Why Was This Thread Closed?

[BigT]

This is simple: the mods hate it when you nitpick a rule. They’ve explained their reasoning ad nauseum. But after a certain point of someone not getting it, you have to start thinking they aren’t going to get it.

As a poster, you have to think similarly. After a while, you’ve got to realize that you no longer have any other way of saying what you are saying. If they don’t get it, fine.

After either side has reached this point, continuing to post loses the meaning of clarification, and moves into other, less honorable motives.

Honestly, I’m finding the outrage about this guy more annoying than him, because I decided early on I was going to avoid his posts, since he’s a one trick pony. I hope that his detractors’ posts don’t start warranting that behavior.

Perhaps we should have a rule like WP:POINT

[DSYoungEsq]

@Contrapuntal

For the sake of the argument, I’ll accept your premise. Under those conditions, is extolling the virtues of X encouragement to do X?

You are creating a false issue. The issue is not “encouragement.” The issue is the rule: Thou shalt not discuss how to do something illegal here.

Every post you’ve been making for some time now is focused on something irrelevant. :smack:

[Contrapuntal]

@DSYoungEsq

You are creating a false issue. The issue is not “encouragement.” The issue is the rule: Thou shalt not discuss how to do something illegal here.

Every post you’ve been making for some time now is focused on something irrelevant. :smack:

No, the issue was the justification given for that ruling. That issue may be irrelevant to you, but it isn’t to me.

[aldiboronti]

@Marley23

I don’t want to go over Cesario’s posts any more than I already have, but I don’t think he’s extolled the virtues of sex with children, and he hasn’t encouraged anyone to abuse children, etc. He’s said he wants to do it and said he would like to be allowed to do it.

Exactly. And he certainly hasn’t asked (or offered) advice on how to sexually abuse children or the best ways of grooming them which would be the parallel to Contrapuntal’s feigned request for guidance in the manufacture of crack.

By adding that second paragraph to his OP Contrapuntal torpedoed his parody thread and completely obscured any point he was trying to make. I’m astonished that he can’t see the difference between the Cesario thread and his, and why one was within the rules and one was most definitely not.

[Contrapuntal]

@aldiboronti

Exactly. And he certainly hasn’t asked (or offered) advice on how to sexually abuse children or the best ways of grooming them which would be the parallel to Contrapuntal’s feigned request for guidance in the manufacture of crack.

By adding that second paragraph to his OP Contrapuntal torpedoed his parody thread and completely obscured any point he was trying to make. I’m astonished that he can’t see the difference between the Cesario thread and his, and why one was within the rules and one was most definitely not.

I simply don’t know how to make it any easier to understand, but I’ll try one last time.

In the **Cesario **thread, the mods kept saying that he was not advocating child molestation. I took a stroll through the user agreement and saw the bit about encouraging illegal activity. I then posted my thread, and sure enough, I was found to be in violation; to wit, that asking for advice is encouragement. My still unanswered question then became : Why is asking for advice encouragement, when what he was doing isn’t encouragement. So far, no one has been able to answer that question. Care to give it a shot?

Another way of asking the question would be : Is there a definition of encouragement that includes the former and excludes the latter?

[PlainJain]

@Contrapuntal

I simply don’t know how to make it any easier to understand, but I’ll try one last time.

In the **Cesario **thread, the mods kept saying that he was not advocating child molestation. I took a stroll through the user agreement and saw the bit about encouraging illegal activity. I then posted my thread, and sure enough, I was found to be in violation; to wit, that asking for advice is encouragement. My still unanswered question then became : Why is asking for advice encouragement, when what he was doing isn’t encouragement. So far, no one has been able to answer that question. Care to give it a shot?

Another way of asking the question would be : Is there a definition of encouragement that includes the former and excludes the latter?

Let me ask you a question. Did his thread encourage you to rape children?

[Contrapuntal]

@PlainJain

Let me ask you a question. Did his thread encourage you to rape children?

No. So? Did my thread encourage you to manufacture crack? Do you not understand my question?

[Marley23]

@Contrapuntal

He has said that people should be allowed to do it. He has said that it is the right thing to do with respect to “youth sufferage.” So, perhaps not the virtues of molestation per se, but that the virtuous thing to do would be to allow it.

At any rate, how is that *not *encouragement, if asking for advice *is *encouragement?

