It’s apparent that Spectre was in the middle of composing his post when the thread was locked.
16 minutes difference but I guess Spectre was being careful in his wording.
I wasn’t being critical: I was wondering if there was a reason for the added post.
And there’s five links in it. It can take a while to put together a post like that.
Here’s the error in your logic: you say “everyone else did”, but in fact all you see is the folks that DID respond. It’s systematic confirmation bias – all you can see is the people that responded. I assure you, there are tons of folks that didn’t rise to his bait. That thread currently has 7650 views and only 236 posts. And while a lot of those views were after it was locked, it’s also obvious that a LOT of people were reading the thread and not responding to Dio. But if one or two people respond to him (be they regulars or new members who don’t know not to engage him), that’s all the excuse he needs to go off. That’s why DNFTD will never work. 10000 people can ignore him, and if 1 doesn’t, it’s all over.
Pick any thread on this board that has people arguing. Go on, there are plenty of them. Give them a read, and look at the form of peoples posts and responses.
What you will see is people writing an opinion. Then responding to anothers opinion. Then perhaps restating their opinion as correct. Then responding again, to debunk, or modify an opinion, or maybe even to laugh at somebody elses opinion.
Now read a Dio thread.
“Thats a load of bullshit, it would never happen like that”
“No it wouldnt”
“Bullshit, its not like that”
“No it isnt”
Most normal people when presenting an opposing opinion will take one of two paths. If the opinion is questioned, they will either shrug the shoulders and move on, opinions are opinions.
Alternatively, if they care enough, they will try to restate the opinion in a different form or context. They do this because they want the other posters to understand.
Dio just wants to drop shit grenades that he knows will antagonise other posters.
“No he doesnt”
“That wouldnt happen”
“Let me change one minute detail here for future arse covering”
The crux of the matter though, is that Dio knows very well the effect his shit grenades are having, and more to the fact, knowing this has become his actual reason for doing this. He knows it pisses people of, so thats why he does it. You think any non-troll posts the same one/two line post to a thread fifty times? Of course they dont. After the tenth time, they would try a different tact. Dio just keeps posting the same soundbite, probably laughing as he does so. He knows he is not arguing honestly, god knows he has been told enough times.
I know it would be nice if people just ignored him, but, honestly, what sort of way is that to resolve a problem? Just ignore it and it will go away? Get real.
Its human nature. If there is a pile of shit sitting on the middle of the carpet, most people dont want to just walk around it, they will try to clean it up. Same principle.
Two other quick points. Firstly, Dio has been pitted almost thirty times by my count. And I believe it was by a different person every single time. Make of that what you will.
Secondly, this thread is a complete waste of time, because the mods will do absolutely jack about the Dio show. They just dont want the hassle of the dramastorm that will ensue if they ever started sanctioning him. They know it would be a rules lawyering nightmare.
Sorry to double post, but just to add. In the thread with the crazy eight year old, my opinion is that if you cant subdue an eight year old, then you are not fit for purpose as a cop, I dont care if he has some plywood or a fucking lightsaber, he is eight years old. Thats my opinion. You know how many times I would have had to say it? Yep, thats right. ONCE.
Of course, now I cant state it there at all.
What *exactly *do you want us to do? The one time I tried to rein him in by saying “do not state opinions as fact” I got an ATMB threadtelling me I was out of line.
By the way, am I missing something or have these threads not been linked somewhere in this thread?
No it wouldn’t.
(Can you guess who I’m pretending to be?)
I didn’t participate in either of the threads being discussed here, but I have run into Dio-derailed threads in the past. (Haven’t we all?)
This is a message board. The entire point of it is for people to make posts back and forth and respond to each other. Telling people that the way to deal with a particularly obnoxious person that tends to destroy the conversations he participates in is to “just don’t respond to him” is ridiculous. First of all, only the people who have been around here for a while are going to be able to say, “Oh, it’s Diogenes, he’s not worth responding to” anyway, so you get situations like Cat Whisperer doing the “right” thing and not responding, only to have the thread closed anyway because the rest of the people in the thread did not exhibit 100% compliance with the unwritten “Don’t Respond To Dio” rule. I mean, really?
I remember the thread where I first noticed his bullshit; it was years ago in one of the threads about the writers’ strike. I got into a huge fight with him in one of those threads, with the whole posting cites back and forth and trying to convince him that he was trying to defend a personal opinion as fact, etc. These days I would not bother to do that, because I’ve learned better, but short of putting a “Dio clause” in the rules people are supposed to read when they first sign up, you are never going to get everyone to stop responding to his bullshit.
Second, why should they? Again, this is a message board. The whole point is discussion. If one person is apparently incapable of discussing like a rational person, and continues to get otherwise-acceptable threads closed, then… and see, here my argument breaks down. Dio manages to post like a non-crazy person enough of the time that I’d hate to see him banned, but he’s obviously uninterested in or incapable of changing the behavior that is causing the problem.
So, shit, I don’t know. This is why I’m not a mod on this board. But my main point is, telling people “just ignore him” is never going to work. (And it’s not because every single other person on this message board besides Dio is just a loser who lacks self-control and loves to feed trolls, either.)
No offense, but this is above your pay grade.
The mods and admins and ED need to come up with a solution to this problem. It has gotten out of hand and it needs to be dealt with. Ignoring the problem or pretending it will go away if people ignore him will not work. He has become a significantly disruptive force around here to warrant a review from TPTB.
Either what Dio is doing is acceptable, in which case state that unambiguously, or it’s not, in which case take the appropriate action.
ETA: This is my opinion on what all the staff should be doing, not just twickster.
What should the mods do? When a thread is in danger of derailment owing to Dio’s incessant and repetitious BS simply bar him from posting again in that thread. I’ve seen the staff do this time and time again with other posters. It’s a far more equable solution than shutting down a thread.
Would this rule apply only to Dio, or would you have us apply it to other posters with bs problems? Whose definition of bs do we use-ours, or yours?
No you won’t. Not towards other posters.
Either you think he is breaking rules, in which case you hit the “report this post” button, or you don’t. I don’t think yelling “The Dio Show!!” over and over again instead is one of the options listed in the rules, but I’m willing to be corrected if you can show it to me.
Thank you.
Here you go if you must (assuming I do the link thingy right). But its just the same old song and dance.
the other one
Everyone on this board does that. Even the “Dio how” bullshit is people posting subjectice opinions as facts. If you thinking I’m breaking a rule, report me. If I’m not breaking a rule, you’ve got no grievance. You’re just being diasagreed with. That’s all that the “Dio show” is. It’s people getting butthurt that my strong opinion is sometimes out of step with the group think.
There is no problem. If you can’t handle an opposing opinion, that’s your problem, not mine.
And I am no more polemic than the norm for this board. I am certainly less prone to make things personal.