Your Honor, I will concede that it has not been proven that the defendant failed to show decorum but I wish to state for the record that it is the general consensus that he is indeed an ASSHAT.
lionel, that happens on another board I frequent. While I do acknowledge that it is a handy little warning as to what kind of person you’re dealing with, or even hilarious to know what the mods think of a poster in a joking manner, I think the SDMB would tear itself apart with righteous indignation if the mods tagged everybody.
Not everyone has a functional sense of humor.
Yes, 2stupid2live was the one I was thinking of. You crack me up.
My pleasure. And for the record I only Pitted you to avoid further hijack of the original thread. Nothing personal, I really do just want clarification (oh, and an admission that you were completely wrong to reprimand me but let’s not ask for the moon when we have the stars).
I think you’d have no problem “getting the moon.”
I don’t mean tag everybody, just the few who are both acting in a way that will soon get them banned and are showing somehow that they can turn around.
Remember when someone hacked the board and gave some of us regulars tags?
I was a COCKTEASE! it was AWESOME…but fleeting.
To think that if I wouldn’t have made my post, then I wouldn’t have been quoted and none of this would have happened. I sincerely believe that I deserve at least 1% of the credit here…
Damn it, and I didn’t even get to see it.
“Just another Serlin” was my favorite.
I’d like to nominate Otto for the Good Sport Award, which, in a perfect world, would include a bronzed trophy in the shape of an asshat. Although I confess I’m still a bit confused about whether an asshat is a hat you wear on your ass, or an ass you wear on your head, but perhaps that is a question for another forum (hmmm, but not GQ).
So for the most part you only give special names to the bad people?
I wanna custom name…
I was thinking of “the meat method”, or “Meat’s revenge”, possibly “The Chuck eraser”…
Grumble, I suppose I’ll just have to fantasize about it until I’m too delusional to tell the difference…
Alrighty then.
When someone starts a thread because they heard the news that a young girl, who had been missing for 9 months because she was kidnapped from her very bedroom, has been found alive and well, there are a number of ways to respond.
If you share the joy of the OP, then you usually will post to that effect.
If the topic is of no relevance to you, you either don’t click the thread at all, or hit “back” after reading the OP.
If you, for some reason, are intrigued by the fact that people are expressing such joy over the fate of what is essentially a complete stranger, you have to tread carefully.
I’m not saying your question was without merit: it is an interesting one. Why DO people jump with joy because of this news? The thing is: there’s a time and place for everything. The best course of action would have been to start an IMHO or even GD thread on the matter, perhaps linking back to the MPSIMS thread at hand, stating that you do not wish to hijack such a thread, but would like to discuss the phenomenon.
That would have been fine.
It is thinkable, even, that you post your question in that very thread, but it takes a true diplomat to get away with it. You’d have to make your dislaimers very clear. Something like: “This girl’s parents must be so relieved. Great news for them. Having said that, I am amazed at the emotions being displayed in this thread, and I find myself wondering just what it is that causes people to respond in such a fashion to news that basically concerns a stranger. I can’t really put my finger on what it is, though. How would you say this news affects you personally?”
But you didn’t choose any of those options. You said: **“Why, unless she is a direct relative, does anyone care?” **
That’s lack of decorum, Otto. To make matters worse, your explanation was hardly neutral either. First people shouldn’t care because the girl was a stranger to them, and then it’s a bad thing they care for this girl while so many non-white, non-blonde, non-cute girls go missing without public notice. You turned it into a racial issue. I gotta tell you, THAT one was completely out of the blue for me. I don’t speak for anyone but myself, but I’m sure more people were caught off guard by that.
Truth be told, the responses to your post crossed the line as well. As you can see in my warning in that thread, I adressed those responsible for the harsh replies as well.
So, all in all, I’d say I wasn’t wrong to reprimand you (and that’s a fairly strong term in this case, anyway), but I hope the clarification satisfies you.
How about “Meatros Meatros-Gali”?
