posted
On a prior thread, which was deleted, you asked for people to tell you when you crossed the line and became "offensive." In that thread, you had promised to stop if someone would say that you had been offensive.
I took you at your word in that thread and asked you to stop. You didn't stop. The thread was later deleted by you or the moderators.
Recently, in a now locked thread, I had occasion to point out to you that you were being offensive again. You responded sarcastically.
On both occasions, I waited until you had clearly violated the terms of service on Hatrack before calling the behavior to your attention.
I note, also, that others must've decided that your behavior was offensive, and a violation of the TOS because they clearly must've hit the "whistle" button. At the very least the mods decided you'd crossed a line.
Here are my questions to you:
1) Do you intend to continue this behavior?
2) Are you going to stand by your word and stop when people tell you that you have crossed the line?
Here's the problem. I personally tend to just ignore what you have to say, but by your presence in threads you tend to cause good discussions to be shut down because the mods have little choice. It means, essentially, that your contribution (at least from my perspective) goes from being inconsequential and easily ignored to completely destructive of the thread, and thus the BB.
NOTE: I could care less about the conservative/liberal thing. You'll note that I don't even respond to you when you go off on that sort of tangent. So, while you are probably going to interpret this as an attack on your political stance, I assure you it is nothing of the sort. And I'm not picking on you for any other reason than that you are the cause of the untimely demise of two threads I was enjoying (except, of course, for your negative "contributions.") I'm sure some here find you a breath of fresh air or something. As I said, I only care because you so obviously know what the TOS say, and so purposefully violate them.
PS: I apologize to the rest of the Hatrack community and to our mods for making this personal thread. I just figured since GS had publicly asked to be told when he crossed the line, I would take him at his word.
I want to know if I should just stop investing in threads that have any controversial content and include a post by GS.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote: I'm sure some here find you a breath of fresh air or something.
As one of the resident right-wing nutjobs here, I'm not so sure. I find his posting style as tiring as you do.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
He also said he had done it by accident, not realizing that deleting the first post would delete the whole thread. If you're going to cite him, that's relevant.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
You are very correct, ElJay. I was merely pointing out that it is no longer a mystery -- we do know how it happened. I didn't mean to put any spin on it.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:what is the point of posting this in public?
Bob gave his reason in the very first post of the thread: GS asked for specfic information, he made the request in public, and he didn't specify that the fulfillment of that request be private.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:As one of the resident right-wing nutjobs here, I'm not so sure. I find his posting style as tiring as you do.
Agreed...even as a pinko commie liberal, I also find his posts tiring. In fact, I'm not even reading them anymore.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Bob gave his reason in the very first post of the thread: GS asked for specfic information, he made the request in public, and he didn't specify that the fulfillment of that request be private.
The absence of a request for privacy is not a *reason* for making something public.
A reason for making something public might be: to solicit the opinions of other hatrackers about General Sax.
(That's just one example.)
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I assume this is some personal attack thread from Bob, he seems to define himself as some sort of liberal attack robot for the list. I will not define myself as his adversary, I am not going to read this thread, nor do I intend to allow Bob try to pidgeon hole me and run me off with his barking.
I understand from a sypathetic poster that this is not atypical of Bob, he even ran Mr. Card off with his vitrol, so I am in good company as one he has tried to attack, but I will not be his next dance partner, sorry Bob, you are a neon sign, we know what you have to say, do not say it to me.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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That has got to be one of the funniest things I have ever read! Just keep this thread in mind whenever someone doubts our intentions about GS....he has done a better job of proving us right than we could have.
Cause you know....it's all a left-wing conspiracy......
Maybe this would be a good place to link to a photo of the gift OSC mailed you the April before last . . . Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
In any case, Bob, this thread was productive in that you received your answer. General Sax has no intention of changing his insulting posting style. Sorry, but Hatrack is not a place where you can become invested in political discussions. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Unfortunately, I've found that political discussions here (anywhere?) often start with an agenda, become intellectually dishonest, run in circles, and eventually hit the pavement at 90mph and shatter into a discussion of the Reagan years or something, in fact, anything that includes enough priveliged information and obscure information and name dropping to run off anyone who hasn't actually made their decisions already.
It's like asking a bunch of college students to discuss the art of kindergarteners: you end up with alot of "hey, look, this smiley face is obviously derivative of the film work of Jean Renoir... oh what you aren't familiar with Jean Renoir?? Then what are you doing in this discussion??"
