Whatever the rights and wrongs, it’s a damn shame and the board is worse off as a result.
Agreed. I would say they are my favourite poster here, I always read everything they post in a thread I’m following.
@Stranger_On_A_Train please come back!
I’m not a very prolific poster here but would like to add my voice to the crowd.
Hope they come back.
He may try to sneak back in with his sock, Throw_Momma_From_A_Train.
They haven’t even visited since November unless they are reading not logged in.
Don’t be a stranger, Stranger.
I actually think the general consensus was that while he had some valid points in that thread, he often comes across as a bit thin-skinned, as exemplified in the OP of that thread. And while some people complained about his tendency towards verbosity and to sometimes expound at length on matters outside of his expertise, most people expressed their appreciation for his detailed and informative posts.
I personally never had any complaints regarding his posts—both in style and content—on the contrary, I enjoyed reading his posts immensely and always found them to be well worth the time to read.
I totally agree. The board hasn’t been the same lately without him.
Ditto… same here.
Seconded!
With a very few exceptions which I’m too much of a gentleman to name, I think almost all of the actively posting members provide a service to the board in terms of experience, perspectives, and wit.
@Stranger_On_A_Train provides all three.
And yes, he’s biting, vicious and cranky at times. So are a lot of posters, including myself, especially this !@#$%^&* week (OMFG, it’s barely one week into the New Year and it’s this bad already!!!)
I don’t blame Stranger for taking some time away, though I like others miss his contributions. But a few weeks/months away is certainly better than feeling so irritated / exhausted / frustrated that they never come back.
So here’s hoping Stranger finds a bit of peace and returns in as-good-as-can-be-expected spirits to join us in facepalming our way through the next few months/years.
Yes. I meant he was wrong very narrowly about the topic in the Pitting.
There’s an ascending order of danger when it comes to the pit and all posters need to make good decisions about the point where their marbles are at risk.
- Reading threads
- Posting in threads
- Starting threads
- Starting threads about posters who are general bad actors
- Starting threads about your personal beef with other posters
Everyone thinks their pit thread will be the one where the rest of the board goes “yeah! Well deserved!” but as with everything else in public spaces that’s rarely the case. I’m glad he’s taking a break and hope he comes back; in my experience people around here always step away about three days after they should have. Seems to be the case here as well.
You rang?
Well, I’m not down with this love fest.
The subject thinks he is an expert on everything. He’s not, but what makes it bad is he gets mad when called on it. I have taken insults back over questioning his facts, and his tone is like “how dare you” and worse, he took it as a personal attack.
His posts are far too verbose, covering the basic premises that we all know. This isn’t a HS class, we are mostly familiar with the underlying facts. So we get 2000 word treatises on simple subjects. Which read like cut and pastes.
I risk pissing off everyone one with this, because the Board says who is cool and not, and when you’re on the wrong side, look out, but yeah, I don’t care if he never comes back. I stopped reading his posts a while back.
Ditto on both counts!
We all as community members need to make an effort at not throwing each other away over things like that. All relationships have bumps and bruises, and that includes our online community here. Giving up one on another is not a solution. Better communication, understanding, and tolerance is.
Sorry Bravoman, but you’re more in the opposite direction if anything. You’ll be forced to accept my evaluation that along with almost all posters you provide experience, perspective and wit.
You may now return to combing your hair. 
Well, if your post puts you on the SDMB shit list, I’m right there with you man. While I appreciate Stranger’s posts on topics that he is knowlegeable on, I also feel like he is one of those people that always has to be right about everything, even if they are obviously not. (My wife’s sister is the same way – always has to be the smartest person in the room.) It does get tiresome after a while.
Very true. Tho, on balance, I thought him a positive contributor.
Yup. I’ve mentioned before, I think: I have a brother in law who will, at the drop of a hat, give you a long, detailed, and almost completely wrong ‘explanation’ of topics he knows nothing about.
Stranger is not that bad: he obviously is well informed about many things. But he does suffer from ‘expert overreach’.
I think it is gauche to cast insulting, yet completely nebulous, aspersions at someone who is not even here. Moreover, if I ask a question and it gets answered, I can only thank my lucky stars if the respondent actually did their homework and there is a “long, detailed” wall of text.
Also known as the Linus Pauling Effect.
I would be pissed off too if you spent time cutely mentioning some random family member who cannot seem to shut up, “expert overreach”, Linus Pauling’s crackpot bullshit, some spelling errors, et cetera, instead of just pointing out what it was I wrote that was false (in which case I would thank you and issue an apology/correction/retraction as appropriate).
Dear me. Got out of bed the wrong side this morning, did we?
This is after all a semi-informal chat forum, not a formal debate. 