# Yo, Czarcasm-what's the problem?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 22, 2008, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380 "2008-07-22T16:08:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/1 "2008-07-22T16:08:40Z")
Mod underoos too tight and pinching your sack? So what if **scrambled** starts threads and doesn’t come back to them? Is that a new rule? If so, cite. If not, chill the hell out. Even if he/she doesn’t comment, other folks who pay to use this joint may wish to enjoy and participate. So what if he/she annoys you and/or others? If being annoying is a basis for smackdowns, let’s just close this shop and get it over with. BTW, you don’t have to do dick to leave a thread open. You do have to act to close it, so your logic fails, dismally.
Related to thread closings [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=476436), and[here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=476217).
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### Author:  [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/2 "2008-07-22T16:18:38Z")
scrambledeggs was banned about a minute ago.
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/3 "2008-07-22T16:22:45Z")
[QUOTE=x-ray vision]
scrambledeggs was banned about a minute ago.
[/QUOTE]
For what? Failing to participate in his threads as much as the staff would like? There’d better be a more convincing reason than that.
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### Author:  [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/4 "2008-07-22T16:23:02Z")
Yea, that was kind of weird. **Czarcasm** did ask the OP a direct question and was ignored, but it wasn’t like it was a life or death issue or anything. If this was part of a “slow down on starting threads” campaign against **scrambledeggs** I could see it, but “because you didn’t come back/reply”? When did that become a criteria?
Enjoy,
Steven
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/5 "2008-07-22T16:24:46Z")
[QUOTE=danceswithcats]
Mod underoos too tight and pinching your sack? So what if **scrambled** starts threads and doesn’t come back to them? Is that a new rule? If so, cite. If not, chill the hell out.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed.
If participation in one’s own OPs is _de rigeur_, go ahead and codify it. IMHO, there’s nothing wrong with kicking off a discussion and stepping back.
And **scrambled** has, in fact, started participating in others’ threads – the first, closed “why fat folks in opera?” thread was one.
EDIT: just had a thought – did the mods find out that he/she was a returning sock or something? The apparent reasons for **scrambledeggs** ’s banning are very, very flimsy.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/6 "2008-07-22T16:29:09Z")
[QUOTE=x-ray vision]
scrambledeggs was banned about a minute ago.
[/QUOTE]
Suspended, actually.
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/7 "2008-07-22T16:29:27Z")
There’s a brief ATMB post with some warnings linked:
[QUOTE=Marley, in a closed ATMB thread]
**Scrambledeggs suspended for one month.**
Member scrambledeggs has been suspended for a month because of a ridiculously comprehensive history of starting threads and ignoring them. His posting history shows 100 threads started in barely a month, and he made repeat appearances in few of them despite repeated advice and suggestions that he do so, followed by warnings. He was also warned about ignoring the forum descriptions, which are not hard to learn.
[/QUOTE]
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### Author:  [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/8 "2008-07-22T16:30:33Z")
[QUOTE=bordelond]
**scrambledeggs** ’s banning
[/QUOTE]
Suspension. It shows up as BANNED until an admin can go in and change it.
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/9 "2008-07-22T16:31:18Z")
Well … what does the house think of “willfully (?) posting threads in the wrong forum” as a reason?
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/10 "2008-07-22T16:32:30Z")
[QUOTE=danceswithcats]
So what if **scrambled** starts threads and doesn’t come back to them? Is that a new rule?
[/QUOTE]
It may not have ever been codified as a rule, but it has always been _massively_ annoying from Day One on these boards–people who start threads and then never come back to them. This is because starting a thread is basically an invitation to converse, and people who start threads and then never (ever) come back to them are like those people who constantly make non sequitur remarks and then wander off while you’re still formulating your response, which results in your addressing your response to their retreating backs.
As I said, majorly annoying. Not a bannable offense, though, and I have no idea what’s going on with Scrambled Eggs. But I’m just sayin’, it has always been sorta understood here at the Dope that if you start a thread, you have the courtesy to come back at least once and respond to the folks who responded to you. Because otherwise, it’s…rude, in some indefinable 21st century Internet way.
P.S. I’m not including the GQ questioner who honestly forgot he asked a question; that’s different. I’m talking about the conversation-starter threads that never hear again from the instigator of the conversation, leaving the other participants to talk amongst themselves.
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### Author:  [@DudleyGarrett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DudleyGarrett)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/11 "2008-07-22T16:32:45Z")
This place has enough rules that are written. Shirley we don’t have now adhere to _unwritten_ rules, do we?
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/12 "2008-07-22T16:33:31Z")
[QUOTE=bordelond]
Well … what does the house think of “willfully (?) posting threads in the wrong forum” as a reason?
[/QUOTE]
Once you’ve been warned about it, repeatedly no less, you’re just being a jerk, and that’s a ban-worthy offense last I checked.
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/13 "2008-07-22T16:37:25Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
Suspension. It shows up as BANNED until an admin can go in and change it.
[/QUOTE]
Noted – missed the edit window. No harm.
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/14 "2008-07-22T16:37:30Z")
[QUOTE=bordelond]
IMHO, there’s nothing wrong with kicking off a discussion and stepping back.
[/QUOTE]
Sure–as long as the discussion takes off. This is much less of a problem in GD than in other forums, where there are plenty of people to pick up the conversation.
