Are you serious Inks?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I sure wish I could just do away with any thread that doesn't meet my standards.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Another option, a more "moderate" one , might have been just to cull those posts deemed beyond the pale, rather than freeze the thread sinking it into oblivion. But that can get labor intensive. But in the end, part of the job of being a mod is being a good politician.  One just cannot wholly escape that.

The whole idea of the thread was one of ultimately insulting other people, something that opebo and others really brought to my attention and convinced me of over recent months on The Atlas board.

Plus, that thread had too many problems, and when you have to delete over a page of crap - it's time for the thread to just be put to rest.

How are we better off with a forum that respects stupidity?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Another option, a more "moderate" one , might have been just to cull those posts deemed beyond the pale, rather than freeze the thread sinking it into oblivion. But that can get labor intensive. But in the end, part of the job of being a mod is being a good politician.  One just cannot wholly escape that.

The whole idea of the thread was one of ultimately insulting other people, something that opebo and others really brought to my attention and convinced me of over recent months on The Atlas board.

Plus, that thread had too many problems, and when you have to delete over a page of crap - it's time for the thread to just be put to rest.

How are we better off with a forum that respects stupidity?

Stupidity is subjective. And the forum is supposed to encourage a civil atmosphere, not bullying.

And quoting a post in that thread was merely an expression that you believe what a person said is absurd- not bullying, in any way.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Another option, a more "moderate" one , might have been just to cull those posts deemed beyond the pale, rather than freeze the thread sinking it into oblivion. But that can get labor intensive. But in the end, part of the job of being a mod is being a good politician.  One just cannot wholly escape that.

The whole idea of the thread was one of ultimately insulting other people, something that opebo and others really brought to my attention and convinced me of over recent months on The Atlas board.

Plus, that thread had too many problems, and when you have to delete over a page of crap - it's time for the thread to just be put to rest.

How are we better off with a forum that respects stupidity?

Stupidity is subjective. And the forum is supposed to encourage a civil atmosphere, not bullying.

And quoting a post in that thread was merely an expression that you believe what a person said is absurd- not bullying, in any way.

When you put up in lights a post of a poster which you are characterizing as "absurd" or whatever, it certainly has the potential of hurting the feelings of the subject poster. I mean, if in a thread you said, hey Torie, your post is just absurd (!), without more, could that not be deemed a personal attack?

Whatever your views of the merits of the thread, it strikes me as certainly reasonable to deem that as one of its liabilities on its overall balance sheet. Then it is a matter of deeming just how much of import that liability is. In the end, all of this stuff involves judgment calls at the margin. From afar, one might deem the appropriate approach obvious, but inside the ring, with all the constituencies to please, Dave's expectations, the collateral damage to those from whom blood is drawn, and so forth, I suspect sometimes the answers are not all that obvious.

It's not necessarily a personal attack, but an attack on the alleged absurdity in general.  Of course people are free to disagree with certain posts being quoted in that thread, but as I said, it is merely an expression of opinion.  And if the author of the comment being quoted doesn't agree that their post belongs in there, they are welcome to object to it or ignore the thread entirely.  As long as someone is not openly bashing one another, I don't see what's very damaging about quoting a post, especially since this is a board where we deem users as "horrible people" through means of showing disapproval.  And by closing that thread, people are being censored of that particular way to object to something.  The definition of "personal attack" is stretched far too much to the point that we are discouraging criticism.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Another option, a more "moderate" one , might have been just to cull those posts deemed beyond the pale, rather than freeze the thread sinking it into oblivion. But that can get labor intensive. But in the end, part of the job of being a mod is being a good politician.  One just cannot wholly escape that.

The whole idea of the thread was one of ultimately insulting other people, something that opebo and others really brought to my attention and convinced me of over recent months on The Atlas board.

Plus, that thread had too many problems, and when you have to delete over a page of crap - it's time for the thread to just be put to rest.

How are we better off with a forum that respects stupidity?

Stupidity is subjective. And the forum is supposed to encourage a civil atmosphere, not bullying.

And quoting a post in that thread was merely an expression that you believe what a person said is absurd- not bullying, in any way.

That's not how it was used. In fact, people used to sometimes put up posts in the comedy goldmines that didn't actually belong there. The Deluge was made for those posts. I never considered it to be a good thing.

It was a way of pointing at someone and going "haha, look at this moron"

And it tended to be used by people to score points against their personal or political enemies instead of actually engaging in discussion.

And based on the few interventions Dave has made historically, his standards for tone and conduct are way, way beyond what anyone here can imagine.

There is also a difference between good-natured fun and mean-spirited bullying. There has been way too much of the latter on here.

Quoting a post is not bullying; this is why I think the terms "personal attack" and "bullying" are stretched way too far here.  If I were to quote a person directly and say, "You're a moron.  Go f**k yourself and shove your ridiculous opinion up your ass," then I see how that could be construed as bullying.  But members of this forum (who are actually required to say they meet a certain age requirement before joining, if I remember correctly) are generally mature enough to handle seeing one of their posts in a thread like that.  And even if something as harmless as that is too bothersome, they don't have to look at the thread at all if they wish.  And speaking just from personal experience, I have had a post of mine put in that thread before by someone who I generally get along with here; they did not do it as a way of engaging in "mean-spirited bullying."

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I don't think I claimed that every post there was. But it very often was. It's bullying because of the pile-on effect. And because you're not allowed to defend yourself in threads like that. (If you do you will be met by comments such as "good thing you're posting directly into this thread now, haha")

You don't think telling a poster that he should post directly into a thread devoted to bad and stupid posts constitutes bullying or a personal attack? Because I do.

It's basically a thread devoted to public shaming. Look at this guy and his idiocy. It's not mature and it encourages a poor attitude to other posters.

Well, frankly, you don't have to defend yourself in Deluge thread itself; you can do it in the thread that the post was made in.  Personal attacks have occurred on this board, but I don't see why that means an entire thread has to be locked, especially since most of these cases involved trolls simply getting a reaction for the things they say.  If a certain user persistently attacks another user personally, they should be dealt with on an individual basis.

It was a thread devoted to public expression of disagreement, not very different in the way that FF/HP threads are devoted to public expression of approval/disapproval of a certain user.  Now, I'm not saying that FF/HP threads should be banned, too- as that would be equally ridiculous- but they both serve the same purpose.  As this is a political board, such should be expected.  People who don't like the way others respond to their comments have the option to ignore posts a certain user makes, not read threads like the Deluge, or simply log off.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I'm just going to say, I have a strong feeling that posts that would normally be posted in the Deluge are just going to get posted in the Institute.  If that thread gets locked as well, I will abstain from posting in either the Forum Community or Off-topic forums.  I encourage others to do the same.