Please, for the love of all that's holy

May 28, 2008 2:32 PM

What, one ParisParamus wasn't enough for us? How much more do we need to see?

Can we just up and admit that the whole "maybe ParisParamus will turn out not to be a dick" gambit of letting him come back under another name has failed, and throw BrooklynCouch overboard? What, exactly, is being served by letting this user crap all over the place here, again?

posted by scrump to Etiquette/Policy at 2:32 PM (347 comments total)

Make him use Vista!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:38 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Can we just up and admit that the whole "maybe ParisParamus will turn out not to be a dick" gambit of letting him come back under another name has failed

I don't know, can we? Should we? Do you have any evidence of this failure? Links would be helpful.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:41 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

I know some people have accused him of openly trolling under the new username, but I haven't seen it. (this is not a defense, it's just me saying that I haven't seen it) People who want him banned need to come up with a reason that's different from "because he's parisparamus!" because we give people 2nd, 3rd and nth chances here when they sign up under a new name.

shorter version: what has brooklyncouch done that merits a banning, bearing in mind that comments of his from when he was parisparamus are not sufficient?
posted by shmegegge at 2:42 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

I think we need some soviet era posters for this.

1) Be vigilant against those we disagree with.
2) The enemy never changes.
3) Pre-emptive banning allows everyone to be happy.
posted by seanyboy at 2:42 PM on May 28, 2008 [11 favorites]

also, I am pre-favoriting this thread.
posted by shmegegge at 2:43 PM on May 28, 2008

Oh, come on. They're just two 40-something professionals from Brooklyn who share a first name and an email address. That's not proof that they're the same guy.

They could be conjoined twins.

Or maybe lovers.
posted by dersins at 2:47 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

I know some people have accused him of openly trolling under the new username, but I haven't seen it.

This is a regrettable decision. I oppose gay marriage as flying in the face of four or five thousand years of civilization and religion. If Californians want to be that arrogant and create gay marriage, so be it. The thing is, Californians referendum-ed against it, but several judges don't give a shit.That's unacceptable.

Hillary is now a Republican, and Obama is the new Bill Clinton; someone who can do no wrong. G-d, that guy better lose.

I don 't really understand the point of this post. Oil will probably run out, though it may take centuries to happen. Human-induced global warming has no scientific basis. So where is the scandal here? And by the way, the oceans are not getting warmer.

Liquidwolf, au contraire, whatever you think of MM, she is a communications genius, having created, or co-created HotAir.com, which is one of about a dozen web sites that is rapidly even-ing the media playing field, neutralizing it's liberal and leftist bias.

I feel sorry for those who are atheists. Rather than being smarter, atheism reflects a poverty of thought, and a lack of appreciation of the universe, including of love and evil.
posted by rtha at 2:48 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

rtha, I'd seen a couple of those, but those seem like earnest statements from him, and if he's parisparamus then I'd say it's pretty certain that he means what he says. should we ban him because he believes ridiculous things? or just because he shares his ridiculous beliefs with us?
posted by shmegegge at 2:52 PM on May 28, 2008

Yeah, I think rtha's quotes pretty conclusively demonstrate an exclusive interest in saying things that are guaranteed to piss off the average MeFite. There's nothing wrong with saying controversial things (hell, I myself just dared to claim in another thread that Shakespeare is great!), but it's one thing to participate in a normal way, occasionally saying something controversial, and quite another to confine oneself to stink bombs, which is what we call "trolling."
posted by languagehat at 2:52 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

On non-preview: The point is not whether he believes them or not (how would we ever know?) but whether he has anything to contribute besides starting arguments.
posted by languagehat at 2:53 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

Burhanistan: "I don't think he really grasps what he is doing."

He's pissing off the squares. I think he grasps it just fine.
posted by Plutor at 2:53 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

And not interesting arguments either: "G-d, that guy better lose" is just juvenile nyah-nyah.
posted by languagehat at 2:54 PM on May 28, 2008

I'm willing to believe that he might want to be a productive member of this community, even though my instincts are hinting otherwise.

I say let him stay under the new name. At least until he gets up to his old antics, then... no mercy.
posted by quin at 2:55 PM on May 28, 2008

I was hoping that comment would be deleted before he stirred up any more shit but I guess it's too late for that. I see no purpose in dropping that comment in a completely unrelated thread besides stirring up shit. Unless he's claiming ParisParamus stole his identity. Or the other way around. Or something.
posted by puke & cry at 2:57 PM on May 28, 2008

I think we need some soviet era posters for this.

One banning is a tragedy, a million bannings is a statistic.
posted by GuyZero at 2:57 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

Agreeing with l-hat and shmegegge, a troll says things that he/she doesn't really believe in just to stir up trouble. I'm pretty sure that BC/PP sincerely believes in all the things that wrote in those examples. I know some perfectly intelligent and highly educated folks who believe the same or similar things. Nuts is not the same as trollish.
posted by octothorpe at 2:59 PM on May 28, 2008

G-d? Gad, Ged, Gid, Gud? No, it’s GOD, goddamnit.
posted by found missing at 3:00 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Agreeing with l-hat and shmegegge

except that they are not saying the same thing.
posted by Hat Maui at 3:02 PM on May 28, 2008

I know some people have accused him of openly trolling under the new username, but I haven't seen it.

I am puzzled at BrooklynCouch's denial at being ParisParamus, as I received an email from (probably) ParisParamus (from [e-mail], if that is his email account) telling me to "quit mocking" the new account. He should be given a fair chance at a new day, but his denials and odd behavior are, to me, off.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:02 PM on May 28, 2008

Maybe he is PP, and maybe he isn't. But I think we can agree that he *is* one of the members we count on to say something so stupid and trollish that it makes us smile.

"I feel sorry for those who are atheists. Rather than being smarter, atheism reflects a poverty of thought, and a lack of appreciation of the universe, including of love and evil."

That is pure gold. Who didn't laugh? Show of hands?

And they are all like that. Real gems of compressed poo. Total thread bombs said with complete sincerity, spread over a variety of topics. He's the troll king. Maybe banning is the award we give the troll king. But I think we'd be poorer for it if we lost his touches of cleverness and/or stupidity.
posted by Ragma at 3:05 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Not to go all "but you already agreed Michigan wouldn't be seated" about it, but wasn't ParisParamus permabanned? I mean, does that not mean he -- under any name -- is permanently banned?

I mean, if there's no permabanning, fine. But if there is permabanning, then it has to be, you know, permanent. Consequences, people! Consequences and consistency! (Jeez, maybe I should have kids.)
posted by scody at 3:05 PM on May 28, 2008 [9 favorites]

The point is not whether he believes them or not (how would we ever know?) but whether he has anything to contribute besides starting arguments.

fair enough, so let's look at it in terms of his overall output on the site. In 10 days, he has made 34 comments, those are 5 of them, and 2 of those are not just stinkbombs but actual moments in a longer discussion. 3 of them really do seem like dumb fucking threadshits.

So I don't know. How much of the perception that he's just stirring up shit is merited? It seems to me like we're looking at 3 comments among 34 (3 that haven't been deleted, at least.) and the rest just fit the "I'm parisparamus and I'm frustratingly dense when it come time to have a rational discussion" motif that I've always associated with him. I really think that we're looking for reasons to kick him ever since someone noticed who he is, and that comments like those are seen even LESS graciously because it's him.
posted by shmegegge at 3:06 PM on May 28, 2008

Or maybe lovers.

Well, that explains why he was so careful to indicate to me in a msg that he and PP weren't lovers, but just friends.

Which was a really, really weird piece of pre-emptive disclosure for me. I'm supposedly the liberal, right? Why should I care who he's not schtupping?

I don't care if a guy has lots of totally platonic friendly little man-dates complete with aprons whislt you fix tea and wax swooningly poetical about Beardsly woodcuts. In fact, I think that would be awesome.
posted by loquacious at 3:07 PM on May 28, 2008

man, I forgot about mathowie's revelation about paris' behavior. that's so unbelievably frustrating.
posted by shmegegge at 3:08 PM on May 28, 2008

I mean, does that not mean he -- under any name -- is permanently banned?

Not really. As far as I remember, he had been told he could come back under a different name, just not ParisParamus. I guess he finally accepted the invitation but shit, he's not even trying anymore.
posted by puke & cry at 3:09 PM on May 28, 2008

He should be given a fair chance at a new day, but his denials and odd behavior are, to me, off.

I agree, except that I think he's pretty much used up his fair chance at a new day. Some people (nods at BP) have used their new day in exemplary fashion, making it clear it is unfair to associate them with past avatars. This guy is just dropping the same stale turds under a new name.

That is pure gold. Who didn't laugh?

Not me, and probably not anyone who's been around long enough to remember the same shit from PP. There's nothing clever about it; it's just "hey atheists, you suck and you're immoral!" with bigger words.
posted by languagehat at 3:10 PM on May 28, 2008

I really think that we're looking for reasons to kick him ever since someone noticed who he is, and that comments like those are seen even LESS graciously because it's him.

Because he was permabanned, as in, please don't come back. Ever. No Brand New Day for you.

This isn't about differing viewpoints. I can easily stand a well reasoned and seasoned argument. I like 'em spicy-hot. These arguments are not them.
posted by loquacious at 3:10 PM on May 28, 2008

Okay, I'm sorry but . . .
MetaFilter: touches of cleverness and/or stupidity.
posted by The Bellman at 3:12 PM on May 28, 2008

Because he was permabanned, as in, please don't come back. Ever. No Brand New Day for you.