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
May I just pop in and say that this thread is begging for an inappropriate dobie that I will not post (since I'd have to delete it ).
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by General Sax: I understand from a sypathetic poster that this is not atypical of Bob, he even ran Mr. Card off with his vitrol...
posted
It's true that political discussions are always a mixed bag. I don't tend to jump in unless I feel pretty strongly about something. Bob seems to feel pretty strongly about everything. However, apart from the thread drift, and the fact that many people are pushing an agenda more than trying to understand others, we still have often been blessed with a remarkably polite level of discourse. Between Baldar's departure and Bean Counter's arrival seems, in hindsight, to have been a "golden age" of sorts. (And not simply because it was in the past, because I don't view Baldar's and Ced's era with the same rosy-tinted glasses.) In the military/Bush thread, I noticed that the tendency of a handful of our newer members was to come in with insults before they had really engaged people in any other manner whatsoever. These are people who don't come looking to explain their point of view or to understand the other side, but to score points. You can see this in General Sax's posting style by his frequent disclaimers: "I know this is a liberal site, but . . . " He travels the Hatrack River like it's enemy territory, firing into the bushes on either side whenever he hears a sudden noise. I question his motives, and his interest in community.
The thing is, for better and for worse, that we're not a closed community, so churlish people who only want to unmake can come through, and we can only respond after the fact, and Hatrack responds in moderation. That can be good, because some people eventually get what it's about, and discover that they're not betraying their ideology by being polite. And so we often get some great new members in the long run, and we need fresh viewpoints in order to keep from stagnating. But it's a bad thing too, because some people just like to piss in the water we're all swimming in. :-\
Within limits, I don't think it's a bad thing when people who don't know how to behave civilly are called on it publicly--this is in response to the people saying this should be handled by e-mail. After going back and forth on this issue, I have decided I don't agree with those who think the tenor of Hatrack is cyclical in nature. I mean, sure, there are some minicycles, but I believe that it is certainly possible to lose the tone that drew us here, if we don't work as a community to reinforce it. New members join who have no sense of how we expect our conversations to be, and they see the "insult first, defend" later posting style, and they decide that this place is an arena for rhetorical gladiators to try to skewer each other with. Those who are looking for that stay, and those who are not, who could be great quality posters, leave. And as those who like polite discourse and seeking an understanding start to feel outnumbered, they start to leave, or to participate less, or only in fluff threads, and the effect snowballs. I think Hatrack can go to pot if we don't once in a while defend it by publicly criticizing those who can't follow the TOS and who can't behave like adults. It is necessary not just for their sakes, but for that of other posters, both new ones who aren't sure what to make of this place, and old ones who are wondering if anybody at all cares.
That being said, I don't know that a whole thread is the best way to do it. Nor do I know that it's not. I think that's a worthwhile discussion in and of itself. But no, I don't agree that all confrontations should be carried out in private. Honestly, why should they be? Sometimes, a person like General Sax needs to see that lots of other people find his posting objectionable, including those on his own side of most issues.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
As long as there are "sympathetic posters" out there who helpfully misinform our newbies based on perceived partisan alignments, this will be a particularly difficult battle.
May I suggest that the real problem is not ultimately with General Sax or anyone else who has the courage to engage in public discussion, however heated, but rather with lurkers and/or anonymous rabble-rousers who spread lies and half-truths out of dissatisfaction and ignorance -- lies which cannot be addressed or rebutted until someone, somewhere, finally repeats them in public?
Whoever YOU are, "sympathetic poster," you're the problem. Grow a pair and post, if you've got issues; don't poison the minds of our newbies against us, to the point that they approach the regulars on this site under the default -- and erroneous -- assumption that this is hostile ground. Because that assumption is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, like Resh's claim that all intelligent atheists condescend to him, and what you're doing by sniping at people from the shadows is actively seeking to undermine the civility and openness of this forum by creating a presumption of confrontation and opposition.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
But Tom, what makes you think whoever told that crap to GS was a lurker? Just because he was full of it? There are one or two non-lurkers I could evnision being clueless enough to get that wrong.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I must've missed the post where the prior thread's deletion was ascribed to an accident.
