I basically agree with this, and I think that labels like “jackass” are not appropriate for a poster who purports to have a mental illness that can cause a deficit of judgment or self control. That said, any poster who does not follow the forum rules (for whatever reason) should be subject to suspension or banning in accordance with those rules.
I alleged that he wasn’t ignoring but not understanding. I’m not as certain of that anymore.
You’re knowledge of Aspies is at odds with the experience I’ve had with them. They get made fun of all the time for their actions, but, even when you tell them what they are doing wrong, they have trouble understanding and correcting. It takes years of spelling things out in social skills classes for them to grasp it.
Full disclosure if I may: I was once diagnosed with Aspergers. Since I have social phobia, I freaked out, thinking I could never have friends. I wound up learning a lot about it.
Later on, I found out the doctor didn’t really test me, and when they did do the actual test, the only problem I had were anxiety problems, not a developmental disorder. My ability to read social situations seems better than a lot of people’s.
(I later found out why the guy diagnosed me. It was because he mentioned his daughters in passing, and being the horny teenager I was, asked a bit more about them. And my voice was a bit nasal. I’m very glad I didn’t wind up going to that doctor, with such a flimsy diagnosis.)
There are a few problems with this. Number one, we have no idea if he has Asperger’s or any illness at all, unless he posts notarized scans of his medical records; and even that could be faked. In fact, my long experience online has shown me that much more than half of all the people I’ve ever seen online who claimed they had “Asperger’s” or “autism” came to that conclusion via a self-diagnosis (sometimes from a Facebook survey, or all things), and in fact they’re just immature mental midgets with no social skills. Furthermore on this point, the SDMB has been infested with trolls in the past who deliberately and knowingly lied about having a medical condition to justify bad behavior. One of the biggest trolls in the history of the SDMB even faked death, with is quite a more serious illness than Asperger’s.
Second, Asperger’s is a poorly diagnosed and poorly understood condition with some serious question as to whether it’s even a separate disorder, let alone the symptoms and severity. How can one tell if an Asperger’s patient is being a jerk because they’re an asshole, or because of their disease?
Third, it’s really too damn bad if someone can’t follow the rules due to an alleged medical condition, but that’s life. There cannot be multiple sets of rules for every possible permutation and combination of real or pseudo-scientific mental illness someone can come up with to justify why they’re a jerk.
It’s an impossible burden for the Moderators to even try to take any alleged illness into account.
They may have trouble understanding and correcting, but they will work at it. I have a friend who has been clinically diagnosed with Asperger’s, and while she’s twice Curtis’s alleged age, she knows her limitations. (Although lately she’s been more expecting the world to work with her rather than vice versa, but that’s another story.)
Point is, if you’re given a directive you don’t understand, and especially if you know why you may not be understanding it, then you talk about it. Had Curtis made an effort to understand what he was doing that was earning warnings and reprimands from the mods, that would be one thing. Maybe he would genuinely not be capable of getting it, but he would be trying (or if not trying, then staying away from a community that he’s clearly not meshing with). Blithely ignoring warnings and doing the same thing over and over has absolutely nothing to do with Asperger’s.
I often see these sort of debates erupt over the moderation of the board and they always make me wonder.
If you accept ‘Don’t be a jerk’, as a/the primary rule, then how is it you cannot understand that the application of that rule will be, by necessity, high subjective. That it’s the mod’s call to make. That it’s unlikely you’ll always agree with them. That, in the end, we all enjoy a better board experience because of the moderation.
I understand if you feel it’s being wrongly applied you feel you should speak up. But once you’ve been told, “For us, this falls under the ‘Don’t be a jerk’ rule.” why isn’t that enough? Maybe you don’t believe he was being a jerk, but surely you can see that such a thing is not an easy line to define, there will always be some room for ‘maybe, maybe not, I could go either way’.
For what’s it’s worth I think it was totally deserved, and the mods made the right call.
They didn’t hang him, just suspended him for 30 days. Hardly egregious abuse of power, in my opinion.
You’re correct that the card is often misplayed, but I’ll take that “fighting ignorance” card and place it next to the “chilling effect”, “capricious Moderation”, “lack of transparency”, “ban with impunity”, and “nanny state”, “Ed is teh evul”, “Moderator term limits/need to vote for Moderators” cards which are so often played by the Protest Power Rangers.
No they don’t. They can do their same behavior analysis and find out whether the person is likely telling the truth. A troll will always out himself eventually, unless he’s complete sociopath.
I’ve seen it alleged before that Curtis is an older person faking. I don’t see any evidence being put forth. Until such, I will behave as I always do:
in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I always take someone at their word.
The mods said they give mentally ill people a little leeway. I can’t see how they do so unless they at least initially believe them.
Curtis could have Asperger’s or he could be just be an annoying 13 year old (which isn’t all that uncommon). In the absence of an actual medical diagnosis, I’m going with the latter.