I'm done defending him after being reminded of mathowie's old revelation about him, but I'll quibble here for quibbling's sake:

it was my understanding that we do not permaban in the way you are describing ever, except for SEO spammers.
posted by shmegegge at 3:13 PM on May 28, 2008

This is totally the part where I go make a nice cup of tea and go meander in the garden.
posted by loquacious at 3:15 PM on May 28, 2008

wax swooningly poetical about Beardsly woodcuts

He's dreeeamy.

*falls limply back onto divan*
posted by everichon at 3:17 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

actual moments in a longer discussion.

Longer discussion? I've looked at his history, and if by "longer discussion" you mean two comments in a thread - one marginally less shitstirring than the other - then, well, okay.

"Longer discussion" means to me an engagement - if you say something that's going to stir the shit, and you don't intend for it to stir the shit, then why not stay around to back up/defend/explain what you said?
posted by rtha at 3:18 PM on May 28, 2008

it was my understanding that we do not permaban in the way you are describing ever, except for SEO spammers.

jessamyn broke down the different levels of banning in a MeTa thread a while ago.
posted by burnmp3s at 3:19 PM on May 28, 2008

nah, man. I'm done. I'm almost certainly wrong about his intentions, here. If he gets banned you'll hear no argument from me.
posted by shmegegge at 3:19 PM on May 28, 2008

Jewish people don't spell out the word due to scriptural injunctions based on reverence. Let's not bash that here, hmm?

There's no injunction against using their god's name as a meaningless interjection?
posted by found missing at 3:22 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

What is/was the mathowie revelation? link?

In case anyone missed the earlier thread, I'm a newbie who had never heard of PP but was immediately struck by BooklynCouch's trolling. (I've been online a long time elsewhere.) The distinctive note to me; he never sticks around to defend or argue his points. That's just a kid throwing water balloons at cars and running away cackling if it actually hits.
posted by msalt at 3:23 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

We've deleted five comments of his already, and when it hits ten, the account will be banned.

I've already talked to him about it because I noticed on his first day or two back he stated a couple things on a thread then dropped a turd of a comment that was the complete opposite of his first two comments. It really looked like someone that was more interested in stirring shit up than discussing anything.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:25 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Did everyone see the blog post that loquacious linked to? It finishes with this signature:

StevenInBrooklyn, aka ParisParamus
[e-mail]

Awesome.
posted by grouse at 3:26 PM on May 28, 2008

What is/was the mathowie revelation? link?

He said that PP was actually trolling, and not sincere. Scody linked to mathowie saying it earlier in this thread.
posted by burnmp3s at 3:26 PM on May 28, 2008

sorry, mathowie's revelation about him is here and was linked above by scody. basically, #1 said that he has met paris and spoken with him about his behavior here and paris has admitted to stirring up shit to have fun with the liberals, here.
posted by shmegegge at 3:26 PM on May 28, 2008

Hmm, anyone who joined May 19, 2008 and is complaining about how we are no longer in the Golden Age of Metafilter is either an old user re-joined, a long time lurker or someone with a really odd sense of history.
posted by Gary at 3:28 PM on May 28, 2008

We've deleted five comments of his already, and when it hits ten, the account will be banned.

Wow, we've really become delicate, haven't we?
posted by timeistight at 3:29 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wow, we've really become delicate, haven't we?

No, I'm tired of playing stupid games with people and instead have to treat him like a child or a dog that is messing up on the rug. If he wants to continue being disruptive, he can go do it on another site, my patience for his antics lasted years but it's all done used up.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:32 PM on May 28, 2008 [8 favorites]

Hat Maui: "Agreeing with l-hat and shmegegge

except that they are not saying the same thing."

Yea, I'm stupid. Agreeing with shmeg, disagreeing with languagehat.
posted by octothorpe at 3:32 PM on May 28, 2008

I think the phrase is "thin ice", timeistight. Making a game effort to reform is one thing, but I personally don't see any sign of it so far, which is disappointing but a damned good incentive for us to cut our losses quick if letting him come back at all was a mistake.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:33 PM on May 28, 2008

By the way, I know this is basically throwing a user under the bus, but he's got two choices: one is to be a productive non-argumentative member of the site, and the other is to just keep on doing what he's doing. His choice.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:33 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Not to celebrate the eventual bannation of a member, but I have to admit, I kind of love the idea of a huge clock with 10 numbers on it representing his time to live. As the hand sweeps by like a scythe it slashes the numeral from the face.

It's hooked up to a steam whistle and when it hits 'one' it will cut loose with a terrible whoop, alerting all that the day has come.

I imagine this in Matt's kitchen, natch.
posted by quin at 3:34 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

I say we hang 'im, THEN we kill 'im!
posted by shmegegge at 3:35 PM on May 28, 2008

I think we should just murder anyone who doesn't agree with me.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:35 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

I agree with Dave Faris.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:36 PM on May 28, 2008 [21 favorites]

I'm unclear on what's supposed to be holy here. The self-policing aspect of the community applies here

1) flag
2) don't respond
3) memail
4) MeTa

So this thread is option 4. Is that because the other three haven't worked? And what does worked mean?

From the few things I've seen, this is pretty small potatoes - ticks off a few people who then respond, but I'm not seeing a full-scale assault going on just yet.

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
-Victor Frankl

On preview: Looks like he's on the road to claiming another (first?) hit. What a trophy: permabanned! Sadly, no way to avoid a collision someone's intent upon having with you.
posted by lysdexic at 3:41 PM on May 28, 2008

I think it must be really difficult for the guy behind the PP/BC accounts. On the one hand he does hold these political views that are well out of the mainstream for MetaFilter, but on the other hand he actually likes the wide-ranging topics and intelligent discussion. He's too smart for some right-wing political site that's an echo chamber for mouth breathing towel-head haters, but if he wants to be involved in cosmopolitan circles, he is foced to hang out with people like us.

Poor bastard, wouldn't want to be him.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:43 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

This troll was permabanned for a long list of good reasons. Aside from the repulsive moral vacuity of his remarks, he does not engage in discussion in the manner of a reasoning adult, he does not present any reasoning of his own (he appears to be incapable of a reasoning process), he does not intelligently respond to anything said to him, he has never changed his mind or admitted error no matter how obvious it is to everyone that he is factually wrong, and he continues to re-post his grab-bag of crap ideas over and over again despite them being proven factually (and morally) wrong over and over again. He is a troll, and nothing but.

MetaFilter as I understand it is primarily intended for the intelligent discussion of interesting things. ParisParamus does not have a place at that table. He does not operate in that context. Intelligent discussion is a door forever shut to him, as he apparently cannot learn new facts or reject old errors, and the only thing he finds interesting as such is his own ego. He is a stupid, evil troll whose only trick is to post obnoxious and facile prattle intended to disgust the reader and derail intelligent discussion into angry attention towards himself. We've seen that trick. We saw it a lot. We used to see it dozens of times a day, because he pumps out his one or two-line remarks by the dozen.

Matt, please get rid of him again. And if he crawls back, get rid of him again. He is in your house only to piss on your floor.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 3:44 PM on May 28, 2008 [5 favorites]

I don't agree with Da.. Ah! not the face, not the face!!!
posted by garlic at 3:46 PM on May 28, 2008

He is in your house only to piss on your floor.

Also, his piss is neither a waxing compound nor a dessert topping.
posted by cog_nate at 3:47 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

Poor bastard, wouldn't want to be him.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:43 PM on May 28 [1 favorite -] Favorite added! [!]


Meatbomb, I just want to let you know that that was the 666th time I favorited something on MetaFilter. Don't know if that means anything or not, but there you go.
posted by dersins at 3:48 PM on May 28, 2008

rtha quoted BrooklynCouch saying "Hillary is now a Republican, and Obama is the new Bill Clinton; someone who can do no wrong. G-d, that guy better lose."

Rtha, really? Like for real this upsets you?

I don't have any feeling about Paris Paramus because I wasn't paying attention last time, but comments like this -- do you really find this offensive enough to even take note of? I don't even find it controversial enough to be considered flamebait. It's just an opinion you can disagree with. And you're not even obliged to argue it.
posted by loiseau at 3:48 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

I think this thread means PP/BP wins.
posted by rooftop secrets at 3:51 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

boo.
posted by Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory at 3:51 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

On the one hand he does hold these political views that are well out of the mainstream for MetaFilter,
He doesn't have "politics", he has a series of obnoxious remarks he repeats. A person with politics as such has reasons for what they think and some consistency between their ideas, however immoral or stupid those ideas are. PP does not have that.

but on the other hand he actually likes the wide-ranging topics and intelligent discussion.
No, that's where he gets his responses to jack off to (maybe not literally jack off, but the only real difference is whether it's allowed in public).

He's too smart for some right-wing political site that's an echo chamber for mouth breathing towel-head haters,
He's not even smart enough to mouth-breathe. The guy has an IQ in the 80's. Just as the most salient example, he couldn't get Petals Around the Rose even after it was explained to him.

but if he wants to be involved in cosmopolitan circles
He doesn't. He wants to sneer and jeer at "liberals" because that is the only way he gets to feel that he is "right", because he can't earn being right with the brain he's got. He couldn't win an argument with a fourth-grader. He probably learnt that in sixth grade, and accordingly, gave up the concept of arguing.

he is foced to hang out with people like us.
No he isn't, and more to the point, we are not forced to let people like him hang out with us.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 3:54 PM on May 28, 2008

dersins : Don't know if that means anything or not, but there you go.

