The Current Events folder. It's a lot like Hitler.

[Jingus 0]

Me too.

[Styles 0]

Me 3. She def. still lurks, as she's PMed me a couple times. It'd be fun if her and Mike and the rest of us could start a new CE board to post at, but half the fun is allowing the liberal posters to post too so the arguments and dicsussion can happen. The formula was working good here, I really don't see why that bothered some people...

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I couldn't figure out why he hadn't responded to my posts in the Laura Bush thread. Because he usually responds in like 5 seconds.

 

I could give a damn less about the banning.

 

He was obviously a very intelligent person and well informed.

 

However, he was also a 30 year old man who called people "twatrocks" and took himself way too seriously.

[NYU 0]

"There has NEVER been such a blatant derailing of a thread before. People were simply not allowed to discuss Moore's film without Mike screaming about how untrue the facts were."

 

This is virtually every single F 9/11 thread anywhere except for a happy little hippie commune message board.

 

It's virtually impossible to discuss the movie without discussing it's dubious "facts" and version of reality.

 

Really awful example.

Andrew, did you even bother to read that thread?

 

First of all, there were enough threads dedicated to Fahrenheit 9/11 in the Current Events folder at that time. More than enough. They dealt with the factual issues behind it, the politics behind it -- why, we even got the chance to view countless jokes about Michael Moore's weight. Great. And if you look through enough of these threads, you will see Mike made his opinion known on Fahrenheit 9/11 umpteenth times. There was not a person that ventured into the Current Events folder that did not know how Mike felt about the movie. He made it crystal clear in the threads dedicated to Fahrenheit. He made it crystal clear in the threads that had nothing to do with the movie. That's all fine and good.

 

But then his insanity started spilling over into other folders. The thread created in the Movies/Television folder for Fahrenheit 9/11 did NOT need to be infested with Mike. As I said, the thread was there to discuss other issues. The cinematography of the film. The editing. The pacing. The humor. The facts behind it, sure. But people should have had the ability to discuss the documentary itself without necessarily limiting the entire discussion to its politics.

 

Along comes Adolf Mike. There will be no peaceful discussion on the merits of Fahrenheit 9/11 while he's in town. Forget the idea that he regurgitated his opinion COUNTLESS times in the Current Events folder. He's here now to spread the gospel.

 

Now, first off Andrew, if you want to tell me that Mike should not have been punished for "discussing it's dubious 'facts' and version of reality", let me disprove that right off the bat. Betty posted Ebert's review of Fahrenheit 9/11, hoping to spur some conversation. And what was Mike's response to the whole article?

 

"The Reagans" was MILDLY critical?

 

Ebert is a fucking moron.

-=Mike

 

Oh, there we go. Intelligent. As you can see, he didn't even TOUCH upon the topic of Fahrenheit in that post. He chose to extract a portion of a sentence from Ebert's review and make that his post. But not before topping it off by calling the reviewer a "fucking moron" and eloquently signing off with his name. Desperately off-topic and disagreeable, just in an attempt to take the thread off-track immediately. His second post in the thread, and Mike was already turning into a monster. But let's continue.

 

Hey Mike, have you seen the movie?

 

Don't have to see it. The things I mentioned are mentioned by EVERYBODY who saw the film, so it's safe to say that they're in there.

-=Mike

 

Oh, nice. We're going to call a movie complete garbage, although we never even took the time to see it. And here's the kicker here: If Mike never actually saw the movie, then how would he know what's factual and what's not in it? Why, he goes onto other websites to view the information. To view what Moore said and how others dispelled it. And then what does he do with that information? He comes here to reiterate what he just read. They weren't even his thoughts! He decided to hijack the thread with ideas that weren't even his thoughts! How could he dispel the movie with his own thoughts if he never took the time to watch it?! I wouldn't be surprised if he copy and pasted all his rebuttals to the film.

 

NoCalMike tries to tell Mike that they're just trying to discuss the movie itself, without necessarily discussing its politics. Its politics has been discussed countless times already, so now it's time for those who want to to just discuss the movie. Mike's lovely response? The ever famous....

 

This gets filed under "tough shit".

 

"Sure, he's a lying sack of shit --- but he's OUR lying sack of shit"

-=Mike

 

He knows he's disobeying the rules here, but.....meh, tough shit. Intelligent response, it is.

