Just in case this isn’t meant as a joke, IIRC, JC is Jewish, so I doubt that’s the reason unless people want to try an argue that he expects more from fellow Jews than he does from thick-headed gentiles.:dubious:
For the record, I despised both men but found Terr more noxious.
I’ll cut you a deal, Tam. You find me a poster who’s all three at once and I’ll cut him all the slack in the world.
I’ve gotta research some conversion rituals. I’ll be back.
How about extra slack for the Amish dopers? The Amish viewpoint seems to be wildly underrepresented on the internet. 
I assume it was a joke 'cuz I was going to make a similar one, but had been ninja’d.
It’s always sad to see anyone banned or suspended. Terr and BrainGlutton brought diversity to the board. A refreshing change at times. Perhaps they spoke out too forcefully, but I found their posts interesting.
BrainGlutton has another chance. I hope he returns.
Warning then banning someone for being both correct and on topic in a thread is ridiculous. But I suppose necessary if your aim is a left wing echo chamber.
yes, that would be ridiculous. Good thing that’s not what happened here.
Yes, it is. You’re one of the leading proponents of an echo chamber anyway, getting the vapours any time someone disagrees with you politically, and asking for ideas to be banned, if not the posters who express them.
We aren’t going to have anyone left to talk to if we keep banning everyone. There were less than 50 new threads yesterday when I logged on. I had to go to reddit (ick) for something to read.
And the rules do seem to be somewhat inconsistently adhered to.
I love this place. I renewed my membership for two years instead of just one. But we’re fading away.
For fuck’s sake! He was not remotely on topic. The topic of the thread was “I hope my friends at this college are okay after this shooting.” Then it changed to “Oh, no, one of my friends is dead.” He’s the one who hijacked it into a political thread–which was already a jerk move. Then he was flat out asked to stop by a mod, and flagrantly ignored her instructions. He was flat out defiant!
And he was one of SEVERAL PEOPLE in that thread who got a Warning for ignoring mod instructions. He just was the only one with a full suspension under his belt beforehand, which meant he was on thin ice. I don’t know why you look for conspiracies in what is 100% straightforward application of the rules.
I won’t pretend that conservatives have an easy time here, but it’s not because of the moderation, just the board culture. I’ve been here since 2008, and I’ve never seen a single conservative banned who wasn’t consistently being a jerk. I’ve maybe seen a mod note here or there that seemed a bit excessive, but that’s it.
The only conservatives who have to fear being banned are those who repeatedly refuse to treat people with respect. The only ones who do are those who keep edging as close as they can to the “jerk” line–the ones that are here because they like to tweak liberals.
(I will admit that our board attracts those types of conservatives by how anti-conservative we are, but it’s not the mods’ job to change the political leanings of the board to be more neutral. Their job is to stop the jerks–first by warning them, then by kicking them out.)
Well that’s me told.
Discounting your first sentence, I thought your second was odd. So I went back and looked.
Here are the long-term posters banned in the last two years:
Terr
get lives
Pjen
drewtwo
DingoElGringo
Don Simus
etv78
The Second Stone
Honesty
NotFooledByW
BrokenBriton
RedFury
CheshireHuman
LeKatt
Process: searching thread titles for the word ‘banned’ and counting only posters with more than a year’s service.
Maybe I don’t know everyone’s political leanings - I know I don’t know and don’t care, frankly - but I bolded the ones I knew were conservative and italics the ones I knew were liberal (acknowledging that there’s all sorts of flavors of both so inaccuracy is expected).
I think bannings - from the available data - don’t skew politically. Rather, they skew craziness and inability to adapt to the board culture. Terr had earned himself 12 warnings and a suspension in his four years here.
Hell, that doesn’t even include Der Trihs. He was never actually banned. He was suspended for a month and has apparently elected never to come back.
I don’t know. In fairness to them both, how long can a thread stay focused on the recreational grief that accompanies routine mass murders? Sooner or later, the topic is bound to change to gun control. Perhaps it would be better for to open two threads for each shooting incident: “Shooting at X, Recreational Grief Thread” and “Shooting at X, Gun Control Discussion”.
Overall, your idea is fine. But calling grief recreational is beyond cynical; it’s contemptible.
I get that. There is a natural reaction of shock, outrage, and sadness. But unless you knew a victim personally, I don’t see the potential for grief. So where can a non-derailed thread go? There’s only so many times it can be said to be shocking or sad. The term recreational grief may be offensive to some, but I think that’s what a lot of it is.
In that particular thread it wasn’t “recreational grief” because the OP did personally know one of the people who died, and when he started the thread he stated his personal connection to the incident.
Opening extra threads was also an option but it was not taken up.
Daring to draw an analogy to another board I frequent…
I read a lot on a scuba diving related board. Naturally serious dive accidents involving injury or fatality end up being discussed.
And there are two threads, in two different sub-forums, for each event. There is an Accident Analysis thread where board members pick apart contributing factors. It can get a bit brutal at times. And there is a separate thread for condolences and board members relating anecdotes about their personal connections to the event.
And the system works. Occasionally mods will move a post from one to the other, but the board members tend to split the discussion appropriately. Perhaps BobLibDem’s idea deserves a trial here for the next mass shooting event?
That idea is already in place. The original thread was posted in MPSIMS. “Take it to the Pit or GD” was written several times. How much clearer does it get?
Exactly. No direction should have been needed: there are different fora. A thread opening in MPSIMS in which the op worries about friends and then expresses grief about them? Not the place, not the thread, to have the discussions those posters were imposing on the thread. If you want that place open a GD or a Pit thread even. Just as a thread of cursing insults is not welcome in GD, a political debate about gun violence is not welcome in MPSIMs. If both discussions are to exist (and not sure we need yet another gun control thread saying the same tired points again trotted out every disaster) they are different threads in different fora. Pretty basic stuff. Unless you are a Westboro Baptist or such.