Bay 12 Games Forum

... sovereign political power, no, but political power overall... well, yeah. Vatican kinda' has just a titch of influence over the whole, y'know, catholic thing. Which is something approaching a seventh of the world's population. Like it or not, even if you're not giving nods to the religious aspect, treating with the political power involved with that is kinda' something congress would probably be well behooved to do. When someone fairly directly representing a substantial amount of the interests of a global population three times the size of the US comes to talk, probably a good idea to at least listen.

... yeah, okay, I might end up having to watch this thing when it comes out. Dwarf style mobile suit. I can dig the hell out of that.

... I'll give this much. If Mr. T had been the narrator of the great gatsby -- or, better yet, had been cast for the roll in any of the movies made about it -- it would have been a hell of a lot more enjoyable. Still would have been shite, but significantly less so. B-Movie instead of "Please let me gouge my eyes out so I can stop experiencing this."

Bloody hell. I'm not sure exactly what my cousin and his wife are smoking, but it's quite possibly the worst smelling cigarette stench I have ever encountered. You can tell they've visited because literally every room in the house -- and this is not a particularly small house -- that's not closed off, even the ones they haven't been in, smells more or less like shit. And not metaphorical shit. It's like an incontinent cow dragged its ass across every floor in the building. It's fucking vile, to the point of incomprehension. At this point I'm just wondering what the zog it is, because I've been around smokers off all stripes over the course of my life, and I've never encountered something this bad.

Not going to ask, though. That would mean being within talking distance, and the lingering malodorous shitestench is bad enough. They didn't smell like this even a year or two ago. What have they done? They're not even smoking inside the house, they just smell so bad I can actually pick up wiffs of it through closed goddamn door.

*scratches head* There's also the little thing where just about the only people claiming the kid "invented" a clock are folks attacking the situation. It looks similar to the contents of a commercial clock because that's where parts of it came from. Which was known from pretty early on, and there weren't really any attempts to obfuscate that, so far as I've been able to pick up.

... there actually was some refutation of the sources and arguments, including the whole thing about the case being misrepresented, and most of the rest of it... wasn't exactly refutable, because it was either baseless claims or irrelevant. They weren't meaningfully engaged with, if at all.

Multiple sources also don't help much when they're terrible ones, heh. They were a blog, brietbart (which the OP himself noted spins like crazy), and a smear piece on the kid's father from... someone. Requests for better or different ones -- which did happen, mind -- or questioning of the sources were met with derision or dismissal.

It looks to me like he tried to start a discussion in good faith.

If that looked like good faith to you, we've got very different understanding of the concept. The first post could be generously referred to as that (excepting, perhaps, that it was copy/pasted from elsewhere, anyway, and had other notable problems), but basically everything after that... wasn't. The discussion could have been handled gracefully, but the OP pretty much immediately (literally immediately, really, straight from the thread bumping second post and continuing with pretty much every post after either attacking another person in the thread, denigrating someone involved in the story's character, or something along those lines) started to try to drag the discussion into a fight instead of a conversation. Which happened, and people stopped taking things particularly seriously (to say the least).

Those who cannot handle good-faith, respectful discussions should not take part in them, and shitposting a thread to death should in no way be a way to get the thread locked or the OP banned.

That's true, at least the latter bit. Unfortunately for rex, it was more than just other people's actions that got them banned.

And @Rol (and points that came up while typing), unfortunately, being provoked ultimately won't prevent you from being banned. If you engage with antagonism with more antagonism, you get considered part of the problem. Pretty much the first bulletpoint in the forum guidelines. Considering rex both had a history of doing so, and explicitly stated in that thread that they were setting out to entice and give out said antagonism, well, the obvious happened. When it comes to stuff like this, the OP nets more of the blame -- they have the tools to stop dogpiles (locks, reports), and the responsibility to set the tone of the thread appropriately (by not escalating or sniping back if people are being offensive and reporting, as the guidelines specifically state to do). OP in that case failed on both points, which combined with other things lead to the ban.

... it's just. Look, folks. If you want to talk about stuff like that thread was, you can. You just have to handle it correctly. If you know you're going into a controversial topic, you can't let the tone of the discussion get dragged down. If you see it getting out of hand, you warn appropriately, possibly lock the thread of your own volition and report troublemakers if that's not enough, not contribute to the problem. As the OP, you have to manage the tone, start with and maintain decorum, and respond appropriately probably inevitable antagonism. Rex failed on absolutely every point of that, and as the OP and the one that took on the responsibility for the tone of the thread when they made it, got hit the hardest for doing so. Other people probably deserved warnings or mutes at the least, but the targeted ban wasn't particularly out of line.