Well, seeing as I also just hit 666 in both favorites and askme responses today, I can only assume that the end is nigh. Or that we are getting pizza tonight.

I kind of hope it's pizza, myself.
posted by quin at 3:55 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

He doesn't have "politics", he has a series of obnoxious remarks he repeats.

So does this mean we can start banning people who use the word "eponysterical" or "fixed that for you?" If so, then this is a meta I can endorse. Otherwise, he's just one of the boys here who just happens to have remarks you don't want to hear.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:59 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

the end is nigh. Or that we are getting pizza tonight.!
posted by iamabot at 4:01 PM on May 28, 2008

Dave Faris, I can see that you're sensitive about the topic of people being banned for contributing little more than "a series of obnoxious remarks," but I don't think this is about you.
posted by dersins at 4:02 PM on May 28, 2008 [6 favorites]

snap?
posted by found missing at 4:04 PM on May 28, 2008

Since Paris didn't show up, I guess this is part of the thread where we turn our well-honed SnarKnives™ on each other.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:06 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

1) flag
2) don't respond
3) memail
4) MeTa

So this thread is option 4. Is that because the other three haven't worked?

Correct.

(1) doesn't "work" in the long run because these aren't one-off comments and incidents. The flagging system as it currently exists requires individual moderator attention to each flagged comment (as I understand it). Having specific users continually require that level of attention breaks the scalability of MetaFilter's moderation system.

(2) doesn't work because it's a "boil the ocean" solution. It's not enough for you to personally ignore PP, because all it takes is one new member who doesn't realize he's a troll, and the thread goes to shit.

(3) doesn't work because (as per the gospel of matthowie, Revelations chapter 14207, verse 413866), these are intentionally inflammatory comments. MeMailing him will just feed his need for attention, and reinforce the behavior.

And so (4), MeTa or contacting the mods directly (unless that's what you meant by 3). I personally think MeTa fits because PP is as much a community phenomenon as an individual troublemaker at this point.

Trolling is a subject that has to be discussed by every significant public forum from time to time. PP offers that opportunity because, for what it's worth, he's an extraordinarily gifted troll. Stature-wise it's kind of like having the olympic gold medal in feces eating, but I guess that's good enough for some people. There's no accounting for taste.
posted by Riki tiki at 4:07 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

So does this mean we can start banning people who use the word "eponysterical" or "fixed that for you?"
Now, there's an example of you and I agreeing. :)

Otherwise, he's just one of the boys here who just happens to have remarks you don't want to hear.
No. You, and Dr Steve Whatever Guy, and dios, and paulsc, and most of the other folk who end up on the opposite sides of many debates with me, I'm willing to treat as people with a brain, who can be talked to, discussed with, engaged with, who say things that deserve consideration and response. I disagree with you a lot, and you do piss me off from time to time, which it is your absolute right to do, but I'm willing to believe that (1) you're not actually evil, and (2) if given good reasons to do so, you'd change your mind about the things you think.

PP, I am not willing to grant either of those.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:07 PM on May 28, 2008

So does this mean we can start banning people who use the word "eponysterical" or "fixed that for you?" If so, then this is a meta I can endorse. Otherwise, he's just one of the boys here who just happens to have remarks you don't want to hear.

Strawman much? Comments like of the "eponysterical" or "fixed that for you" variety rarely (if ever) stir up the kind of insincere - if not intentional - shitstorms that PP's comments do.

You've got your apples and oranges and bananas all mixed up there, Dave.
posted by loquacious at 4:09 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

I think he came back because 1. we summoned him, nice job everyone 2. he needed his computer fixed.

It's sad to say that there is a small subset of users whose total tone-deafness to how to have a conversation here, or how to interact online generally possibly, make them just nearly impossible to have around. We (the mods) really do try to work with people to sort of help them adjust if they seem like they're earnestly trying and not understanding why they can't make friends here (or whatever you call it) and I've totally seen it work with some people. Some people just want to be all them all the time and don't seem to be community-minded enough to be able to adjust to interacting with people who are not like them.

I don't see BrooklynCouch as making a good faith effort to be a new member, to engage in discussions and not just lob shit bombs, and to make any attempt to adjust after we've mentioned that he's causing trouble and it's a problem. It doesnt matter too much to me who he used to be, but it does mean that the "who me?" schtick sounds tired. I can believe, as Meatbomb does, that this is likely not willful trolling and at the same time that doesn't mean its automagically acceptable.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:09 PM on May 28, 2008

Rtha, really? Like for real this upsets you?

No, actually, not at all. What I find most objectionable about the comments I linked to are this: shit in thread and run. The Hillary quote wasn't even really a full shitbomb (see: "I feel sorry for atheists."), but it was yet another example of shit-and-run.

I know there are lots of people here (I'm one of them, sometimes) who think or have said "It's not about the conversation; it's about the links." But conversation happens. If Matt didn't want it to happen, then we'd just have space for links, and no comments. The conversation/arguments/discussions should be at least marginally adult most of the time. Marginally adult means - to me - that there's no shitting and running.

A lot of us here like to fight about stuff sometimes. That's cool. I like that, too. But BrooklynCouch/ParisParamus isn't interested in discussion or conversation or even fighting. He's just interested, as Matt as said, in ""aw, but I was having fun pushing their buttons!"."

Why do we need that shit? Why should any of the admins have to keep cleaning up the same shit from the same user over and over?

Just DTMFA.
posted by rtha at 4:12 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's not about the conversation; it's about the links.

That doesn't mean that it's okay to shit in the conversation. It means that a crappy link should not stay just because of the discussion it inspires.
posted by grouse at 4:13 PM on May 28, 2008

I just hope that #1's declaration of ten-strikes-you're-out doesn't lead to PPBC's throwing shit all over the site in a you-can't-fire-me-I-quit blaze of glory.
posted by jtron at 4:14 PM on May 28, 2008

I just hope that #1's declaration of ten-strikes-you're-out doesn't lead to PPBC's throwing shit all over the site in a you-can't-fire-me-I-quit blaze of glory.

Don't worry. Don't worry. I'm not gonna do what everyone thinks I'm going to do.... Flip out man. All I want to know is whose coming with me.
posted by iamabot at 4:23 PM on May 28, 2008

I feel sorry for those who are atheists. Rather than being smarter, atheism reflects a poverty of thought, and a lack of appreciation of the universe, including of love and evil.

If that doesn't offend you deeply, change the religion. make it say:

I feel sorry for those who are Jews. Rather than being smarter, Judaism reflects a poverty of thought, and a lack of appreciation of the universe, including of love and evil.

or perhaps:

I feel sorry for those who are Catholics. Rather than being smarter, Catholicism reflects a poverty of thought, and a lack of appreciation of the universe, including of love and evil.

---

I'm not interested in discussing incitements like "Human-induced global warming has no scientific basis.", because you can go back and forth all day as to whether or not one should permit a user who uses theoretically plausible beliefs to purposefully derail conversations.

But the atheism comment, that is unforgivable. That single sin is so large as to prove that the user has not reformed, and will not reform.

The guy isn't here to contribute. He's here to masturbate. Kick him the fuck off.
posted by Project F at 4:23 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

"Revelations chapter 14207, verse 413866"
I'm too drugged up to lol, but that did make me smile. Thanks for answering.
posted by lysdexic at 4:25 PM on May 28, 2008

One clear sign: BrooklynCouch isn't here defending himself, though I guarantee you he has read this. In the earlier topic ("Do we need a flag for trolling?") he actually popped in briefly, dropped a couple of quick quips, but didn't say say anything about his identity or behavior. He won't even join the discussion when the topic is him.
posted by msalt at 4:27 PM on May 28, 2008

He won't even join the discussion when the topic is him.

Nope, but he sure does love sending MefiMail.
posted by dersins at 4:29 PM on May 28, 2008

we summoned him, nice job everyone

Wait, we can summon people here? Can we summon Mr. T next?

Also, nobody summon a Giant Slor, that would suck.
posted by burnmp3s at 4:30 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

we summoned him, nice job everyone

Sorry, my bad.

I probably shouldn't have been reading the Necronomicon aloud while my pronunciation was bunged up by allergies.
posted by CKmtl at 4:31 PM on May 28, 2008

He is in your house only to piss on your floor you off and laugh while you all talk about it like it matters.

Just sayin'.
posted by davejay at 4:33 PM on May 28, 2008

Why give him five chances let alone ten? Did he not just sneak back in here despite knowing full well that he wasn't welcome back?
posted by picea at 4:34 PM on May 28, 2008

So does this mean we can start banning murdering people who use the word "eponysterical" or "fixed that for you?"

Fixed that for you.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 4:35 PM on May 28, 2008

"boil the ocean" solution

Dibs on the crawfish.

He's here to masturbate. Kick him the fuck off.

In that case kicking him off won't be neccessary, he'll eventually go blind and be unable to read the site.
posted by jonmc at 4:36 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Did he not just sneak back in here despite knowing full well that he wasn't welcome back?

We had said in the past that he could come back if he'd stop acting trollish. He refused since we wouldn't let him back under his old username and that's where it stood until recently.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:41 PM on May 28, 2008

Ragma: ""I feel sorry for those who are atheists. Rather than being smarter, atheism reflects a poverty of thought, and a lack of appreciation of the universe, including of love and evil."

That is pure gold. Who didn't laugh? Show of hands?"

I didn't. I am an atheist, and as such I lack the capacity for laughter that only the born-again enjoy.

