paleocon is being seriously disruptive.

September 3, 2005 8:40 PM

I say die New Orleans die.
posted by Optimus Chyme to etiquette/policy at 8:40 PM (75 comments total)

Ban him or ban me. You pick.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:40 PM on September 3, 2005

What exactly is your beef with that comment?
posted by mischief at 8:43 PM on September 3, 2005

What is the point to this callout?
posted by mediareport at 8:43 PM on September 3, 2005

Whatever, it's the guy's opinion. Remember when Bush got re-elected and everybody here was going around saying, "What the fuck just happened?" Well, we around here ignore the fact people with these opinions exist, and in large numbers. It's a viewpoint (though not as extreme as Die Die), that I'm hearing around the hardcore conservative south about New Orleans.
posted by Stan Chin at 8:44 PM on September 3, 2005

Please ban him.

This isn't even about opposing ideas anymore. It's not even trolling. It's about a sack of rancid, moldy shit.

Suddenly I'm reconsidering my decision to not use a greasemonkey killfile script.
posted by loquacious at 8:44 PM on September 3, 2005

I hope Bush nominates a lesbian african american with genital deformities and sociopathic tendencies to frustrate the current environment.

..

"And a personal note to "amberglow". Get a fucking life. Vulture."

..

"Let me be the first to suggest that you have a nice steaming cup of.. shut the fuck up."

Not bad for a half-hour's worth of trolling.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:46 PM on September 3, 2005

I was trying to imagine a person more stupid than someone who would say Bush needed the mayor's permission and I couldn't do it. Then I clicked to his profile and saw he's married. He *actually* found the person more stupid. But she wasn't so dumb that she didn't see her sole opportunity to marry up. Color me impressed by the couple in Grand Rapids!
posted by dobbs at 8:54 PM on September 3, 2005

ha, FUCK YOU to that, PinkStainlessTail!
posted by Peter H at 12:11 PM EST on November 3 [!]

Peter H, take a break for a few days, on me...
posted by mathowie at 12:13 PM EST on November 3 [!]

From this thread. What I'm saying is that you've given timeouts in the past for substantially less than the tear paleocon has been on, Matt.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 8:56 PM on September 3, 2005

Yeah, he does seem like more trolling then an actual opinion. I'm all for people being able to speak their mind (the limits around here generaly seem to be personaly insulting other users) but There are people who really only want to stir shit up and piss people off.

I'm not sure I've ever seen paleocon ever post anything non-inflamitory.

I will probably killfile him.
posted by delmoi at 8:57 PM on September 3, 2005

He hasn't posted anything in the last 24 hours except for "User Blacklisted" so I am not sure why that is such a problem.

See, I'm here to get the stupid jokes out of the way so the thread can continue as needed.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 8:57 PM on September 3, 2005

Ban no one.
posted by hackly_fracture at 8:57 PM on September 3, 2005

Matt, if you don't ban paleocon, I respectfully request to have my account deleted.

I cannot support a website that encourages this kind of hate spech, as you clearly have in your kit-gloves handling of the con-men/trolls like dios and PP. If you want to be "Fair and Balanced", get a job at FOX. If you want MetaFilter to be a community and a service to the world at large, do something more than encourage people to contribute to the Red Cross when the government is denying the Red Cross access to the people who need them the most. This is the tipping point, Matt. In this nation, and at this site. Stop the people who are smearing shit on your walls, or lose your most loyal members to MetaChat and MonkeyFilter.

If I'm allowed to sign in tomorrow, I'll have a lot more to say here. Otherwise, I'm perfectly happy to take my 'business' elsewhere.
posted by wendell at 8:58 PM on September 3, 2005

Holy shit, he's serious! *hopes to see wendell and others in the future*
posted by loquacious at 9:02 PM on September 3, 2005

If you hadn't called all this out, I was just about to.

