# the death of the Dope

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-the-dope/838695>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [August 15, 2019, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-the-dope/838695 "2019-08-15T12:56:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 101

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**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-the-dope/838695/101 "2019-08-16T08:54:40Z")

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Let me just bring up a personal gripe, to tie into **JohnT** ’s.

> [@What Effect Will Trump's Concentration Camps have on his reelection campaign?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/434):
>
> > [@What Effect Will Trump's Concentration Camps have on his reelection campaign?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/432):
> >
> > Then please stop responding to him. 🙂
> > 
> > I’ll extend this invitation to everyone else in the thread. **HD** has been posting things that are patently wrong and incredibly inflammatory since he joined the thread, and it’d really be easier if we just collectively stopped responding. There are real issues to talk about. None of them are furthered by interacting with him.
> 
> Knock it off. Take your campaign to convince others to ignore posters to the Pit where it belongs.
> 
> [/moderating]

By this point the last 4 pages of the thread had been **HD** taking a big fat stinking dump all over an otherwise quite serious discussion, which I had been working quite hard to _keep_ that way (because god knows the moderators won’t help with that). I had reported several of **HD** ’s posts, most notably a fucking _horrific_ joke made at the expense of the victims of the concentration camps. No moderator stepped in or said or did anything, because apparently [this is fine](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zL48ecvX2NkW1cU0FEfgrCc7Rgo=/0x0:900x500/920x613/filters:focal(378x178:522x322):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49493993/this-is-fine.0.jpg).

This prompted… [a temporary hiatus](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=877779). (Hey, [good call](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21719455&postcount=14), **Ravenman**!)

Skip forward a few pages, and here’s **Bone** again:

> [@What Effect Will Trump's Concentration Camps have on his reelection campaign?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/660):
>
> > [@What Effect Will Trump's Concentration Camps have on his reelection campaign?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/640):
> >
> > It’s probably worth mentioning, in the midst of all this hand-wringing over the coming genocide, that [the Border Patrol killed more people under the Obama administration than it has the Trump administration](https://www.southernborder.org/deaths_by_border_patrol), and that [assaults on BP agents are up, but use of force, especially with firearms, is down under the Trump administration](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-use-force).
> > 
> > If genocide is the concern, we seem to be heading in the opposite direction.
> 
> > [@What Effect Will Trump's Concentration Camps have on his reelection campaign?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/654):
> >
> > My point is that illegals dying “by Border Patrol” is not some new horror that has only happened under President Trump. It happened under Obama too, and at about the same rate, and probably others before him.
> 
> This kind of misleading presentation is an example of bad faith argument. First, it misrepresents the evidence, seemingly intentionally. Second, you’ve switched the nature of the commentary - first saying that more people were killed under the Obama administration, then saying it was about the same rate.
> 
> I’m giving you fair notice here. I have no more patience for JAQing off, sealioning, other off topic tangents meant to rile people up, or other bad faith arguments. That goes for all threads in the future, including this one. I will bookmark this post and if it occurs again you will be warned.
> 
> [/moderating]

An apology is, presumably, not forthcoming.

Two things to note.

1. **Ditka** didn’t get _worse_ over the course of the thread. He was fucking awful from the start and stayed at about that level.
2. Thank you, **Bone** , for reaching the point most of the rest of us were at half a decade ago, so kind of you to join us. Please, for the love of god, actually enforce this shit, because this is literally **HD** ’s modus operandi and if you actively hold yourself to this post, he’ll be gone in a fuckin’ week.

That said, I really doubt he will, because, like **Clothahump** before him, it basically does not matter how noxious and shitty **HD** becomes, as long as he does so in a polite tone of voice, because this is how the moderators understand trolling:

> [@Fuck This](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-this/836119/56):
>
> I’ll make the same argument I always do when this pops up. You’re not only making your case to your direct debate opponent. You’re making it to the 100-1 who are just reading and lurking. To do otherwise is to leave the field to your rival.

Hey, since I haven’t said it, let’s just say it here: **Jonathan Chance** does not understand trolling, and is, as a result, an _absolutely terrible moderator_. This is not the internet anyone lives in any more. It never was, and these days _you need to know better than that_.

This board has serious troll problems, but the mod staff seems to take it the other way. Meanness, or calling someone’s bullshit? That’s a problem, that’ll get you warned ASAP. Constantly trolling and ruining any thread they’re a part of? Maybe, if we’re really lucky, after 18 fucking years of escalating bad behavior, the mods will get a clue. It could have been so easy to say, “ **Slacker** , **Samuel** , we’ve heard your perspective, thank you. Please stop posting in this thread, and maybe give the next one on the subject a pass as well.” Instead, we get… this. It is phenomenally frustrating. Twitter moderation is ass, but if I call someone a jerk and block them, I don’t usually then have to deal with people around me constantly quoting them.

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