"Ha". "Ha". "Ha". what an empty, confusing sound it is to my heathen ears, a feeling I shall never appreciate. Dawkins damn you, ParisParamus. Dawkins damn you and your exclusive range of emotions.

:|
posted by Rhaomi at 4:41 PM on May 28, 2008 [37 favorites]

Nope, but he sure does love sending MefiMail.

Apparently PP is not BC, he is just PPs friend that lives upstairs from him. Whatever. I would like to retract my "poor bastard" post above and join the "he's a button-pushing troll" camp.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:45 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

When you have made Meatbomb your enemy, you have made me your enemy too. That man is hard to piss off.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:48 PM on May 28, 2008 [8 favorites]

Remember when people had nice alter-egos that were easily detectable through the poster's writing style? Like Carlos Quevedo? I miss those days.
posted by LionIndex at 4:48 PM on May 28, 2008

I kind of hope it's pizza, myself.

PIZZAPOCALYPSE 2008

The Associated Pizza. By Luigi Mario. May 28th, 2008.

They say it came from the skies. And it did. First one giant pizza, then dozens, and millions. Some estimates have measure pizzas 500 miles in diameter blanketing entire metropolitian world cities. Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam, New York City, Mexico City. According to reports, no major city is spared from this terrible - if tasty - catastrophe of unprecedented scope. There are confirmed reports of smaller cities also suffering under the crisp, just slightly oily baked dough, with smaller pies spanning dozens of miles covering everything as far as the eye can see.

One man, wearing an odd hat and self-identified only as "New Jersey" - claimed that the pizza was indeed "delicious". He went on to give a first-hand account of the moments after the pizzas landed.

"My house is smashed to rubble. It's just a pile of bricks. I think my son is in there. I can't raise the Irregulars on my comlink, and there's not a single peep out of them on the Hydrogen channel. If I can't make contact with them, humanity is certainly doomed. But this pizza is so fucking delicious I just don't care anymore. Look at me. I've got cheese in every damn hole in my head. I had to swim out of my collapsed basement through a sea of the sweetest, tangiest tomato sauce I've ever tasted. I think the one that landed on my house is some kind of mushroom-sausage-artichoke combo with prosciutto. My only hope is that my son gets to taste some. I know he'll die happy and at peace then. Oh, oh my God I can't help it, it's just so good oh help me...."

Mr. Jersey then reinforced this last point by producing a machete and a wheelbarrow. Hacking wildly through the three-foot thick crust, the two or three foot thick blanket of molten cheese and risking severe burns or drowning as the tomato sauce came pouring out like a tsunami, he skillfully wrangled the giant sloppy cube of pizza into a waiting wheelbarrow where he set upon it like a ravenous dog eating an ice cream cone. This scene of a people eating something much larger then their heads was repeating itself all around me, over and over again up and down the endless plains and hills of pizza which must obscure what must be an appalling scene of destruction beneath.

Under millions of megatons of hot, delicious pizza the ruins of human civilization itself lay in shambles as survivors claw, chew and eat their way out of their collapsed homes and business. Few places seem to be left untouched. Even all the antarctic research stations report being attacked by giant "BBQ-Chicken Hawaiian Style" pizzas, which they seem to be very happy about except for it making their stock of beer way too warm for once.

Beer. People are clamoring for lakes of beer, soda, lemonade and - oddly - glasses of cold milk. There are reports of a brewery being looted, of people making edible rafts of pizza and floating in the brewing tanks, only stopping once they've eaten all of their raft of pizza, only to hack out a new raft and start all over again. There's wild gossip and rumor in the streets. People want to know how this happened, and why, and if it were possible to send some giant comets made of ranch dressing, or a meteor storm of pickled pepperoncini, or perhaps some red pepper or flaked parmigiano.

Already, there are cargo cults forming. Some protests have focused on the lack of hotwings, and others are loudly proclaiming that the real terrors are still yet to come in the form of gigantic calzones or a scorching hot tsunami of lasagna from space. One child was found wailing repeatedly "I thought the Ninja Turtles were real? Where are they now? OH TRULY THERE IS NO GOD" while clutching small green dolls and absently nibbling on a long rope of cheese that coiled around him like a security blanket.

The governments of the world are airlifting antacids to key population centers for distribution, calling on every citizen to do their duty and start eating like an American at a buffet. Today, for the first time ever no one in the world is hungry. Many are missing, many more injured but oh I can't fucking take it any more I need to eat some more of that pizza I quit om nom nomnomnom

posted by loquacious at 4:53 PM on May 28, 2008 [18 favorites]

No Apocalypasta, sir? Not even a can of Armageddon-O's?
posted by jonmc at 4:58 PM on May 28, 2008

Spengler is also ParisParasmus.
posted by telstar at 5:01 PM on May 28, 2008

No Apocalypasta, sir? Not even a can of Armageddon-O's?

Your Italian great-grandma just called me up crying saying she was going to disown you from her grave for even referencing that canned anti-pasta.
posted by loquacious at 5:08 PM on May 28, 2008

We're obviously feeding ParisSpartacus free attention with this thread - and I admit I am doing so too with this comment, and this one.

However, what with mods coming out here to basically say yeah, I don't much expect him to sincerely have an honest discussion here either I wonder, what is there left to discuss?

Still, I vote to keep him around, because I am sitting on this pile of results and code from ParisSpartacus's comment history for my Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing class, and I can always use a bit more.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:31 PM on May 28, 2008

Grow thicker skin.

I wish to Christ I had my finger on the pulse of MeFi, because you all piss me off on a daily basis, and I'd love to return the favor.

Nothing is sacred.

"Jewish people don't spell out the word due to scriptural injunctions based on reverence. Let's not bash that here, hmm?"

Case in point. Don't tell me what to bash, and what not to. And the word you're talking about isn't God. It's a different word in Hebrew. Don't invite drama.

Flag it and move on. Do not feed the troll. If you find yourself outraged at something someone said on-line, count slowly to ten, then slowly backwards again. If the person seems sincere, check their history briefly. If they still seem sincere, you may engage, but do not be led down the garden path. It's really better not to engage, unless you see others actively being deceived.

Dissent is healthy. Uninformed dissent is largely ignorable.
posted by Eideteker at 5:37 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

I mean holy crap, I don't see why any user who has been perma-banned -- which is certainly something that takes a LOT of doing, is even allowed to rejoin in the first place.

And then there's this whole "we've had to delete 5 comments already but we'll be super DUPER nice and wait until he drops 10 steaming coils," which is, frankly, kinda dumb.
posted by chimaera at 5:40 PM on May 28, 2008

As dumb as mass-MefiMailing users that he is not, in fact, PP, when the moderators (who would know) seem to be saying the opposite?
posted by jtron at 5:44 PM on May 28, 2008

Ha! You too? That makes at least 4. And that's just the ones that I know of.
posted by dersins at 5:50 PM on May 28, 2008

Me too.
posted by jonmc at 5:52 PM on May 28, 2008

And here I thought I was special.
posted by Dave Faris at 5:54 PM on May 28, 2008

At least he hasn't tossed this down the memory hole.
posted by jtron at 5:54 PM on May 28, 2008

Me too.
posted by languagehat at 5:57 PM on May 28, 2008

IM SPARTICUS

wait, wrong window.
posted by mrzarquon at 5:59 PM on May 28, 2008

I haven't gotten ANY MeMails from him. That must be what I get for ignoring him in IRC all those times.
posted by yhbc at 6:03 PM on May 28, 2008

I have three. I'll trade you one psychoanalyst for two lawyers.
posted by loquacious at 6:03 PM on May 28, 2008

Banning people is pretty boring. You ban 'em, they're gone, and then what?

Temporary bans, recorded in a MetaTalk sidebar, and accompanied by hilarious, insulting edits to the person's profile would be more entertaining.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 6:04 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

The only reason PP is back is because we attracted his attention when a link to LGF was allowed to remain in a front page post. He's not back because he wants to become a community member: he is back so he can troll the threads for a short time, get himself permabanned again, and then go whinge about how awful and unfair and g-d damn evil lefty liberal MeFi is.

It's a win-win situation for him. He gets our negative attention, which he desperately craves. And he'll get lots of positive strokes from his own community, all agreeing with him that MeFi is perverse and evil and liberal.

It's exceptionally pathetic behaviour, but it's what floats his boat.

And it'll all be over soon enough. Mathowie's not going to put up with his community-damaging bullshit for nearly so long this time around. PP will have minimal impact and will soon be forgotten again.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:06 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Or perhaps MeFi could go to the Something Awful model, where they can still post, but next to their username it says IGNORE ME I AM AN IDIOT in large red letters, or something to that effect?
posted by jtron at 6:06 PM on May 28, 2008 [5 favorites]

The bottom line is, PP's reason for coming here is not what MeFi was intended for, and Metafilter is worse off for having him as a member. I noticed fairly quickly when he stopped taking a crap in the threads, and never in my most perverse fantasies did I ever think I'd want to read his trolling again. There's a fine game reserve in the form of LGF where he can live out his days with the rest of his herd. Here he's just a kid who refuses to stop shitting in the pool, and if you fool me twice...you can't get fooled again.

Without PP: Metafilter :)
With PP: Meh-tafilter :/
posted by mullingitover at 6:07 PM on May 28, 2008

several trollish comments

they were being dragged slowly through the water behind a small personal watercraft?
posted by quonsar at 6:14 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Or perhaps MeFi could go to the Something Awful model, where they can still post, but next to their username it says IGNORE ME I AM AN IDIOT in large red letters, or something to that effect?