I have to hand it to him. The man knows how to protect his airway like no other. Anyone else would have already choked on his own bilious vomit.
posted by drpynchon at 9:04 PM on September 3, 2005

Wow, wendell. After all these years, an ultimatum over *this*? But ok, if it means all moronic "fuck you" trolling gets the axe here from now on, I guess I see the point of taking a stand. But as someone who regularly uses the word "fuck" at the site, I wonder if what you're asking to eliminate isn't just a bit hard to define, after all.
posted by mediareport at 9:05 PM on September 3, 2005

Well, although I think paleocon is trolling, in that he's been as inflammatory as possible, I can't agree with wendell's position. "Hate speech"? I don't really see it.

He's playing to a stereotype with the "criminals in New Orleans" thing, and there's no doubt that there's deep racist undertones to it. However, there's enough plausible deniability that making the charge of hate speech is not productive. Given what we've been hearing out of NO, there's a lot of people who will agree with the premise that criminality is dominant.

Give him more rope and he'll say something that is unambiguously hate speech. Assuming he thinks the way that we suspect he thinks.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:05 PM on September 3, 2005

I don't think it's fair to say "Ban him, or I'm leaving", Wendell. But I do think the at least deserves a timeout.
posted by delmoi at 9:05 PM on September 3, 2005

wendell, I appreciate what you're saying but I really wish you hadn't done that. If matt doesn't ban paleocon--and personally I think paleocon is so fucking stupid I can't believe he gets anyone upset. The man is laughably ignorant--and you (and others) leave, the idiot man-child gets the impression he's more appreciated around here than you are, which I hardly think is the impression matt wants to give. However, your ultimatum doesn't leave any other option for him. Please reconsider.
posted by dobbs at 9:06 PM on September 3, 2005

EB: I think he's a troll. A troll won't cross the line, because that will stop him from trolling.

The ideal action of the troll is to disrupt the conversation. Stir shit up and make people angry.
posted by delmoi at 9:07 PM on September 3, 2005

Don't let the door hit you on your way out.
posted by gyc at 9:07 PM on September 3, 2005

Choice words from paleocon yesterday:

"Please killfile me. It will save on responses from aggressively ignorant fucktards who are intollerant of alternative world views. From that last sentence you would think I'm talking about southern based bible bangers, and I'm not. I'm talking about an infestation of coastal, sexually ambiguous bigots who shout down anyone who doesn't validate their disease state."

posted by ericb at 9:14 PM on September 3, 2005

And psmeasley had an interesting reaction:

" think this might be the single most offensive comment I have ever read on Metafilter, and I'm still not exactly sure what about it bothers me most. As conservative as I am, everytime I read a comment by this fucker I am almost ready to embrace Chomsky as my God.

While I hardly ever agree with Dios, he mostly seems like a decent guy. This paleocon guy is hate in a bottle."

posted by ericb at 9:16 PM on September 3, 2005

I'm standing with wendell. This has gotten fucking ridiculous. Between the (fewer, but still way too visible) trolls that are obviously only here to jump in and antagonize the lefties and spew the most recent apologist talking points and the willingness to accept fucking ANYTHING as a front page post, even if it's a link to the front page of CNN, so long as it's "breaking news!", I'm starting to think that quonsar was right all along.

jesus! when I typed that, I swear to god, I felt like I was a third-rate actor in an overblown space opera of a movie, and that I was being offered a choice of some kind. What could all this mean?
posted by yhbc at 9:18 PM on September 3, 2005

how racist are people allowed to be here? how anti-gay? how much of being a nasty fuck is acceptable?

Matt? Jess?

people have been given timeouts for insulting fat people here, but it's ok i guess if you insult other groups.
posted by amberglow at 9:19 PM on September 3, 2005

There would be no problem if you just ignored the offending poster. Can't he/she just buy another account anyway? Do you see an end to trolls somehow? Perhaps if we declared a war on them?
posted by hackly_fracture at 9:25 PM on September 3, 2005

**Misses quonsar**
posted by Balisong at 9:32 PM on September 3, 2005

*misses reasoned but passionate conversation*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:39 PM on September 3, 2005

He's been banned for telling users to "fuck off" and to "shut the fuck up"
posted by mathowie at 9:40 PM on September 3, 2005

