Funny, there’s one or two pit threads on newbies going on right now in the pit and I don’t see any of the Rev’s defenders down there on the prowl to see that this horrible thing * doesn’t happen again!*
I still have not seen any evidence that the Rev in any way was bothered by the insults hurled his way. I don’t recall his posting on his web site mentioning how much he’d rather be posting here, either, so perhaps his banning doesn’t bother him either?
[quoteFunny, there’s one or two pit threads on newbies going on right now in the pit and I don’t see any of the Rev’s defenders down there on the prowl to see that this horrible thing doesn’t happen again![/quote]
You picks your battles. I don’t have the energy or inclination to chase down every perceived slight. I was simply made angry by this one (and the one involving Nocktober.
I’m guessing comments such as the above are a big part of the reason this thread is on its seventh page.
See, when the SDMB Righteous Brigade, flame, it’s just a “joke,” but when they get it back – yes, in spades – it’s “flaming for the sake of flaming.” Amazing the amount of revisionist history, semantic wrangling and plain bullshit one reads here from people trying to justify having their heads handed to them on a plate.
Personally, I am here because, overall, I like this board. The good generally outnumbers the bad. But that hardly makes me a bobhead doll who can’t see past the inherent hypocrisy of this particular ban.
I mean, is a there a rule somewhere that I’ve failed to read that says “The SDMB Moderators and High Post Count Elite Flamesmen are never wrong”? Sure, I understand the administrators here can run their site as they see fit, that they draw the invisible line in the sand that defines what a “jerk” is, and that once they point their finger of shame at me there’s precious little I can do but beat a hasty retreat if I wish to remain here…but that still doesn’t make them omniscient by default, nor does it mean that, despite all the claims to the contrary, this wasn’t an old-fashioned pile-on that simply backfired big-time on the perpetrators. Sure, the Rev should shoulder part of the blame, but if you’re going to ban him for his actions, surely there are others that deserve the same treatment – this incident didn’t happen in a vacuum nor was it instigated by the Rev to begin with. And no amount of revisionist history can chage that particaler fact.
As for the Rev, “making a big mistake” by starting the Countdown thread, I can’t speak to his motives, but I saw it as one last salvo from someone who’d already decided this place wasn’t worth the trouble. And while I personally disagree with that particular conclusion of his (as I said, I find that the good greatly outnumbers the bad here) I can’t say that, in his particular case, I am overly surprised he came to it in light of his experience here.
I will say that I still think this is a piss-poor example of what the SDMB is all about – because if this was the norm, I suspect there’d be a lot more of us filing out the door.
Finally, to all of you that keep trying to justify your own jerkish behavior by placing the responsibility of your actions on the Rev, I’ll just say that the only ones that you’re convincing are each other. Which is simply more of the same moronic circle jerk that started this whole thing.
And with that, I am off to read the threads that remind me of reasons why I am still here. Because this one is certainly not one of them.
hmm. except of course, as I pointed out more than once, damn near every slight you’re claiming on his behalf goes on regularly for people who are still here (suggesting that it’s possible to undergo such horrifying attacks w/o self imploding); and to other newbies who are ‘merely posting unpopular beliefs’ (suggesting that again, it’s possible to undergo such attacks w/o ending up being banned).
you’ve not answered yet, how was this person harmed? do you have any evidence that either the insults flung in his direction did anything more than amuse him, or that he’s at all troubled by his banning? the tone of his multi-page dissection of his experience was, IMHO wry amusement, not outrage or anger. YM Obviously MV.
In addition, unless I missed it, the mods/admins have not stated why he was banned (in other threads, they’ve suggested that they prefer the request to come via email). There’s at least 3 ways I’m aware to gain a ‘banned’ label:
breaking the rules (which is what you’ve assumed is the claim, as evidenced by your repeated question of “what rule did he break?” ), rules most often cited as reasons for banning include mucking w/the code here, ‘being a jerk’, posting of spam (especially repeated).
request by the poster.
Discovery that the poster involved is a sock.
there’s also that concept mentioned more than once that Lynn had mentioned in reference to some one else, that if the evidence before them (of your posts) indicates that damn near everything you’re posting is some level of complaint/gripe about the rules, the mods and the posters, the result may end up being that they might help you not be bothered by the SDMB anymore.
have you actually asked (email) why he was banned?
Maybe I’m not done. I just happened to be on the scene in RM’s threads…this is business as usual?
And that is a reason not to bother mentioning that it looks pretty ignorant?
