What does that have to do with the topic at hand? The topic, in case you’ve forgotten, is about someone who is so obsessive about a particular set of ideological beliefs that he injects them into virtually every thread he participates in, even if it has little or nothing to do with the topic. This is classic threadshitting, and persistent and habitual threadshitting is a problem. And to be clear, it’s a problem that has nothing to do with whether one agrees with the ideology or not.
If the Hollywood studios who blacklisted communist screenwriters were not private entities, I don’t know how this board can qualify.
Or septimus, who is currently under the same sort of topic-specific moderator instruction Will was, and who is now actively trying to comply with it (admittedly in a rather over-the-top fashion) to avoid getting banned.
I’m in the minority who would have preferred Will wasn’t banned, but I’m frankly a bit embarrassed that the people who agree with me about the outcome are presenting such terrible arguments. Anyone who is aware of Will’s posting habits to any degree can see that it’s ridiculous to argue that some fundamental absolute principle was violated here. Freedom of speech is never absolute in any context. In the context of a messageboard, there must always be a line drawn somewhere between your right to speak about what you want to speak about, and the right of others to conduct their conversation without constant disruption. I might have preferred a different judgment call here, but that’s all it was - a judgment call. And it was close enough to a marginal case that I have no problem respecting the fact that Bone (and the other mods, since I’m sure this was discussed) made their decision the way they did. Again, if you have any knowledge of Will’s style of posting, claiming without evidence that this was biased silencing of a minority viewpoint is ludicrous.
First - the instruction he violated wasn’t about introducing libertarian ideology. I do my best to make instruction discreet and specific so it is more easily understood. There have actually been many times where I want to give some instruction, but I can’t figure out a way to phrase it to make it specific enough to be enforceable to I leave it alone.
Second - see post #16:
Are you saying that a hypothetical ex-president with dementia revealing classified information is equivalent to exercising anti-state speech? And somehow Ed Snowden is relevant?
I mean, given the stretches you’re making here trying to relate what appear to be wildly unrelated subjects I can understand why you think what Will offered was related, but it really wasn’t. If he was unable to understand actual thread topics, pushing the limits wasn’t a good idea. So my threshold questions to you are the same to Steophan in post #91. Would you care to address them?
Errm, do you think they just *magically *blacklisted them out of their own fierce patriotism?
I repeat: what was McCarthy’s job?
McCarthyism was not necessarily about government actions. But call it the “Red Scare” if that will shake off your irrelevant pedantic objections. Although you can probably think of others that are even less relevant. :rolleyes:
Do you have any reason to believe that the SDMB mods reached out to other messagebaords and told them not to allow WF to post?
So, what was McCarthy’s job?
Nice dodge on the “necessarily” weasel word, BTW!
This is a transparent pretext to get rid of someone you don’t like. The same “violation” occurs all over this board, but people don’t get in trouble for it if they are not disliked. Here’s a moderator going wildly off-topic:
I await your tortured explanation as to how this is on topic to debate the issue of whether we have or have not betrayed the Kurds. (Spoiler: we have.)
A couple more examples I found with just a quick perusal of GD:
(Topic: emoluments)
(Topic: whether Obamacare can or cannot be termed a failure 9 years later)
Or,* just maybe*, because they don’t make a habit of doing it?
Did you report any of those off-topic posts, BTW?
I don’t see a moderator in that quote.
Monty did not keep going on and on about the topic, in fact, it spawned its own thread. Had he continues to hijack that thread, then he probably would have gotten a note.
And do those posters have a history of injecting those topics into every thread that they are a part of? If so, then I would agree that there should be consistency, and they be told not to. If that is not their habit, then your example, once again, fails to have any similarity to the topic in question.
Monty is not a moderator. This was post #447 in a long running thread. If you notice, I responded in post #449 and instructed that that post was off topic and to start another thread if desired. If Monty refused and continued on that topic in that thread, escalation in moderation would have occurred.
This thread is talking about emoluments and organically moved towards other constitutional rules. Going further, the relationship between the ability to enforce constitutional restrictions, what happens when enforcement is difficult for various reasons, and then speculations about why enforcement is difficult. This lead to the comment you quoted, about gerrymandering. Not directly on topic for emoluments, but an organic enough flow that there’s no need to step in.
This is basically a general Obamacare thread. There are tons of angles that are germane. The practicality and impact to existing insurance industry structures due to changes in health care administration and distribution is certainly relevant. Expressing sentiment regarding said insurance companies is also an organic flow of that discussion.
None of these were reported either, including the first one which I did actually moderate.
But going back to whether something is a pretext to get rid of someone - we can get rid of someone anytime. There’s literally tons of people I don’t like, yet they are still here. Maybe we’re just super patient and biding our time.
If I did a careful study of individual posters, I’m sure I could find ones who inject their particular left-wing hobbyhorse into threads where it is only tangentially related. But that doesn’t rub very many people the wrong way, so it isn’t noted or warned, and it certainly does not end up getting them banned.
There is no argument more powerful and effective than “I could provide evidence to support my point, but you would only…”
:rolleyes:
You didn’t need to *stalk ***Will **to know what his major malfunction was.
Find a left-wing poster who does it so openly and unrepentantly, and remains unmodded, I dare you.
Oh, I have absolutely zero doubt that you are patiently working on building up to it with me, starting with ticky-tack fouls so you can later claim that there have been X number within Y length of time. If I magically had access to your PMs, I am confident they would show a massive number of people screaming at you to get rid of me, and assurances from you that you are working on it but that I am cagey so it will therefore take some time.
Why, that doesn’t sound like a conspiracy theory at all…
I don’t think Bone likes me very much, and yet somehow I have no fear of being targeted for a ban. Of course, I don’t have a martyr complex.
This sounds a lot like an excuse for any future infractions: “See? I told you they were out to get me!!!”.