Recent Bannings in Politics Forums since the regime change

[AlexM]

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As far as requests as to why yoiu were banned, I find it in poor taste to discuss why a particular poster was banned.

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Strange, I find it in poor taste not to say. It's like the government having a secret trial and throwing someone in jail without telling anyone what that person's crime was.

[Mickey Brausch]

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Recent Bannings in Politics Forums. So far I have:

valenzeula
pvn
Borodog

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I protest against these bannings.

I cannot imagine what Borodog, a college professor as I understand in his professional life, or pvn could have posted that would merit a ban. Without looking at the cards, I'm guessing something that riled a mod or two, or criticized the new regime.

We're having a nice day.

Mickey Brausch

[pvn]

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Recent Bannings in Politics Forums. So far I have:

valenzeula
pvn
Borodog

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I protest against these bannings.

I cannot imagine what Borodog, a college professor as I understand in his professional life, or pvn could have posted that would merit a ban.

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As far as I can tell, I asked a mod to follow the new "no hijack" rules (which I was later informed are "subjective") and take his political policy lecture he was beginning in the administrative thread and start a new thread with it, rather than to continue to derail the OP. He continued, I asked again, and my second post was deleted and I was banned. He still hasn't started that thread; apparently he prefers the lecture-only format instead of q-and-a type discussion. The telescreen is intended to deliver pronouncements of the glorious Leadership, and to monitor your behavior, it's not a vehicle for you to actually converse with your betters.

Borodog wasn't even that impetuous. As best I could tell, he was asking why rules were being formulated specifically for one political group (even though, ironically, the "example" given illustrating the "need" for one of those rules was an offense committed by a member of an almost diametrically opposite political group!). Further, it's pretty clear that the mods don't even know how long they banned him for. First it was a day, then 6 hours, then four days, then 9.6 hours.

Pretty tight ship they're running over there.

[pvn]

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So far I have:

valenzeula
pvn
Borodog

Any other bannings, or we just sticking to the ACists?

It would be nice if we were notified on who was banned. Put it in the sticky.

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I got banned again, for being "repetitive" by posting a new counter argument in a thread I haven't posted in since August of 2006.

EDIT: Oh, and the post was deleted, so you can't judge for yourself.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

I think one of the main problems in the Politics-forum is that the different posters have gotten so suspicious towards eachother, towards the mods and the site, always thinking that their opinions matter for what judgement is used wrt to banning/closing threads etc.. I realize that the rest of the site works well based on finding mods who execute good judgement, but for Politics I think the only solution is to make a long clear sticky explaining what is acceptable and not and reduce the room for judgments by the mods, this way people will feel fairly treated and ATF can be used for discussing the sticky. I am usually against such solutions, but I think this is an exception.

[BPA234]

This is long. Comments about Boro at the bottom, boring stuff about my ban at the top. Also, please note, I am not an ACr. I am an independent. I disagree with many of Borodog's political positions.

Although I regularly read the Politics forum, I was not aware that there had been some sort of shake-up. Quite honestly, being a big believer in, and supporter of, free-speech I did not think that there needed to be a regime change. But, whatever, not my place to tell the site how to run its business.

Unfortunately, my ignorance led to my first ever suspension. I made a one sentence joking reply to a post that Midge made about the present U.S. administration ( I am not a supporter of the present U.S. administration and neither is he). His OP was, IMO, inarticulate, poorly thought-out and ended with an ugly political implication.

Now I happen to like Midge, or at least his internet persona. He seems nice and he is obviously smart. Although I don't agree with much of his politics, I can easily respect his positions.

I chose to reply to his op with humor. My reply to Midge's post was, "Shouldn't you be out shooting pygmies?"

For that reply, I was banned for a day for a "personal attack". Now anyone with an 8th-grade education or who has watched cartoons as a child knows that Pygmies live in Africa and Aboriginal people live where Midge lives, in fecking Australia. I was leveling him when I referenced the Pygmies (obviously).

The woman and I on vacation with Pygmies



Aboriginal persons, so fecking obvious.






Pygmie reference not withstanding, clearly, my reply was a joke. Unless Midge was a convicted Pygmie killer or perhaps, a Pygmie himself, I see no way how my post could be construed as a personal attack.

So, needless to say, I was quite surprised that I had been banned.

