My guess is that the oncoming holiday preparations have reduced the amount of time each of the Mods has been able to expend and this thread just hasn’t yet been seen.
In the one other case where a thread stayed open after a banning (that I recall), the banning occurred to the target of a pitting and by the time the target had been banned, the thread had moved on to a serious discussion of another topic, so I suspect that it was left alone to avoid forcing everyone to pick up and move to a new thread (since the bitching about the target dropped off as soon as the banning was known).
I’m clearly not a staff memeber but it seems to me when a long standing poster is banned it’s going to get talked about. Shutting down threads like this will just cause the former poster’s friends to begin screaming about conspiracy. So I imagine they tolerate threads like this for that reason.
As long as everyone is talking about why they were banned the mods seem ok. If it turns into a mudslinging contest against the former poster (who can’t defend themselves) or a flame war then I imagine the mods come in and lock down.
true but in an open thread with a lot of links proving bad behavior by the bannee only the most shrill hold to the conspiracy line. If they slam the door on every thread about the legions of the banned even more moderate will begin to buy into that crap.
How many times have you seen someone come into these threads proclaiming ‘why was Zenster, Techochick, etc. Banned?? that’s Unfair!’ Only to be linked to the thread. And have them post back ‘yeah that sucked oh well’
I just hate the three page discussion that always follows about what defines a jerk.
Ah, not exactly, Darkhold. What often happens is that not only does the banned (not bannee) look bad (what with all the links to the bad behavior), but people start screaming at each other, to no good end. Defenders of the banning get into a frenzied shriekfest with defenders of the banned. In the end, more feelings have been unnecessarily hurt.
And how many times have I seen the behavior you describe? How about just about evey time someone “known” is kicked off? People go to the linked thread, but some will think the behavior in the thread wasn’t particularly jerkish, while some will think it was way over the top. A mod’s view might be that such threads are much more of a headache than they’re worth. If that’s their collective take, I can’t say I blame them.
Seems like we read banned threads very different. I usually see about 6+ people defending the mods with only one or two (‘the most shrill’ I called them) sticking to the conspiracy/unfair line.
That said I wouldn’t care if the mods did view banned threads as an annoyance and closed them the second links were provided and explanations aired. Having them all swallowed in silence though would just leave a lot of people in the dark about the why which would make the mods look bad in the end.
Some don’t bring the wackos out of the woodwork, but some do, so I suspect it’s just a case-by-case thing.
Everyone wants to know why a person was voted off the island, but the company line seems to be that if you really wanna know, you should email a mod. But they don’t always close these threads, so maybe that’s not completely accurate. (I would say that if you do email them, maybe you’d get info they don’t want to put out there for everyone to see. I dunno.)
I suspect it’s one of those things where sooner or later, their going to really get sick of these threads and people ignoring the rules, and they’ll crack down with the wrath of Cecil. Mass bannings and decapitations will result.
Tom~, I do stand corrected; you inspired me to do a search on “banned” in Pit titles in the past 3 months. Omitting irrelevant hits, I come up with only 10 threads discussing a poster’s banning, including this one, and 7 have been closed.
Some of the closed threads went on for pages, though, which I do feel sends sort of a mixed message on whether the topic is allowed at all. Sometimes the admonition not to start this sort of thread sounds like a statement of a rule. But we’ve recently been down the path of what constitutes an actual “rule,” and I’m not trying to stir up any more shit.
I’m left to draw the conculsion that it’s a judgment call; so long as the thread stays interesting and non-ugly, it seems to stay open. I applaud the staff’s judgment in this. I also infer that there is no official “rule” against starting this sort of thread, ever.
Well, not being able to speak for the mods, I think there’s a difference between demanding to know why someone’s been banned, from a discussion of trying to surmise why someone’s been banned.
Also, I would think that threads which tried to argue against the banning or were lobbying for a reversal, or, the worst: demanding a public trial so as to judge whether the banning was appropriate or not are likely to be shut down.
Also, there’s a difference between expressing sorrow and grief that someone’s been banned from expressing anger that the banning was unjust.
So, it all depends on the nature of the discussion of the banning.
And, sometimes, you just gotta bury the dead horse in order to stop all the beatin’.
He was banned on a long holiday weekend and a “Why was december banned?” thread had already gone some five pages. The sticky was there to give stragglers an answer without having to wade through the first thread.
“Nice kid” my arse. DITWD was banned for repeatedly calling other posters Nazis. Not another poster, but lots of them. Followed by repeated Clintonesque attempts to deny he’d ever done so. Good fucking riddance on that one.
I think some of you overestimate TVAA’s intelligence. His claims were often contradictory; his sentences were muddled; his thinking was murky. He repeatedly failed to provide cites for his claims. He attempted to mislead others about his clinical qualifications even after Coldfire called him on it.
He often resorted to attacking people who disaggreed with him and falsely attributing to them positions that they did not hold. When pressed for an example, he would ignore the request.
What bothered me the most was the misinformation that he provided about mental illness and its (sometimes) physical components. Since some mental illnesses can be terminal if not treated and since he was spreading misinformation that might have discouraged someone from seeking help, I found him to be self-absorbed in his own image to the point of being a potential threat to the welfare of others.
I wonder if people’s opinions of their fellow posters go up or down (or remain unchanged) when those posters are banned. Do some people think, “Hm, that dude got banned. He rocks!” thus lending notoriety to the departed? Or do they think, “Hm, that dude got banned. What a dork!”