Sadly, it happened just after the last time I tried to engage GS in a discussion of his behavior, so I naturally assumed he did it on purpose because he had no answer for going back on his word.
I left the issue alone until I noticed that the same sort of violation of the TOS happened again and a thread that was at least somewhat interesting had to be locked.
I don't really care what GS thinks of me. My problem is that I have very limited time to post on Hatrack these days and I really hate to see it get wasted because someone repeatedly ignores even the most basic rules and forces the mods' hand.
In the past, several people have pointed out that if we don't work to keep Hatrack meeting at least some minimum level of discourse, it will degenerate and ultimately disappear.
We have wonderful mods here, but there's a point at which their ability to fix things is a choice between one disruptive course or another. No fun for them and no fun for us.
Gs is just the latest in an occasional series of people who come here and don't seem to catch on quickly and so blunder into territory that I would call purposefully destructive of the place.
Because of things that have been said to me about my complaints in the past, I have decided to take a more direct approach, especially when the behavior affects me and my enjoyment of Hatrack.
I personally could care less whether people dogpile on GS or not. I don't care whether he stays or goes. If he stays, I care that he behaves in a minimally acceptable manner so we don't have to deal with thread lock outs.
If he's not the only one, then I would hope that other people adopt a similar strategy to this one and call people on it.
In GS's case I did it in the open, publicly because he asked for us to. But, frankly, I was also pretty angry at his blatant TOS violation that caused things to go sour in the thread that got locked earlier. It could've gone any number of constructive ways, but his comments guaranteed that it would go only one way, and that ticked me off when I came in at the end of the day looking for how that thread was proceeding.
I have written to OSC and Mrs. Card on several occasions to apologize for things I've done on this site. I have also asked them if I should remove threads, posts, and/or myself. They are very gracious hosts and I have probably offended them a number of times and they've always been very forgiving.
If it matters any, I regretted posting this thread about as much as I enjoyed posting it. It's been a frustrating week, and my tolerance of aggressively pointless behavior is at a low point. GS is the recipient of my feeling like my time on Hatrack is more precious than ever, and then seeing him destroy a thread for no good reason.
I'm going to bed. I'll probably feel rather silly about this whole episode in the morning -- I'm 3/4ths of the way there now. I just KNOW I'm railing against someone's idea of a really funny alt screen-name or something.
Oh well.
Sorry to be such a pain.
I promise I'll try to be more fun or at least only post when I'm in a better mood.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Dr Strangelove: May I just pop in and say that this thread is begging for an inappropriate dobie that I will not post (since I'd have to delete it ).
I think I beat you to it. Posts: 1069 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: As long as there are "sympathetic posters" out there who helpfully misinform our newbies based on perceived partisan alignments, this will be a particularly difficult battle.
Sure. Assuming they're real, and not invented by GS to bolster his claims.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I'm not entirely sure what that has to do with anything.
Unfortunately, I know plenty of people (both IRL and otherwise) who make a practice of bolstering questioned claims with secondhand testimonials from experts who exist only in their own minds.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I try not to waste all my time on crap like thins, but I agree with Icky in that I feel that sometimes you HAVE to engage the people who make this place less than welcoming, even if it means getting involved in situations that you would rather avoid.
I think that if you fail to become engaged, to defend yourself and this site, then on some level you are responsible for some of what happens. Not to the same extent as the people saying objectional things, but at some level you should speak out against them, or at least against their posting styles.
You don't want to feel the trolls, or keep encouraging postwhoremongering, but if you don't speak out and defend yourself then there are a lot of people who may not understand that that type of behavior isn't tolerated or respected here at Hatrack.
I have a mixed bag of political views myself, so it isn't a US vs. THEM sort of thing to me at all. Some of the most conservitive people here are the people I admire the most. Not because I always agree with them, but because they defend their own beliefs, and because they don't try to diminish my own.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote: As long as there are "sympathetic posters" out there who helpfully misinform our newbies based on perceived partisan alignments, this will be a particularly difficult battle.
I think it's possible that GS just remembered the name that he was told incorrectly.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Even if he misremembered the name, the information itself was incorrect. Given OSC's fairly regular appearances on this site, any claim that he was "driven off" needs to address the fact that, if anything, his posting frequency has actually increased over the previous averages. OSC's not a particularly fragile guy, and it does him a disservice to suggest that he's somehow timid or easily cowed.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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