Dan, what did veer say that you construed as a threat? If it was so obviously a threat, why don’t you re-post it? Who took down the thread and why? What the #### are you so afraid of?
Honestly? An eternity of listening to your constant self-righteous barrage of ######## would frighten the hell out of me. You have a history of being as civil as the McCourt divorce, so let’s not throw too many big stones.
IOW, there was nothing threatening, and you’re afraid that everyone would see what a dickish move it was. Fantastic.
I give what I get Dan.
Who deleted the thread and why? Simple questions, all you have to do is answer. A libertarian who suppresses speech when given the opportunity. Priceless.
If I wanted to suppress your speech, I would have simply deleted you and the rest of the trolls here that seek every opportunity to turn a thread into a political flamewar. I’m good and tired with you and the rest of your ilk (you, something other, veer bender, tshipman) that seek to turn any topic into a political thread, act like complete dicks for thousands of posts, and then act surprised when someone else loses their temper.
You couldn’t *pay* me to answer *any* question oozing out of your claptrap.
It would be exaggerating to say I’m even a minor presence around here, so you can take this with however much salt you choose, but Dan you are quite literally making yourself look worse with every single post.
I will say that Dan is right about certain people “seeking to turn topics into political threads.” It has often been argued that sometimes threads “naturally get political” and it would be heavy-handed to cut short the flow of the discussion. But at least in recent years, that description has not applied to a very large percentage of the threads that end up being about politics.
Regardless of what ultimately ends up being decided about the future of political threads here, that is an issue that has to be addressed. (I would argue that if people come here with the expectation that this is the place you go to talk about politics, deliberate political hijacking is something that is inevitably going to happen, therefore, treat the disease rather than the symptom. But that’s just me.)
I’m good and tired with you and the rest of your ilk (you, something other, veer bender, tshipman) that seek to turn any topic into a political thread
I’m very careful to never do this, as I am aware of the people who don’t appreciate it on the site. You overuse “ilk,” as it refers to place, not persuasion.
That said, I think a thread posted about Starlin Castro being accused of rape was never destined to be a discussion on how it would impact his season. The vast majority of the “political threads” are transparently posted as such by Repoz.
That said, deleting that entire thread seems like it was clearly done to remove every trace of a discussion in which an admin apparently regretted participating, and to deny this is an insult to everyone’s intelligence.
Yes. And it’s even sadder that Szymborski won’t admit it. Like I said before, he’ll probably end up deleting this thread because of how poorly he’s acting in it.
There are about 6-12 posters, who are a tiny minority of the posters, who get unbelievably self-righteous upon any action taken, and I’m sick and tired of them. Whether explained or not, whether a closed individual post, or closing a thread to comments, or closing a thread entirely, they’ll ##### and moan like you just ran over their kids with your car. Frankly, I’m sick of placating these trolls, the 0.000001% of the readership that’s responsible for 95% of the ######## and moaning.
I don’t know where this is coming from.
I know for sure that I’m not the type of person you’re talking about. In the grand scheme of things, a thread closure is a minor nuisance. That doesn’t mean that you have to be some sort of hyper-reactive troll to complain about it. Especially when the solution is nuclear and punishes twenty or thirty posters having a 70+ page discussion that was generally quite civil for the actions of the most extreme few.
This is a free site and you can run it any way you’d like. You don’t owe me any explanation at all for any site policy, nor do you have any obligation to respond to issues in the least offensive way to me (or to any other participant). That said, I think I’m a pretty active member of the community here and that it is clear from my history that I try to treat everyone with respect. You could do me a personal favor (and not just me, but several other reasonable posters) if you would be willing to deal with problem posters in any of a number of less dramatic and more informative ways. The most serious issue that everyone has with thread closings is the way they are conducted: a thread simply disappears, with no notice and no warning, and posters are left to scramble for answers.
Or you could tell me to just leave if I don’t like it. I think that would be a rude and unreasonable response to someone who is an active and non-abusive member of the community, but you’re certainly entitled to behave in any way you’d like.