 

I could sit here and dissect every comment Mike made in that thread if you want, Andrew. It was my opinion at that time that he should have been banned on the spot for being so frustratingly immature. Keeping others from having a conversation, desperately trying to insult everyone that dared to ask him to stop posting so others could discuss the movie.

 

I don't know if I agree with his banning now, since I don't think he was being necessarily awful. But the more I look through this thread, the more I realize that he had it coming anyway.

[Styles 0]

Ok, that's all well and good but it happened a year ago. There has to be some sort of statute of limitations on banning. He did nothing recently to warrant a banning...

[NYU 0]

Ok, that's all well and good but it happened a year ago. There has to be some sort of statute of limitations on banning. He did nothing recently to warrant a banning...

This gets filed under "tough shit".

 

Slapnuts, that is only ONE example of Mike's arrogance having a detrimental effect on the board. I don't think there's ever been a more confrontational poster than him. Yes, he sparked conversation....and yes, he was intelligent....but you can't act like the Fahrenheit 9/11 thread was an isolated situation.

 

The banning was a long time coming. For more reasons than one.

[KingPK 0]

This is bullshit. When did this board become so ban-happy?

Actually, this is the first "high-profile" ban (outside of the occasional idiot) in a few months, IIRC.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Just rewrite the board rules ex post facto so that having your girlfriend beat you up with a phone is a bannable offense.

[BUTT 0]

So, how long before he comes back?

[Sass 0]

Some Guy, you better read the Fahrenheit 9/11 thread over again.

This is worth mentioning. I'll get to that in a bit.

 

Tom said he would not ban Mike for unjust reasons. Like giving into mob rule or banning him cuz he's too smart of a neocon for the half-truth less educated opinions of liberals and other assorted tree hugging hippies who couldn't handle what Mike dropped on them. I agreed with that too.

 

But, yeah, this banning was years in the making like AS and Choken One's. It was talked about but nothing was ever followed through. I think there were about 3 major episodes late last year where the push for Mike's banning amongst the staff members reached a fever pitch. Sides were drawn. One of the main episodes of contention was his antics in the Mikey Moore F9/11 threads. That thread *really* made it hard for me to go ahead and let Mike get axed by the staffers who felt he was totally out-of-line within that thread. I defended Mike when IllOne wanted to ban him during his Random Banning sessions but this time I couldn't. We let him stay. Now, I'm willing to call a spade a spade and cut our losses that we've had with Mike.

 

Take it easy Mike.

[bob_barron 0]

So why was he banned then since the F9/11 thread was last year?

 

Mike's done nothing wrong recently to warrant this. Why not ban RobotJerk too while you're at it

[Guest Brian]

From experience, Mike's banning has been three years in the works. It's been discussed since I was a mod (the first time). He tends to really be abrasive with posters, bordering on flaming at times, and he seems to easily be able to derail a thread by picking fights with people (and there are others involved too, who I have at points advocated banning). I think lately, him and Robot Jerk, who I admittedly like more than Mike, seem to be going at it in every single thread in CE and derailing everything. I sent a pm to Sass about doing something to pull both of them apart. But like I said, Mike's banning has been discussed on and off for quite a while as various things have come up.

[Sass 0]

Like AS and Choke, it was just a myriad of bullshit things that occurred over time and his conduct in CE over the last week was just the final piece of straw that broke the camels back. That was why Mike got banned. If RobotJerk continues to act like a jerk, no pun intended, and the mods feel he really is a jerk, then we'll ban him. Until then, RJ stays.

[Sass 0]

Brian, I'm sorry I didn't ban him when you PMed me.

[Guest Brian]

Numbers is hardly real and they never have feelings

but you push too hard, even numbers got limits

Why did one straw break the camel's back? Here's the secret:

the million other straws underneath it - it's all mathematics

 

The Mighty Mos Def

[Styles 0]

It just seemed so out of place. You didn't ban him after the F911 thread, well that's your (as in the mods) problem. You can't (well, you can obviously), but shouldn't go back a year in time and say "yeah, I think we should ban him now for this". That's ridiculous, was he even given a warning? It just seems to me that the only posters/mods supporting the banning are those who rarely frequent CE...

[Jobber of the Week 0]

It's about fuckin' time.

