Ed, I agree that Satan’s conduct in the thread you linked to was over the line, as I mentioned in a [ur=“http://fff.fathom.org/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000263.html”]related thread to this one over on Fathom. But I guess I’m wondering about a few things:
In the thread you cite, Gaudere and David B, the GD mods, both walked right past Satan’s rants to warn Badtz Maru about his language. It’s peculiar that the straws that broke the camel’s back were posts that passed directly beneath the notice of both GD mods.
Brian has been involved in some particularly harsh Pit exchanges lately, with Diane and Coldie a few days before the ‘chicky’ thread in GD, and then with Coldie again. Was this part of the “continual flinging of insults” you’re talking about? if so, I’m hoping that I understand what appropriate Pit behavior is these days.
That two of Satan’s exchanges were with Coldie stands out. Do we have the same freedom to disagree with mods with ‘moderator hat’ off that we do with other posters? (I’d had reason to wonder about this lately anyway.)
My apologies for asking pain-in-the-neck questions, but this sort of event tends to bring out that side of me.
I don’t like to be unkind, and I don’t mean to be unkind here.
But I read a few of the recent threads in which Satan “got into it” with people and it appeared to me that he just wanted to fight. It appeared to me in one thread, that he started the thread, got some support for his OP, and then changed “sides” and started picking on people who supported his original OP. I don’t think we need people who just want to fight around here.
I have never personally had a problem with Satan on this board. I hope he gets happy. But I don’t think that ANYONE should be allowed to pick fights just because they feel contentious. There are enough people here who genuinely disagree…we don’t need people who just feel like fighting and are willing to change sides in order to get the fight they want.
I think that if Satan apologizes, and recognizes that he has been contentious, he should be given another chance someday. IF he recognizes that behaviour and changes it.
I don’t want to diss him here, I am sure he is a fine person. I just don’t agree that arguing FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUING is a good thing. I think that it is negative, and without merit.
I don’t particularly have a view nor is his private life my business. However, I did wonder if his (very public) stopping smoking was relevant. If you stop, fine, after a while things settle down. But if you dabble occasionally and then stop / start / stop / start, things can get seriously strange and you don’t really even know it yourself. Addiction affects ones perspectives, moods, the whole shebang.
He did come across, on occasion, as angry and punchy. Seems consistent (to me) with nicotine withdrawl so maybe that could be a contributing factor - just a thought.
If Satan can be banned, so can any one of us. Anytime we exhibit behaviour that goes beyond civility. Anytime we abuse the opportunity to post here.
Anytime any one of us uses this board to trash other people in order to…well, do whatever we feel like doing that makes us feel better at the expense of other posters.
I am not saying that Satan was doing any of these things, I do not know. But we should all remember that intentions are NOT what come across here…what comes across here is how the rest of us perceive what we have said. That is a lesson worth learning. Sometimes we all say things here that we should consider well before posting. Hence the preview feature on this message board.
I thought he was always a jerk, and to an unbelieveable extent. Like handy said, “I hardly ever see any posts from Brian because I don’t read those areas he posts.”
That didn’t stop him from attacking me out of the blue on occasions, for such things as not caring for a particular movie.
Frankly, there are a couple more posters with mean streaks and ready insults I’d like to see get warnings. It doesn’t have to be so contentious in MPSIMS as lately. That just puts a damper on the fun parts.
But his behavior just became too odd, and too mean. Sure, I have odd behavior. And I have been mean. It’s all too easy to forget there are people typing these words. And easy to jump down someone’s throat all over a simple misinterpretation, or an accidental assumption.
But mostly I take out my frustrations on myself. Oh, I’ve flamed the hell out of people, and been mean. But I stopped. Now I just go after myself. Believe me, I don’t know if anyone can hate me as much as I hate myself.
Since he came back from his sabbatical, Satan really did have a chip on his shoulder, or really just wanted to vent and vent and vent. He did not internalize it; instead it externalized. Unfortunately, this turned into very mean bullying of many other posters here and in Other Places We Shall Not Mention, and finally seemed to be mixed in with wild mood swings. I would not take it, as it was clear there could be no meeting of the minds under these conditions, and thus simply stopped listening rather than fight and hurt others involved. A few others left the Board quietly, deciding not to post here again until the situation improved.
And now, he’s banned. There is a lesson here to be learned - many lessons, I guess.
Regardless if you are for or against the decision, will it make any difference?
I would appreciate it, especially, if people who have very negative things about Satan to say to you to just let it be. I am sure that what has transpired, Satan is dealing with how or who he reacted with on the boards in what ever manner he did.
