“You just banned him because he was a liberal!”
Hehehehe, sorry, couldn’t resist. Good job, guys.
I agree with ivylass. Reeder could be an asset when he wasn’t on yet another “Bush is Eeevil” bender.
I am saddened, but not surprised.
Well, i’ve disagreed with quite a few bannings in the past, including december’s, and i disagree with this one too. Reeder annoyed the fuck out of me at times, and i often felt that he did more harm than good to causes that i hold dear. But this banning is silly. The Mods have had a hard-on for Reeder for ages now, and the alleged last straw was a thread that, if opened by anyone else, wouldn’t even have raised an eyebrow. At most, it would have been moved to MPSIMS.
Another piss-poor showing, IMO.
Not only unseemly, but cowardly to boot.
I can’t say that Reeder didn’t get warned and didn’t cross the line. But I can say that he did contibute here, and thus I donn’t think he should have been banned. But then again, I disagree with the banning of any well established poster who has made contributions.
I think we should ban socks, trolls, and spamsters. Others should be suspended.
So long, darling! You had so many chances to knock it off, and yet you didn’t. Have a nice life!
Oh come now. You should know by now that a long-time poster with a good reputation can get away with A LOT more than a newbie or somebody with a long history of acting like a broken record. Heck, there are times when I’d be in a rotten mood and post something deliberately inflammatory, trying to start a flame war…only to be shot down by a chorus of, “Hmm, I understand where you’re coming from but I must respectfully disagree with you…”
That’s the problem with being a nice guy, you quickly learn that you can’t become an asshole overnight. 
Yeah, but consider the source.
You are certainly correct that a long and largely-unblemished posting history probably gives a person a little more leeway. But, in this particular case, it seemed to me that the final thread in question (the one with the video of Bush) was actually perfectly appropriate material for the Pit or MPSIMS. Not even a gray area that might get someone like Reeder a warning.
As some people said in that thread, i think that focusing on the little things that Bush does tends to distract attention from his enormities, but the fact is that the President of the United States (any president—Democrat or Republican) giving the middle finger will nearly always be a newsworthy and discussion-worthy event.
Hell, it doesn’t even have to be the President. Can you imagine the outrage you’d see among some groups in America and on these message boards if Hillary Clinton did something similar?
Meh. Reeder had a standing warning to keep his anti-Bush threads political, much like how handy had a standing warning to keep out of medical threads. Reeder violated that warning by posting a personal attack and now he’s gone. Should’ve known better.
They’ve tried that. There have been a few dopers reinstated after an initial banning. The majority, like Collunsbury, ended up banned again. Should the Collunsburys of this board be suspended for every infraction? How many suspensions would one need before it sinks in?
The funny thing is, i agree regarding most of the other threads for which he was warned. Many of them were based on incidents that weren’t even worth examining, or on a silly, content-free “question” used by Reeder to push his own one-track agenda.
But i actually think a thread about the President apparently giving the finger to a group of reporters is one that is well worth opening. It raises important questions about Presidential actions and decorum. Even more interestingly, in this case, it tells us something about the press itself. I mean, it should be clear to anyone watching that video that the raised digit was the middle finger, and yet the reporters who were present covered up for the President by insisting that it was a “thumbs up” sign.
Sure, Reeder’s OP didn’t exactly delve into these issues or call for a serious response, but i seriously believe that if anyone else had opened this thread, it would have been allowed to stay open, perhaps after being moved to MPSIMS or IMHO.
In closing the thread, Veb said:
Personally, i think that’s bullshit. We’ve had plenty of threads in the past that based on photos or video of famous people doing stupid or embarrassing things. If such threads truly are going to be locked every time from now on, then it’s just another moronic moderating decision, IMO.
No doubt. Reeder got there first and in doing so violated his standing rule. Had he just waited for somone else to make the OP, he’d likely still be here. Sucks to be him.
Usually I’m with the mods, but I think it’s kind of a bummer to ban someone for simply being annoying.
Why did I call TubaDiva by the wrong name?
I blame Bush.
Sorry, TD. Thanks for fixing my coding.
Regards,
Shodan
But not all. There has even been a rather prominent member of Staff that was suspended then came back, and hasn’t been banned or anything since.
What I am saying is that instead of banning a “well established poster who has made contributions”, they should simply suspend that person. Not re-instated. Given a 60 day “time out” which comes off automatically.
In other words- “warn, suspend, ban” instead of “warn, ban”.
Our past experience has been:
When a normally well-behaved, conscientious, contributing member has a sudden (or temporary) melt-down, a suspension or “time out” is often helpful. And we have had people come back, after the stress-reduction, without serious later consequences.
OTOH, when we suspend a member who has repeated, consistent misbehaviours, depsite repeated warnings… usually when they come back, they fall right back into the old pattern.
No, it’s not always the case, but the overwhelming preponderance of the time…
Poor duffer.
Won’t somebody think of the duffer?
It should be noted that we now have a policy in which we (generally) suspend long-time posters before banning them. In the case of Reeder, he actually received a suspension before that policy was in place, for the very purpose of getting him to modify his behavior.
Well, then, I can’t ask for more. Too bad it didn’t work. 
Thanks.
You’d think that Bush would have had more imagination than to simply copy the Trudeau Salute, particularly given Trudeau’s positiion on the political spectrum and his relations with the USA.