I’m good and tired with you and the rest of your ilk (you, something other, veer bender, tshipman) that seek to turn any topic into a political thread
I’m very careful to never do this, as I am aware of the people who don’t appreciate it on the site. You overuse “ilk,” as it refers to place, not persuasion.
That said, I think a thread posted about Starlin Castro being accused of rape was never destined to be a discussion on how it would impact his season. The vast majority of the “political threads” are transparently posted as such by Repoz.
This is the elephant in the room, and I’m glad that someone has finally brought it up.
We hear complaints about threads being “hijacked” into two major topics: Steroids and politics. And yet who’s the one person who instigates the great majority of these steroids and political threads by posting articles or columns that are blatantly steroid-oriented and / or political in their nature? Three guesses, and here’s a hint: His namesake was a scrub for the Yankees in the late 60’s.
If the admins really envision BTF as being little more than a site for sabermetric discussions, then more power to them, but if they think that only “6 or 12” Primates are interested in broadening these discussions, they’re seriously mistaken. I’ve posted more than a few articles on baseball history, and they get almost zero comments. Repoz puts up the 55,903rd pinata post on Barry Bonds or Luke Scott, and bingo! Maybe this is a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, but that’d be a lot more believable if one of the admins wasn’t himself one of the most prolific (and opinionated) posters on many of the political threads. And yet from his comments here he’d have us believe that The Devil Made Him Do It. That’s a strange thought coming from someone whose political philosophy emphasizes personal responsibility, but then this whole incident has had more than its share of strangeness.
There are about 6-12 posters, who are a tiny minority of the posters, who get unbelievably self-righteous upon any action taken, and I’m sick and tired of them. Whether explained or not, whether a closed individual post, or closing a thread to comments, or closing a thread entirely, they’ll ##### and moan like you just ran over their kids with your car. Frankly, I’m sick of placating these trolls, the 0.000001% of the readership that’s responsible for 95% of the ######## and moaning.
I don’t know where this is coming from.
It’s coming from reality. After basically every thread closure, deletion, or foruming, people who were just insulting each other will all rush into the most convenient thread to complain how unfair it is that what they claim was such a remarkably civil thread filled with nothing but the most wonderful and insightful discourse was shut down. That you haven’t noticed this before is absolutely stunning. It’s been like that here for years.
It’s coming from reality. After basically every thread closure, deletion, or foruming, people who were just insulting each other will all rush into the most convenient thread to complain how unfair it is that what they claim was such a remarkably civil thread filled with nothing but the most wonderful and insightful discourse was shut down. That you haven’t noticed this before is absolutely stunning. It’s been like that here for years.
I’m not sure if you were involved with this particular thread, but it really was remarkably civil for a 7000+ post thread. I don’t think I’ve made that defense often in the past.
I’ve seen threads that have degenerated into little more than name-called, and even occasionally commented on them to that effect (“hey, if this doesn’t get toned down now, this thread is going to be closed”). That’s not this one.
If anything, this thread was an example of two things:
1) Dan shouldn’t get involved in political threads at all (a bummer, because he often has very interesting things to say) because even if he’s entirely in the right in deleting comments and/or closing threads, he cannot possibly come off as behaving fairly.
2) As usual, strong behavior generates strong responses. Comments in the thread were deleted, which started to derail a perfectly functioning thread. Just as the problem was fixing itself despite the unnecessary comment deletion, the thread was eliminated with no notice or warning.
When there is a particularly heavy-handed response, applied in an arbitrary fashion, without explanation or warning, it is silly not to expect a reaction. People asked in Jim’s lab note thread and on his request, the discussion quickly moved to the forums.
There are clearly political threads that are open right now like this one and this one. There is no way anyone could possibly think these were going to be pure or even primarily baseball discussions.
Or you could tell me to just leave if I don’t like it. I think that would be a rude and unreasonable response to someone who is an active and non-abusive member of the community, but you’re certainly entitled to behave in any way you’d like.
Just my opinion, of course, but this is a nice little community here; and I do enjoy reading the exchange of ideas and viewpoints. So if you guys are going elsewhere, I’d appreciate if you would leave a forwarding address to whatever board you do wind up, just so that I’ll know where to find you all.