I will state, since I am chiming in here, that he has never been anything but kind to me. He may have been going through a transformation with regards to his life being up-rooted but I think we can all agree not all of us had the same experiences with Satan on these boards.
With that, PLEASE, try to refrain from kicking the fellow while he’s down. Does it really do any good? No, it doesn’t. No offense to anyone here but it’s like a bunch of high school kids talking about the the guy that got expelled from school. Gossiping and making the situation worse.
I liked him and still do. I don’t disagree nor do I agree with the decision. As a moderator elsewhere I can see their side and as a member I can see the side that was taken but please, is it completely appropriate to put him down when he can’t defend himself?
I’ve only recently started talking to Satan. His bluntness is something that made him appeal to me. Satan, I will miss you and your wit. Looks like it is back to hell for you… ::sighs::
Satan I’m sure you won’t be reading this and are trying to avoid it at all costs, but I am pretty sure Drain Bead is giving the thread a look-see, so now I say goodbye to Satan in the manner in which I think he would enjoy being sent off.
::compiles all of Satan’s best threads and a giant blow up picture of him and all his hair and places it into a boat::
To Valhala you go…
::breaks open a bottle of champagne on the side of the dinghy, lights it on fire with a blowtorch, kicks it forward and begins to play an Ukulele::
Happy traaaaaiiils, to yooouuuu ::strumstrum:: until ::strumstrum: we meet ::strumstrum:: aaagggaaaiin.
I’m with techchick. Cattiness is not my favorite thing to read … but I don’t have to read it, so that’s okay. However … the above generalizations make me uncomfortable, for two reasons.
We don’t know everything that Satan/Brian did. It’s quite possible that he did give folks breaks, and refrain from kicking them. (HD, you start to mention that this is not absolute, and for that I thank you.)
Secondly, it doesn’t matter what Satan did. People shouldn’t always get what they deserve. (Does that sound oxymoronic? Maybe so. Let me rephrase.) We shouldn’t always give people what they deserve. I, for one, would like to see some compassion. (I don’t mean here in this thread, I mean in the world at large.) The best thing, I think, would be to turn the other cheek and let bygones be bygones.
I think what bugs me is that he was Banned over a relatively trivial issue. The whole argument he had looked like a “No, you said THIS! No, I said THIS!” kind of thing.
At the risk of sounding too “snippy”, I must say that I have to disagree completely with that. Perhaps you didn’t know him very well?
Regardless, it was trivial. You cannont hold a long time poster to a standard that others get by with so freely.
High profile, yes. Overworked, yes. Standards set, no. He will be missed.
Well… I can’t really slam the administration for this. But I’m still damn sorry it happened. I liked Brian and enjoyed his posts – even the cranky ones. And, I was once on the wrong end of one of his cranky posts, too (a long time ago). So,
And, Mercutio? That was rather sweet. May I have a glass of champagne? ::stands next to Mercutio and toasts Satan’s memory::
I checked the thread linked in Ed’s post, where Satan is supposed to have called Muffin a weasel. Observation: Satan never uses the word “weasel” as an epithet, only as a verb (gerund?), “you weasel” meaning "you try to weasel out of what you said ".
(I also assumed Muffin was female. But I checked Muffin’s webpage, and I think he’s a guy.)
Is there a real victim of Satan’s grudgehunting in this thread, besides himself, or did he just piss off a mod? I don’t like it when somebody gets busted just because a cop happened to be in a bustin’ mood.
Yeah, he’s been a tad cranky lately, but other people go through bad spells and then eventually pull up their socks and fly right – one vote here for another chance for the Man with the Mouth.
And, er, Ed? The Muffin-Satan exchange was March 3. Huccome it took so long for you to pull his plug? I don’t think it’s fair for you to cite that particular exchange as a specific cause of his banning. That was last Saturday, nearly a week ago, a long time by SDMB standards.
And if you’re pulling his plug because of “general bad temper”, then Heaven help the rest of us. All right, children, make nice now, Mr. Zotti doesn’t want to hear any bickering…
:rolleyes:
We have other posters whose crankiness borders on jerkiness, IMO. Not mentioning any names, we all know who you are… But we all learn to live with it.
Well, it’s kind of like a ‘Three Strikes’ Law. Your third offensive gives you jail for life. Doesn’t matter if it is a minor infraction (compared to your first two), if the crime fits the definition of a ‘Three Strikes’ offense, you’re gone.
I don’t think it’s fair for you to cite that particular exchange as a specific cause of his banning. That was last Saturday, nearly a week ago, a long time by SDMB standards.
But we all learn to live with it.