Nice, thank you.
posted by Floydd at 9:46 PM on September 3, 2005

Yes, good call. Thanks.
posted by yhbc at 9:48 PM on September 3, 2005

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/44780#1031984
Racist enough?
posted by ryanissuper at 9:49 PM on September 3, 2005

"Jeb, get on over away from that ol' Metafilter."
posted by soiled cowboy at 9:50 PM on September 3, 2005

next . . .
posted by hackly_fracture at 9:52 PM on September 3, 2005

That's racist?!
posted by mischief at 9:52 PM on September 3, 2005

While you might have a valid point about paleocon, I just don't likethis childish "him or me" tactic to try to force mathowie's hand. Frankly, 99.9% of the people on here aren't interesting or important enough to have the power to hold MeFi hostage.
posted by gyc at 9:57 PM on September 3, 2005

Aw, fuck it. Matt, just ban them all. Dios, Rothko, PP, Amberglow, the whole damn nursery school.
posted by Bugbread at 9:59 PM on September 3, 2005

Thank you for banning him. Please keep an eye out to make sure he doesn't sign up again, at least not from the same IP.
posted by blasdelf at 10:03 PM on September 3, 2005

Dios has taken a voluntary vacation, it seems. I hate seeing acrimony here with the current situation.
posted by delmoi at 10:05 PM on September 3, 2005

Wow. You know, this whole time I thought that comment was "I say let New Orleans die." not "die New Orleans die". Changes the perspective a bit.
posted by delmoi at 10:07 PM on September 3, 2005

I say Diet New Orleans Diet.
posted by ColdChef at 10:13 PM on September 3, 2005

Thanks Matt.
posted by euphorb at 10:16 PM on September 3, 2005

CC: Are you saying this was Bush trying to do something about America's obesity problem?
posted by mischief at 10:19 PM on September 3, 2005

paleocon has always been an embarassment to this community. I consider myself fairly tolerant of differences of opinion, but it's a reare coment from him that dosen't get my stomach acid flowing.

But like 111 and hama7 back in the day he does me a service; everytime my frustration with the left makes me want to throw in the towel and become a right wing asshole, he'll say something that'll make me change my mind.

Kudos, paleocon.
posted by jonmc at 10:19 PM on September 3, 2005

I'd ban anyone who demanded, "Ban me or ban him." But I don't run any discussion websites.
posted by cribcage at 10:25 PM on September 3, 2005

The New Orleans The
posted by ColdChef at 10:48 PM on September 3, 2005

I'm talking about an infestation of coastal, sexually ambiguous bigots who shout down anyone who doesn't validate their disease state."

That post gave me the serious heebie-jeebies because I really think that he was talking about me. I'm leftcoastal, not bicoastal, but still I'm probably the only "coast" here.

And I may be getting a nail fungus on my toenail but how he knew about that disease state really makes me worry!
posted by leftcoastbob at 10:54 PM on September 3, 2005

I'd ban anyone who demanded, "Ban me or ban him." But I don't run any discussion websites.
Ban them all and let your deity-of-choice sort them out, is what I say.
posted by darukaru at 11:20 PM on September 3, 2005

Cold Chef, excellent Sideshow Bob reference!
posted by jonson at 11:34 PM on September 3, 2005

ok, leftcoast--it was you. ; >
posted by amberglow at 12:16 AM on September 4, 2005

OMG the melodrama's off the charts in this thread.
posted by xmutex at 12:25 AM on September 4, 2005

Can we have an agreed-on definition of what constitutes trolling on MeFi, so that we don't have to go through this everytime some... er... troll... tries to bring the level of discourse down to mud wrestling level?

At least PP chose to recuse himself from trolling during this crisis. But paleocon's "Die, New Orleans, Die" comment is truly sick and provocative - and not in the sense of fueling constructive discourse. If somebody had posted "Jump, yuppie scum" during the 9/11/01 threads, do you think they would have been banned? Do you think a comment like "Die, New Orleans, die" doesn't hurt some members - and visitors - who come here because Mefi is one of the best sources for ongoing updates of a national crisis?