But posting miscellaneous thoughts in CS, IMHO, or MPSIMS is like wondering aloud about random things to your car pool, and not coming back to the thread to see what anyone said back is like ignoring anything your car pool has to say in rebuttal, as you stare obliviously out the window or go back to your texting. Annoying as heck. If you don’t want us to talk to you, don’t initiate a conversation.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/15 "2008-07-22T16:38:27Z")
> [@danceswithcats](#):
>
> Mod underoos too tight and pinching your sack? So what if scrambled starts threads and doesn’t come back to them? Is that a new rule? If so, cite. If not, chill the hell out.
Read the ATMB thread on this topic, please - either mine announcing the suspension, or better yet, the questions about why some of his threads were being locked.
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> This must be confusing if people aren’t familiar with this situation. **scrambledeggs** starts about four threads a night and almost never returns to post in any of them, and has continued doing that for about five weeks. He’s got 168 posts over the last month and 100 of them are OPs. A majority of the time he ignores his threads after starting them. There is no rule requiring people to return to their own threads, either immediately or ever, and we aren’t making one. That is not how this should be interpreted. I’d say it’s expected and considered polite to stay involved in your own threads, but if an OP doesn’t come back for whatever reason, it’s not a big deal. People will call an OP on it in a debate thread or pitting, or if a story seems incomplete, but regardless life goes on. And there’s no rule about how many posts or how often anyone can start threads either.
We are not nailing this guy on a technicality. He’s been posting like an idiot for a month and it was repeatedly (politely at first) called to his attention in emails and PMs from me, and later from **Invisible Wombat**. He ignored it and so we dealt with it. People are free to do what they want with their own threads. If you don’t want to return to one for whatever reason, you’re allowed and making a rule to force you to make another post would be moronic. If you’re going to do that over and over again _100 times in a month_, then it’s reached a stage where we’ll deal with it. I’d rather deal with an exceptional case that way then make a lot of other dumb rules. Most people have the good sense not to do this kind of thing over and over again, especially after a mod has asked them repeatedly to stop doing it. **scrambledeggs** didn’t have that sense. If he gains it during his suspension, great. If not, it’s his choice.
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### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/16 "2008-07-22T16:56:45Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23]
Read the ATMB thread on this topic, please - either mine announcing the suspension, or better yet, the questions about why some of his threads were being locked.
[/QUOTE]
Kindly go back and reread my OP, which was posted 17 minutes _before_ any announcement on ATMB. I pitted **Czarcasm** for closing threads, merely because the OP hadn’t returned to them, which breaks no board rule.
> [@](#):
>
> We are not nailing this guy on a technicality. He’s been posting like an idiot for a month and it was repeatedly (politely at first) called to his attention in emails and PMs from me, and later from **Invisible Wombat**. He ignored it and so we dealt with it. People are free to do what they want with their own threads. If you don’t want to return to one for whatever reason, you’re allowed and making a rule to force you to make another post would be moronic. If you’re going to do that over and over again _100 times in a month_, then it’s reached a stage where we’ll deal with it. I’d rather deal with an exceptional case that way then make a lot of other dumb rules. Most people have the good sense not to do this kind of thing over and over again, especially after a mod has asked them repeatedly to stop doing it. **scrambledeggs** didn’t have that sense. If he gains it during his suspension, great. If not, it’s his choice.
Whatever. You gave him 30 days in the box for being annoying. That’s fucking lame, as well as capricious, IMO.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/17 "2008-07-22T17:01:22Z")
[QUOTE=danceswithcats]
Kindly go back and reread my OP, which was posted 17 minutes _before_ any announcement on ATMB.
[/quote]
Whoop de fucking do. You can now read the threads in question and learn more about the situation. Is that a big problem now?
> [@](#):
>
> Whatever. You gave him 30 days in the box for being annoying. That’s fucking lame, as well as capricious, IMO.
Capricious my ass. We asked him to pick the right forums and come back to his own threads now and then. That’s not capricious at all, it’s what everybody else here does. But for him, it was a big problem and he took it to an extent that was idiotic. I couldn’t have imagined ever need to warn somebody for posting threads in the wrong forum or for ignoring his own threads. You’d have to be either a total idiot or a jerk to take it to the degree **scrambledeggs** has.
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### Author:  [@Who\_me\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Who_me_1)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/18 "2008-07-22T19:07:47Z")
[QUOTE=DudleyGarrett]
This place has enough rules that are written. Shirley we don’t have now adhere to _unwritten_ rules, do we?
[/QUOTE]
We always HAVE had to follow the unwritten rules too, it’s not like this is the first time something like this has happened. And for one, I have no problem with it.
And don’t call me Shirley…😉
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/19 "2008-07-22T19:24:39Z")
[QUOTE=DudleyGarrett]
This place has enough rules that are written. Shirley we don’t have now adhere to _unwritten_ rules, do we?
[/QUOTE]
Don’t be a jerk, don’t call each other names outside the Pit… there’s the quote rule… is it really that confusing to post here? I don’t think it is.
As I said in the ATMB thread, I’d prefer to deal with it this way rather than trying to make larger numbers of specific rules that jerks would then try to lawyer their way around. (“I made a second post in my thread- I quoted the second poster and said ‘Huh?’ Are you telling me I have to post in my threads a certain number of times with a preset word count? What percentage of my threads must I return to? What proportion of threads can I start in the wrong forum before you are allowed to suspect I’m doing it on purpose?”) List goes on.
This is the kind of situation that realistically, we shouldn’t need a rule for. Common sense is good enough, and if we set rules on it, I think we’d be insulting everybody’s common sense.
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2008, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yo-czarcasm-whats-the-problem/457380/20 "2008-07-22T19:27:38Z")
Most of the ‘unwritten rules’ around here are just specific instances of ‘don’t be a jerk’.
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