Save the Board

[Moksha]

The best thing AM could do is go to a Quebec diner and order a bowl of poutine in honor of Trump. You can have your poutine and Trump without annoying the rest of the customers.

No need to stress out everyone on this board into making a heroic last stand. Thank you for being considerate of our desperation in wanting a degree of peace and sanity.

[Jersey Girl]

The best thing AM could do is go to a Quebec diner and order a bowl of poutine in honor of Trump. You can have your poutine and Trump without annoying the rest of the customers.

No need to stress out everyone on this board into making a heroic last stand. Thank you for being considerate of our desperation in wanting a degree of peace and sanity.

And what should the insane amongst us do? I went completely nuts today. Well maybe not completely but I got pretty close.

[Marcus]

The best thing AM could do is go to a Quebec diner and order a bowl of poutine in honor of Trump. You can have your poutine and Trump without annoying the rest of the customers.

No need to stress out everyone on this board into making a heroic last stand. Thank you for being considerate of our desperation in wanting a degree of peace and sanity.

And what should the insane amongst us do? I went completely nuts today. Well maybe not completely but I got pretty close.

Maybe just consider you got it out of your system in a (at least temporarily) safe place.

( I say ‘temporarily’ because I don’t believe for a second that the trolling is over. Unless Shades used some massive bribe, or simply plans to take over their log ins and have some double agent pretend to be them. People that unstable don’t simply calm down without help. )

[¥akaSteelhead]

Everyone putts the trolls on their respective 'foe" list. They exist in a virtual echochamber where the 3 of them exchange ideas with each other, but the rest of the civilized board moves on and doesn't feed them (give them any attention). Crisis averted.

[Chap]

Everyone putts the trolls on their respective 'foe" list. They exist in a virtual echochamber where the 3 of them exchange ideas with each other, but the rest of the civilized board moves on and doesn't feed them (give them any attention). Crisis averted.

Not really. When people visit this board on days when AM is letting splurging nonsense and insults in multiple threads, they are extremely unlikely to stay and become regular contributors.

In addition, there is a slow drip, drip loss of valued contributors who don't want to stay on a board whose owner is prepared to tolerate AM's nasty little games. If they don't stop pretty damn soon, that will include me.

[Marcus]

Everyone putts the trolls on their respective 'foe" list. They exist in a virtual echochamber where the 3 of them exchange ideas with each other, but the rest of the civilized board moves on and doesn't feed them (give them any attention). Crisis averted.

Not really. When people visit this board on days when AM is letting splurging nonsense and insults in multiple threads, they are extremely unlikely to stay and become regular contributors.

In addition, there is a slow drip, drip loss of valued contributors who don't want to stay on a board whose owner is prepared to tolerate AM's nasty little games. If they don't stop pretty damn soon, that will include me.

And just having a poster in your foe list doesn’t hide the nonsense threads they start that clutter up the ‘new post’ list, or the forum front pages. Also, those not logged in can’t block anything.

[honorentheos]

Hey, my TED Talk went into syndication.

There is always a distinction between freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas. The former is silent on the question of quality while the latter is, definitionally, reliant on there being both ideas and also interest in articulating/defending/engaging the ideas being presented. In functional societies the distinction is largely semantics as there are norms and values that discourage intellectual vandalism that has no more purpose than someone drawing a penis on everything they see because they just so happen to have a black Sharpie and no conscience. Where those norms and values no longer hold, or are not recognized, one is forced to confront this difference. Just as some may not advocate for violence and be for non-violence, it is no hypocrisy to recognize that threats to social order make demands that, goddess willing, are temporary and unfortunately needed to restore those norms and values.

I don't think the solution is to elevate someone to being the wielder of the board's ban hammer. Between the three active moderators we have, I feel all three are better than most in recognizing the dangers of personal bias and emotional reaction to sufficient degree that were all three to discuss and agree that an action were needed for the good of the board, they'd probably do better at it than our lone chief executive because, frankly, history isn't kind when it comes to having a great, all-powerful leader as the model. Plus, I suspect Res, Xeno, and Canpakes would likely seek the input of the community in making decisions that they would take quite seriously into consideration while also weighing the greater consequences of opening a particular Pandora's Box.

In short, the divide that is our board government should, in my opinion, be co-equal branches rather than a symbolic three-person executive acting out the will of a single person legislative branch.

Now, that doesn't really solve anything, in my opinion. It just bandages a critical, acute problem in the person of one distruptive poster who lacks coherent political ideological views. To the people they think they are speaking to reading the board but not participating, I'm sorry if you identify as a conservative and this person claims to represent you. It would be a terribly sad commentary on the state of American Conservatism were that true.

So many years ago, I spent a summer working as a herbicide/fertilizer applicator for a landscape maintenance company. It required taking a test to be licensed to apply herbicides commercially and was, as can be imagined, not too different in format from the test one takes to receive a drivers license. One thing that stuck with me from the experience was the overarching statement that the best defense against invasive weeds was a healthy lawn/landscape. Chemical remedies always came with negative additional effects, be they potential injury to desirable plants, killing helpful insects, build-up of toxins in the soils over time, or any other number of consequences.

Likewise, I do believe the best solution to the problem apparently of top concern is collective willingness to engage ideas. If the board is reduced to talking about talking about people, after passing through the threshold of just being a vehicle for talking about people, then there isn't anything really worth defending anyway, is there?

I'd be curious to know what books others have read recently? What places others have visited? What topic engaged them beyond a Buzzfeed headline or a quippy TicTok meme? What's new?

Last book I read: The Framer's Coup. Could I write more about it? Oh yeah. It's a book worth reading.
We spent some time up in Payson, AZ this winter that was a new place for us. Could I write more about it? Maybe.
Topic? The origins of Dubstep. Found out the artist Burial is my personal soundtrack.
Decided I wanted to play more D&D, found a local web group that I used to find a game and have been playing regularly with people I didn't know three months before. Won a couple of awards for work stuff. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, went on a roller coaster ride, prognosis very positive but not an experience I'd wish on anyone. She's a light in a dark world in so many ways.

I don't know. There has to be more to talk about than some dude who doesn't have anything more to say than the message board is an echo chamber while not being able to articulate a coherent argument for conservatism because he isn't one. I mean, dude wasn't Mormon enough to keep his dick in his pants long enough he could be worthy to serve a mission because that would be a sacrifice. And now he's an adult he's all pro-Mormonism and "God, Guns, and Anti-Gays" because again, don't ask him to do anything that is for a greater cause than his own adolescent narcissism. Privileged narcissism isn't conservatism. The only people who ever defended conservatism on the board, as an actual political ideology that wasn't some thin centered masking of their own self-interest and fear, rarely posted on this forum. American conservatism is largely lost. American liberalism isn't far behind. Political identity is not a basis for reforming a relatively healthy board culture.

Having ideas, being willing to engage in the exchange of those ideas rather than just talking about the poster involved? It's the only real, long term solution. People should really look inward and ask what they are posting that isn't just people talking about people talking about people. That problem is bigger and much more prolific than just dude. And that is what lets the weeds get a hold and take over.

[Res Ipsa]

Amen, and thanks.

[Philo Sofee]

Honorentheos
Having ideas, being willing to engage in the exchange of those ideas rather than just talking about the poster involved? It's the only real, long term solution. People should really look inward and ask what they are posting that isn't just people talking about people talking about people. That problem is bigger and much more prolific than just dude. And that is what lets the weeds get a hold and take over.

Well said. I like your idea...