I think it would depend on how it was asked.
I think part of it is that this board allows people to profanely and hurtfully denigrate other posters at will and with little restraint. As long as someone doesn’t use a few banned words and doesn’t use things like racist insults, that person can insult another member as much as they like. Just because it’s fenced off in the Pit doesn’t mean that kind of attitude stays in the Pit. I’m sure some people hang around this board because they are able to denigrate other members and they enjoy doing that. That kind of person is likely to get warnings for bad behavior because they enjoy doing bad behavior. If denigrating other members was not tolerated, then those types of people would drift off to other boards.
I agree that having the posters that left due to the bigotry (of all flavors) back is a worthwhile goal. But I just don’t think that those posters who managed to pull an actual Ban (unless at their own request, and even then…) is the same thing.
And while I also feel the rules and rulings are getting better every day (despite my concerns in the revised/reposted rules thread), I’m not sure people who have moved on would be interested in coming back. And even if they do (much to be hoped!) I don’t know how effective it will be in terms of enlivening the place. We skew old and (comparatively) secure, which isn’t a demographic known for it’s edginess.
No, we’re not exactly the “old wo/man yells at cloud” by any means, but this isn’t a place for 20-30 something attitudes and cultures largely. As an example, Cecil’s rebooted column about how the “Baby Boomers” weren’t responsible (he granted involved, but not responsible) for the woes of modern society came off as super smug and unapologetic. And granted, it got a -lot- of pushback from we posters, but I think it would have been rage-inducing to the younger generation.
As for irreverence and gross content, we still do it quite well I think. I mean, I mute thread games, but this morning on my non-logged in kindle LOL’d at this gem:
So that part of the board culture is alive and well.
Need Answer Fast - probably okay
Post Pictures - Cornfielded
Late to the thread, but I’ve got to agree with you on the above sentence. It’s seemed for a while that posters who had strong opinions, but weren’t cautiously polite ended up banned. It’s probably 50/50 between liberal/non-liberal posters who’ve been banned, but considering that the SDMB is about 90% liberal, there’s been a chop-off of non-liberal posters.
I doubt many of them would want to come back; I suspect they’ve moved on. But I think the SDMB is at its best when there’s a broad range of strong opinions on divisive issues. Banning someone with strong knowledge of an issue because they’ve been vigorously defending their position, and been less than polit to other users, seems to be contrary to fighting ignorance.
Do you have any examples of such bannngs?
By “less than polite” do you mean insulting people outside of the Pit, and/or just plain getting nasty and personal in places like Great Debates? In which case, that nastiness is contrary to having a functional message board with real discussions.
Fighting ignorance requires two things. Knowledge, and the ability to constructively convey that knowledge. If you don’t have both, it won’t work.
I’m presuming the question means bannings | personally disagreed with.
BudgetPlayerCadet
Septimus
Shodan
Voir Dire - the West Virginia lawyer, not sure if I’ve gotten his user name right.
The Pakistani lawyer who was the only Pakistani poster I believe.
Probably more.
I’m not saying these posters were saints. But I felt the basis for their bannings was weak, considering what other posters were able to get away with.
UltraVires is who I was thinking of.
Didn’t the poster in question get 4 (!) warnings and numerous mod notes in a two year period?
You likely, based on prior posting habits, feel that they pulled more warnings because as a conservative poster, they’re more likely to be reported (just in terms of numbers), but all the warnings were for actual violations of terms.
If you feel “other posters get away with” stuff, you should be flagging such things.
ETA - I’m not commenting on the others, because I didn’t participate as a poster in those eras, and while I have opinions, don’t feel informed enough to judge on the older examples.
BudgetPlayerCadet? You mean the guy who made one of the most disgusting antisemitic “jokes” in the history of the board. Multiple warnings after a suspension for being an absolute shithead? Nah
It seems to me that @Wrenching_Spanners is badly misrepresenting what led to those people being banned.
The Pakistani fellow was AK84. I thought highly of him for a very long time. Intelligent, urbane, educated, and brought some very valuable perspectives to the board. I miss him.
But … slowly he became increasingly radical, impolite, impatient, whatever. His country was coming unglued at the seams and perhaps his IRL was too. Eventually it seems he’d simply had enough of all things USA and wasn’t willing to dial it back even a smidgen. Hell, maybe USAF blew up his brother. Or his daughter.
In any case he got banned for more uncontrolled vitriol where it doesn’t belong.
There are a couple of other non-US posters now walking that same path, where their evident disgust for all things US is starting to become a non-rational hobbyhorse rather than a rational opinion. As the 2024 election season heats up, and if things go worst-case with the election, I see one or more of those folks either stomping off in disgust or wigging out and committing suicide by mod in one last futile act of defiance.
AK84 was always a misogynist of note. Not missed.
Thanks for the info. I had missed that aspect. Perhaps a matter of which threads I encountered him in. I probably also cut him some slack as representing the mainstream POV of his culture which is not my culture.
Is that what finally did for him here?
BudgetPlayerCadet - had TWO suspensions prior to being banned, in addition to at least SEVENTEEN warnings.
Septimus - had TWENTY warnings, and prior to his ban TubaDiva reached out to him to ask him to change his behavior. He flat out told her that he would not change, and he was therefore banned.
Shodan - had at least TWELVE warnings, was suspended, and continued to misbehave even after the suspension.
UltraVires - has six warnings, several of which were for trolling (a potentially insta-ban offense) and continually displayed a complete refusal to change his behavior.
These were among the worst offenders on the entire board, and you think their bannings were weak?
Personally I think your list is a perfect example of why we should NEVER offer a ban amnesty. Every single one of your examples absolutely refused to change their behavior no matter how many times we tried to get them to play nice.
I mean the guy who was a fervent transphile (have I just invented a word?), was a fervent anti-capitalist, despite being anti-capitalist tried to make money off social media, and was able to put forward arguments that I mostly disagreed with? Yeah. I disagreed with him around 98% of the time. But I valued the 2% of the time when his arguments made me reconsider my position.
Isn’t that what fighting ignorance is about? Assessing your beliefs to consider if they’re still true when subjected to an opposing viewpoint?
I don’t know if the guy would rejoin the community, but personally, I would welcome him back. And I say that as possibly the person who most strongly disagreed with him.
Your argument boils down to a request to repeal the first and most important rule of the board: Don’t be a jerk.
That’s never going to happen, and if you start from that premise you’re never going to get anywhere. You’re suggesting that the board completely change its culture in a fundamental way, to dispose of civility.
No. We have Reddit and other places if you want a space like that.
'Zactly. A Bizarro version of BPC who had interesting off-beat opinions but wasn’t a jerk might well be an asset. But that Bizzarro version was not on offer despite repeated instructions for him to can the jerkiness. Jerks get banned. QED.
Just going to say strongly disagree.