Why the hell not? Are you really so hypersensitive that being scolded once a few years ago has you cringing in fear like a whipped pup? I suspect that is not a fully-accurate description of the situation. It’s not that I’m accusing you of lying, just that you seem butthurt about something and feeling a little sorry for yourself. Happens to all of us, now and then.
It’s only a “good example” to the extent that you’ve demonstrated that you’re being treated differently because of your politics.
Which, as it turns out, is a very short extent indeed.
Well, this thread has meandered a bit, but I think one point of view that I have seen expressed and that I share is that Bricker manages to hold an opposing viewpoint, debates without being personally nasty, and is a solid addition to this Board.
Perhaps self-censorship, if that is indeed being applied, is something we should all do a little more of. I think Bricker sets a high standard.
In University, someone (professor, advisor, ?) was always saying “perception is reality”. The interesting thing about this thread has been noting the various perspectives on the political leanings of the Board - everything from far Right to wildly Left. I myself feel outnumbered by the conservatives, but I’ll survive. I like y’all anyway.
I do agree that heterogeneity is better for our long term health, and keeps things more interesting on the Board. I’ll even admit to missing Terr… Double, super-secret, triple probation?
The FLDS does similar thing. They boot out all the males with differing opinions not realizing what they are doing to their bloodline. One day they will wake up and not be able to tell one another apart.
That looks like an example cooked up on the fly to support a point that is not supportable.
Obviously I don’t agree. Look at the “butthurt” post above, suggesting I simply am craven. But I’m more inclined to say I’m risk-averse. I have no doubt that another warning or two would be fodder for calls for my banning, with pious reference to my wanton disregard for the rules, and never once a reference to the calls for me to stop being “a whipped pup” that preceded it.
I’m not utterly silenced, to be sure. I know how to express my general points without coming close to crossing any lines drawn by even the most enthusiastic excuse-seeker.
But it denies me access to a powerful rhetorical tool – snark and abuse – that my opponents can wield with comparative impunity.
Well, unfortunately, Bricker, you also bear the burden of poor timing. Claims of persecution, specious or legitimate, have become commonplace (or perhaps they always were and now only seem more so) among right-wing Americans, hence fatigue and broad dismissal set in among listeners.
The people using terrible arguments against Bricker are just proving his point. And I have no love for Bricker, I just hate bad arguments.
I’ve attracted the ire of mods on occasion and it does tend to make one more cautious in one’s posting which is the point. But personally all I’ve seen from Bricker is a demonstration of confirmation bias, not actual bias, and I certainly see little evidence of “comparative impunity”. Plenty of warnings and bannings going around on all sides.
What about the people using good arguments against Bricker?
Bricker, you present no evidence that you, let alone conservatives on this board in general, are moderated systematically differently than liberal posters. At most you present your own testimony that you imagine that you would be moderated differently for the same level of “snark and abuse” despite the fact that you have experienced an extremely low rate of moderation actions and only one that you question the fairness of in many years of posting.
I disagree with your belief that snark and abuse is a powerful rhetorical tool*, and I am surprised that you think it is, but just looking at the oeurve of the subjects of this op one can see that both liberal and conservative posters are allowed a fairly wide range of it without moderation.
The space between your typical style of discourse and the style that they both functioned at is large. You may be risk-averse (not a bad thing if the goal is to have actual conversations) but that seems to something that describes you, not systemic discrimination by moderators.
*Snark at least has a place, perhaps more as entertainment, used like a pinch of salt. Most who use it however just dump it in by the pounds.
It’s too bad there is no longer a good rolleyes emoticon. I’m stuck with this: :rolleyes:
I do not see any intentional bias - left or right.
Now I will concede there is a possibility of a bit of anti-right bias, but purely unconsciously derived from the imbalance of the situation.
Say a Liberal says something contentious or misleading. A conservative poster or two respond, it gets a tiny bit warm, then the conversation moves on. Maybe a note to keep it civil. A Conservative says something contentious or misleading. Two dozen liberals jump in to each get in their variation of the same response. Now the conservative poster is the receiving end of a barrage, and feels a bit overwhelmed, and gets a bit heated in response. Suddenly you have a giant conflict escalating out of control, all because of an imbalance of positions making the heat increase.
It’s like a magnifying glass focusing the sun’s rays. One or two attacks coming at you are diffuse, but a dozen coming at you are a bright spot of deadly heat, triggering a fire.