People have the right to their opinion, people have the right to be wrong, people have the right to be badly informed. I come to Metafilter to avoid being badly informed. I check MeFi because it helps point me in the direction of my day's web-surfing take on the news and cultural developements. Opinions I don't agree with are part of that. Trolling is not. Ban him.
posted by zaelic at 1:31 AM on September 4, 2005

He's been banned for telling users to "fuck off" and to "shut the fuck up"

I say "fuck that". I'm no paleocon fan either but I don't find him too hard to ignore, and I'm against banning people because of their unpopular opinions even if they are pricks about it. Besides, there are plenty of us here who are left-wing, pro-gay, anti-racist and otherwise more "acceptable" in ideological content who nevertheless can be pricks too, including the people who spent so much time and effort arguing with paleocon and were pricks right back. If people are going to be banned from Metafilter for being pricks -- and not for the content of what they say -- then quite a few of us who disagree with paleocon are also quite ban-worthy, whether we exchanged prickishness with paleocon himself lately or not.

How effective was paleocon anyway? How many people that he told to "fuck off" and "shut the fuck up" actually obeyed? Will all the people who let paleocon tell them what to do please raise your hands?

Besides, I've been told similar things myself a few times and I ain't done it yet either, nor have I insisted anybody be banned for hurting my little feelings. Maybe I should, huh? If it worked there'd be nobody on Metafilter except a tiny handful of extraordinarily polite people -- being extraordinarily polite to me.

And zaelic, it seems we already we have a working definition of "troll": someone who disagrees with the "liberal" Mefite Majority and who is as vehement in their disagreement as said faction is with him/her. That is to say, it's perfectly okay when "we" do it: look at all the "liberals" who've posted things like "I wish all the red-staters would fuck off". I don't wish to start a personal feud, but I do distinctly recall that a few weeks ago a certain long-winded Mefite posted the opinion that fat sick Kentuckians are a drain on the blue states and should be left to die. What a wonderfully enlightened non-trollish comment that was! So there you have it: "Die New Orleans die!" is right out, but "Die fat hillbillies die!" is fine and dandy. How much clearer an agreed-on definition could you possibly need? Do we need to make the Sneetch Stars glow in the dark for you too?
posted by davy at 1:56 AM on September 4, 2005

I wasn't going to make a post about it, but while we're calling out I'd like to highlight mediareport for his repeated attempts to derail a thread. We have flagging. There's a lot more point to this thread than there is to any one of your comments over there.
posted by nthdegx at 1:58 AM on September 4, 2005

I am going to disagree with some of my favorite people here and weigh in on the side of cutting a wide swath for free speech. I'm not big on the idea of banning people and think it should be a last extreme. I have no problem with timeouts, particularly when someone is being so intentionally incendiary while the pain level is so high and so fresh.

We can write about all the stupid ignorant things that are being said and done by the extremists. We can discuss why and how some 40% of the country still continues to support George Bush in the face of such damning evidence of incompetence and untruthfulness. But nothing is quite as compelling and eloquent as hearing directly from the source.

I think it likely that paleocon's own comments open people's eyes and turn any fence-sitters away from his hateful point of view - and in a damned-by-the-company-you-keep way, all those with whom he favorably interacts or supports get dragged down too. He might be more suasive in turning people against Bush than anything I can say or do!

Those attitudes exist. Erasing them from my immediate periphery may be temporarily satisfying to me but does nothing to make them go away. I hate the way LGF and freeperville eradicate opposing viewpoints and hope that is not a path we choose.
posted by madamjujujive at 2:28 AM on September 4, 2005

nthdegx, mediareport is criticising an FPP and the resulting thread as repetitious, unneeded, inane, whatever; that's an old Metafilter tradition. You've been around for three years and one month now, you should know that.

What you mean is "I disagree with the opinions he expresses in that thread", is it not? That is, if you did agree with his comments you would not be calling him out here, would you?

And than you, madamjujujive.
posted by davy at 2:31 AM on September 4, 2005

And than you, madamjujujive.

Er, 'thank you' rather.
posted by davy at 3:09 AM on September 4, 2005

"nthdegx, mediareport is criticising an FPP and the resulting thread as repetitious, unneeded, inane, whatever; that's an old Metafilter tradition."

