"Respect and civility for all."

About This Message Board
1

I’ve about had it. Note the much-rumored but probably nonexistent forum for Pitting Moderators isn’t open for business at the moment (checks again…durn it), so this goes here.

Ok. Fine. So the new watchwords are “respect” and “civility.”

How many fucking times have we seen this play out? An alt-righter says something provocative/stupid/trolling/broken recordish, someone else calls them out on it, yet it is only the latter who get the notes and warnings?

Now. How TF is long-term trolling showing any sort of “respect and civility for all”? Because that’s what we have here. A cadre of mindless Trumpian bozos who continue to trot out their moronic, false, and endlessly repetitive horseshit.

But this thread isn’t about them. It’s about their enablers in the mod loop.

In case TPTB here have yet to figure it out, WE ARE NOW AT WAR WITH A HOSTILE NATION. One which PAYS mindless assholes like the ones infesting this site to troll message boards with their disruptive dogcrap, over and over and over and over and over, for the sole purpose of destablizing our nation and our society. And hey they have almost pulled it off. Partially because people have coddled their worthless asses, both here and elsewhere, for far too long.

Our mods here will constantly overlook the giant shit one of them just left on the sidewalk, and will instead throw the full weight of the book at the gumchewers who toss a small sticky one out there. All because they managed to somehow evade the precise “letter” of the rules.

I’ve almost left this board several times over this crap in the past year, after witnessing endless trolling like in the above thread that only rarely gets any actual substantive action. Fuck, we only recently saw one long-term troll, who openly admitted same, hang around far far past his sell-by date before the banhammer finally fell on his worthless ass. Well, what in the fuck were you waiting for?!?

I am one more incident like the above away from buggering off for good. You really need to dump the entire lot out the back door, and not get into this “Welp, I cannot mind-read the bastard to see if he is truly sincere or not, so I guess he stays.” This curious notion that we have to direct a mind-scanning ray at someone to divine their true mindset before they finally get shit-canned is utterly preposterous. BY DEFINITION these kinds of people are NOT the least bit interested in your quaint notions of “respect” and “civility”, no matter how often they may evade your little dragnet (with its gaping holes).

Either they go, or I (and a lot of other Dopers, many of which are already splitsville) go. Simple as that.

2

What exactly is your alternative? If someone expresses views that you find abhorrent but does so politely, you want the option to let them have the full weight of your displeasure, including name calling and swearing and whatever else you have at your disposal, without any repercussions to you. Is that it?

It appears that you want the mods to take sides in debates, and to make rulings not on the basis of civil discourse but on the basis of content. Is that correct?

I just want to be sure if that is what you really want.

3

I am told there is a forum hereabouts where “respect and civility” aren’t required. Just saying.

Regards,
Shodan

4

This is what you are calling “provocative/stupid/trolling/broken recordish”?

I think Trump is a hot garbage fire( and I’m particularly pissed off over his latest pardon )and almost certainly will go down as the worst president in US history, but there is nothing offensive in the above quote. Like, zero. It’s just a political opinion. A horribly wrong political opinion IMHO, but nothing more.

You need to develop a thicker skin.

5

If you mean The Barn House, I don’t think it is currently open for business.

6

First, it was just a mod note. Yeah, I know. Some posters here treat mod notes as some kind of vile and horrid punishment.

It seems to me the note was triggered by fiveyearlurker’s “mindless idiots” comment, so yeah, I can see the rationale behind the note.

7

Just to summarize, you want us to summarily ban anyone who expresses any support for Trump (or perhaps for any Republican, or for any conservative position)? Is that it?

8

Bye Felicia.

9

Been nice knowing you. I’d say “don’t forge to write”, but that might not be possible.

10

Trolling by definition is NOT being the things in the title. You can dress a pig up in lipstick and a dress, doesn’t make it a fashion model by any stretch. A mod who calls for such things in the middle of such a discussion, given the long-term practices here of rationalizing and encouraging trollery is sure to have the [person in question] laughing his ass off at the mod. I simply found it to be an unbelievably naive’ statement, requiring one to so narrowly define said terms (in this context) that they thus have become utterly meaningless here.

My call here is for more aggressive moderation against disingenuous incivil “debating” tactics (if you want to call them that). We have a rule against trolling. I suggest we actually use it more than once in a blue moon. And I’ll note you yourself calling such posters out* in the Troll Pit thread. Yet you casually stroll out of the Pit to your home forum, and all of a sudden your “troll” is now suddenly immune from moderation.

[*In #2 it took you more than a year to finally pull the trigger. In the last one you-all did ban the fucker pretty quickly, but I love your quote here: “Different Trump-troll. There’s no shortage of them.”]

Now of course I’ll be tossed onto the slippery slope of “How do you define a troll, exactly?” and yadda yadda yadda. Note however that we have precedents, it’s just that they aren’t consistently followed.

If this is the board that you want to have, where such behavior is constantly enabled, then there is nothing more that I can say. Let the board die, if that is what you really want (it’s already happening anyway). In which case I am out of here.

11

Meh. I’m with Tamerlane.

Like it or not (spoiler: I don’t like it), Trump supporters make up well more than a third of our country. As distasteful as Hurricane’s frequent gloating may be, it’s helpful for me to see how Trump supporters are thinking.

The ones that cross the line? Ban 'em. I don’t see Hurricane crossing the line.

12

Good grief, John DiFool. I have as much distaste for Trump as anyone. But I cannot believe, with all the offensive bilge being flung by various one-note, race-baiting newly arrived posters who fairly stink of borscht and vodka*, you choose HD’s flaccid Trump support as your Rubicon.

  • I know it doesn’t stink. Shut up, t’was a rhetorical device.
13

Me too. If you can’t engage civilly with people who’s ideas you dislike, then you can’t really contribute here.

14

I assume by “the things in the title” you meant “respect and civility”. Correct me if I am wrong.

Also to be clear - is this

the post that you think is disrespectful or uncivil? Because I am not seeing it.

Unless, as Colibri says, you believe that saying that President Trump is doing a good job is inherently trollery. I don’t see that either.

Regards,
Shodan

15

OK, yeah, going back to HD’s post re: “Trump is doing a good job,” it’s his opinion, and he’s allowed to say it, just as I or anyone else are free to disagree with it. John DiFool, I can’t seriously believe a comment like that would drive you off this message board. It’s a serious overreaction on your part.

16

So, just to be clear, you regard stating any support for Trump to be trolling, and anyone doing so should be banned? Because that was the position you appeared to be taking in the OP, with respect to the example you chose.

Yes or no?

17

Just to add to this, it would help if the OP clarified what, exactly, he thinks is “trolling” in the post he was so offended by. Please quote the post, point out the trolling statement(s) and tell us why you think it is trolling. Just screaming “troll” is not getting you anywhere, in case you haven’t noticed.

The person in question might indeed but a troll. But no one else is seeing it in the post you seem to be talking about.

18

There are some days when you need to just step away from the keyboard, and go play a round of golf. I think someone is having one of those today.

19

You think threats to get a policy change where the board becomes even more homogeneous in thought are a good idea or would set a good precedent?:dubious:

And you *honestly * think that people are paid by those sneaky Russians to post here?:dubious:

20

Clearly the sooner this ‘hostile nation’ is forced to think only correct thoughts the better. I suggest re-education camps although perhaps they should be styled ‘sensitivity training’ classes, it sounds less Orwellian.