So the conservative gets burned by the mods for the fight, whereas the same situation by a liberal didn’t start a fire.
It plays out in any contentious topic where the poster is divergent from the board majority. It’s the nature of drawing fire from a large number and being a small number defending - the need to increase the heat of the response to balance the heat flow in and out.
Sucks to be the minority.
I can’t disclose secret mod discussions. OSHA and FCC regulations as well as that contract written in blood won’t allow it. I will say that not once in any mod discussion has any poster’s politics come up. It’s has never even been hinted at. There is plenty of actual behavior to deal with. If that was a criteria for modding I won’t be a mod. If anything we tend to favor letting open discussions happen on their own.
I haven’t been secretive about my background. Do I give the impression that I’m a democrat? 
Shodan regularly snarks back at people and doesn’t get in trouble for it. The fact that you don’t think you can seems to have more to do with your risk aversion than any Conservatism on your part.
In fact, you two are the reason I don’t think conservatism is unfairly moderated on this board. You two are who I point to to let a the more cantankerous conservatives here know how to post without getting in trouble.
The point is that, according to the mod involved, both sides were doing the same thing, but he chose only to act against me. And your allegation that I ignored mod requests to dial it down is false.
The mod in that thread is, I think, much of the source of the bias in question on the Dope. Other mods, Jonathan Chance especially, much less so.
Terr is warned and suspended, and when he comes back he violates the rules and gets banned. BrainGlutton is warned and suspended, and when he comes back he violates the rules - and gets suspended.
Der Trihs gets mod note after mod note, and then a series of Warnings up to the point where he is about to get suspended. Then the next action is not to suspend him, but to issue another Mod Note to try to get his attention. It doesn’t work, obviously, but that is the sort of thing that is noticeable - that bit of extra slack that is given to liberals, even extreme ones. Name me a conservative poster for whom the mods bent that far over backward.
Regards,
Shodan
PS - I don’t think mentioned Der Trihs counts as someone who cannot defend himself. He hasn’t been banned, and could, in theory, come back and defend himself. I am sure the mods will correct me if that is not correct.
As I see it, Shodan, the problem is that you seem to go out of your way to goad people into attack mode, and then try to pull out the “they’re picking on me” card. You remind me of my older brother when we were kids on a family road trip. He’d be sitting beside me in the back seat, pinching or poking or whatever he could do to get a rise out of me. When he finally did, he’d turn to the front and say, “Mom…Kevin’s hitting me back.” No mention of what he did to instigate my reaction. He just wanted the reaction to be punished, not his starting it in the first place.
Not that you’ll care about this, and there’s no reason that you should, but you’re one of the few people here that I actively dislike. But I still read all of your posts. There’s a masochistic streak in me where I follow you (and sometimes Clothahump and Starving Artist) around a thread, waiting for the next outlandish, irrational thought. To quote Heath Ledger’s Joker, “I wanted to see what you’d do…and you didn’t disappoint.”
If you feel a persecution complex, I think a big part of it is that you don’t always play nice, yourself. An obvious example would be the brouhaha over your sign-off. You know that there are people who hate it. They’ve asked you several times to either stop using it or cut back on it. Sometimes politely, sometimes not so much.
But you know that angers people, and you still keep using it. And you’ve stated that it can sometimes have a different meaning than the literal one. But you don’t show anyone to respect on this board, so why should they treat you any different?
The point is, as I see it (and I know you’ll find some way to discount or minimize my opinion), that you consistently stay so goddamned bored you have to invent things to bitch about.
Persisently posting conservative opinion is perceived on the SDMB as goading people. I think that is a lot of the issue.
But again, see my linked thread. Both sides snark, only one side gets mod attention.
It’s interesting that you bring up something, my signoff, which is clearly and explicitly within the rules, as an example of me “inventing things to bitch about”.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, you did admit to driving a minivan and a hatchback. That leaves soccer mom or democrat, and I’ve never heard you mention soccer.
I think you’re misunderstanding that point. You are aware that your signoff bothers a great deal of people. You know that you’ve been asked to either not use it, or to dial it down some. You refuse, which is your right. I’m not suggesting that you made that up to bitch about it, which is what I parse from your response. What I’m saying is that the different rules that you complain about (lib vs con) aren’t as real outside of your mind as they are inside. THAT’S the part that I was suggesting you bitch about.
When will they get here?