Ironically, I found out that I had been banned while I was in bed in a Hyatt suite in Miami (drove down for a long weekend with my woman). After lots and lots of really, really good secks with my woman,

NSFW http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e3...hicks/army.jpg

(had to have been at least 8 or 9 minutes worth-this pic isn't her. But, it does look just like a girl I saw at the outlet mall, who I then obsessed about for 13.5 hours)

Anyway, I asked her to check my 2+2-PM's so I could see if I had received a response from a mod about a project that we are trying to get going in another forum (ie I support 2+2).

When she attempted to log me in, she started laughing and told me I had been suspended for telling someone to shoot a Pygmie. She laughed at me and said, "oh poor little school boy got in trouble with the hall monitor and got suspended." And then she laughed at me again. This was really humiliating and I was really crushed for like thirty-seconds.



Now, admittedly, this turned out pretty well, because after laughing at me, she wanted to play the stern teacher,
naughty school boy game.

This isn't her. But she looked just like this when we were playing the game.




We had never played that game before. Apparently, it consists primarily of an oral exam. Anyway, after that, I was really, really upset..honest.

Now, regarding Boro's ban:

Are you serious? Why in the world would you ban a guy who is exceptionally intelligent (as in genius), extremely well educated (PHD), and pedagogically gifted? Is it because Boro
thinks and writes on levels that eclipse most posters' capacities?

Politics is the articulation and manifestations of our core beliefs and most closely held ideas. Debate about them should be heated and passionate. The debates should be confrontational. The forum should be the crucible where weak assertions are crushed and destroyed and the strong are hardened and sharpened. There is nothing to fear in the exchange of ideas, no matter how intense the discourse.

There is, IMO, something to fear in the censuring and restriction of ideas. Particularly, when that censoring is a derivation of lesser people's attempts to impose their misguided interpretation of what for them is political debate.

As much as I make light of my own ban, I find Boro's ban to be extremely disturbing. Especially when one views what is presently passing for political debate on the forum; IMO, weak, pseudo academic ramblings of under-educated (relating to the specific subjects), overly-subjective posters.

The value of the site is driven by the number of members. The quality of the site is directly tied to the class of member who is reading and posting on the site. Why would you want to discourage and drive out those who are at the top of the class?

But, hey whatever, keep up the good work.

[ShakeZula06]

A+++ would read again! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

(still confused about the pygmie line though)

[bdk3clash]

What in the world did Mickey Brausch do to justify getting permanently banned?

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I permabanned Mickey. Mostly because of his past career as Cyrus that most of us are aware of, but partially because of continued snippy, sarcastic replies like the one JMan deleted above. That's not the kind of thing we're going to put up with anymore.

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(Iron81)

[jman220]

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What in the world did Mickey Brausch do to justify getting permanently banned?

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I permabanned Mickey. Mostly because of his past career as Cyrus that most of us are aware of, but partially because of continued snippy, sarcastic replies like the one JMan deleted above. That's not the kind of thing we're going to put up with anymore.

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(Iron81)

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That one came down from Mason Malmuth once we confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mickey Brausch was the same poster who used the perma-banned account "Cyrus."

[ShakeZula06]

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What in the world did Mickey Brausch do to justify getting permanently banned?

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I permabanned Mickey. Mostly because of his past career as Cyrus that most of us are aware of, but partially because of continued snippy, sarcastic replies like the one JMan deleted above. That's not the kind of thing we're going to put up with anymore.

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(Iron81)

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That one came down from Mason Malmuth once we confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mickey Brausch was the same poster who used the perma-banned account "Cyrus."

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What. The. [censored].

This sucks. MickeyBraush was one of the smartest politics and SMP posters. MB had to see this coming once Jman of all people became a mod, still waiting for Cyrus's anti-semetic posts BTW.
And i won't go into just how ridiculously stupid using "because of continued snippy, sarcastic replies" as part of the reasoning for PERMA-banning a poster. And don't try to use the "That one came down from Mason Malmuth" line. Not only is it required for either him, RB, or Mat to agree to it but Mason is far from a neutral party in this.

Just want to point out the coincidence (obviously nothing but a coincidence) that after Jman of all people becomes a mod MickeyBraush gets banned.

edit: Let me also point out the irony of Iron81 at the very least not publicly disagreeing with MB's banning, seeing as he was the original poster to don the "Save Cyrus" avatar back when Cyrus was banned.