You contradict yourself in your own post. In one you say he’s just whining. In another, you say he’s making a case. Those are two separate things.
The fact is that he has made a case, using a lot of details. You did not include any details, and just attacked the poster. You did not provide a single counterargument.
All you’ve done is create a strawman and then debunk it. Such posts have no value. They just demonstrate how far this board has fallen.
I do. I deserve the banhammer.
I don’t feel that you’ve shown a meaningful similarity between Elmore and Huey’s posting habits. Elmore posts mostly in the BBQ Pit, but not exclusively there. He’s willing to participate here in a non-confrontational manner at least some of the time. Which brings us to the three month thing. I didn’t arbitrarily select that time frame; I observed it. Three months ago, he stopped posting anywhere but in the Pit. Three months seems like a significant amount of time - significant to establish that this wasn’t a temporary thing, and that he had no interest in any other part of the board.
The Pit is meant to be a release valve for posters so they don’t get in fights in the other fora. It’s not an invitation for someone to roll up and lay into our posters for the lulz. Over the last three months, that’s what Huey had been doing. That’s something that’s explicitly called out as trolling in our rules, and trolling is something that’s always been subject to an insta-ban.
[Moderating]
splatterpunk, if you don’t feel this thread is necessary, you don’t have to post in it.
[/Moderating]
One of these days, we’ll get the unredacted version of your posts, I just know it.
…I don’t think think you’ve demonstrated that Huey “posted nothing on the board but invective-filled screeds against other posters” over the period of 3 months, and I don’t think you’ve adequately explained how if he actually did that that this is materially different from what many other posters may have done over the history of the boards over a similar period of time.
Are you nitpicking over the word “exclusively?” Because Elmore posted 3 times in Cafe Society and twice in Great Debates. He’s also posted 6 times in ATMB: but all six times are related to this particular topic. The rest of the time he’s posted in the pit, and while he isn’t *exclusively *in the pit I don’t see the distinction. If Huey had posted 3 times in Cafe Society and twice in Great Debates over the last three months would that have substantially changed your decision to ban?
As for “willing to participate here in a non-confrontational manner at least some of the time”: I’ve just reviewed his posts again and I just don’t see it. Almost every post is confrontational. I posted his posts in ATMB, you don’t consider:
To be a confrontational post? Because thats an example of Elmore being polite. Most of his posts are much worse than that. And over 30% of those posts are attacking a single poster. You don’t think that behaviour is somehow problematic? You don’t think that Elmore is just posting for the lolz? In his two posts in Great Debates he lamented the “soy latté twitter’s hysterical outrage” in one post and in the other he posted “99.9% of the assholes flipping their shit over Nick Sandmann’s smirk are preposterous hypocrites who did far worse at his age but got away with it because we didn’t have twitter and smart phones.” Are those examples of being “non-confrontational?”
You arbitrarily observed a particular period of time. Its like cherry picking economic statistics that show the economy is doing well by not including the first quarter. But the first quarter is important, and I think that the posts that Huey made more than 3 months ago are relevant.
“Having no interest in other parts of the message board” wasn’t a grounds for his banning, you’ve made that clear. He was participating in a forum which allowed him to express himself without being censored. We know this. He stated this upfront. If that was going to be problematic then there needs to be a rule about it. Otherwise I don’t know why exclusivity is relevant.
Huey **was **one of “our” posters. Are we not a community? You run the place. You have the right to ban people. But it seems that you didn’t see him as “one of us.” Well that’s kinda my point. Do you think “not seeing him as one of our posters” influenced your decision to ban him?
But this wasn’t what you claimed in the other thread. You stated:
So was he banned because he was posting invective-filled screeds? (a characterization that I don’t think matches what he was actually posting) Or because he was only posting here to fight people? Or because he was doing it for the lulz?
And again, you are missing my point about context. Huey didn’t “roll up and lay into **our **posters.” For the most part he was responding to people that were attacking him, a lot of that time in a thread that was pitting him. That’s normal pit behaviour. What was so extraordinarily different about his posts that differentiate him from everyone else?