I love the way they do that, there. I would also support being able to temporarily flag myself with stuff like "HAVEN'T HAD COFFEE YET PLEASE FUCK OFF" and possibly "WARNING: REALLY ENJOYING VODKA RIGHT NOW".
posted by loquacious at 6:16 PM on May 28, 2008 [8 favorites]

Banning people is pretty boring. You ban 'em, they're gone, and then what?

They come back under their third account?
posted by loquacious at 6:17 PM on May 28, 2008

They come back under their third account?

True, true. When did it become all about the money?
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 6:21 PM on May 28, 2008

True, true. When did it become all about the money?

It didn't. Are you?
posted by loquacious at 6:23 PM on May 28, 2008

It didn't. Are you?

If I were all about the money, I would hope I would have some money to show for it.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 6:24 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Nah, it's all about the groupies, man. the money is just to pay for the coke.
posted by jonmc at 6:26 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yeah. We can ignore him. I do. But you know eventually it only feed his bullshit.

PP is a liar. He is at best intellectually feeble and never admits when he is wrong. In fact when he is shown to be flat out wrong he runs away and then goes and says the same shit over on sites like LGF and then shits on this site there.

And on top of it all he gets a boner by deliberately pissing people off and ruining the threads. Ignore him? Jesus Christ how more dis-fucking-functional can you be?

What about the word asshole doesn't apply? Why the fuck let a guy like that stick around? Are we so worried we will feed his "martyr" complex? Well fuck that. The guy is a complete asshole. Kick him.
posted by tkchrist at 6:26 PM on May 28, 2008

I think we should ban both him, and also that fucking Sydney fucking Crosby.
posted by kbanas at 6:29 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

I say we let him go
posted by yhbc at 6:34 PM on May 28, 2008 [13 favorites]

I love the way they do that, there. I would also support being able to temporarily flag myself with stuff like "HAVEN'T HAD COFFEE YET PLEASE FUCK OFF" and possibly "WARNING: REALLY ENJOYING VODKA RIGHT NOW".

doubleplus good idea, that. Also add "I'M BEING AN ASSHOLE, SORRY" and "STONER THINKING AHEAD" and "IT'S THREE-FUCKING-O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING GOD I HATE MY BRAIN WHY WON'T IT LET ME GO TO SLEEP" and so on...
posted by five fresh fish at 6:42 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

Everyone who wants ParisParamus/BrooklynCouch banned, please favorite this comment.

No. That's a childish game.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:42 PM on May 28, 2008 [6 favorites]

If I were all about the money, I would hope I would have some money to show for it.

You're an attorney. I'm sure you can figure it out.
posted by loquacious at 6:44 PM on May 28, 2008

I love the way they do that, there. I would also support being able to temporarily flag myself with stuff like "HAVEN'T HAD COFFEE YET PLEASE FUCK OFF" and possibly "WARNING: REALLY ENJOYING VODKA RIGHT NOW".

Each title change cost five bucks though. That's why I never say shit over there so I don't piss off the wrong person and get my title changed to something highly inappropriate.
posted by puke & cry at 6:44 PM on May 28, 2008

That should be ten, not five bucks. I guess I've never actually looked at that purchase page.
posted by puke & cry at 6:47 PM on May 28, 2008

You're an attorney. I'm sure you can figure it out.

Being a lawyer is a terrible way to make money.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 6:47 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

But it's a great way to make friends.
posted by Divine_Wino at 6:51 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

If one or the other didn't exist, both would be created for this very thread.
posted by Mblue at 7:16 PM on May 28, 2008

I actually hear the USSR will be open soon as vacationland for lawyers in love...
posted by jonmc at 7:17 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Metafilter has a bit of a contentious relationship with lawyers, now that I think about it. ParisParamus and dios are both lawyers.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 7:23 PM on May 28, 2008

I feel compelled to comment in the thread where Brooklyn Couch is outed as PP. Who doesn't want to be a part of history? I wasn't surprised he would come back after that LGF thread. I suspect that this thread could get reeeaaaallllyy big.
posted by msali at 7:24 PM on May 28, 2008

Hey, I'm a lawyer also. I just don't make a big deal about it.

(However, I can confirm that most lawyers aren't pulling down nearly as much scratch as most people assume they all are).
posted by yhbc at 7:26 PM on May 28, 2008

Metafilter has a bit of a contentious relationship with lawyers, now that I think about it. ParisParamus and dios are both lawyers.

They're both dudes, too. Does MetaFilter have a contentious relationship with dudes?
posted by jtron at 7:28 PM on May 28, 2008

Metafilter has a bit of a contentious relationship with lawyers, now that I think about it. ParisParamus and dios are both lawyers.

Is the problem with MetaFilter, or is the problem with lawyers, ParisPari-err Dr. Steve?

And if one of those sets of data points is actually one single data point, is the problem actually with lawyers, or is it just you?
posted by loquacious at 7:31 PM on May 28, 2008

They're both dudes, too. Does MetaFilter have a contentious relationship with dudes?

Most people on Metafilter are dudes. Most Mefites aren't lawyers, though, so it's interesting that there are several lawyers on the short list.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 7:34 PM on May 28, 2008

Is the problem with MetaFilter, or is the problem with lawyers, ParisPari-err Dr. Steve?

And if one of those sets of data points is actually one single data point, is the problem actually with lawyers, or is it just you?

I don't know if there's a problem at all. I was just making an observation. Anyway, I'm not dios or ParisParamus and wouldn't put myself on the short list of most contentious Metafilter users ever.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 7:36 PM on May 28, 2008

Matt, please get rid of him again. And if he crawls back, get rid of him again. He is in your house only to piss on your floor.

The fact that he doesn't seem to care reveals that Matt probably wears shoes in his house.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:37 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Most Mefites aren't lawyers, though, so it's interesting that there are several lawyers on the short list.

Most mefites aren't dicks, either. [*]

Makes you think, don't it?





*N.B. I am not necessarily including myself in the same category as "most mefites."
posted by dersins at 7:39 PM on May 28, 2008

I suspect that this thread could get reeeaaaallllyy big.

Not really. There's not much else to say. Except this maybe. The thread referenced there is what brought Paris back, thus the "summoning" mentioned by jess.
posted by puke & cry at 7:49 PM on May 28, 2008

ParisPari-err Dr. Steve?

I'm not dios or ParisParamus ...

Okay, I guess I had just assumed all along that Mr. President etc. (in both his current and his previous incarnation) was Steve_at_Linnwood, but I may have been wrong in that as well. Didn't anyone else assume that, or was it just me?
posted by yhbc at 7:50 PM on May 28, 2008

From BrooklynCouch's profile page:

Music: 0 songs , 0 comments, 0 playlists



Yeah, throw him overboard. And Dr. Steve Whatsits, too, his username's too long.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:52 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Just so you know, trolls spaff off to threads like this, so we are in fact feeding his bizarre sexual addictions.
posted by Artw at 7:52 PM on May 28, 2008

Okay, I guess I had just assumed all along that Mr. President etc. (in both his current and his previous incarnation) was Steve_at_Linnwood, but I may have been wrong in that as well. Didn't anyone else assume that, or was it just me?

You weren't the only one to assume that, no, but I'm not him either. Sorry.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 7:53 PM on May 28, 2008

Okay. Now I know.
posted by yhbc at 7:56 PM on May 28, 2008

Okay, I guess I had just assumed all along that Mr. President etc. (in both his current and his previous incarnation) was Steve_at_Linnwood, but I may have been wrong in that as well. Didn't anyone else assume that, or was it just me?

Damn your hide. I'd totally forgotten about S@L. It was nice I tell you, that forgetting. I was operating under ParisParamus+BrooklynCouch+(unsubstantiated information) = A guy named Steve in Brooklyn who is a Lawyer. Dr. Steve is also a possible a guy named Steve, who also claims to be a lawyer - last I heard in Brooklyn.

He also writes, argues and thread-shits just like PP/BC loves to do - except perhaps with a clumsy veneer of "pretending not to be ParisParamus" with "pretending".

But now that you remind me of Steve_at_Linnwood I'm not even sure if I care any more. Hell, I didn't even really start this particular fire. Actually, I'm totally sure I don't care any more. It's time for pie or something.

Dr. Steve, if you aren't either of these banned members - my apologies in advance. But I remain unconvinced and suspicious. And if you are? Don't worry about it. You'll get yours.
posted by loquacious at 8:03 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

I dunno loquacious. I mean, you and I both know (at least, I know and I think you know) that there isn't any Ultimate Justice to be had out there.

Also, if you think you don't care for S@L, count your lucky stars you never had his little Eichmann ass as your IRC admin. I can't believe, in retrospect, that I agreed to pwn #bunnies for him way back when.
posted by Ryvar at 8:11 PM on May 28, 2008

"except perhaps with a clumsy veneer of "pretending not to be ParisParamus" with "pretending to be leftist with throw-away absurdist comments"

Sorry about that.
posted by loquacious at 8:16 PM on May 28, 2008

The fact that he doesn't seem to care reveals that Matt probably wears shoes in his house.


Maybe even swim fins.
posted by jonmc at 8:18 PM on May 28, 2008

I mean, you and I both know (at least, I know and I think you know) that there isn't any Ultimate Justice to be had out there.

No, there is! It's just that the justice is most often effectively dealt to themselves, by themselves. Which is why I never lose any sleep over this kind of stuff.

