Thank you for booting 2SexyForMyComputer. May he rot. I love the new BANNED replacement. The geniuses here have really done something great. Jerry deserves something special for that little trick.
A big me too to that. Nice one 
That is absolutely fucking hilarious! Good job, guys!
Jerry always deserves kudos, but I believe it was Lynn Bodoni behind this particular innovation. Credit where it’s due.
In that case, it’s time to send Lynn chocolate for a job well done.
Yeah, it was me. Administrators have the option to change titles, and I just couldn’t resist. Usually, when we ban someone, we just put “BANNED” as a custom title. I think I’ve put “TROLL” as a title a time or two. I know that I’ve changed sigs, as well.
Lynn
I don’t have an attitude problem–it’s supposed to be like this.
Politicans discovered that public sentiment was not swayed over the issues, but over being the butt of laughter on Carson.
Didn’t “those pictures” do the same thing to Boss Tweed?
Outstanding!
Seems really stupid to me.
You must realize it’s childish, and will just prolong the guy’s interest here.
We’ve seen it just recently with the British guy.
You “ban” him, and he says: “Oh really, I don’t think so.” and signs on again with two or three names, until he’s proved his point. that you can’t ban him, ever.
If you REALLY wanted him to go away, you’d just erase his threads as soon as they appeared.
So what you seem to be saying is that you actually want him here. Why? So the people who “chase” him out feel like they did something “permanent” like nerds at a football game trying to become “in” by shouting boo at the other team? So they can go back and read their boo over and over and imagine the guy cares as he fills the board with more dumb questions, or pit insults?
I have a theory about why this is. If I’m wrong, try to prove it. But be prepared in case you might draw the same conclusion.
Only one person makes the decision on whether to erase troll threads as a standard policy.
That’s Ed Zotti.
He’s “not here much”? I don’t think so. Besides the obvious sock puppet of Cecil, also “not here much” of late, I think he’s here a lot as another sock puppet.
If he’s not protecting his own glorious booing, why are the threads still here? And why doesn’t he post?
The answer is in the past. Look up Ed’s threads, and he used to post a lot as “Ed” and “Cecil”. “Cecil” would do the serious questions and never enter the pit, and “Ed” would do the day to day chats and some insults.
But then at one point, “they” disappear almost entirely, and it’s right in the middle of a troll war. Ed, wanting to protect his “dignity” does for “Ed” what he previously did to “Cecil” - remove him from the fray and bring in a new sock puppet.
I have the number of the puppet narrowed to roughly 100 user names, based on the dates of the war. Now it’s just a matter of time watching for the people with those numbers to enter a troll war, and I’ll have him.
I don’t know whether this is the right thing to do about concrete either barflyer. Maybe it is, maybe not.
However, let me say this. I got here after the events you speak of in the second half of your post. You got here well after me. I too have had a little foray into the threads before my time. I’m no fool, but I wouldn’t presume to draw strong conclusions about what is occurring now based on what I can glean from old threads. To do so would risk needlessly opening old wounds on poor information. You make allegations based on the fact that Ed posts less these days. Maybe he posts less because much of what he sees he’s seen before. Maybe he wants to be seen as less involved on a day-to-day basis, because the more admins post, the more they get allegations of overweening behaviour. To suppose that he posts less because he has a sock is just silly. To say
is silly. If you believe you have Ed’s sock down to 100 posters as at the time of the “war”, you have nothing. There are maybe 500 active posters. I doubt that more than 100 have been around that long.
Sheesh.
Ed Zotti
Administrator
Registered: Feb 1999
Posts: 285
Hardly prolific.
Also I remember Ed making a relatively harmless IMO comment in a thread and causes holy war. People left, there was treats to go to the management in the Reader and it ended with Ed doing something very questionable. He hasn’t posted a lot since then. Maybe he just doesn’t need the hassle.
Silly doesn’t even begin to describe “if I’m wrong, try to prove it.” This statement, and Barflyer’s whole post, are the absolute antithesis of what the Straight Dope is all about. Here we don’t accept wild theories just because it’s inconvenient to disprove them. We don’t invent wild conspiracy theories with no basis in fact, but only blind conjecture to back them up.
From Barflyer’s sig, I assume he is interested in the law. This is odd, because legal principles are designed to preclude the event of having to prove the null hypothesis. That is what is assumed in law and science until something else has been proved. Would anyone see it as appropriate if we used Barflyer’s sort of logic to arrest and try people? Thankfully the real world doesn’t work like a Kafka story.
yojimbo:
What thread did that happen in? Can it still be found, or was the ‘questionable act’ its deletion? A link would be appreciated.
Ed Zotti and Cecil Adams post very infrequently, it is true. There is most assuredly a reason for this. The simplest reason, of course, is that they’re just too busy with their regular jobs, espescially true if you insist on the silly belief that they’re the same person. In case you haven’t noticed, Cecil (whoever he is) puts a lot of research into his columns, and research takes time. Remember having to do 500-word reports for school? OK, now picture doing one of those every week, 52.179 weeks a year, for 27 years and counting. Now imagine that each of those reports has to be meticulously correct in every detail, and you have to contact established experts for most of them. You don’t have much time left over to tell people about the color of your cat’s hairballs over in MPSIMS.
You’re right, neither Cecil nor I post much because we’re busy. Personally I wish I had more time to spend on the boards; it’s always a stitch. As for barflyer and his theories, anyone who fails to be amused by Lynn Bodoni’s jabs isn’t worth wasting time on, in my book.
“Anyone who fails to be amused by Lynn Bodoni’s jabs isn’t worth wasting time on, in my book.”
Well add me to your don’t waste time on list, then. I think the board has gone into the gutter, and Lynn isn’t helping it out. The opposite. Last time I complained, I got shouted down though, by your “moderators”. I’ve stopped posting much because of that. You have some good information, but you let the rowdies run the place. Nice people get roughed up as well as the bad boys. Or have you been too out of touch to notice?
Well, Fanny, Barflyer, there’s gotta be SOME comic relief around here. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but amid the flurry of mundane stuff floating around here, there’s some actual shit that goes down that gets everyone on edge, especially, I would imagine, the Mods/Admins, who have to deal with it on a greater level than Joe Average. And a good laugh is what we need every now and then.
As over-used a phrase this is… “Sheesh, lighten up.”
(By the way… Admins, can my title be changed to “Dark Lord Of The Sith”? Or “Overlord Of Earth”? Or just plain “Emperor”? Either one works just fine :D)
Working too hard to post? Every week? I don’t think so. We all have jobs (except the very heaviest posters, I suppose), and we find the time.
Anyway, he didn’t deny it. As for “proof”, it will come. I’m sure of it now. As has been noted many times, with all sock puppets there are clues and there are slips.
Lynn Bodoni: Keep at it, I like your humor.
Ed Zotti: I like your interjections, but you did drop off on the posting after the tiff a year ago. I liked hearing your comments.
Cats for free. Is that as in free range cat. Ummm cat. Kidding, don’t get pissed, it is a joke!
Hey! Don’t change. **SPOOFE Bo Diddly **has to be one of the finer names.