Well yeah, but that wasn’t the definition of trolling that you used in the other thread. If you think he was “doing if for the lulz” that’s clearly trolling. But you haven’t made a case that he was doing if for the lulz. You made a case that he was posting invective-filled-screeds and that was all that he ever did.
While the given reason for Huey’s banning was… awkward, I don’t think there’s any reasonable comparison to be made between him and Elmore in terms of post content, and I say this as someone who hasn’t actually enjoyed a single one of Elmore’s posts, and who found many of Huey’s insightful and useful. Like, there are probably comparisons (the guy who argued that we should be super careful about Morocco because of one murder there is closer), but Elmore sure as hell ain’t it.
…from the original thread that announced the banning: the post content wasn’t the problem. Huey wasn’t banned because he said “racist things”, he wasn’t banned because he attacked another posters mental health, he was banned because over the last three months he allegedly “posted nothing on the board but invective-filled screeds.” Its not the specific content: but the fact that (according to Miller) “the only reason (Huey) was a poster here was so he could fight people.”
I’m arguing that that characterization is not correct. I don’t think Huey was only here to fight people, I don’t think he was only here for the lulz. I also don’t think that he only posted invective-filled-screeds over the last three months and a review of his posts show that.
But if we accept that characterization: then I think that that characterization also would apply to Elmore. I’ve laid out the case for that in the OP using identical criteria that Miller used to justify Huey’s banning.
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I think Miller’s suggestion that “(Elmore) participated here in a non-confrontational manner at least some of the time” doesn’t accurately reflect the nature of his posts. “Some of the time” would equal 3 posts in cafe society. Almost every post is confrontational in some way.
Huey was a billion times more antagonistic and hateful than this Elmore guy so Huey was obviously more troll-like with his fights. Just because Huey wasn’t banned for hate speech doesn’t mean the specific language he used had no bearing. You quoted it: “invective filled screeds”.
It was fun watching him shit on Shodan and his adopted kids but you should have known it wasn’t going to last -whether Huey was black or white. And you can do it yourself now if you like! Huey wasn’t banned for that reason!
From what little I seen of Elmore, he was often reacting to Huey on his accusatory and inflammatory language, as were many were doing, and that’s what trolls are good at, getting others riled up. Huey’s was directed at any person that he perceived was white. His posts were often mean spirited and invective, didn’t spend the time to get an exact count, but there was enough there, and it wasn’t getting any better.
I do wish many wouldn’t have speculated so much about who Huey really was, who he was working for, what was behind it all, I think Huey usually defended himself quite well here against all of this.
Also some of his cites he gave weren’t accurate in his thread, Living while Black in America, some shouldn’t have been there at all if blacks were supposed to be the victims. He often didn’t bother with certain details. E.g., in the OP, it was a black woman that had beat the Hispanic-American yelling at him to “go back to your own country.” There were problems with quite a few others, some mentioned it to him, but he often didn’t seem to want context. Certainly not a banning offense for that though.
Elmore’s been here about two months, Huey was here about seven, and IIRC, Huey was called out about using “hoes” outside of the Pit, but moderators didn’t choose to issue a warning then, again, because he was a bit new. So often a bit of slack is given to new posters, as was done for Huey. So that is important to consider, I think you’d agree.
I looked at the three months period Miller pointed out, did a quick count, other than Huey’s last 10 posts on ATMB, Huey posted once in GD on 10-11-2018, and once in Election on 11-24-2018, all the rest, all 78 were in BBQ Pit in between, and time and time again, using invective, mean spirited, accusatory and inflammatory language and in what appears to be trying to get a rise out of people, which in the Pit, there is lots of leeway for it there, how much is too much, well, I guess Huey chose to be a pioneer and was going to find out. Moderators do judgment calls.
Miller went above and beyond his pay-scale explaining for all others concerned. Personally, I only tried to engage with Huey on a few occasions to see if he could formulate a good argument without the insults, so I leaved them out too, but he often just ignored these posts, as he did a lot of others when they gave him constructive criticism to consider. So after a few tries with Huey, I personally found him easy to ignore. Others didn’t.