What?

"What you mean is "I disagree with the opinions he expresses in that thread", is it not?"

No, it is not.

"That is, if you did agree with his comments you would not be calling him out here, would you?"

Yes, I would. He was being an arse.
posted by nthdegx at 3:20 AM on September 4, 2005

So nthdegx, in other words , before mediareport made his comments you've never seen anybody else on Metafilter say anything like "I think this thread is stupid". Never before in your in three years and one month on Metafilter.

And that you DO agree with his comments, which boil down to "this thread is stupid".

And that even though you agree with you agree with him that the thread is stupid you disagree with the way he said it.

So please suggest a way that somebody can agree with you that you guarantee you'll enjoy reading, so that we may make it compulsory.

"With friends like these..."
posted by davy at 3:53 AM on September 4, 2005

Can we please gain the ability to flag Metatalk comments? If so, can one be labelled "Does this person read English?"
posted by davy at 3:57 AM on September 4, 2005

So nthdegx, in other words , before mediareport made his comments you've never seen anybody else on Metafilter say anything like "I think this thread is stupid". Never before in your in three years and one month on Metafilter.

I don't see the relevance of this, but to me there's a considerable distinction between saying it once and saying it several times. Are you saying I should be calling out this behaviour every time I see it, or that the behaviour is fine because it is not isolated? Neither point seems reasonable to me.

"So please suggest a way that somebody can agree with you that you guarantee you'll enjoy reading, so that we may make it compulsory."

Sorry?
posted by nthdegx at 4:01 AM on September 4, 2005

"Can we please gain the ability to flag Metatalk comments? If so, can one be labelled "Does this person read English?""

Oooh, I like it. Can we have a "Does this person write English?" label too? ;)
posted by nthdegx at 4:04 AM on September 4, 2005

You can flag Metatalk comments. At least I can, using Opera.
posted by jb at 4:52 AM on September 4, 2005

What he said was repugnant in itself, but that it swept the curtain back on the furiously churning spin machine was depressing. The gap appears to be widening. Not between the truth and lies, because I think the other side, unfortunately, also has some things right, but between one set of allegiances and another.
posted by atchafalaya at 5:16 AM on September 4, 2005

I have a list of users who wrote "fuck off" and "shut the fuck up" in the past. I guess they'll be banned too, now.

right?

Matt, I'm saying this as a fan of the way you run this place: it's clear that you don't need to explain your decisions here, this is your sandbox. but we all know that you didn't ban paleocon for the profanity or the bad manners (like he's the only one around here).

it's not a sin to admit it: you banned him because he was disruptive. (his opinions were also gleefully racist, inflammatory, ugly, whatever. but they were especially disruptive). and from an administrator's standpoint your decision makes a lot of sense.
why pretend otherwise?

personally, I wish he'd stayed, together with the small but very vocal MeFi fascist brotherhood, in order to enlighten us on the finer, porcine points of his sociopolitical theories. but I'm not the administrator here -- if I were, I'd have banned him too. for being disruptive.

Matt, if you seriously start banning all the "STFU" users, it's going to get awfully quiet around here.
not that that would be a bad thing, of course.
posted by matteo at 5:56 AM on September 4, 2005

He's been banned for telling users to "fuck off" and to "shut the fuck up"
I think this represents a new policy. I like it.
posted by JohnR at 6:25 AM on September 4, 2005

A brief glance at his posting er, commenting history reveals that he's nothing more than a trolling asshat who views this community as his personal latrine. What a useless tool.
posted by nyterrant at 6:27 AM on September 4, 2005

I was working on a long, eloquent comment, but davy and madamjujujive said everything I had to say, better than I would have. So than[k] you both, and I continue to be amazed by the inability of so many MeFites to tolerate spirited disagreement.

I'd ban anyone who demanded, "Ban me or ban him."

Yeah, that's about as childish a tactic as I can imagine. Poor Matt, he thought he was running a website for intelligent adults and it turns out he's running a kindergarten. I can't say I regret paleocon's passing—I've defended a lot of conservatives around here, but this guy was as worthless a poster as I've ever seen—but let Matt make the call without the infantile attempts at blackmail.

