# The Wildest Bill precedent, and what it means for the "don't be a jerk" rule
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [May 3, 2002, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023 "2002-05-03T07:32:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/1 "2002-05-03T07:32:56Z")
My understanding is that Wildest Bill was banned, at least in part, for repeatedly making up lies about other people (again, this is meant as a statement of my understanding, not of the situation). So does this means that lying about other posters is a bannable offense?
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### Author:  [@Klaatu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Klaatu)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/2 "2002-05-03T07:39:26Z")
Just don’t claim those “Mexican Fat Burners™” were mine.
Gotcha Ya!
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### Author:  [@reprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reprise)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/3 "2002-05-03T07:59:05Z")
Ican’t help wondering if this thread is a prelude to **The Ryan** claiming that a fellow poster is lying about him and calling for their banning…
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### Author:  [@Klaatu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Klaatu)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/4 "2002-05-03T08:14:22Z")
Oh, I am sure it is reprise, but I just can’t help using a couple of “Billisms” when ole WB is mentioned. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/5 "2002-05-03T08:17:55Z")
I seem to remember him… Who was that guy?
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/6 "2002-05-03T09:30:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> So does this means that lying about other posters is a bannable offense?
I assume so, but - and you know there’s always a “but” - you have to keep in mind that it’d probably take a lot of mounting evidence to prove that someone was out-and-out lying, as opposed to being a victim of a misunderstaning.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/7 "2002-05-03T09:32:37Z")
GOTCHA YA!
My understanding is that WB was banned for repeatedly posting judgmental threads (of the ilk “why shouldn’t we just kill all the Muslims then?”).
I think people _could_ be banned for slander (or is it libel?) against other posters, but I would imagine it would depend on what they actually alleged, to a large extent, so a serious and persistent untrue claim that another poster has sex with goats might be treated differently to a claim that a different poster is so lovely that he must be made of marshmallow (even thought it is equally untrue). It all boils down, I suppose, to how _offensive_ is a doper’s behaviour.
That’s my view anyway (all the standard disclaimers apply).
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### Author:  [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/8 "2002-05-03T09:48:22Z")
I’m gonna try it (take heed MODS)…
‘SPOOFE HAS A PERVERTED FETISH FOR KNICKERS’
Now I’ll just sit back and wait to be banned.
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### Author:  [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/9 "2002-05-03T09:53:36Z")
No, let me try.
Spoofe secretly yearns to own an iMac!!! And Spoofe puts goat’s milk in his chicken soup! And he envisions Groucho Marx wearing a beaded evening gown!
Mahahahaah! The secret is out, SPOOFE! We all know!
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### Author:  [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/10 "2002-05-03T10:03:35Z")
Oh, yeh Yosemite? You reckon THAT’S bad?
I have heard from a Very Reliable Source
```php
TM
```
that Spoofe has nocturnal ommissions (he forgets the sheila’s name at the critical moment!!) :eek:
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### Author:  [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/11 "2002-05-03T10:04:48Z")
WTF happened then??
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### Author:  [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/12 "2002-05-03T10:38:24Z")
And from yet another source very close to home, I hear he has a thing about toothbrushes too…
But don’t tell the mods I said anything.
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/13 "2002-05-03T10:47:43Z")
Where are you people getting your information?!?
Uh, I mean…
Lies! All of it! Damned lies, too, as Samuel Clemens would say! Damned lies and statistics!
::looks around nervously::
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/14 "2002-05-03T10:51:19Z")
Hell, I can top that.
Every night, just before bed, SPOOFE kneels down before a picture of Jean-Luc Picard and whispers, “Jedi Knights are pussies dude. Only the superior Star Trek technology shows us the true path to enlightenment.”
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### Author:  [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/15 "2002-05-03T10:54:40Z")
Ah, so you have a prediliction for _STATISTICS_ too do ya? Now that just makes the picture even more sordid Spoofe.
Statistics, damned goats milk, and toothbrushes.
We’ve got your number.
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/16 "2002-05-03T11:40:05Z")
Actually, as I remember it, the issue wasn’t at all about **Bill** posting stuff about other posters, but that he posted (continually) essentially ‘trolling’ threads - “why can’t the dems see that clintno is a lying creep” “how come towel heads don’t wash them?” and that sort of thing.
I don’t recall any specific statements against other posters.
and yes, I’d assume that this thread’s speculation would be a prelude to… ‘then how come so and so gets to say that I’m such and such’.
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### Author:  [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/17 "2002-05-03T12:27:34Z")
Ryan, if anyone here believed lies had been told about you, they’d be quick take the offender to task. Unfortunately for you, that is not what happened. You have been accurately, if unflatteringly, characterized. I’m sure you will try to weasel out of any accusations by deconstructing the language therein, but I think some people are trying tell you that they are sick of that modus operandi and it doesn’t carry the weight that you think it does.
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### Author:  [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/18 "2002-05-03T12:45:59Z")
Was it not him acting the bollocks in a GQ tread that finally got the silly fucker banned?
Straw breaking the camels back etc.
**WB** BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
**manhattan** Gotcha Ya!
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/19 "2002-05-03T13:04:55Z")
As a matter of fact, I don’t EVER recall WB posting anything slanderous about other posters. In fact, as I recall, he didn’t really seem to keep track of other posters at all. (To be fair, I can never remember who’s who either.)
He was banned for posting one non-GQ thread after another in GQ, IIRC.
But sure, as to the OP, why wouldn’t lying about other posters conceivably be a bannable offense? If someone’s being a legitimate JERK and won’t lay off, kick 'em out.
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### Author:  [@jesuslynch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jesuslynch)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2002, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wildest-bill-precedent-and-what-it-means-for-the-dont-be-a-jerk-rule/107023/20 "2002-05-03T13:07:51Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by SPOOFE \*
> \*\*…Lies! All of it! Damned lies, too, as Samuel Clemens would say! Damned lies and statistics!.. \*\*
Did you know that 94.28% of all statistics are made up one the spot?
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