Tee - it happens frequently - like I have mentioned over and over, there’s at least 3 people I can think of off hand who get pitted regularly and much more venom than that.
most of the insults I saw were of what I think of the “goat felcher” type that the Rev seemed to be particularly fond of -where you call into question the other person’s reading ability, logical thought process, throw in some rude sexual references, bodily inversion comments etc.
and, like I said, it seemed to have been his prefered way of communication, no one so far has posted any quote from him to suggest that it did anything more than wryly amuse him, much as some 3 year old calling their teen age sibling a doodyhead wouldn’t really bother the teen. (though, if they cared about their sibling of course, they’d be concerned about the relationship, but that’s not the claim here, the claim here seems to be that the insults themselves bugged this guy so much that he had no choice but to return the fire, ignore anything other than the insults and self implode in a final thumb to the nose thread)
And I’ve pointed out that for true venom here, look at the threads where JoeCool/Jersey Diamond get to hear how hateful and vile they are as people etc. etc etc. that wasn’t done to him.
Do I find that sort of thing pleasant, nice, something to be proud of? no, which is why, tho I may post in the Pit, I don’t often get into rude insulting behavior myself (note the word ‘often’, I’m not going to claim that I’ve never been rude, dismissive etc.).
however, there are other ways of handling such attacks than the one he chose, but more importantly, I fail to see evidence posted that the attacks bothered him in the slightest.
has anyone (and I’ve asked this before) found cases where he responded to positive comments made to him/about him? the great bulk of his posts seemed to have been in the Pit (where folks are allowed to hurl rude and insulting things), and the great bulk of his posts (that I’ve seen) were either directed at no one in particular (as in his first forays in the Pat Robertson thread, his comments about the suspected pregnant wife killer in CA etc.), or specific venom at people who’d said nasty stuff to him.
kabbes complaint (from what I saw) was that the first few comments that he’d made to the guy, which were polite in tone, and attempts to help him out/support him, never got a response.
but when his tone got snippy, then he got a response.
and that’s what I found different in this case.
if you only look to the negative, respond to the negative, remain in the negative, ignore any attempt to be nice/supportive, why on earth should I believe that you want anything but negative attention? which is all to say, that if all he wanted was to have folks piss in his direction so he could flame back in spades, he got exactly what he wanted. But it’s not, of course, any reason to regret him not being here.
Indeed.
No need. Lynn said “there’s no doubt in my mind he’s a troll.” Plus, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m asking here.
I must issue a correction, I’m pretty sure that some folks made rude comments about his humanity wrt the whole Pat Robertson thing. So, I retract that claim that ‘it wasn’t done to him’ though I still believe that the level of venom has been much greater directed to those w/fundementalist beliefs.
well then, you have it. He wasn’t banned for breaking the ‘jerk’ rule, but for being, in their opinion, a troll. (and I’m guessing the variety that specifically posts to get negative attention, which is, pretty much what I’m getting at wrt his failure to respond to anything but negative comments to him).
as for what you’re doing ‘here’, I see it as more of a “I don’t agree w/your assesment” (which is more of a debate/argument than a question) than the question “why did you do this”.
Perhaps they’re doormats, masochists, they have particularly high annoyance thresholds, or they continue to take it for some other reason. How do I know?
More post mining. Fine. These posts/quotes display a clear sense that Mykeru was bothered by what happened. He was annoyed by the backbiting, the backpedalling, the argumentative weaseling, and the sheer intellectual dishonesty displayed by some Dopers. His tone is obvious to me. To wit:
I’m a little surprised that you apparently can’t see the annoyance implicit here.
He was obviously bothered enough by the bizarre allegations that he did not own his own website to go to the trouble of proving it.
He was bothered by the “assholish way I was immediately attacked and pitted inthe SDMB.”
The tone of annoyance, irritation, and flat-out (IMO justified) rage is clear. What did you want him to do, post a long, drippy, weepy paean about how his momma never loved him and all he really needs is a little love from perfect strangers on a public message board?
RexDart, I can’t speak for anyone else but I make jokes. My posting history will bear that out.
I say he was flaiming for the sake of flaming, not becaue of what he did to me, but because he flamed those who were trying to help.
Revisionist history? Semantic wrangling? Nobody was doing that more than Rev. himself.
Which he did not need to do. Just another example of overkill.
Oh for the love of Mike. I will not be held responsible for prolonging this. Most of my posts appear in the Pit as well - so what. But yes I did find a positive response, to myself, in the PR thread:
Now mind you I’m arguing with the guy. Not from any knowledgeable standpoint - I knew zero about faith healers, now I think I know a little more. Meanwhile, or somewhere near this, in the background appear two related threads including the aforementioned Tool thread where some guy decided he’s a shitty debater (or person) …not only that but everyone please stay on the topic of the Rev being a shitty debater (or person)…that’s just loony, and IMO unequivocably false. I said so. I don’t feel the least bit out of line here, and I’ll probably do it all again the next time I see something comparable. I don’t consider evangelical Bible literalists and people like Blue John the least bit fucking comparable.