His thread could have been quite good. But he didn’t seem to want any white people to sympathize with him unless they admitted to being white supremacists themselves.
If you’ve got a posting pattern from Elmore that you see is as invective, accusatory and inflammatory and as mean spirited as Huey’s over this long of time where you feel like in his two months here should be a banning offense, you’ve come up way short, for now, anyway.
Best thing Huey could have done, was to post his main thread in GD, it would have been interested to see if he could have done it without the insults. Methinks he would have grown bored with it quick without being able to do so.
And yet here you are.
Not to say that it was really bannable pit behavior, but he definitely had a problem with citations. He frequently posted cites to which he had apparently not given more than a cursory glance, misinterpreting their content (eg inbred mice) and undercutting his own argument as a result. Could’ve done without that.
You quoted the rule in the OP. “By trolling, we mean posting of inflammatory comments solely to get a rise out of people. If we feel your primary goal as a poster is to make people mad, you’ll quickly find yourself on the road to banning. On the flip side, the fact that a poster consistently makes you mad doesn’t automatically make them a troll.”
You’re trying to make the argument that Huey’s primary goal as a poster wasn’t to make people mad, or to post inflammatory comments solely to get a rise out of people. That’s the descriptive standard that we are applying. To make that assessment, posting pattern is a factor. And based on that, it became apparent that he was only here to fight with people. We disagree I’m sure. And while the persistent racism, dehumanizaiton, misogyny, attacking people’s families, mental illness etc. isn’t the precise cause of his banning, it is context when evaluating a case of a fundamentally toxic personality that was detracting from the experience of the board while giving a convincing impression that he was only here to fight with people.
The case you’ve laid out is unpersuasive. Elmore has 72 posts and I just read them all. Several are attacking Huey. And while he did participate mostly in the Pit, he’s actually engaging with people even while disagreeing, rather than antagonizing them. Nuanced point in the Bell curve thread, elaboration in the dark web thread, book discussion in cafe society, Louis CK discussion in that thread, Commercial discussion about Gillette, discussion about Covington Catholic school kids, etc. The only people he attacked in the Pit were Huey, asahi, and a single time calling another poster an asshole.
This comparison you are drawing is not apt.
…well no I’m not. This wasn’t the reason given for why Huey was banned. I’ve quoted Miller from the original thread, and while Miller cited the trolling rule, he offered a couple of creative interpretations of the trolling rule as the actual reason he was banned. Its one of the reasons why this thread exists. Its only in this thread that Miller now says Huey was doing it for the “lulz.”
How? Because over the course of an arbitrary period of time he mainly posted in the thread where he was pitted? Because he was responding to attacks from other people? That is normal behavior. Look outside of that arbitrary period we can see plenty of posts that aren’t just “fighting people”.
I spent a considerable amount of time in the making that case in the “while black” thread. You can’t tell me that the posts I just quoted came from someone who is “only here to fight people.” Someone “only here for the lulz.” He spent most of the last 3 months fighting with people: but he was being pitted. Did you not expect him to respond to attacks? What did you expect him to do?
With all due respect to Huey he wasn’t the smartest person here. He was easily distracted, he didn’t recognize “have you stopped beating your wife” for what it actually was, and he felt the need to respond when people attacked him. Thats why he chose to eventually only post in the pit. He told everyone this.
I think its clear that he wasn’t just here to fight people. I don’t think you guys looked hard enough.
“Fundamentally toxic personality” is one way to describe it. “Angry while black” is another. This messageboard is fundamentally underexposed to the anger and the fear that is out there in the black community right now. I’m not in the US. I’m not black. I listen to the voices of POC in other places, not here. Thats why for me I felt the “Living while black” thread was so important. Its why when it was suggested in that thread that it be abandoned “because it had grown toxic” I fought for people to instead open a separate pit thread for Huey and to let that thread continue with its original purpose.
