Why do some of you people continue to engage with VFish? Don't you know it's futile? Are you really that bored? If you must reply to him, at least have the courtesy of doing it in a dignified manner, namely by posting pictures of kittens and puppies and other cuddly little creatures.
Guys - this is the only thread at least for now I'm reading in this forum (you may be safe from me elsewhere) but a couple of points - start responding with kitty and titty pics and I may go thermonuclear and turn off your access to the forum. I can deal with the fact that this board is filled with liberals, but I have a hard time if it's just going to be a juvenile mock fest of someone like vfish. He's entitled to his own talking points just as many here aren't exactly paragons of even, critical thinking. You want to use ignore - awesome - just shut the hell up about it.
He's not entitled to troll. Shall we have this dance again? You know what I think about this. Do I have to repeat it? Don't protect good trolls to the detriment of good posters. This place has already lost enough good posters because of that kind of attitude.
I know you don't consider it trolling. But that's only because your sense of what constitutes trolling has been set far, far too high for as long as I've known you. Oh, unless you're posting pictures of puppies and kittens -- then you're apparently on a hair trigger. That really rubs you the wrong way. But obdurate discussion destroying repetitive stupidity? Now that's kosher in your book. That you'll defend. And do so with threats. You really need to rethink the moderating priorities at work in this particular stand you're making here. Yeah, we've been over this ground many times before. Today I'll just leave you with some reading material.
Question: Is lying against TOS? If someone keeps repeating something that has been demonstrated as false, will they be carded?
I don't know if it's against the TOS, but if someone keeps repeating something that has been demonstrated as false then he is most certainly trolling. But dark knight will disagree with that.
First of all, that link is arguing for keeping high quality discourse - its not "in defense of juvenile and smug cat picture responses". Secondly, I would think you would know I'm not shy about "censorship". I was very willing to ban Richie if he hadn't chosen to leave because his contributions were of the type the article is addressing. What bothers me is that you only seem to mind blinkered party homerism when you disagree with it. So much of party politics is just posturing - he's lying, he's a socialist, etc. - if someone is putting forth views you don't agree with in this forum, a) debate the point, b) move on if no success, or c) use ignore if you can't help but get riled up. You aren't arguing for better discourse - you are arguing for elimination of viewpoints you dislike. In DC United, that's fine because the forum is for you in particular. In Politics, it's open to everyone. The day you fight for less homerism from all sides and argue for responding maturely to all posts is the day I take you more seriously.
And I posted it to remind you of that, because I quite frankly do think you have sometimes forgotten that you have a responsibility to protect (and foster) high quality discussion. Protecting trolls does not further high quality discussion. You should be "very willing" to ban or otherwise curb problematic posters more often. Perhaps you have changed over the years, but when I moderated I found you were usually the one standing in my way when I needed someone banned. If you have changed in that regard, then I would consider that a positive development. First, I'm not a member of any political party. And I've been a pretty vocal critic on this board of both of the major political parties. Second, this isn't about you and what bothers you. That's not a legitimate basis for moderating discussion. If someone repeatedly puts forth assertions that run contrary to established fact, if he is immune to correction and persuasion, and if he keeps up that schtick and continues to rile people up, then he's not engaging in discussion -- he's trolling. No, you are hiding behind "free speech" and the protection of "viewpoints" to defend trolling. (Seems you perhaps need to read that link I posted earlier again.) I have zero problem with people of a variety of viewpoints expressing themselves and engaging in productive, positive discussion. But that's not what we have here. You're also avoiding the issue by making this about me. Worse, you're actually excusing yourself from dealing with what I have said by engaging in things that approach ad hominem attacks upon my character. You're even making things up about me -- accusing me of party "homerism"? That's rich. Oh, and then you demand since I'm such an unrepentant homer for my party (which I don't have) that I change my ways and join you in your noble anti-homerism cause! Even richer. But I know it really upsets you when I call you out -- boy do I know.
