I was at an on-line Death Café held by a local library last night. (Death Cafés are for the purpose of bringing the subject of death and dying out for public discussion, as the society often tries to ignore the subject.) I brought up that part of the difficulty is the difficulty in discussing any possibility of choosing one’s own timing in death, including by MAID. I needed to talk about that. The group appeared to agree.
If these boards want to forbid, in such discussions, any explicit descriptions of ways to commit suicide: that in this context seems to me quite reasonable. But I hope they’re not forbidding the entire discussion of MAID, or of how to approach the end of one’s own or a loved one’s life.
Seconding.
Is it possible to make this a case-by-case? If the thread’s a trainwreck, or discussing only trivialities, then ditch it. If it draws good posts on a serious subject, then just remove all the trock’s posts. I don’t know whether that works from the moderators’ point of view, though.
There’s another good idea – though I’m including the caveat because again I don’t know if it would work.
Sometimes people have put a lot of time and effort into posts on a subject highly sensitive to them, and/or taken something major from others’ posts in the thread; and may not have saved a copy.
Huh, I didn’t know that. Sorry to anyone my post may have triggered. If it was my post… my post was about something that happened three years ago, so I’m not sure if it was my post, but I shouldn’t have included the details either way. I actually know better, I just wasn’t thinking.
I had no problems with the posts to the thread and in fact participated in it, as you know. But the OP bothered me enough to check the OP’s history. I suspected a trock, confirmed with @What_Exit and he cornfielded the thread while I banned the sock.
The subject matter was fine and I was sorry to see it all go.
As What_Exit said, sometimes there are unfortunate consequences to the DNFTT approach. But it would have been difficult to preserve the thread after having removed the OP, which was lengthy and involved, as well as encouraged the trock to return and try again. I’m sure they were delighted with their success on this go round.
If anyone wants to discuss the subject of MAID, I bumped an old thread on the subject over in the Pit since I received more info and wanted to post an update. It’s here.
I understand if people aren’t comfortable chatting in a Pit thread though, so alternatively a new thread elsewhere might be a good idea.
That thread’s also discussing a specific case, and is at least as much about what kind of financial/housing aid the person in question ought to be eligible for. I don’t think it’s a good thread for discussing MAID in general; it’s rather an edge case, and involves issues not relevant for most people desiring the option of MAID.
Would the moderators be willing to send copies of posts from the cornfielded thread back to the authors upon request, so that they may repost them in a new thread on the subject?
Don’t need it this time — I still had the thread open on a different computer so I already snagged my posts. But next time, yes, this is good insurance and I’m appreciative of the offer.
Fwiw, it’s a word i have only seen here, it took me a while to “get” it, and i still kinda dislike it, since it carries the implicit assumption that all uses of multiple IDs are engaged in sock-puppeting. I think of a sock puppet as a very specific type of trolling, that involves two IDs simultaneously on the site supporting each other. The vast majority of our “trocks” aren’t that, they are just a banned troll trying to start posting again under a new name.
One of the interesting things I learned as an SDMB mod were the sheer number of people who basically make it their full-time job to troll this website. It made me feel better about how I was spending my time.
This is probably going to get shot down as unworkable or wrong headed, but in cases when a sock starts a thread that results in a compelling discussion, is there some way that a poster could “adopt” the thread - the sock’s post would be cornfielded, but the OP would appear (with a note) under somebody else’s name. That way, we don’t lose the good points that are raised and/or rebutted. Just a random thought.
If you mean just taking the OP as-is verbatim, and putting someone else’s name on it, that would raise all sorts of problems (if it’s even technically doable, which I don’t know). If you mean someone just writing their own post to serve as an OP, not quite so bad, but I can still see potential issues (like people refuting arguments that aren’t actually being made any more).
This OP is “adopting” this post to keep this discussion alive, as we’ve deemed it worthwhile to preserve. The OP does not necessarily endorse this post, but is adopting it to provide context for the text that follows. Whoever actually wrote this OP has been sent to the fields, never to return.