If I say something should be legal, I am not encouraging anyone to go out and do it, and I am not making it easier for anyone to do it by giving them access to information on how to do the deed. I might not even want to do it myself. I’m simply stating that I don’t think it should be forbidden, which I might believe for any number of reasons.

So in this situation, Cesario has disgusted plenty of people with his posts here, where he says he would like to be allowed to abuse children if it were legal and could be done without harming the kids psychologically, which he says could happen in some cultural contexts (a proposition believed by nobody else here, as far as I can tell). He hasn’t admitted to breaking the law, hasn’t encouraged anyone to break the law, hasn’t posted anything that violates the law or would allow anyone else to break the law. That’s what I’m seeing from here.

[LurkMeister]

Show me where, in any of Cesario’s posts, he encourages anyone else to be a pedophiliac. That would be considered encouragement. Saying that he is a pedophiliac, and discussing the possibility of changing existing laws, is not encouragement.

Asking someone for ways to circumvent the law, or asking for information on how you can break the law (none of which Cesario has done, to the best of my recollection, although again I would be open to proof that I am wrong), which is what you did in the second paragraph of your OP in the closed thread, is what was deemed encouragement to break the law.

[Contrapuntal]

@Marley23

If I say something should be legal, I am not encouraging anyone to go out and do it, and I am not making it easier for anyone to do it by giving them access to information on how to do the deed. I might not even want to do it myself. I’m simply stating that I don’t think it should be forbidden, which I might believe for any number of reasons.

You seem to be equivocating “make it easier” with “encourage.” I don’t accept that. If that were the case, I would be encouraging crack use by describing a specific part of say, San Francisco, as a place where crack heads hang out, thereby making it easier for the reader to score crack. Would that be a violation?

[Contrapuntal]

@LurkMeister

Asking someone for ways to circumvent the law, or asking for information on how you can break the law (none of which Cesario has done, to the best of my recollection, although again I would be open to proof that I am wrong), which is what you did in the second paragraph of your OP in the closed thread, is what was deemed encouragement to break the law.

And my still unanswered question is : Why is that encouragement? Under what definition of encouragement is asking for advice included, and stating that in a perfect world X should be allowed not encouragement? If I ask you how to build a doghouse, have I encouraged you to build a doghouse? Really?

[Marley23]

@Contrapuntal

You seem to be equivocating “make it easier” with “encourage.” I don’t accept that.

Since you’ve been arguing about the meaning of encouragement, I think I’d give an example of something that would count as encouraging.

If that were the case, I would be encouraging crack use by describing a specific part of say, San Francisco, as a place where crack heads hang out, thereby making it easier for the reader to score crack. Would that be a violation?

If someone started a thread about, for example, famous crack addicts and you posted something like that, yes, that would count.

Here’s the easy way to define encouragement: the dictionary.

1. to inspire with courage, spirit, or confidence: His coach encouraged him throughout the marathon race to keep on running.
2. to stimulate by assistance, approval, etc.: One of the chief duties of a teacher is to encourage students.
3. to promote, advance, or foster: Poverty often encourages crime.

[Contrapuntal]

@Marley23

Since you’ve been arguing about the meaning of encouragement, I think I’d give an example of something that would count as encouraging.

You gave me an example of “making it easier.”

If someone started a thread about, for example, famous crack addicts and you posted something like that, yes, that would count.

But otherwise not, right?

Here’s the easy way to define encouragement: the dictionary.

Nothing in that suggests that asking for advice is encouragement. I do see “stimulate by approval.” I can make a much stronger case that that is exactly what **Cesario **is doing. He certainly approves. And if simply asking for advice stimulates a person in a certain way, giving overt approval surely must.

[Marley23]

@Contrapuntal

You gave me an example of “making it easier.”

Yes, because providing someone with information on how to make crack - which you asked for, directly - makes it easier for them to make crack. Making crack is against the law and against the rules here. As for examples of encouragement, “You might want to try ” is also encouraging someone to do . “ is great” would count in some situations.

But otherwise not, right?

I’d rather not make up a list of every possible example.

Nothing in that suggests that asking for advice is encouragement.

You asked for advice on how to make crack. It’s illegal to make crack. Your subpar attempt at parody does not change the fact that it’s illegal to make crack, and the manufacturing of crack wouldn’t be any different if it were legal.

In fact you did a bunch of things in that thread that Cesario has never done in a post here: you wrote about how wonderful crack is, asked for help in making it, and said you planned to do it when it was legal. He’s never posted anything equivalent to that, which is why your parody was such a failure. At least, that’s one reason.