Well, Otto may be an asshat (I’ll not pass that judgement), but I think that putting it under his name, while hilarious, was an abuse of power. If a poster did that, they’d be banned quicker than a frog’s tongue.
Still funny, though…
I suppose that would do as well…
I’m still disappointed that I never saw that Saturday Night Live sketch… (I don’t remember it anyway)
Since it seems we’re finally getting to the nub of the matter after the (painfully hilarious) asshat hijack (and let me repeat that Otto is being an extremely good sport about it), I feel like I can weigh in here.
I totally identify with Otto’s sentiment on this issue. When my wife and I saw the “breaking news” that the girl had been found alive and (at least physically) unhurt, I said something to the effect of, “Well, that’s good news, I guess. …Doesn’t affect me personally in any way, but it’s good news for somebody.”
I am regularly perplexed about what qualifies as National News these days. Chandra Levy? Give me a break. Or, no, better example: The other night, one of our local 11:00 newscasts led off with a story about a 15-year-old girl who was out walking her dog when she was knocked down by a lightning strike within a couple of feet. She was temporarily deafened, and her hair frizzed out, but otherwise unharmed. Let me repeat: This was the leading story. Why? I have absolutely no idea.
So when the Smart kidnapping was big news last summer (was it just last summer?), I was a little confused about why it got so much play. Sure, I can see it as a major story in a three or four state area, as the media gets out the alert and the public keeps vigilant for people matching certain descriptions and whatever. I certainly didn’t need to know about it.
Does that make me callous? Perhaps. But what, honestly, is the point of my being informed of this? I live thousands of miles away. The odds of this event having anything whatsoever to do with my life are infinitesimal. It’s not like there’s even a broader lesson to be learned, as happened here within the last couple of weeks when there were two different teenage street-racing wrecks in which uninvolved, innocent people were killed. Yeah, it’s sensational, but it’s worth talking about, because it’s a stupid behavior that people should be aware can kill you. But Smart was kidnapped from her own bedroom; what can I, or anyone else, do to prevent that in our own lives?
(And don’t get me started on the Affleck/Lopez wedding or similarly trivial shit. I actively resent the brain space taken up by irrelevant celebrity gossip I am unable to avoid absorbing because of its sledgehammer ubiquity.)
So, again, when the news broke that the Smart girl had been found and returned to her family, my reaction was subdued: I can feel some measure of happiness for the family, but I was never that involved emotionally (and certainly not at all practically), so I didn’t join in the national orgasm of elation I saw happening around me. In that respect, I absolutely and totally identify with Otto’s sentiment.
However, I would think twice before I posted something like that in such a celebratory thread. I may think that outpouring of sentiment is kind of odd, and I may not want to have anything to do with it, but I certainly wouldn’t want to come in, trailing a little cloud of ice-cold judgement along with me. That’s my interpretation, by the way; I have no idea if that was the intent. It very well may be possible that the inquiry was meant innocently: “Why exactly are all of you having such an emotional reaction to something that touches your life only via the television?”
If it really weighed on my mind, I might consider starting another thread entirely, because as weird as I might find the phenomenon, I’d feel uncomfortable about trying to obstruct it or interfere with it in a location where it was clearly the norm. I might have started another discussion: “Emotional victory by proxy,” or “Vicarious relief and triumph, why?” or something, in the proper forum.
So, in short: Totally identifiable and understandable position, but perhaps not expressed with great sensitivity. Just my take.
That is what is missing lately…Elizabeth Smart single-handedly knocked these two knuckleheads out of the headlines.
Their is a God and she is sick of Affleck/Lopez, too.
That would be There
Nuts.
of all the mod pittings i’ve read, this one actually seems to have some merit. in this instance coldfire has played Thought Police and should be sent to Room 101.
klootzak
This is where we run into one of the fun things about this board, Doc.
You think Coldfire overreacted, and I’m amazed that he even bothered to type out that detailed explanation for something that should be painfully obvious.
Different strokes for different folks. Diversity. Putting up with total idiots until they cross the line.
That’s what I love about this board.