You misread. That comment is specifically after a question about a close at the end of each post. And it reiterates “at the end of each post” in the explanation.
It was added after a previous kerfluffle over Shodan’s closure.
Oh man, that is priceless.
Because for some people there is an inverse relationship between the importance of an issue and how worked up they get over the issue. Therefore, font choice - which is about as insignificant an issue as can be imagined - can become a matter of life and death.
It’s decisions like this that makes me wonder: is being a jerk disobeying board rules and then disobeying a mod OR is being a jerk doing something that annoys a member that happens to be a mod and then ignoring them when they capriciously mod it?
Back in 2012, there was the belief that he was trying to initiate a meme. Then SB denied that. The problem is the denials of somebody who does something that he knows is annoying and of limited humor lack credibility.
At any rate, I see that his alleged early attempts might be close to gaining some traction, albeit not in the manner that he anticipated.
Neither. Some mods found the behavior annoying, some found it insufficiently annoying. They conferred and decided to let it slide.
Being a spammer is being a jerk. There are many ways of being a jerk, one of which is disobeying moderator instructions. It’s not hard. I suppose Snowboarder Bo may have put himself on the radar with this particular stunt. But he’s otherwise a decent poster, and so has managed to stay on the correct side of the ban-hammer. I say that’s fine: there is a range of material that should be handled via mod action and another range that belongs in the pit. This is a beef that lots of folks have with SB’s automated tic. Pitting it is appropriate and not especially noteworthy: a pitting every 2 or 3 years sounds about right. That some think that this is a big troll-burn is their issue: they can express such feelings in the pit as well. Or even in this thread, with civility.
Thinking about Colibri’s explanation (which again I appreciate) I think part of the issue is using colored and unusual fonts is something that the staff could easily imagine many of the TMs doing and doing often, whereas SB’s automated tic habit, is not something they feel they imagined others adopting. Of course if people did it would ruin the look/feel/experience of the board even more than colored font does.
Imagine this board with some having it set such that whenever they type “IMHO” the text “The agnostic dyslexic is not sure if he believe in a dog.” appears, and another that whenever they type the letters “INA” (no matter what follows) the text “The manager kicked the bragging chess masters out of the empty lobby … he can’t stand chess nuts boasting over an open foyer.” appears. Another group replaces “NSFW” with the complete words of the poem The Jabberwocky …
Paradoxically, the fact that no one else sees any appeal to having an automated tic (or at least enough to do it themselves), that most just see it as, well not positively, that no one can even imagine that having an automated tic would become a popular thing to do, is precisely why it requires no moderation.
[Note my post #28 above]
So now the battle is between whether some potentially disruptive board meme is potentially liable to be spread or not, and not whether said disruptive behavior is an inherent act of jerkishness on the part of a single poster, on its own?
That’s utterly absurd.
I started adding my own ridiculous catchphrase after the last Pitting 3 years ago, but after a day or so I lost all enthusiasm for it.
Your post #28 is duly noted.
I am not so sure it is absurd. Something that is only a bit jerky on its own (but easily ignored by most, like the automated tic or colored font in a post) can be very disruptive if many do it. The odds of many doing does not seem unreasonable to include in deciding what its disruption potential is. The staff felt that the risk of many posting in color was real. (Though they had allowed that Grapist for a long while in the past and no one ever imitated him/her.)
The automated tic is unique to SB. Its been years now and no one else has been inspired to act jerky in that particular way. You even tried. A couple have intimated in that Pit thread that are going to start now but I doubt any will carry through. And while the idea of starting every post, or even every tenth post, or even replacing every IMHO or FAIK with:
“'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”
then proceeding with whatever I was going to post does amuse me, in concept, I wouldn’t be jerk enough to do it.
But yes, I am sure you are right: if a bunch of posters did start to do similar automated tic behaviors it would be stopped toot suite.
For the record, the posting career of the Grapist_: ) lasted all of 22 minutes from his first post until his banning (7:26 to 7:48 PM, 21 March 2004). Other people have occasionally imitated him as a joke for a few posts, but as they were joking it was overlooked.
The instance of the poster who was posting in green text was the most recent one, but in the past I have had posters turn up and start posting in bright blue or red. I’ve told them to knock it off as being disruptive. That was not in the least controversial (except for the poster who was doing it).
The dark green was not that bad, but bright blue or red text is even if only a single poster does it. The problem is that if we allow dark green text then we either have to allow other colors, or make some arbitrary decision on which colors are disruptive and which aren’t. Excluding them all is the simplest solution.
Of course, we still allow people to post in different fonts and colors if they do it occasionally as a joke or for emphasis. The problem arises when someone posts entirely in a different color.
Ah. Their jokes were lost on me.
Still, if what would happen, do you think, if as John DiFool and I imagine, multiple posters started replacing “IMHO” or “FAIK” a verse from Jabberwocky as our automated tic?
Would it depend on how often we tended to call up our demon scripts by typing those acronyms? How many of us there were? If we used a whole verse or just “'Twas brillig …”
Not asking for a ruling but do wonder what your informed speculation would be.
I’d rather not deal with hypotheticals in ATMB, especially not one that has so little prospect of actually happening. (I will, however, say that we will probably take a dim view of people who take this as a challenge to test our tolerance of something like this. ;))
For all your typesetting needs: The Ransomizer
ETA: Since, thanks to I think LSLguy, I know to use the word “chonson,” I extra appreciate the “shut the fuck up Donny” option on that site.
I think I’m going to start using that for warnings.
That must have been a reappearance that was quickly quashed. Even without Powers-o’-Moderation™ to see disappeared content, I can find mentions of him from a year before that.
You’re right. Checking back, his first appearance was actually on 7 May 2003, when it took him 46 minutes to get banned.
The first few mentions, however, are to not to the troll, but to a character mentioned in this this Onion article on the supposed MacDonald’s character the Hammurderer.
He would have been banned on the name alone, even without graping people’s posts.