In other words, bans (other than obvious cases like spammers, which aren’t the topic here) are never unilateral. Even if it be the case that one particular mod is unfairly biased against one particular person for some reason, that still won’t lead to that person being banned.
Shit, it’s actually 18 years. My account is old enough to drink!
This last sentence needs to be a sticky
Yep, I agree. I’m more or less in the same boat- been here a little bit longer I think, and I’ve got 3 warnings over that time- one of which was questionable at best (I quoted a rather un-PC line from “Idiocracy” as a joke, and got warned for it), one of which was totally warranted due to a personal insult from me, and the third was legitimate, but would have been better handled through a in-thread admonishment (it was a political jab about “coal rollers” in GQ).
And I’ve gotten into quite a few arguments over the years. You DO have to work at getting banned- it doesn’t just happen apropos of nothing.
I can’t be the only one who is expecting a new member named TropicalstormMcMahon, can I?
Well, my first reaction was “Whew, maybe now we can get back to actual discussions.”
I think the last couple of bannings were long overdue. Posters whose opinions and outbursts didn’t come from reasoned reflection, but their own emotional states.
In this case, HurricaneDitka had previously posted a very similar thread about Clinton entering the 2020 race. He also added the comment that he “hadn’t given up hope yet” that she would enter the race. Since he was obviously not a fan of Clinton he was evidently glad because she would lose. This kind of comment was clearly intended to needle Democrats rather than to initiate a serious discussion. It was quite obvious trolling. If someone had posted a similar thread but indicated a serious interest in discussing it they wouldn’t have been warned for trolling.
HurricaneDitka had never previously been warned for trolling. His warnings were for insults, being a jerk, and failure to follow a moderators instructions. But it’s interesting that you assume that he was previously warned for trolling.
Its hard to see how mods could fail to ban Barack Obama after he posted this
The first rule of survival on the Dope is if a mod slaps you down, stay down.
Indeed. ‘Failure to follow a moderators instruction’ is an infraction we take seriously.
Best practice one disagrees is to send a PM or take it to ATMB. Nothing good comes from defiantly declaring that you plan to disregard guidance.
Expressing the hope that the opposition party nominates a weak candidate is pretty common on this board (and IRL, to the point where it’s commonly discussed as a factor in “open primaries”). I would bet there have been thousands of such posts on this MB, with zero moderator action.
The real story is that while the moderators don’t get together and say “let’s sanction this poster because he’s unpopular”, the unpopularity heavily influences what are very subjective interpretations of ambiguous rules (i.e. trolling, jerk).
Crap, mine is old enough to catalog aches and pains every morning while…
Dang, that’s just me, isn’t it? It is.
when you log in, you get a message saying you’ve been banned from the board and cannot view any of the forums.
As I pointed out, there was essentially no content to the post (which was in Elections rather than IMHO or the Pit) except to needle Democrats.
This seems like there was a bit of bias. Maybe it is purely confirmation bias on my part. I have learned that even explicitly written words don’t always mean what they obviously mean around here. It’s Humpty Dumpty-esque at times.
There are quite a few posts where posters wish death or harm upon the president, his supporters, or conservatives/Republicans that escape notes much less warnings or more severe sanction. I have my doubts that such posts are intended to indicate a serious interest in discussing an issue and I have no doubt that they are intended to be inflammatory towards the minority of posters here who are right of center. Since there is no critical mass of vocal folks willing to complain and post spreadsheets of their financial value to the board I suppose it’s not necessary to treat those posters equally. Plus, let’s be honest, you don’t want to ban 3/4th of your board.
Why is it interesting? People make mistakes all the time.
I don’t see where you pointed that out, but regardless, it’s not correct. The content of the post was to open speculation as to whether or not Clinton would enter the race, based on both her strong standing in the polls (which would encourage her) and her refusal to rule out doing so.
This is completely par for the course in Elections.
I believe he was suggesting that you personally saw HD’s activities as trolling, which would cause you to make that particular mistake.
Although one other thing which might cause that same mistake was the thousands of posts from other posters calling HD a troll and demanding that he be banned on that basis.
Except she already had, back in March, and the filing deadline had already passed in nine states. None of which had been acknowledged.
Sorry, HurricaneDitka made no attempt to open a real discussion:
I didn’t see them as trolling. I don’t think posting in elections or GD something that makes those holding the adversarial point of view upset is problematic. That just happens to be the natural result of a forum where debate on partisan issues takes place between emotional people. It can’t be avoided.
Not to mention this (bolding mine): “It’s not just the writer that’s stoking the sad delusions of a washed-up politician. The Harris Poll decided to include her in their poll.”
Obviously arguing in bad faith.
It’s not uncommon for politicians to rule out running for things and then change when they see an opportunity or whatever. (Kristin Gillibrand declared her candidacy a mere few months after a campaign promise to not run.) Subsequent to March, HRC said she can’t rule it out, and noted that many many people were pressuring her to run. And Mike Bloomberg just jumped in last week or so.
That said, you’re entitled to make these arguments, and you properly made them in HD’s thread. But believing that your arguments are not conclusive doesn’t imply that HD was trolling.
FWIW, the likelihood that HRC will run is currently trading for 19 cents on PredictIt. If you really think that the likelihood is virtually zero, you can make some easy money buying the opposite side of that trade.
But based on that price, and based on ongoing discussion in the mainstream media of that possibility (e.g. articles like this one), or polls by Harris - as HD noted in that thread - the world at large takes the possibility seriously. The fact that this is considered “no content” trolling on this MB when posted by HD is very telling.
It’s not clear to me whether the “sad delusions …” line was HD’s belief or what he presumed you were arguing. But either way, I don’t see why this would be arguing in bad faith. Perhaps you can clarify.