[LurkMeister]

@Contrapuntal

And my still unanswered question is : Why is that encouragement? Under what definition of encouragement is asking for advice included, and stating that in a perfect world X should be allowed not encouragement? If I ask you how to build a doghouse, have I encouraged you to build a doghouse? Really?

Building doghouses is, as far as I know, a legal activity. Asking for information or advice on committing illegal acts implies encouragement to commit an illegal act, either on your part or on the part of the person giving the information or advice.

And I’m still waiting for any evidence that Cesario has in any way encouraged anyone else to commit an illegal act. Saying that he would like to perform an act that is currently illegal (leaving aside any moral issues, which are regardless of how many times you say it, irrelevant to the matter of why your thread was closed) is no more encouraging someone else to commit a similar act than my saying that I would like to illegally copy a DVD encourages other people to illegally copy DVDs.

[D_Odds]

LurkMeister, no matter how many times that has been said in this thread, it isn’t sinking in, and repeating it isn’t going to help.

We get it. Contrapuntal, you don’t like Cesario’s posts. I’d say that in excess of 99% of the people that have read them feel the same. But until he starts posting about how to find child porn, how to groom children, or his experiences (if any) with children, he’s not breaking the rules. You were.

[supergoose]

@Contrapuntal

Nothing in that suggests that asking for advice is encouragement. I do see “stimulate by approval.” I can make a much stronger case that that is exactly what **Cesario **is doing. He certainly approves. And if simply asking for advice stimulates a person in a certain way, giving overt approval surely must.

Approval of what? Having sex with consenting children who have the mental capacity to give meaningful consent in the event that society changed sufficiently so that children would not be psychologically damaged as a result of engaging in sexual activity and consent laws were changed to require passing a mental capacity test instead of just going by age? Assuming all of those criteria were met (very unrealistic), there would no longer be a illegal activity.

Approval of finding children attractive? Can you change your sexual preference merely by reading about someone else’s? Is any sexual attraction (confined to the mental realm rather than acted on by engaging in sexual activity with another person) or illegal?

On the other hand, is manufacturing crack cocaine or illegal?

Edit: As stated by earlier posters, “morally wrong” has nothing to do with it. :headsmack:

[RaftPeople]

@Contrapuntal

So? Why does that make it not matter? It’s either a valid question or it isn’t.

No it’s not “either a valid question or it’s not”. It’s only a valid question within a context (like everything in communication, context matters).

Within the context of attempting to determine if some other poster is outside of the rules of the sdmb, it’s completely irrelevant which particular portion of the rules the mods happen to quote regarding your thread because your thread and the other thread are not similar with respect to rules violations.

Here’s how you know they are not similar:

1. You asked how to do something illegal
2. The other poster did not ask how to do something illegal
   Are you seriously unable to distinguish between these 2 attributes of the threads in question?

[Skywatcher]

@RaftPeople

You asked how to do something illegal

And were apparently told how, which was stated in the locked thread as half the reason said thread was locked.

[spinky]

@Contrapuntal

Nothing in that suggests that asking for advice is encouragement.

Have you gone back and re-read the original series of mod/admin statements about your thread? They didn’t even claim you were “encouraging” the illegal act, they just said that asking for advice on how to do it was against the rules here. Plain and simple. Here’s a refresher:

@Czarcasm

Poster #1 asking for advice on how to break the law+Poster #2 giving asked for advice on how to break the law=Moderator closing thread.

@samclem

Asking for advice on how to do something that is currently illegal in the United States is agains Board Policy. Couch it however you want, you asked for how to violate current law. The end.

@samclem

Asking “How to make crack” on this board is against board policy.

@C K Dexter Haven

The second paragraph, where you asked how to make it yourself, you’re asking for advice on doing something currently illegal.
…
Asking for knowledge of how to commit an illegal act, that’s a no-no. Sharing knowledge of how to commit an illegal act, ditto

@C K Dexter Haven

Your second paragraph was asking for advice on “how to” break the law. That crossed the line. Talking about how to reform the law, that’s fine – even if the vast majority of persons think the law is fine as it is. Talking about doing something that breaks the law, that’s not acceptable.

Even if you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that your question does not constitute (or invite) “encouragement”, all of those moderator/admin statements still provide a justification for shutting your thread down. So what’s your point?