Thank you for clarifying. In over a decade here I've seen a certain minority of people on both sides (not that there has been anything close to an equivalence, but in the spirit of non-partisanship I must point out that that neither side is 100% blameless) peddle the most thoroughly debunked and discredited bullshit here with zero consequences. I don't post here much anymore in part because I got sick of having to slap down the same disproved arguments time and time again. For a while, I even kept certain threads here bookmarked because I knew I'd see the same bullshit repeated here (usually by the same persons) sooner rather than later and I just copied and pasted the smackdown into the new thread. While that is more efficient than starting from scratch, it does get boring after the fourth or fifth go around. Usually (but not always) the worst offenders have removed themselves, presumably out of sheer embarrassment, but only after much wasted time and bandwith not to mention exactly the type of rancor and strife dark knight seems to think so damaging to the forum. Maybe if we weeded out the habitual liars (and yes, there IS a difference between being simply wrong and being a proven liar), then those who wish to engage in honest disagreement wouldn't have to waste their time fending off the same tired old thrice-disproved nonsense. Just a thought.
With all due respect, are you not seeing "liberal" and "far enough to the left of VFish to find him tiresome" as rather more equivalent than they actually are?
THE board, TPoints, THE board. What's the point of having a frivolous conversation amongst someone with all the power on the board vs. people with much less power over your own frivolousness if you don't have the decency to spell "THE" correctly? At least half-ass it with "teh" or "hte" or something, man!
Neither does responding to opinions you don't like with childish smug cat pictures. And then, when a moderator asks for it to stop with the intention of trying to protect higher quality discussion, you get all high and mighty about proper moderating -- in my humble opinion, this is horseshit of the highest order. I'm sure the moderators lack of action is what has spurred you to act like a juvenile, right? Yeah -it's safe to say you know nothing about how I hand out forum bans as in forums like USA, many folks think I've got almost Knave-like jackboots. I have also been known to often give lip service to your philosophy that forums rarely die from over-moderating - and I tend to agree with it. Good for you - but really pretty irrelevant. What you fail to acknowledge is that "trolling" only applies through the lens of a fan forum - there is no home team here. If vfish were saying what he's saying about GWB, I am doubtful anyone would have any problem with him. His main problem seems to be that he doesn't agree with the majority here. Like I said, I'm only reading this thread and there's obviously history here that I'm not in tune to, but I haven't seen anything that warrants complaints, aside from that creepy ornithology. I've never said anything about free speech - again you miss the point- but I have said that the likes of Richie would get a forum ban from me. This isn't about freedom to spew whatever crap you want. I did no such thing - I don't remember accusing you of party "homerism". I said it's only a problem when it's something you don't like. Never said anything about you having a party and it's beside the point. Pretty sure I'm the one who called you out, and you have yet to acknowledge that you were encouraging lousy behavior - which I thoroughly expect you to deflect next by blaming poor moderating. I'm not sure you really get the link you keep promoting.
See now - as someone who used to read long history debates by ratdog and others, I used to learn a lot from those threads and I think the forum is poorer if posters like you are being driven off. But I'm not totally convinced that it's habitual liars that keeps you away - maybe I'm way off but are you sure it's not more of a been there done that it's old now thing? Let's face it, politics debates don't go far when people reasonably agree - and I kind of think you know which posters are worth ignoring and which posters are worth trying to cut down to size, as it were.
Seems like a good philosophy - just not sure how practical it is - and not sure if moderators should be arbiters of what qualifies as factual analysis. For example, what set this off was: I disagree with this interpretation of the facts, and I disagree that the deficit is necessarily a big deal or entirely the president's fault, but when economists themselves can't agree on this stuff, how do you throw it out on lacking factual foundation?
I'm not sure I'm understanding your point? But I'm not married to any label in particular, just threw that out as a for instance.
I like having VFISH around, though I do think he is a little heavy on talking points. I do think you are remiss in worrying about "creepy ornithology" but ignoring the VFISH "Babs; show us your tits." post that began that stuff. I think fish is wrong, generally, but I think he adds to the discussion. Just one man's opinion.
Sorry - to clarify - I wasn't that serious with that remark and was trying to be clever by calling it that - it clearly creeped me out more than Babs.
I used to find Talking Points to be useful because it's always good to know what the right wing Internet talking points are. But then I realized he repeats himself a lot and it got boring and annoying. Still, I think talking point regurgitators aren't entirely useless.