Who's on the MAD Chopping Block?

[_beastie]

No doubt, it's fort. This is a gimmie.

I predict the mods will back off the dude a bit, since he is liked by so many on the board harassing him won't fly.

Sethbag may continue to be pestered, but whether or not he will be banned or get tired of the harassment and leave of his own accord, or just stay and make the effort to speak as blandly and politely as possible is up in the air, as far as I'm concerned.

You know what's funny about this extra stringent censoring of critics is that the board will end up having only uber polite and on-topic critics, the kind willing to modify their statements rigorously to strip them of any possible offense, and still will have the same rude, sneering believers it has today. Imagine newbies wandering onto such a board, where the only misbehavior obviously comes from the believing side of the divide.

Whatever happens, I will continue to watch with amusement. My amusement, by the way, has nothing to do with antipathy towards the LDS church, but everything to do with antipathy towards certain vocal apologists who are going to deserve the board they are creating - and the one thing I'm willing to bet on is that the board they end up creating is not what they will have had in mind.

"Hey, Juliann, what say we create an environment in which critics are so rigorously censored that the only ones that can stand to post on MAD are those who will bend themselves into contortions to avoid offense, and let's excuse the misbehavior of believers because, after all, critics always "start it" - so we end up with a bunch of rude believers and uber polite critics. That will show 'em!!!!"

[_beastie]

Fort may have just put the final nail in his coffin. On the "Blacks, Death on the Spot" thread (which is worth reading as a lesson in what appears to be disabling cognitive bias):

zetaflux:

QUOTE(Fortigurn @ Feb 22 2007, 02:16 PM) *

Maybe you should be president. It's amazing how many lay Mormons I see who are more learned than the past presidents of the church. They're always correcting them and explaining how much they 'misunderstood' LDS teaching.

I find it incredible that the LDS church has suffered under president after president who just 'misunderstood' LDS church teaching.


Fortigurn,

I've reported your post to the moderators. If you think I said I am "more learned than the past presidents of the church" or am pretending to "correct" them, you gravely misunderstood (and misrepresented) what I said.

fort's comment:

Good luck. I've reported plenty of posts to the moderators, and never received so much as an acknowledgement.


I never claimed that you said you were 'more learned than the past presidents of the church', and I never said that you were 'pretending to correct them'.

You told me that Elder McConkie misunderstood past teaching by presidents on this issue. That is what you said. You told me what these past presidents apparently meant. That is what you did. Now do you believe that your view of what these past presidents apparently meant is correct, and Elder McConkie's is wrong?

Oh, he's doomed.

See, MAD is Animal Farm, where some animals are "more equal" than others.

[_Sethbag]

I voted Fortigurn. If he wants to stay on MAD, he's going to have to learn to moderate his tone a bit. I don't know if I'll get banned or not. I'm not going to try to get banned, and I think I'll be able to avoid it. They could easily ban me, though, without repercussions. Comparing me to The Dude in this way is flattering, but in all honesty I am not even in the same league as The Dude. He and Tarski are so insightful, and express themselves so well, and have such longer histories than I do on that board, it may be true they'd be harder to ban, but they could drop me and the board would just hum along and maybe a half dozen people would even notice, or care. And obviously Uncle Dale and Dan Vogel are utterly safe. By the way, I'd like to tip my hat to CaliforniaKid, who seems very knowledgeable and able to take on some of the Book of Abraham and such arguments well.

If it had to be someone in the list of four, I'd say Fortigurn unless he seriously learns to bite his tongue, me because I'm expendable, Zakuska only because someone put him on the list, and he just chimes in with zillions of comments while almost never actually adding any substance, and The Dude is absolutely last on the list. They need people like The Dude to maintain their credibility in terms of saying they can engage their critics, and he's not caustic enough to give them the excuse to boot him.

Thanks for the comments, Why Me.

[_Mister Scratch]

I will happily write a dossier on the MAD poster of your choosing!

But what if the person we'd choose to have you write a dossier for is the same one we think will be evicted?

An excellent point, ABman, which is why I said (originally) that it would be the poster of the evictee's choosing. Obviously, if the evictee wants a dossier written, that would fall under the aegis of our beloved Dr. Shades.

[_skippy the dead]

Fort may have just put the final nail in his coffin. On the "Blacks, Death on the Spot" thread (which is worth reading as a lesson in what appears to be disabling cognitive bias):

zetaflux:

QUOTE(Fortigurn @ Feb 22 2007, 02:16 PM) *

Maybe you should be president. It's amazing how many lay Mormons I see who are more learned than the past presidents of the church. They're always correcting them and explaining how much they 'misunderstood' LDS teaching.