Also, if you think you don't care for S@L, count your lucky stars you never had his little Eichmann ass as your IRC admin. I can't believe, in retrospect, that I agreed to pwn #bunnies for him way back when.

There is no Cabal.

Thanks for your later help with that #bunnies thing, btw, and change of heart. No worries on my end.
posted by loquacious at 8:19 PM on May 28, 2008

Dr. Steve is also a possible a guy named Steve, who also claims to be a lawyer - last I heard in Brooklyn.

That's a bit thin, don't you think? You're misremembering the Brooklyn bit, for starters, and anyone could "possibly" be named Steve.

He also writes, argues and thread-shits just like PP/BC loves to do - except perhaps with a clumsy veneer of "pretending not to be ParisParamus" with "pretending".

No I don't. That's completely groundless.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 8:19 PM on May 28, 2008

anyone could "possibly" be named Steve.

no. 'stevemc,' just sounds stupid.
posted by jonmc at 8:24 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

anyone could "possibly" be named Steve.

No. No one could possibly be named Steve. No one.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:29 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

stevehowie
stevehat
steve & cry
Stevecock Pileon
Stevebomb
stevemyn
steve missing
SteveZero
Steve Nog

posted by ThePinkSuperSteve
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:29 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Stevecock Pileon

starring Jeff Stryker, this fall from Ramrod Productions!

(I'm so sorry. I need to be locked up.)
posted by jonmc at 8:33 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

anyone could "possibly" be named Steve

Not me, because my name is Tom.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:37 PM on May 28, 2008

Mathowie's not going to put up with his community-damaging bullshit for nearly so long this time around.

If you were right, he would already be banned, and this thread wouldn't exist. (Or at worst, this thread would've been very short, and ended with an admin comment saying 'he's gone now. move on.')
posted by Project F at 8:39 PM on May 28, 2008

(I'm so sorry. I need to be locked up.)

That can arranged, hon'.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:41 PM on May 28, 2008

Everyone needs a hug and a fedora.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:42 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

why is everybody putting double spaces in their comments all of a sudden?



because it's really fucking annoying.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:48 PM on May 28, 2008

stevewoman? Er... maybe not me.
posted by arcticwoman at 8:48 PM on May 28, 2008

Project F has a salient point: the admins should have closed this thread waaaay back when.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:50 PM on May 28, 2008

stevebot
posted by iamabot at 8:52 PM on May 28, 2008

anyone could "possibly" be named Steve

Not me, because my name is Tom.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:37 PM on May 28 [+] [!]

Whatever, Steve.
posted by jtron at 8:52 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

why is everybody putting double spaces in their comments all of a sudden?

It's the hot, new <stevequote> tag. It it meant to be as annoying and useless as possible.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:52 PM on May 28, 2008

five fresh steve
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:53 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Did Steve tell you that, perchance?

Steve. *shakes fist*
posted by puke & cry at 8:54 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

stevefucker
posted by netbros at 8:56 PM on May 28, 2008

How about we give the original ParisParamus account to fold_and_mutilate?
posted by ODiV at 8:58 PM on May 28, 2008

I think everyone should just be assigned a random account every 24 hours.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:01 PM on May 28, 2008

pompomsteve? Well, if the cap fits....
posted by pompomtom at 9:10 PM on May 28, 2008

anyone could "possibly" be named Steve

Okay, I admit it, my real name is stevems.

not really
posted by amyms at 9:11 PM on May 28, 2008

Nobody ever assumes I'm a president or a doctor, or named Elvis. Or that I'm America.

The Steve gets latched right on to, though!
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:14 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

Dee Dee: "Dexter, what if your name was Nancy?"

Dexter: "I refuse to answer any hypothetical questions."

Dee Dee: "Okay, Nancy."

- from Dexter's Lab
posted by amyms at 9:14 PM on May 28, 2008

we summoned him, nice job everyone

I am trying REALLY hard not to think about the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man right now.

or bevets.
posted by shmegegge at 9:16 PM on May 28, 2008

Remember that metatalk thread awhile ago about misreading names? I was just reminded of it by "stevems," because until she wrote that, I had never isolated "amy" in her name--I thought of her as "ammims."

--not that steve
posted by not that girl at 9:18 PM on May 28, 2008

Nobody ever assumes I'm a president or a doctor, or named Elvis. Or that I'm America.

For what it's worth, I totally assumed you were a president.
posted by amyms at 9:19 PM on May 28, 2008

anyone could "possibly" be named Steve

Datapoint: The hedge in Over the Hedge was named Steve. The pirate in Dodgeball was Steve the Pirate. The Six Million Dollar Man was Steve Austin. Stone Cold Steve Austin is also Steve Austin.

I think I've made my point. Steves can't be trusted.
posted by quin at 9:21 PM on May 28, 2008

I am friends with Jack Sparrow ParisParamus.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:21 PM on May 28, 2008

You want gifthub, two doors down.
posted by tkolar at 9:22 PM on May 28, 2008

er....

Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America wrote...
I think everyone should just be assigned a random account every 24 hours.

You want gifthub, two doors down.
posted by tkolar at 9:24 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

I would like to change topics briefly for a moment, if it's okay with everyone else. I would like to stop, for just a moment, talking about returned users we don't want and instead talk about absent users we miss.

I have several, but I just this moment noticed that fandango_matt closed his account in early march of this year. I'm really very sad about that, and his history doesn't quite let me know what the deal is with the why and wherefore. Either way, I'd much rather mention that I miss fandango_matt right now, since fandango_matt (as only one example of many) is not currently trolling us for his attention.
posted by shmegegge at 9:24 PM on May 28, 2008

Fandango_matt has become Optovox.
posted by loquacious at 9:30 PM on May 28, 2008

He still pops in on rare occasions, but I miss rodii.
posted by netbros at 9:34 PM on May 28, 2008

Speaking of missing people, where's amberglow? I don't know him, so maybe it's not my place to ask, but I've always enjoyed his posts and I noticed his absence (according to his profile, he hasn't posted since January).
posted by amyms at 9:39 PM on May 28, 2008 [6 favorites]

he reads worldnetdaily, so i'm going for "conservative nutjob" rather than troll. I didn't actually think anyone read worldnetdaily except tinfoil hat republicans running around in mountains with automatic weapons ranting about jews controlling washington while pointing to news articles at random and screaming out "SEE! I TOLD YOU! IT ALL MAKES SENSE!" to anyone passing by.

sorry, got a little side tracked there. I don't think he's actually trolling, I think he's just a.. well..for what it's worth, probably worth a ban anyway, cos even if he actually believes what he's saying he's not really arguing persuasively, just kinda screaming LIBERAL MEDIA and linking right-wing-politico-porno blogs to justify himself.

not that i don't like the guy, of course.
sorry, did i get on-topic? :P
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 9:43 PM on May 28, 2008

Nobody ever assumes I'm a president or a doctor, or named Elvis. Or that I'm America.

Holy shit, he's Stephen Colbert!
posted by homunculus at 9:58 PM on May 28, 2008

For the record, I think anybody who gets banned and then semi-sheepishly comes back under a new username, but then once outed he pretends that he's really the old poster's roommate or something -- is probably up to no good.

I mean, does anybody believe that he and his roommate share a name and AOL account? Really? It just strikes me as being a little ..... I dunno, not-quite-right-in-the-head.
posted by Avenger at 10:05 PM on May 28, 2008

How come BrooklynCrotch didn't send ME a MeFiMail?

This will not steve.
posted by wendell at 10:08 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

You know, it's not actually that uncommon for two people to share a name and an AOL account. Not roommates, though.

Just throwing that out there.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 10:14 PM on May 28, 2008

LOLFATWAZ
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:16 PM on May 28, 2008

He sent me a LGF post. It was the first time I think I've visited that site.

Uh oh.

*breaks out zombie kit, watches Burhanistan very carefully for 30 days.*
posted by loquacious at 10:24 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

I oppose the sharing of AOL accounts as flying in the face of four or five thousand years of civilization and religion.
posted by homunculus at 10:25 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

*ponders 'spaceman_steve'*
*decides Steve is a stupid name*
*ponders spiffs*
posted by spaceman_spiff at 10:33 PM on May 28, 2008

Burhanistan- Remeber, a shotgun is only useful for zombies at close range, as you have to destroy the brain. So something like a M1903 might be better at medium distance, or possible an over/under rifle/shotgun combo if you really want the shotgun. But when you think about it, something like a .22 rifle could suite best against actual zombies, enough force to take out the brain, and ammunition is cheap and easy to find, and easy to carry while on the move.

For Further Reading
posted by mrzarquon at 10:40 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Check out World War Z, by the same author, great read.

So are we rowing here now? I think is suitable.
posted by mrzarquon at 10:51 PM on May 28, 2008

five fresh steve

Close, but it's actually DJ Fresh Steve Fish. I changed the "Steve" for alliterative purposes and, frankly, to hide my Steveness from all y'all.

I almost went with Six Steve Squid, but decided that would be silly.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:03 PM on May 28, 2008

Eh, Steve!
posted by kyleg at 11:07 PM on May 28, 2008

Riki tiki writes "doesn't work because it's a 'boil the ocean' solution. It's not enough for you to personally ignore PP, because all it takes is one new member who doesn't realize he's a troll, and the thread goes to shit."

I don't know if it "worked" per se but I'm fond of the "I will not take this thing from your hand" approach. Warns off those who might get hooked. Plus it feels like you're contributing to a solution.

Dave Faris writes "And here I thought I was special."

