From the Great Debates sticky thread:
I thought the only thing forbidden was personal insults, not the insulting of “public” figures.
Do you think that it should be added to that thread that the moderators prefer that you not use vulgar, obscene or insulting terms when debating? I thought it was self-evident.
I really have no problem with the phrase “Jesus is a cunt” and I don’t think that that should be a reason for banning anyone. It’s when it’s used to hijack a thread and disrupt an otherwise fruitful discussion that it becomes a problem - that and stalking. I’m not sure if badchad is guilty of those, but he sure does come close to crossing the line a number of times.
That he is a jerk is quite obvious. That he should be banned is totally unclear.
And I agree with Liberal - he sure does sound like a Christian fundamentalist bigot.
Sorry, I see that Giraffe had already answered Jodi’s post.
What’s up with all this bad chad grumbling? Bush won. Accept it. Look forward to the election in 2008 and mount a viable candidate. But come on, let 2000 rest.
But being an atheist, he won’t pray to avoid it.
As I read the post you were responding to – and having just scrolled down to re-read it, yep, I’m reading it correctly – Schuyler’s conclusion was that such conduct was acceptable. You added the element of “endorsement,” as opposed to acceptance, so you were mocking an idea you yourself introduced, instead of addressing yourself to the point actually made in Schuyler’s post. By sarcastically extrapolating from some argument Schuyler did not make, and ignoring the argument he or she actually did make, you made an unclear situation even less clear. But hey, that’s just the POV of one hopeless moron.
Some idea of what the “don’t be a jerk” rule actually means would be nice, since it obviously doesn’t mean that you can’t be a jerk.
Maybe you can’t be a jerk to other posters but you can be a jerk to Jesus? Are you just railing against the use of the word cunt? Or is it only jerky when used to describe Jesus?
Well, to be fair, I did use the word endorsement in my post, which was not clear on my part - it was the acceptance of the behavior that was my main point.
I think we’ve received guidance, in the fact that badchad’s behavior had no negative repurcussions from the moderator team.
What’s the point in having a “don’t be a jerk” rule if that pattern of behavior, which pretty much everyone identifies as jerkish, doesn’t receive sanctions?
You do realize that Jesus isn’t the god of all theists, don’t you?
I’d think Jesus would be handle things himself , by the way. I’ve always wondered why some people think deities need so much protection.
Here’s the quote I responded to in my first post:
(bolding mine)
Don’t look at me. The rule predates my membership here, let alone my modship. Honestly, I think of it more as a basic guiding principle than a specific rule, simply because whether or not someone is a jerk is so incredibly subjective. Heck, I’m sure we could each dig up more than couple of posters who have thought us to be jerks at one time or another. On a board where people debate topics like politics and religion, things are sometimes going to get heated. Do we ban everyone who holds controversial views which piss other people off? Do we ban everyone who debates in a combative fashion? You’d have no shortage of people willing to label their opponents jerks in those types of debates. It’s not as simple as you might think.
Original sin. At the founding of the Dope, Cecil committed a misdeed so terrible that Eresh-kigal in a rage cursed not only him but all the Teeming Millions. As was prophesied by Tammuz, badchad shall remain among us until the chosen Doper arises and sacrifices his left testicle to the lipless queen of the underworld.
Yeah, but Clinton got a blow job.
ETA:
Oh, and Hitler. Did I neglect to mention Hitler?
Yes, I could have written Christian theists in this context, but since the original thread was on Christian theology, I didn’t think the wording in my post would be all that confusing. If someone knew that a poster believed fervently in the IPU, and they insulted it (him? her?) in the crudest possible way, in Great Debates and not in the Pit, how are their actions (and the pattern of behavior that underpins those actions) anything but jerkish?
And it’s not a matter of picking on someone who is not on the boards to defend themselves (unless Jesus has a sock), but not being a jerk.
Can’t we just pay him $500 instead?
No, this is not a serious offer.
It ain’t as hard as you think, either. I’ve been a mod/admin elsewhere on a fairly high traffic board for years. It it quacks like a duck, odds are good it is a duck. This is not about his demented version of a worldview…it’s about his behavior.
Objectively, the guy’s content provided, if any, is vastly outweighed by the grief he causes. That’s enough. Pull the damn trigger already.
Who the hell gave Hitler a blow job?
Mea culpa.
Only it’s not what the membership thinks, it what the moderating team thinks is aceptable behavior - now we know. And this really wasn’t an attack on the mods, but a disagreement on their handling of the situation.
Actually, now I wonder if you all are feeling backed into a corner on this issue - I can’t imagine there being any good options for resolution at this point. Good luck with it.
Yeah, wha’eva.
We have actually had all of the corners in the office rounded off recently. We can no longer be backed in. Now we just go round and around. 
This is the second time someone has said this in this thread, and I’d like to address it directly, if I may (on the topic at hand: I don’t think badchad should be banned because he’s easy enough to ignore when he’s boring, which is most of the time, but then, I hardly ever think anyone should be banned). I just want to ask a question of Cisco and Ogre:
Why do you think that “saying what a lot of people are thinking” is in and of itself a good thing? Or do you think that what he’s saying is a good thing? Because all he’s saying boils down to “hey x-tians, your stupit, hnurh, hnurh, hnurh.” The fact that an opinion is unpopular and delivered in a strident fashion does not make that opinion profound or even useful. What has badchad done or said, in all the time he has been here, that has been worth a damn to anyone? There are plenty of people on this board who have religious beliefs that very closely align with those of badchad. Some of them can frame an argument, respond to questions asked of them… some of them are even pretty impatient with religious folks. But badchad is useless, pointless, extraneous on a board that has nonreligious people who have smart opinions that they can express clearly, cleanly, and well. I haven’t noticed, say, Diogenes the Cynic spending a lot of time hiding what he’s thinking. What important opinion, not represented by better and cleaner thinkers, does badchad offer?
And if it’s only that you want to see someone throw poop at religious people, why? I mean, why do you care?
I am myself not religious in any conventional way. I have a vague sense that there are probably things beyond my understanding - possibly even a God or other spiritual force - but that if such a thing exists, it is so far beyond my capacity for understanding as to make no difference in the way I live my life. So obviously I do not believe the things that, say, Polycarp does.
But I mean, honestly: I also believe, with utter and complete fervor, that Derek Jeter is profoundly over-rated. I think he’s a borderline Hall-of-Famer, and not even close to the best player on his own team. I am aware that there are many hundreds of thousands of people who believe that Derek Jeter is the greatest shortstop of all time. I don’t care. I don’t feel the need to harass them on message boards. I’ll discuss with them, but flinging poop gives me nothing. Now, if the Jeter fans go crazy when the Yankees win the World Series and burn down a building, or if a group of Jeter fans beat the crap out of some guy in a David Ortiz shirt - now those are people who deserve my anger, and my scorn. But the fans who cheer for Jeter and teach their kids to play baseball like he does, and to be a basically good guy and teammate? They’re OK with me.
Why is it of intrinsic value for anyone to abuse a religious person?
'Cause like I said, I’m not religious in any meaningful way. But I read tomndebb’s and Polycarp’s posts, and I learn things. They give me something to think about - even if I eventually reject their opinions as relevant to my own life. badchad has never made a single person on this board think about anything other than new synonyms for “pitiful.”
So as one of those magical “lurkers” on whom badchad appears to think his posts are having such a profound effect… eh. Not so much.