That is correct. Shodan, you aren’t showing any warnings, which means you haven’t received any since May or June, whenever the new system went into effect. We have to go into the cobwebby back room and paw through the clay tablets to find out about any warnings issued before then. If you’re not sure if you have any (and are concerned about it), you – or anyone – can ask a mod to check for you. (I’d be willing but don’t have time right now.)
Band Name!
Your multiple personalities are looking a bit dodgy, too.
As long as one of them is sane I’m good. 
There’s a question. Can each personality have their own account or do they all have to post under the same username?
All right. I think I’ve made myself clear. I skipped some people that responded to me because I thought I’d already made the argument. It’s at least 2 hours past the time I normally go to bed.
I think tacoloco’s last response makes the most sense of any argument I’ve seen. I’ve pretty much been stuck in the false dichotomy of 13 yo Aspie or 30+ yo troll. Typical 13yo does make sense, especially if you allow that he has some Aspie tendencies (which would explain possible online test results). I still think he leans more towards real Aspie, but I could be as wrong as that doc about me.
I’m pretty much throwing in the towel. When Curtis was pitted a while back for being annoying, I kinda wound up taking the mantle of trying to defend him, since I knew about the Aspie post. I’m really big about defending people with mental disorders because I know how hard that life can be. I really hoped he could stick around, as he mentioned being banned on other boards, and I decided I’d to everything in my power to keep him around.
I’ve tried explaining pedantically how he could avoid being misinterpreted or insulting. I’ve defended him more than once from other posters. But it’s too much work. I’m gonna give it up. I hope he can change if/when he comes back. And maybe I’ll try to help out a little if there’s a misunderstanding. But it’s no longer something I’m gonna spend great energy on doing. (It’s not like I was doing that great a job anyways, since I missed all of his warnings.)
I hope I didn’t stir up any hurt feelings in this thread. I apologize if I did.
Barring any unforseen circumstance, I won’t be back to this thread. I’ve let it take up too much residence in my head already.
On preview: thanks guys at the end for making me laugh.
If you click on “User CP” the infractions tab will be the default thing you see, to forever remind of you of your misdeeds. Presumably it only shows up if you have infractions, as I do, so it shows up.
I don’t think you should lose any sleep over it.
Just as a general statement: we are usually VERY understanding when someone lets us know that they are having medical problems, mental health issues, or just heavy stress (like undergoing divorce or the death of a loved one.) We can and do make exceptions, we can waive warnings, we can offer “friendly warnings” rather than Official ones, and we do generally try very hard to be empathetic.
At the same time, we have the obligation to moderate the boards. We would be very sympathic to someone with Tourrets, say, but that doesn’t mean we can allow them to insult other posters. We’d be sympathetic to someone who is bipolar, but that doesn’t mean that they can set up two usernames (one for up, one for down.) I’m sympathetic to persons with physical or emotional/mental disabilities, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to argue that a blind person should get a driver’s license.
Telling someone that they can’t post here unless they follow certain rules, that’s not a “punishment.” There are plenty of Message Boards where they can post, where there are fewer rules, and I’d guess there are even MBs specially for their particular disorder.
And, of course, normally the only “evidence” that we have of someone having a particular illness/disability is their own word for it. If the underlying problem is what appears to be trolling, then we need to take their word with a barrel of salt. The decision of whether someone is trolling, or is just take provocative positions, is not usually clear.
Thanks (as well as to runner pat). No need to bother with checking - I was just curious.
Regards,
Shodan
Do you have a link to those threads? Not that I don’t believe you, but I’d like to see them for myself.
I myself have OCD. However, I don’t want any special treatment from the mods because of it. If I am incapable of following the rules for whatever reason, then that’s my problem, not their’s. Same with Curtis.
Your type of argument actually only gives those of us who DO deal with mental disorders a bad name – that we can get away with bad behavior and blame it on our disorders.
And what’s to stop people from claiming that they can’t stop being jerks because they have this or that disorder? I believe that was the claim of the infamous Mark Serlin?
If Curtis IS only thirteen (and quite frankly, a lot of his actions seem to say so to me), then he needs to realize that he’s arguing on a board populated by adults. IF he can’t do so, then he’s not meant to be here. Is that fair? Maybe, maybe not. But why should WE have to put up with it, just because someone else is incapable of being civil?
(Besides, as someone else pointed out, it’s only a SUSPENSION. It’s not a banning. Yeesh)
Yes, but there is no right to a jury trial when it comes to this board. If the guy really does have an illness, then I feel sorry for him, but this board isn’t like real life. The mods don’t have to make a special exemption for him because of that.
What if someone has alcoholism and he comes on here every night and posts drunken tirades laced with profanity and personal insults? Should we use the illness of alcoholism to say that we have to put up with it?