Because opening a new “living while black” thread would have meant that a thread started by a black man to talk about the experience of black people would have been abandoned for a more “polished”, nicer, friendlier thread started by white people. I pushed back, I got a lot of people pissed off with me and a lot of people attacked me. That fucking hurt. But it got the thread back on track for a while. Then Huey started saying stupid stuff again, and he got piled on, and instead of hijacking the thread he got pitted, and Huey responded to that pitting, and thats how all of this is supposed to work.
But that isn’t how it works. The system is rigged. Huey walked into a trap. I didn’t have a problem with the pitting: Huey deserved it. But it meant he was dragged into a thread where his lack of self control meant he responded to every attack with an attack. It meant he was dragged into a pit thread that he absolutely deserved but that people like me who looked out for Huey left him to fend for himself. Responding to attacks isn’t against the rules. But in Huey’s case it was enough to get him banned. I trusted the system. But as we’ve found out over and over again that trust is misplaced.
The “pattern” is only a pattern because you arbitrarily chose a time-period where that pattern existed.
To be precise: 32% of them were attacking Huey.
“Engaging” is subjective. My subjective assessment (posted earlier) was that 47% of Elmore’s posts were **not **engaging. In contrast, from the analysis done by Heffalump and Roo, outside of the threads either started by Huey or the thread directly pitting him only 21% of his posts had the **potential ** to not be “invective-filled-screeds.” But “engaging” isn’t the standard here. And “antagonizing” shouldn’t be the standard either. You can antagonize people without the intent to “rile them up.”
You call that nuanced? Really? What is the context of that post? Who was he responding too? How was that part of the conversation?
One person’s “nuance” is another person’s “steaming pile of turd.” And its this subjective assessment of Huey’s post that is part of the problem. You just see the turds. I’m seeing the nuance.
You call it “elaboration.” I call it “repeating alt-right talking points.”
3 posts in cafe society. One of them consisted entirely of “Maybe not where you live.”
3 posts in the Louis CK thread. 3. I’ve found more than 3 of Huey’s posts that he made over the last 3 months that are as engaging as Elmore’s posts in that thread. So why weren’t they taken into account?
Using Ableist insults like “retarded.”
Everybody was discussing the Covington Catholic kids, including Huey. In that thread Elmore said " If Huey caught bubonic plague it’d immediately become the best thing about him." Is that the sort of discussion you were talking about? When Huey responded to that post was he wrong to do so?
How was it possible for Huey to respond to that “discussion point” without adding to the pattern that eventually saw him getting banned? You are seeing Huey’s pattern in isolation without acknowledging that it takes “two-to-tango.”
32% of his posts targeted Huey. A nearly a third of his total posts on this messageboard targeted a single poster. Then when that poster got banned, he dropped into AMTB to gloat, then he declared his intention to leave. That’s a clear and obvious pattern to me.
I think its perfectly apt.
…he wasn’t banned for being relatively “more antagonistic and hateful”. That isn’t what this thread is about.
Typically we don’t announce bannings of socks, etc. but given this is an active thread and the nature of it, I wanted to clarify to avoid confusion.
I’ve banned Elmore for socking. This discussion can still be had as I think it is more a matter of principle application rather than one specific poster.
[/moderating]
…my contention is that “getting Huey riled up” was Elmore’s intent. It fits the pattern better than the contention that Huey was just posting to rile people up. Elmore targeted Huey, spent almost a third of his posts engaging with Huey, came to ATMB to gloat when he got banned then declared he was leaving the boards.
You can’t get a clearer pattern of trolling than that.
But here’s the thing: I don’t actually think Elmore was trolling. His behaviour “fit the pattern” because I’ve twisted the narrative to make it fit the pattern. And what I’m trying to point out is that “Huey’s alleged pattern” has been twisted to justify his banning. The claim that all he ever did was fight people. The claim that he “posted nothing on the board but invective-filled screeds against other posters” without the additional context of what he was responding too. The arbitrary decision to only consider his posts from a 3 month period of time. You examine any one of those three and Huey’s pattern of posts turn into something different. Ignore that context and everything changes.
None of that is against the rules. That has been made clear.
Yeah, a few bad cites is not a bannable offense. Not relevant to this thread at all.
