You’re misusing your caps key, Muffin, but why bother? The arguments here will win, or they won’t. Some off-board poll won’t make any difference to TPTB, and, frankly, I don’t see why it should.
Either the arguments of the long-time posters will make a difference, or they won’t, but - y’know - that’s all we got.
Alright.
snUgGlyPuPpY
Hmm. Well, here goes nothing.
snUggLyPuPPy
Never mind.
Hmmm…I suppose I’m both flattered and amused that a variant of “Snuggly Puppy”" is the passcode for the the resistance. Viva La Resistance. I can’t be arsed to jump through the hoops to officially record a vote…but I sorta doubt my position is a mystery to TPTB anyway.
Can we not hijack this thread with that poll?
Dude, you made it much too inconvenient to get anything like a real representation of the population. Only the people who really, really care are going to make the effort to figure out how to vote. Sorry.
SnUgglYPUPpY
Yep. We’re not allowed to say, “fuck you!” in the Pit anymore-but isn’t that what Ed’s basically said to all of us here?
OK, let’s try to get this back on track somewhat. With the new civility goals at the SDMB, you might be wondering how will this affect the front page? Well, let’s take a look at the columns that have been posted and reposted from Cecil and the mailbag over the past week or so. I don’t know about you, but I think this looks like an advertiser’s dream:
*What’s the purpose of pubic hair?
Do female pigs have six-minute orgasms?
What exactly is “ear sex”?
Are Americans dumber than Europeans?
Do women have wet dreams?
Does a pig have a corkscrew-shaped penis?
Can the first day of a century fall on a Sunday?
What are the pros and cons of becoming a eunuch?
Why aren’t porn actors charged with prostitution?
Can two women make a baby?
How many calories are in the average male ejaculation?*
…well, I never said what kind of dream.
That’s simply not possible. How can you measure the “deleterious effect” of remarks that were not issued or even entire posts that were not submitted?
Anything I would have to say regarding the new rule has been covered, countless times over, by others in this thread. And much more eloquently than anything I could write.
So, sNUggLYPupPy.
I suspect it may even be worse the other way around. The longer a poster has been posting, the higher the probability that he or she has received warnings in the past, resulting in greater fear of punishment and in a greater degree of deleterious self-censorship. Posters with a shorter history are less likely to have run afoul of the mods in their time here.
I received a mod warning some time back and, since I have a particularly long posting history, I was genuinely fearful that I might have been within an inch of my banning. For who can know just how they stand among TPTB? How many points are on my license, so to speak? Is there a statute of limitations?
Also, who knows who is “beloved” and who is not? Do we need to have another tag by our handles reporting how much affection the mods feel towards us?
Yikes! Talk about vast complexity arising from all these unintended consequences!
Ok, I’ve slept on it,taken a break and chilled.
It’s still a fuckin’ stupid unworkable rule.
I know I’m a bit late to the party here, but I have been paying attention. I don’t post a hell of a lot, and when I do, it’s typically something rather short and pointless. The odds of ANY of the new rules having ANY affect on my posting are infinitesmal.
But while I post very little, I read a great deal. I know all of the “in” jokes (18" DHIBJD, anyone?), I remember the “winter of our missed content” (though I wasn’t registered at the time), ponied up my cash when we went pay-to-post without a whimper and have never once complained about the board’s performance (or lack thereof) nor any Mod or Admin action.
But rule #2 rrrrreeeeaaaalllly chaps my ass, and to a lesser extent, #3 as well.
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about the SDMB and the Straight Dope itself is that while there is a rather high level of intelligence and wit, no one seems to be afraid of using vulgar language where appropriate. And even where it is inappropriate, no one (generally) gets too bent out of shape about it. Kind of an “we’re all adults here” attitude as opposed to a “won’t someone think of the children” thing you find on broadcast TV.
I truly do not see the need to change the rules about this. If it was a major problem, it would have resolved itself long before now, and if it’s a minor problem, it shouldn’t require broad strictures to be placed on everyone.
I know I haven’t added anything to this discussion that hasn’t already been said more effectively by many others. I just wanted to post the word snUgglYPuPpy so I could participate in ntucker’s online poll, but I didn’t want the post to be contentless.
But:
Ed certainly fits part (2), obviously, since no one who created rule 2 could possibly entertain the idea that he might ever be wrong about anything, but “the world’s most intelligent human being”?
Ed?
C’mon, stop pulling my leg!
SnUgGLyPuppY
I wasn’t planning on actually posting in this thread, but just wanted to say snuGgLYPuppY.
Good observation and good thinking. It gives me an idea. Surely amongst the hordes of Dopers there exist executives and human-resource people aplenty, likely even in Chicago. Maybe someone can offer Ed a job he’d enjoy much better?
If Ed really is Cecil Adams, perhaps Matthew Alice might like a change of scenery? When I first discovered Cecil Adams after having to leave San Diego after more than a decade of worshiping at Matthew’s feet, I thought he was actually one of Matthew Alice’s nom de plumes.
Whaddyathink?
I’m glad Ed cleared things up in his last post. Theses are my rules. I don’t give a shit what the customers think. If you don’t like it get the fuck out. The worst that can happen is I lose $200. If anyone else took that attitude with me I’d tell them to go fuck themselves.
That’s how my bank treats me. My ISP, too. Don’t get me started on my school. I pay them 1,000’s to treat me worse, frankly.