I find it incredible that the LDS church has suffered under president after president who just 'misunderstood' LDS church teaching.


Fortigurn,

I've reported your post to the moderators. If you think I said I am "more learned than the past presidents of the church" or am pretending to "correct" them, you gravely misunderstood (and misrepresented) what I said.

fort's comment:

Good luck. I've reported plenty of posts to the moderators, and never received so much as an acknowledgement.


I never claimed that you said you were 'more learned than the past presidents of the church', and I never said that you were 'pretending to correct them'.

You told me that Elder McConkie misunderstood past teaching by presidents on this issue. That is what you said. You told me what these past presidents apparently meant. That is what you did. Now do you believe that your view of what these past presidents apparently meant is correct, and Elder McConkie's is wrong?

Oh, he's doomed.

See, MAD is Animal Farm, where some animals are "more equal" than others.

Yup, that particular thread did him in. Hammer, of course, could make personal attacks with a mere admonition to play nice, while Fortigurn has just been banned. Too bad - I was enjoying his posts. He was not afraid to be frank in his debate.

[_harmony]

Yup, that particular thread did him in. Hammer, of course, could make personal attacks with a mere admonition to play nice, while Fortigurn has just been banned. Too bad - I was enjoying his posts. He was not afraid to be frank in his debate.

Let's hope he finds his way here. MAD's loss would be our gain.

[Anonymous]

I would absolutely love to find out how Pahoran gets to act the way he does and not get banned. Same with Kemara. And in the thread where Fortigurn got banned, Hammer really was attacking hard and basically gets off with a slap on the wrist. It is interesting to know Hammer's been suspended before. But how he can continually get away with his attacks, and his assertions (read the thread about the church losing youth) that people who leave the church do so because they have moral issues and are just looking to shift the blame for their sins to someone else, is beyond me. Critics get called "mind readers" all the time for even thinking about why someone did this or that, and this whole "they just leave because they're sinning and need to blame it on someone else" crap is "mind reading" if ever there was. Same thing whenever a TBM on that board spots a critic questioning proof with respect to God and insinuates that someone's an adulterer. In fact, recently one of the TBMs, I forget who, actually replied to The Dude in a thread asking if his wife knew he was having an affair or some crap like that. If that shouldn't get one banned on MAD, I don't know what should.

edit: it was YH8 who insinuated that The Dude was having an affair, in this thread. And the funny thing is I have this sneaking suspicion that YH8 isn't any better respected by most of the TBMs than by the critics - the guy posts absolutely bizarre and outlandish stuff.

[_skippy the dead]

I would absolutely love to find out how Pahoran gets to act the way he does and not get banned. Same with Kemara. And in the thread where Fortigurn got banned, Hammer really was attacking hard and basically gets off with a slap on the wrist. It is interesting to know Hammer's been suspended before. But how he can continually get away with his attacks, and his assertions (read the thread about the church losing youth) that people who leave the church do so because they have moral issues and are just looking to shift the blame for their sins to someone else, is beyond me. Critics get called "mind readers" all the time for even thinking about why someone did this or that, and this whole "they just leave because they're sinning and need to blame it on someone else" crap is "mind reading" if ever there was. Same thing whenever a TBM on that board spots a critic questioning proof with respect to God and insinuates that someone's an adulterer. In fact, recently one of the TBMs, I forget who, actually replied to The Dude in a thread asking if his wife knew he was having an affair or some crap like that. If that shouldn't get one banned on MAD, I don't know what should.

All I can say is "Amen, Brutha". I've actually refrained from commenting on some of the recent threads (especially the ones about BY's comments on blacks and the evil-muslims discussion on the Trolley Square thread) because I know that I wouldn't be on a level playing field. Hard to be a critic over there these days, especially one just starting in.

[_Mister Scratch]

Yup, you guys were right. Here is the relevant post, in which "Skylla" (a.k.a. either Nighthawke or Charity or Jan) gives Fortigurn the boot:

Hammer,

How many times have you been warned about personal attacks now? Just use the report feature and let us mods handle it.

Skylla

P.S. Fortigurn has been banned.

So... What to do? If Fortigurn turns up over here, I will happily do a dossier in his/her honor. by the way: if this is not a prime example of TBM favoritism, I don't know what is.

[_Sethbag]

Sometimes I just see a thread and just choose to be a non-participant, particularly when the conspiracy theories start flying. The muslem mall shooting thread took a turn that way and I pretty much just had to tune out.

I'm still waiting though to find out where that "radical sunni mosque" is in Salt Lake City.