Not relevant. Huey is only being assessed for his posts for the last three months. It is entirely fair to compare that to what Elmore has posted in nearly the same amount of time.
I’d agree with what? This isn’t about his behaviour “outside of the pit.” 47% of Huey’s posts were outside of the pit but because they don’t fall within the 3 month period the moderators don’t think that they count.
Everything you’ve listed here is not against the rules except for the part that I’ve bolded. He used “invective, mean spirited, accusatory and inflammatory language” in a thread where he was being pitted, in a thread where people were saying stuff to him like " If Huey caught bubonic plague it’d immediately become the best thing about him." Where he thought (incorrectly) somebody had insulted his wife.
As for the bolded bit:
Discussing that judgement call is what this thread is all about.
The moderators don’t get paid. Anything they do is “above and beyond” their pay-scale. I appreciate that Miller took the time to post six lengthy paragraphs explaining in depth why what Huey posted was not against the rules and then a single sentence that explained that they were going to ban him anyway. That really cleared things up.
39% of adultsin America currently support and approve of Donald Trump. They support a president who called Haiti a shithole. Who called white supremacist Steve Bannon a friend and made him a part of his administration. Who has fired almost every person in his administration at least once but allows Stephen Miller to quietly try and implement white supremacist policy in the background.
White supremacy is a fucking big problem in America, I would argue its the biggest. iiandyiiii made the very same point in Huey’s pitting. iiandyiiii made a thoughtful, concise, and reasonable post in that thread explaining that yes, Huey posts some fucking horrible things. But he couldn’t participate in that pitting because even though most of the posts were pretty on point: there were also supporters and tolerators of white supremacism who were gleefully taking part in that thread as well. iiandyiii never said everyone in that thread was a white supremacist. It was the complete opposite of a Huey post. And do you know what the result of that post was?
Huey could have been less hyperbolic. He could have been more considered, and nuanced. But what would have been the fucking point? It wouldn’t change things. There are many on these boards who don’t think white supremacy is a problem. I think that both the last election result, the current support for the President and the strong possibility Trump will get elected for a second term show that it is.
Question: did he act this way with every white person? Did he call on iiandyiiii or Left Hand of Dorkness to admit white supremacists? Or is this “pattern of behaviour” you seem to be alluding to not really a pattern at all? Huey was unapologeticly hyperbolic with many of his statements. But its a reflection of his reality. A reality where nearly 40% of people openly support a white supremacist regime. And if you can’t see that: if you can’t see that Brexit, gamergate, the culture wars, Trumps election are all tied up to a massive push-back by white men who feel threatened and don’t want to loose power: then you really aren’t paying attention.
You are allowed to be accusatory in the pit. You can post inflammatory stuff in the pit. You are entitled to be mean spirited in the pit. Huey wasn’t banned for any of that stuff. The claim was that all Huey did was “invective-filled screeds against other posters” and that in doing that this was a clear violation of the trolling rules. But trolling requires intent. And in the thread where Miller announced Huey’s banning and in subsequent posts in that particular thread intent was never discussed.
Huey was clear that he probably wouldn’t have been able to post in threads outside of the pit without probably falling foul of some of the rules here. So he did the best thing he could have done was post it in the pit. He followed the rules. He wasn’t savvy to some of the cultural norms here and said stuff that wasn’t against the rules but crossed what some people consider an “arbitrary line.” But even crossing that line wasn’t what got him banned.
I don’t think so. I think that perception is sufficient.
It’s all but impossible to prove actual intent, barring a confession.
Banquet Bear has it right. Huey walked into a trap. When the usual gang piles on and it’s no secret that’s what they do and it’s many vs one, by the very nature of the fight the one is going to come across as unhinged and overly combative. It’s a nasty nasty tactic and I was surprised that that tactic worked outside the Pit; I am flabbergasted it worked in the Pit.
…I’ve had fights with you in the pit and I disagree with a lot of your politics. But there is one thing that you never did: and that was join in on the pile-ons. I noticed that. I have a lot of respect for you for that. And I have more respect for you (even though I don’t like a lot of what you say) than I do for many of the people “on my side” of the debate.