There are about 6-12 posters, who are a tiny minority of the posters, who get unbelievably self-righteous upon any action taken, and I’m sick and tired of them. Whether explained or not, whether a closed individual post, or closing a thread to comments, or closing a thread entirely, they’ll ##### and moan like you just ran over their kids with your car. Frankly, I’m sick of placating these trolls, the 0.000001% of the readership that’s responsible for 95% of the ######## and moaning.
I don’t know where this is coming from.
It’s coming from reality. After basically every thread closure, deletion, or foruming, people who were just insulting each other will all rush into the most convenient thread to complain how unfair it is that what they claim was such a remarkably civil thread filled with nothing but the most wonderful and insightful discourse was shut down. That you haven’t noticed this before is absolutely stunning. It’s been like that here for years.
I have no idea where you’re getting that about this recently Mercaderized thread. The “insulting” phase in this case was instigated by Dan with his comment about teachers, but left to its own device, that temporary quarrel would likely have died a natural death and the thread would have been re-directed back to normal. Prior to that, we had many 100% civil exchanges among people who seldom agree on anything, including some involving Dan himself. The fact that some people seem to take offense at political threads is of no more or less significance than the fact that others are tired of threads being taken over by discussions of beer, fast food, movies or music, or that others are tired of every baseball history discussion being hijacked into a series of dueling micro-statistical spreadsheets. There’s enough bandwidth for everyone here, or would be, if only the admins could simply learn to cool it.
Jolly Old St. Neck Wound, Moral Idiot - 19 February 2012 10:30 PM
There’s enough bandwidth for everyone here, or would be, if only the admins could simply learn to cool it.
And that “bandwidth” is located here, in the spot that the admins created for the specific use of those who want to engage in political discussion on a baseball site.
I’m good and tired with you and the rest of your ilk (you, something other, veer bender, tshipman) that seek to turn any topic into a political thread, act like complete dicks for thousands of posts, and then act surprised when someone else loses their temper.
This is simply not true and completely unfair in regards to whom it is specifically directed to, formerly dp.
Also, this was posted by Dan about two years ago, in response to questions about political thread closures:
We’ve reached the point at which the nastiness and visibility of political threads is hurting our reputation in the larger media community. Yes, our political threads are generally more polite than Freeper/Kos threads, but we’re not a political site and it’s not what we wish to be known for.
Other off-topic threads haven’t been moved for the simple reason that they don’t require constant babysitting - there’s little chance a thread that turns into Star Wars or classic movies is going to have a couple of people throw bombs and then get 100 posts of people yelling at each other in an hour.
I’m just a lurker, but I love reading the political discussions here. It’s one of the few places on the Internet where there are smart and articulate people on both sides. Perhaps I’m just a moocher, letting Jolly Old St Neck Wound and Ray DiPerna provide me with hours of thought-provoking entertainment in exchange for nothing in return, but on the other hand I doubt there are enough people with the stamina to participate in those kinds of discussions, anyway. So any number that’s based on the number of consistent posters in the political threads can’t be anywhere close to the number of people who benefit from them.
Like some others who’ve spoken up (the forums are no good for referencing prior posts, so I apologize for forgetting your names) I was using and was planning to continue to employ the Castro thread as a tool for reference and for the better construction of my own arguments. To delete it without warning does us all a disservice.
I second Downtown Bookie’s request - if the political arguments on BBTF go somewhere else, I’d consider it a great loss to the site, and would very much like to continue to read them elsewhere in the event that they move. I can hardly be the only lurker who feels this way.
Also, this was posted by Dan about two years ago, in response to questions about political thread closures:
We’ve reached the point at which the nastiness and visibility of political threads is hurting our reputation in the larger media community. Yes, our political threads are generally more polite than Freeper/Kos threads, but we’re not a political site and it’s not what we wish to be known for.
Other off-topic threads haven’t been moved for the simple reason that they don’t require constant babysitting - there’s little chance a thread that turns into Star Wars or classic movies is going to have a couple of people throw bombs and then get 100 posts of people yelling at each other in an hour.
Are you attempting some sort of parody? That statement may as well never have been made given the events of the last two years. It is worthless.
Same for pointing people to the forum section designated for such talk.