I think your special Dave.
posted by Mitheral at 11:36 PM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ha! You too? That makes at least 4. And that's just the ones that I know of.

Add me to the 'I know a secret' MefiMail list. Does that make me recipient number eight?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:37 PM on May 28, 2008

I think everyone should just be assigned a random account every 24 hours.

Ooh! Ooh! Let's do a costume ball, where you randomize and then try to guess everyone's real login from the way they write.
posted by msalt at 11:39 PM on May 28, 2008

You know, it's not actually that uncommon for two people to share a name and an AOL account. Not roommates, though.

So that dork on Portal of Evil? Is that a different Mr President Dr Steve Elvis America?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:39 PM on May 28, 2008

Hey, he's funny!

Now ban his ass.
posted by Artw at 11:49 PM on May 28, 2008

PP never bothered me much, that I recall.

That said, I (only partly in jest) recommend (as I have before) the institution of the hellban. A user who is hellbanned can log in and comment, but his or her comments are invisible to the rest of the userbase, even they are though visible to themselves.

The fun gets positively delicious when a troll is hellbanned, and they don't know it, and keep posting their sallies to absolutely zero response because nobody can read them. Showering troll brains!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:57 PM on May 28, 2008 [25 favorites]

Most of you bastards have mental health problems as well.

Wrong. That's what they want you to think, but I'm at least seven steps ahead of their evidence-gathering missions, as I have a range of invisible mind-activated devices (using ionised carbon spectrum technologies of my own secret design) which scramble my transmitted thoughts and only make them *seem* abnormal, to people who don't have the necessary vanadium transistor decoder chips implanted under their skin. And they haven't even worked that bit out yet. Idiots.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:03 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's not enough for you to personally ignore PP, because all it takes is one new member who doesn't realize he's a troll, and the thread goes to shit.

I dunno if people mentioning him on a near-daily basis in the time between PP's final comment and BC's first really helped, either. Considering the number of times his name was invoked in those two years like some sort of boogieman or a troll fed in absentia, banning him is/was apparently pointless, since he didn't even have to be on the damn site to get people to lose their shit over him.

It's a darn shame when folks take advantage of a second chance only to continue acting in bad faith. Sucky.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:09 AM on May 29, 2008

PP never bothered me much, that I recall.
posted by steverosthewonderchicken at 8:57 PM on May 28
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 12:22 AM on May 29, 2008

I think we should keep him around just long enough to give us a chance to address him as:

BrooklynCrotch (which I already have)
BrooklynConch
BrooklynCrutch
BrooklynOuch
BrooklynCooch
BrooklynClutch
BrooklynCow
BronxCouch
QueensCouch
and, of course, LevitraCouch.

But after that, BanhammerCouch.
posted by wendell at 12:25 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, do I see the origin of a potential feud between stavrosthewonderchicken and GooseOnTheLoose? Now that would be a legal cockfight.
posted by wendell at 12:27 AM on May 29, 2008

ONE MORE THING, (he Columboed) this thread should NOT be considered a new longboat, but rather a longcouch.
posted by wendell at 12:28 AM on May 29, 2008

it's always interesting to see people who can't control themselves and their reactions attempt to control what other people say - especially when it's been said that if people choose to leave over comments made here than its their decision to have done that and their responsibility - but if someone says something that makes you froth at the mouth, it's ALL HIS FAULT - BAN HIM!!

if nothing else he has shown you your own folly - if you would only look
posted by pyramid termite at 12:44 AM on May 29, 2008

Not really, pyramid termite. One of the cool things about metafilter, for me, was that the discussions were generally held somewhere just above my typical level of discourse. Every once in a while it would dip down to where I felt like I had something worthwhile to say, but for the most part I would just read on as people with more expertise and who were more articulate would build up discussions to become quite interesting.

The problem is when somebody seemingly deliberately drags the discussion into something more crass and obnoxious by slinging specious shit around. Then, all the other assholes who would ordinarily remain silent because they had nothing relevant to contribute will perk up, thinking to themselves, "poop? I can throw/respond to poop!" and threads just degenerate from there.

I don't think anybody is frothing at the mouth over dissenting opinion, though. There are several comments asking whether or not things were being said in earnest or just to be provocative. I think the consensus is that he is fairly consistently doing the latter.
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 1:05 AM on May 29, 2008

I'd like to suggest an alternative to banning which I thought up whilst trapped in an interminable telephone queue one lunchtime. The inventors of that queue had realized that it's much easier to drive people into a black fit of frustration and rage and despair rather than, say, connecting them to a customer service rep who would have to deal with their shit. "If we piss the customer off sufficiently" I imagine them thinking "they'll almost certainly hang up the phone themselves, sparing us the trouble of giving them the runaround before hanging up on them. Those who, by some heroic effort of will, actually manage to hang on in the face of this technological abuse will have earned the right to be poorly served by a human being".

In the case of Metafilter, the user facing bannination can log in and post normally, but suffers a constant random stream of low-level technical glitches that gnaw away at their confidence and generally make their experience an unhappy one. Of the entirety of their long post, only the first few words appear. Their one-liners end up multiplied by 2 or 3. They get opaque error messages. Their login keeps timing out whenever they refresh the page. Links which should be at the top of the page don't seem to be there anymore. Their carefully-formatted post ends up with mangled html tags or strange characters.

Nothing consistent, and nothing that can be attributed to malicious sabotage. Just a background radiation of technological harassment and site non-cooperativeness that pervades their experience of Metafilter.

I guarantee they will self-ban, eventually. This is preferable to a moderator ban for the following reasons: a) it's non-controversial b) it's more likely to be permanent due to negative associations formed over time, and c) they will suffer more.

If someone manages to cope despite all that, then they'll at least have earned some grudging respect for their sheer tenacity.
posted by Ritchie at 1:38 AM on May 29, 2008 [13 favorites]

The official policy is that we're against troll and the troll agenda, right? Except when they're amusing or edifying, of course. As someone mentioned somewhere in this thread, the epistemological limitation we're dealing with here necessitates that we determine trollitude through the evidence available. So, it seems like homie is fairly trollish.

Brooklycouch: stop doing that, or we will give you lots of attention and speculate interminably about your internal state!
posted by clockzero at 2:40 AM on May 29, 2008

The hellban was back in the heyday of "let's do crazy things because we own a forum" on SA, and was eventually abandoned because it strained SA's already overtaxed server.

...I imagine MeFi could probably handle it, though...
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:56 AM on May 29, 2008

Dear AksMe, I live under a bridge; I love eating fat little goats. Does that make me a troll?
posted by not_on_display at 5:22 AM on May 29, 2008

I once got married in Vegas to a guy named Steve. Do I win?
posted by JanetLand at 5:26 AM on May 29, 2008

Holy crap, you're that JanetLand? I have no comment on that. It was just a youthful indiscretion, which my other wives will attest to.
posted by SteveInMaine at 5:42 AM on May 29, 2008

What kind of rapping name is Steve, anyway?
posted by gaspode at 5:42 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

evetsteve
posted by waraw at 5:59 AM on May 29, 2008

There is something that has been bothering me for quite some time now. Not the itch, that has cleared up. The thing that bothers me is "whilst". Just stop it, ok?
posted by Mister_A at 6:03 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

PP or not, they certainly managed to stir up a 232+ comment MeTa. That's pretty impressive. PP or not, I bet they're laughing.
posted by exlotuseater at 6:31 AM on May 29, 2008

Mister_A, whence your whilst whinge?
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:41 AM on May 29, 2008

Can't pb or matthowie just set up his user account so that whenever he posts, a little picture of a troll or perhaps simply the words "Super-Dick" appears next to his name?

Kind of like that one user who had a star next to his name for a while?

Please
posted by chillmost at 6:47 AM on May 29, 2008

Add me to the 'I know a secret' MefiMail list. Does that make me recipient number eight?

If so, I'm number nine.
posted by ericb at 6:54 AM on May 29, 2008

Goddamn. If it was that easy for me to evoke the chthonic entities, I'd be at home muttering passages from the Goetia right now.
posted by malocchio at 6:57 AM on May 29, 2008

if nothing else he has shown you your own folly - if you would only look

Wow. That's far out, man.

I didn't know that SecaucusSofa worked for the Mittster. Help like that probably explains his humiliating loss.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:05 AM on May 29, 2008

Along the lines of Ritchie's suggestion, Something Awful used to "hellban" people. The person could post as much as they wanted, but no one could see the posts except mods & admins. Also, the hellbanned person was not made aware of the punishment and everything looked normal. I guess they figured they were just being ignored.
posted by chiababe at 7:11 AM on May 29, 2008

Hey, let's have none of this loose talk about Steves.
posted by languagehat at 7:12 AM on May 29, 2008

I just want to thank Matt for not caving in to this mob mentality.
posted by Dave Faris at 7:16 AM on May 29, 2008

I'm using Mondo Meta to filter out folks that crap in the finance threads. I realise that it fragments the threads somewhat, but its better than wading through the alternative or even wasting time responding.

Seems like that would be a solution for those most bothered.
posted by Mutant at 7:32 AM on May 29, 2008

In the case of Metafilter, the user facing bannination can log in and post normally, but suffers a constant random stream of low-level technical glitches that gnaw away at their confidence and generally make their experience an unhappy one. Of the entirety of their long post, only the first few words appear. Their one-liners end up multiplied by 2 or 3. They get opaque error messages. Their login keeps timing out whenever they refresh the page. Links which should be at the top of the page don't seem to be there anymore. Their carefully-formatted post ends up with mangled html tags or strange characters.

