Oh I also wanted to add that I like this idea–banning someone from a thread. I hate to see threads get closed for hijacking. Frankly it isn’t needed if the Moderators would stomp on a few fingers. I don’t understand why they just wouldn’t step in and say stop the hijack but they don’t (or rarely do). I see it happen in GD but not in the other forums. Too bad as often good threads get derailed by one or two posters. My two cents for what it is worth.
Why should people be prevented from responding to direct challenges or questions about their posts?
Direct questions about a post are one thing. That’s inviting discussion.
Direct challenges to the content of a post are also usually in the form of questions, or include quotations as to what is being questioned or challenged. Those also invite discussion. Maybe the discussion gets a little repetitive, but they’re still asking for it.
On the other hand, I think most people in these threads are saying that to their view, a simple disagreement, or a statement of a contrary opinion, do not constitute a “direct challenge,” and are therefore not worthy of a counter-post, especially if said counter-post consists **solely **of a re-iteration of the original opinion or statement.
I think that if it’s between ejecting a poster from the thread, or closing the thread, then ejecting a poster from the thread is a much better option. And it surprises me that this is being brought up as a new policy thing, because I personally wouldn’t be surprised to see a mod say such a thing as it is. I mean, generally they don’t, but it seems clear that if they wanted/needed to, they easily could, within the parameters of their existing mod powers.
Incidentally, if people want to bitch at Dio about his posting style, there’s a perfectly good ongoing Pit thread for that right now.
edit: here I am saying that people shouldn’t pollute this thread with recent examples, and I go and do just that. Sorry.
Gotta say that while I see an upside to LHOD proposes, I agree with Dio on this. It’s a bad idea. Moderators will have to keep an eye on not only what they keep an eye on now, but also, the particular behavior of those who have been “banned” from the thread. I think Dio is right in that it will be yet another way for unpopular (on SDMB) opinions to be marginalized. It’s akin to how Mods sometimes move stuff from GD to the Pit—as happened to one of Bricker’s threads recently—when it really wasn’t called for. Sure, an argument can be made for doing so, but the more of these gray area judgement calls you have the greater the propensity for a particular Mod’s opinion/bias to be injected into the debate in a way where it has more weight than it should.
It has almost NOTHING to do with popular or unpopular opinion. It has everything to do with how someone interacts/debates with other people. Most people that are tired of Dio ACTUALLY agree with his positions in general. Its not like he’s the only die hard Christian among a den of atheists or something (IMO). If this board isnt at least marginally about how to carry on reasonable , civilized, adult, informed, logical, and honest converstations/debates then the powers that be might as well sell out to youtube/4chan and take the money and run.
The trouble is that in most cases, “reasonable , civilized, adult, informed, logical, and honest converstations/debates” is defined by who agrees with your position. It’s very, very rarely the case around here where somebody says something that the majority disagrees with and doesn’t get called “stupid” or “moronic” or some variation thereof at the very least, or treated that way in forums where insults aren’t allowed. So the mods are going to be overrun by people who think that their opponents are stupidly and moronically derailing the thread, when in actuality all they’re doing is disagreeing with them.
And then there’s the question of drive-by snarking. The board is full of snarky drive-by swipes at conservatives and/or Republicans, but let somebody like Shodan come along and make one about liberals or Democrats, and he draws immediate accusations of trolling. So I can see the board’s mods being inundated with accusations of trolling every time a piece of offensive conservative snark gets posted, while identical behavior coming from the other side gets a pass.
IMO, the proposed rule may sound well and good on the surface, but in practice it will do little more than to quell dissent and make the board a much more boring and self-congratulatory place.
Then just quiting locking threads period and be done with it. IMO locking threads is the worst of the handful of options.
I think individual lockouts are a good, reasonable idea. It has nothing to do with dissenting opinion and everything to do with the way they are presented in reagards to getting good threads locked.
For someone who hates the term “Dio show” you sure love to sling “hive mind” around at the rest of us.
This is a stupid idea IMHO. LHOD, if reading some posts offends your delicate sensibilities, then perhaps participating in a messageboard isn’t for you.
Wow, talk about missing the point. The idea is to keep the thread from getting locked for the rest of us - not about our “delicate sensibilities”.
That’s not what’s being discussed here, so you’re threadshitting. If you’re not interested in actually discussing the suggestion, don’t post in this thread again.
Of course that’s what’s being discussed here. LHOD doesn’t want to read posts by certain posters in certain threads, so he wants those posters banned from those threads. That’s the entire purpose of his proposal–that’s what it does.
A thread being locked is not an inevitability–it’s not a law of nature that a thread that has been hijacked must be locked. If you don’t want threads to get locked on account of hijacking, then please take it up with the moderators. I’ve tried and I’ve failed (see a thread in this forum by me titled something like “modding for content”).
Every bit of my post was 100% on topic. LHOD’s idea is to prohibit a poster from posting in a thread. The reason LHOD would like posters banned from a thread is so that LHOD doesn’t have to read a post by that poster in that thread. There can be no other reason. It is the essence of his proposal–that another post from that poster not appear in that thread.
I think the idea that LHOD should be spared from having to read posts from that poster in that thread is ridiculous. There are all kinds of posters here who I think post useless drivel and aren’t capable of processing my responses to their drivel, so I just ignore them, don’t respond, and move on. I don’t think that they should be banned from this board or any particular thread. I think LHOD can do the same.
Why can’t you just ignore Cinderalla’s post? Her post has actually given you some useful information–that Cinderella is an idiot. And if she continually posts stuff like this in threads then she can be banned for threadshitting.
He’s never said anything of the sort. Right or wrong, he’s offered a reasonable defense of the idea. That’s more than I can say about your snide comment about his delicate sensibilities. You know better, or at least you should. Confine your personal commentary to the Pit.
What? I don’t understand what you are saying here.
He asked for opinions about his idea and I shared my opinion. My opinion is that we don’t need to make posts not exist just because he doesn’t want to read them.
There’s a saying, be open minded, but not so open that your brains fall out. We’re not talking about the normal give-and-take that goes on here, but one or two posters who post inflammatory things and continue fights that are counterproductive and only marginally on topic (if at all), then refuse to give it up after being told to ease off. We’ve all seen it; a thread that you eventually just give up on (or gets closed) because two posters just can’t quit grappling with each other. I’d support moderators breaking up their clinch and sending them to their respective corners.
You think I was talking particularly about you. You are wrong.
[/QUOTE]
Proverbs 28:1.
A thread is not a conversation in real life. Two people arguing back and forth online are not monopolizing the floor. They are not preventing anyone else from opining. They’re arguing with each other. It’s really not that hard to ignore two people who are arguing like that and if it’s more than two people, clearly the participants are more interested in discussing the bone of contention than whatever the OP wanted to talk about.
(I always imagine people who demand threads be closed are irritating people in real life.
So I bought a new brand of TP the other day; it’s pretty soft.
Ooh, is it the quilted kind? I love that stuff. The commercials with the old ladies are so funny. My grandma quilted me a comforter with scraps of my childhood clothes on it.
Grandmas? Quilts? WTF is wrong with you, we’re talking about TP dammit, why won’t you ever stay on topic?!)