bitch a little in a thread about a banned member. Unseemly? Maybe. Wrong? Perhaps. But the mods don’t generally sit in judgment of folks’ manners except when it pertains to the boards’ peaceful operation. These sorts of threads are like any other - you may avoid them if you wish, because they don’t threaten the peace of the boards. It’s not frequent that mods use their powers for anything except calming arguments, moving threads, and other such situations involving making the place a useful place of discussion. This issue doesn’t seem to impact on that, nor does it seem to be substantially different from many other behaviors that are rude but tolerated.
That’s horseshit. Once again, the argument was raised as to whether his actions warranted a banning or not. When that argument is raised, unless your actual premise is that they shouldn’t be able to raise that as an issue, the proper response is to show exactly why said person warranted a banning, or if there is no such evidence, to lift the ban. Since the main reason for being banned around here is “being a jerk”, pointing out the jerk-like behavior is perfectly warranted, whether said jerk is reading the forum, or has said good riddance to us.
Whatever we want to do, until such time as it is deemed “being a jerk” by the moderators. It’s just not that hard to stay in line here, and if the line ever does move, I’ll happily move with it.
I didn’t attack an administrator’s decision, so it’s a poor analogy. I actually defended their position in this particular case. They banned a jerk for being a jerk.
You haven’t shown me to be wrong on any count yet, but if you wish to run from the debate, I can’t stop you. Hell, you ignored my initial premise for long enough.
Finally, based on his behavior, I’d be surprised if we were to find out that milroyj wasn’t intentionally being an asshole. Perhaps he’s more bothered by those defending him than those calling a spade a spade. Since he’s not here to defend himself in either way, your argument would be much better supported if you were to come down against both sides of this discussion, including those who are stating he wasn’t being a big enough jerk to warrant banning. As stated earlier, I’d even agree with you then.
Unless you have a total meltdown that flies in the face of everything I’ve seen from you, the day you are banned here is likely the day I start a “Why the hell did you ban that sucker Shodan?” thread.
I have tried to work on it, but I just can’t seem to disagree with you 100% of the time (mostly due to my fiscal conservatism leanings), so I’m afraid we’ll have to keep that 1% in common.
Lib, my thought process on accusations once a poster has left pretty much runs like this: We’re a self correcting community in many ways, and even someone like miljoyj had people sticking up for him when the hammer fell. I’d wager that if someone made some outrageous claim about a ban-ee, someone would chime in with “Cite?”
And even if they wouldn’t, it does seem a bit different to talk about you taking a voluntary leave of absence, and someone being banned from ever posting here, ever again, because they were a jerk.
And, hell, even if someone misinterpreted something a ban-ee said, or what have you… the banned poster is anonymous. It’s not like it’ll get around to their job/family/what have you.
Don’t get me wrong, in general on aesthetic grounds I think you’re pretty much right, but I don’t think it’s a moral issue.
As one who added a comment in the closed thread, I fail to see any real damage done. Whatever various people said about the “dearly departed” were easily verifiable, and were instigated originally by that same individual.
Threads like these have a parallel in real life. Ever go to a “going away” party for someone, the day AFTER they left? It’s a relatively fun and harmless way to vent and blow off steam. Eventually, so long as nobody tries to hard to defend the “accused”, it all dies down fast. By constanly arguing and arguing and arguing, you in effect force it to stay alive.
I also think we should go with the pirate theme - hooks, peglegs, plank walking, yardarms, rum, eyepatches and lots of parrots. Arrrrrr.