except, Ogre, his whole website is devoted to displaying his wry look on things. what you see as ‘rage’ (if that is an example of rage, then I see why we are disagreeing about things), I see as his way of continuing the flame war, without the ability of his detractors of making corrections.
he mentions the ‘assholic attacks’, but not a single fucking word about his defenders, people who made real attempts to support him, or say, this thread. again, only focused on negative.
and this entire episode gave him fodder for what was it 10 pages of ‘how I am right and cool and how all these lowly people who cannot think are lemmings’?
another tangental point that I find telling. when it was pointed out that his posts were ‘all’ in the Pit, he kept on pointing out that was wrong, and did so again on his web site. However, the point, is moot, since, instead of 100% in the Pit, it was 97% in the pit. to continue to underscore how ‘wrong’ the “all posts in the pit” comment was, is although technically exactly correct, it’s also disingenuous in the extreme. The underlaying thrust of the message was correct, that his attention was almost completely centered in the Pit, the fact that he tossed a post or two elsewhere just gave him the opportunity to claim that it was completely false.
It’s the sort of thing that one sees with children, using the one or two exceptions to attempt to wriggle out of the main complaint.
cool, Tee you found one post where he responded to a positive. That’s just about the same level of ‘non pit’ posts.
there were several folks who posted positive supportive things (kabbes in particular, who was not addressed until after he’d gotten snippy, then he got all sorts of responses).
Did you get the part that most of us aren’t protesting the banning itself? But if you’d like to provide an example of a supportive comment (meaning = no insult attached) that met with a hostile response, go right ahead.
Ironic.
False.
I still don’t see what people are trying to say with that. But whatever it is would possibly apply to me too, and would most likely be wrong, so the sensible thing to do is stop wielding it like it means anything.
the Rev’s words from the “tool” thread. So, which is it please, he was in a ‘rage’ or he was ‘amused’. His words here indicate amusement. Ogres interpretation of his words on the web site say ‘rage’.
I did find him commenting to Diane a ‘thanks’. that’s 2 now. oops, and a comment to Trion, too up to 3. and since he posted twice to the “how to defend evolution” thread and once to a thread about “JFK”, it matches his non pit thread posts exactly. 3 out of 132. 98.48% pit posts and he “corrects” some one who suggests that he only posts in the pit. 3 posts that I found directed to inviduals who made positive gestures to him. again, less than 3%.
and his own words suggest that he found the “horrible treatment” here was ‘amusing’ ‘entertaining’ and comments ‘nothing happening is unexpected’.
I dunno, seems to me that when it’s commented that he seemed to be mostly interested in negative attention and negative interactions, and found such things amusing, theres’ ample evidence to support that view.
In my opinion a very proper response to a Pit thread of dubious intent and bizarre origin, featuring oneself, is one of angry amusement. Can’t think of a better one.
The best thing to do is just agree to disagree. I saw things differently and stated my case, not sure how much more I can expect or how much less the group as a whole can - or why it would question the motives of those against. But yes - it’s over with.
In looking closer at the “tool” thread, I withdraw the generalized claim that he did not comment to positive comments. he did indeed. Not nearly as much, often, detailed etc as the attacks, but he did indeed respond.
OTOH, the list of people who were supportive of him in that thread included jlzania, kambucktu, Hodge, kabbes grendal, Smegma, INfectious Lass, Munch, Diane, Ace, SuperGnat as well as a couple of people backing off, such as Lib and Nurse Carment. and a few others (like me) who merely posted information and failed to take sides. A much longer list than those attacking him in that thread.
and he repeatedly commented that he was amused by the attacks. which is where, I guess, I got the idea that he wasn’t bothered by it. and if he wasn’t bothered by it, then I don’t at all understand this thread.
are you upset 'cause he was treated poorly? He was treated poorly by some people and quite warmly by a large number of others. which is frankly not much different for anyone else here. and he stated here that he wasn’t bothered by the insults, found them amusing.
are you upset 'cause he was banned? according to the comment above, he was banned for the perception by the administration of trolling. ask them for clarification.
Hardly representative, considering that he was flamed virtually from the beginning. Who knows where he would have posted had the ankle-biters not felt the need to harry him even after he’d posted that he was bowing out the first time?
Who’s arguing numbers? Who cares? He responded to the gadflies. He didn’t respond to others. And? It may have been, as far as you know, for much the same reason I’m not commenting on Tee’s or P.T. Smegma’s remarks in this thread. It is understood that I agree with them, and no further remarks are particularly necessary.
Why are the two incompatible, please? I, for one, am highly annoyed at the moment that what seems blindingly, incandescently obvious to me (among others, apparently) is so difficult to grasp for others. At the same time, I am also quite amused at the twisty, weaselly excuses and justifications I’ve seen in some places during this whole ordeal.