 

 

Marney may have loudly paraded her opinion to the point where it feels shameful just to disagree with her, but at least I got the feeling she did that on topics that she actually cared about.

 

Mike was the most belligerent bully this forum has ever seen. I got a lot feelings that he didn't care about what he was talking about in a lot of threads, but simply was voicing opposition to troll. Such as the dozen or so gay marraige threads where he "didn't care" about gays or gay marriage but demanded that you wow him with a reason that gay marriage should happen. Dude, if you don't care, why should someone seek your approval?

 

You always knew when it was one of those threads where he had nothing to contribute because his posts would get smaller and smaller and reduce to one-liners. On issues he actually had something to contribute, like the Noam Chomsky thread, his posts would go for miles and miles.

[Styles 0]

Well, ok there's one regular that supports it.

 

Jobber, I totally got what Mike was saying, and it's my view too. It's a subject many people don't know/care enough about to form an opinion on, so if those who support it insist on acting like idiots to support their case, then the fence sitters might as well just agree with the status quo. The onus is on those who want to change the law to convince others why it should be changed. It was a perfectly rational opinion to hold.

 

Anyway, that's an argument for another day...

[bob_barron 0]

Like AS and Choke, it was just a myriad of bullshit things that occurred over time and his conduct in CE over the last week was just the final piece of straw that broke the camels back. That was why Mike got banned. If RobotJerk continues to act like a jerk, no pun intended, and the mods feel he really is a jerk, then we'll ban him. Until then, RJ stays.

RobotJerk is half to blame for anything that's been going on in CE this past week and I lurk there all the time and I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

 

Yes Mike can be an asshole who derails threads, but at times he started good discussion and helped bring a lot of stuff to CE.

 

Banning someone for being "abrasive" is pretty weak imo. I thought this board didn't care about flaming.

 

Mike's only flaws was that he was somewhat of an asshole and couldn't ignore anything anyone said. Certainly not a bannable offence.

 

There are much worse posters then Mike that need to go.

[Styles 0]

I don't understand why "this past week" has brought this on either. It really has been a normal week in CE, and the concensus was RobotJerk with his insistence on making ridiculous Nazi analogies was more to blame for any flaming (not that I want to see him banned either. "If I were a mod" bans would be very rare and used only in the most extreme of circumstances, otherwise it's a discussion board. If someone's being an idiot let others tell him so. It should be self-policing)...

[KingPK 0]

There are much worse posters then Mike that need to go.

 

Then name em'. I've seen that excuse time and time again, but there's never a sentence after it that begins "For example:"

 

Honestly people, it's not hard.

[bob_barron 0]

Sass had once me do that and I did when Choken was banned. So:

 

Trivia247

LooneyTune

RobotJerk if he keeps acting like an idiot

INXS

Shadow

fanofcoils

 

That's 6.

[Styles 0]

LooneyTunes was banned too...which is annoying because it will probably hold up the already stalled all time baseball league.

 

I take the opposite approach. Why so many bannings? Shouldn't banning be an absolute last resort?

[Guest Brian]

Looney got banned.

[Guest Brian]

RobotJerk was banned too...which is annoying because it will probably hold up the already stalled all time baseball league.

 

I take the opposite approach. Why so many bannings? Shouldn't banning be an absolute last resort?

Damn libertarians.

[Styles 0]

you quoted me before my Fraudian slip of RobotJerk was edited to LooneyTune!

[bob_barron 0]

Oh never mind, didn't know that.

 

I agree with Slapnuts on the "Why so many bannings thing." I probably wouldn't ban any of that list, but those are a list of people much worse then Mike.

[KingPK 0]

But....you just said this a few posts up:

 

There are much worse posters then Mike that need to go.

 

Make up your mind!!

[Styles 0]

There are MUCH worse posters who simply don't go into CE. See, that's the thing. Mike was intelligent and very opinionated and often posted in CE which gravitates towards argument and sometimes flaming. There are many posters here who just chill in places like NHB and never post anything interesting enough to get them to that point of argument. Doesn't mean they should be banned for it but I certainly don't see how they should be equated on the same level.

[Guest Brian]

I'm kinda surprised Trivia isn't banned, but I don't really know the rest of the group other than what I've said about Robot Jerk.