And wendell, please go back to making dumb jokes; your new, serious persona is far more annoying. Comedians who decide it's more important to Save Mankind simply stop being funny without actually doing any good.
posted by languagehat at 6:52 AM on September 4, 2005

MetaTalk: Splitting hairs with a 23GeV accelerated particle beamline and tunnelling electron microscope.

Or: STFU, matteo!

Of course he was banned because he was disruptive. Why are we even debating this? It's hopefully pretty obvious we're allowed to tell each other where to stuff it, as long as that's not all that we do. Y'know, contribute something, damnit. I don't care if it's a flickr photoset of a dog turd that just happens to look like your mother. I don't care if it's the insane pre-linguistic noodlings of an experimental goat-human brain transplant.

As long as the entirety or vast majority of your output isn't throwing fetid offal directly at members or purposefully leaving strategically placed mounds of explosive diarrhea for the sole purposes of gleefully observing people stepping in it.


I'm beginning to think that the internet really does make people stupid, myself included. There's a pervasive lack of transparent and obvious common sense. An anti common sense field if you will - negating the obvious through destructive interference with waves of deadly obfuscatron rays. I've fallen under its foggy, raspy obfuscatronic spell myself many times, here, there, everywhere - only to return to a post and think loudly to myself "Why the fuck did I write that stupid shit?"

The going scientific theory is that there are short-lived data packets in TCP/IP networking that get quantum-entangled with what can only be called a angrystupidhead flag - or meta-information. This quantum-entangled meta-information can traverse media domains along with the constructive/instructive non-meta-information encoded in the data packets - from fiber optic to plain copper to free-air RF, and especially cable-conducted RF.

The more packets that are passed to or through your terminal per second (bandwidth), the more angrystupidhead-entangled packets you're exposed to, which interact with your TCP/IP stack(s) by getting stripped off in a yet to be fully understood process somewhere between the physical layer and the transport layer (Standard OSI model!) and accumulating, IE, "falling off" and exposing the terminal operator to quantum-foam drifts of this free-ranging angrystupidhead meta-information.

And as we all evidently know, information cannot be created nor destroyed, and must manifest itself as energy or matter, or be re-translated as information.

Somewhere in there this angrystupidhead meta-information interacts orthogonally with a very, very angry weasel, a grumpy drunks soiled underpants and a not so magic rock - and manifests itself as obfuscatron particle-waves that - so far - obey the inverse-square law and all other known rules of electromagnetic radiation.

It has been posited that this is why certain natural reflectors and accumulators - say, an oil-can of Foster's Lager - will focus or otherwise collect or amplify said obfuscatronic rays, and even may render the victim blind or otherwise unconscious.
posted by loquacious at 6:53 AM on September 4, 2005

I think the key issue on these sorts of questions is usually not "is this particular comment over the line?" or the like, but rather "Does this individual care about the community?"
If the answer is "yes", almost anything can be forgiven because it will usually be a self-limiting problem. If the answer is "no", banning is the only real solution.

I think it pretty clear that paleocon didn't give a shit about Metafilter.
posted by Justinian at 6:55 AM on September 4, 2005

This quantum-entangled meta-information, it vibrates?
posted by voltairemodern at 7:19 AM on September 4, 2005

Ban him or ban me. You pick.
"Matt, if you don't ban paleocon, I respectfully request to have my account deleted."

MetaCreche: I'm not waving, I'm drowning blustering

And where is quonsar? He said he was "taking a break", but I didn't know if that was his choice. He'd be all over this pomposity like spray tan.
posted by NinjaPirate at 7:26 AM on September 4, 2005

Metatalk: a dog turd that just happens to look like your mother.
posted by jonmc at 7:28 AM on September 4, 2005

More like spray-on pantyhose. Coverage, man, coverage! Like stick on glue! Like stink on poo!
posted by loquacious at 7:30 AM on September 4, 2005

Can we close this thread now, please?
posted by caddis at 7:43 AM on September 4, 2005

good idea
posted by jessamyn at 7:53 AM on September 4, 2005