I totally agree(d) with this. IT'S TIME FOR THE FOURTH DIMENSION OF MEFI!
posted by cashman at 7:35 AM on May 29, 2008

PP or not, they certainly managed to stir up a 232+ comment MeTa. That's pretty impressive. PP or not, I bet they're laughing.

To be fair, we've had some pretty good laughs in this thread.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:51 AM on May 29, 2008

But which one of the AOL accounts is being used to access Asian porn, and how does PP prove to his wife that it's not really him?
posted by junkbox at 7:56 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

In the case of Metafilter, the user facing bannination can log in and post normally, but suffers a constant random stream of low-level technical glitches that gnaw away at their confidence and generally make their experience an unhappy one.
[...]
Nothing consistent, and nothing that can be attributed to malicious sabotage. Just a background radiation of technological harassment and site non-cooperativeness that pervades their experience of Metafilter.

Also known as "2004".
posted by Armitage Shanks at 7:59 AM on May 29, 2008

cortex, it's a pandemic! 4910 instances of "whilst" indexed in google! It's a pandemic! It's the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone ever!
posted by Mister_A at 8:00 AM on May 29, 2008

For the record, I think anybody who gets banned and then semi-sheepishly comes back under a new username, but then once outed he pretends that he's really the old poster's roommate or something -- is probably up to no good.

Jesus.... are y'all trying to summon U.N. Owen now?
posted by pineapple at 8:03 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Grandfather in an historical troll or two, tinge their posts with a vomit green color, and point the kids at their posts and say, "that's what we're talking about. Act like that and we'll spank you."

Maybe there is a difference between the great uncle who vomits on the carpet at thanksgiving, and any old stumblebum.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:10 AM on May 29, 2008

an historical

MY EYES AND EARS!!!!!!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:11 AM on May 29, 2008 [3 favorites]

Now we just need to learn that Paris is dating innocentbystander, and we're set.

As for Steve_at_Linnwood. I'm pretty sure he wasn't PP, as Steve claimed to live in Milwaukee and definitely had Milwaukee knowledge (IIRC).

-Steve Lokken
posted by drezdn at 8:14 AM on May 29, 2008

I don't think I've even noticed this guy, but if he gets banned, I will be stunned. I've seen some stern finger-wagging done in the direction of complete shitrockets who were (and are) very clearly here for no other reason than trolling, but the only banning I've seen in the year-plus I have been here has been for self-linking. That PP was evidently actually banned tells me that either this was once a much more h@rdk0r3 place or that he, I don't know, ate babies or something.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:14 AM on May 29, 2008

Not everyone can be named Steve. Some people have to be named Adam.
posted by The Bellman at 8:15 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

We should respond to all trolls with "Timecube" regardless of context.

-- Stevegu
posted by Skorgu at 8:18 AM on May 29, 2008

Let's roll him up in a carpet and throw him off a bridge!
posted by electroboy at 8:20 AM on May 29, 2008

It was my impression that the rule for "BBC English" is that if the initial syllable of the "h" word is unstressed (historical) one uses "an", whereas if it is stressed (history), one uses "a".

History is pronounced by some with an /h/ and by others without an /h/. And often both ways by the same people, in different contexts. And so is historical. But the -ic(al) suffix is a stress-shifter; when it's added to a root the stress moves rightward one syllable (hístory vs históric, autómata vs automátic, térrify vs terrífic, etc). That in turn means the first syllable becomes unstressed, and in unstressed syllables in English there's a much higher likelihood of dropping /h/.

In fact, that's how I say it most of the time. I'd say a history professor because I say an /h/ in history, and an historical novel because I drop the /h/ most of the time in historical.

So the stress is a factor, but the stress rule is just a description of some cases, not a rule to follow in all. The rule to follow in all cases is that the nature of the actual sound that comes out in speech controls whether we use a or an.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:22 AM on May 29, 2008 [6 favorites]

Jesus.... are y'all trying to summon U.N. Owen now?

omg. u.n. owen vs ParisBrooklynParamusCouch. CAGEMATCH TO THE DEATH

-dirtynumbangelsteve
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:24 AM on May 29, 2008

...with paulsc as the referee.

-stump
posted by scrump at 8:26 AM on May 29, 2008

Some people have to be named Adam.

Well, of course. *Someone* has to marry Steve. It sure ain't going to be that Eve girl.
posted by yeti at 8:26 AM on May 29, 2008

The rule to follow in all cases is that the nature of the actual sound that comes out in speech controls whether we use a or an.

Exactly. But few Americans drop the /h/ in historical, so it looks odd to us.
posted by languagehat at 8:27 AM on May 29, 2008

Here's a picture of PP from a New York meetup. (Not really, but that image had something like 700 requests for the hi res view.)
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:32 AM on May 29, 2008

I'd never heard of the hellban before, but it's brilliant. Think of the potential for gaslighting! You wouldn't even have to implement it, mods, just drop in and mention that it's been implemented. Then we could start ignoring the trolls and they would completely freak out.
posted by The Bellman at 8:34 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

Here's the real ParisParamus.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:34 AM on May 29, 2008

Cleary PP is your new bicycle.
posted by drezdn at 8:34 AM on May 29, 2008

And no, S@L was definitely not PP - unless that person (in the PP guise) was doing a brilliant job at faking mild technical incompetence.
posted by Ryvar at 8:37 AM on May 29, 2008

ParisParamus drank my milkshake.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:37 AM on May 29, 2008

Mister_A, whilst I hear your complaint, I am troubled. I cannot help but feel that whilst you are compiling your lists of "whilsts" on Metafilter, that you are missing out on other important words that are being over used. Please consider that whilst you use Metafilter.

-never used baby steves.
posted by never used baby shoes at 8:39 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:43 AM on May 29, 2008

If we're going to get serious about cruel and unusual bannings, I'd like to introduce the idea of the MarkovRFDban, whereby whatever the banned user posts is converted to a Markov'd rehash of Mayberry RFD fan fiction. To wit:

ANDY But that kind of it cost?
BEN Oh, you're real handcuffs.
ANDY Yeah, me that came from. Why, Floyd's Barbershop. That's Ben is going to do that, too.
OPIE Well, my Pa patrolling a no-parking zone, then I'll be a no-parking zone, then
you didn't come on the chair will soon be back to the wallet at Floyd's.
ANDY Yeah, and .
FLOYD Oh, uh, All, er, Goodall.
RON Good, well, it's time in for a place to turn Mayberry returns at Floyd's Barbershop
is straightening up more than Opie.
ANDY Ah, don't know that you've received a haircut when he leaves Mayberry, is ignored; he cuts my family didn't always gives me that doesn't show up. And then Opie, here that you've received a miser, 'cause then Floyd, and head west
with a shop before Floyd.

--steevener
posted by sleevener at 8:43 AM on May 29, 2008 [4 favorites]

Fucktard, asshat, and bucket of cocks (I realize this last one is a phrase) are used sparingly and appropriately. "Whilst" is the worst of the bunch. I mean hey, there are only one thousand asshats on MetaFilter!
posted by Mister_A at 8:49 AM on May 29, 2008

I can't believe you people think Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America is the same as ParisParamus. You have no appreciation for the quality work of the former.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:50 AM on May 29, 2008

I say we change the default name for Dave Faris to Special Dave Faris.
posted by y2karl at 8:54 AM on May 29, 2008

You missed a hell of an opportunity there, TheOnlyCoolSteve.
posted by yhbc at 8:56 AM on May 29, 2008

As long as we are talking about user names: most of the cool kids user names seem to have a lower-case first letter for the first letter. Do I have to spend another $5 to get a lower-case user name?
posted by marxchivist at 9:05 AM on May 29, 2008

M, I can change that for you. Want me to?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:07 AM on May 29, 2008

Yes, please. Thank you very much.
posted by marxchivist at 9:10 AM on May 29, 2008

Presto! You may have to log out and in again.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:13 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm frankly surprised PP didn't send me a MeFi mail. We're, like, the only Jews on this site, except that rabbi, or whatever he is, who sometimes posts Jewish link to the front page. Otherwise, there are no Jews on MetaFilter at all. And I barely even count, because I was adopted, and he doesn't count, because he's conservative. And that rabbi, or whatever he is, hasn't been around for a while.

There are no Jews on Metafilter.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:16 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm using Mondo Meta to filter out folks that crap in the finance threads. I realise that it fragments the threads somewhat

Sounds like the Bozofilter they used on the WELL. Any individual could make any other user disappear, but only for their own login. It never worked well for trolls for the same reason "don't respond" doesn't work. Someone will respond, and then you see a response to an invisible comment.

I like the community-wide approach much better (Hellban, or whatever you call it.)

Hey, why is no one responding?
posted by msalt at 9:17 AM on May 29, 2008

OH MY GOD! MY MIDDLE NAME IS STEPHEN! I MUST ALSO BE A TROLL! (eats billy goat gruff)
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 9:17 AM on May 29, 2008

Miguel is jewish. We chased him away, too.
posted by Dave Faris at 9:17 AM on May 29, 2008

While you're at it, make yours capitalized too, would you? The all-lowercase "jessamyn" has no bearing on a fine and properly capped "Cooter".
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:18 AM on May 29, 2008

Cortex and I are both half-Jew actually, so that's like one whole Jew mod!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:19 AM on May 29, 2008

Everyone on Metafilter probably has a little Jew or a little Irish in them. Or, at least, they will when I'm finished with them.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:21 AM on May 29, 2008

meeeeh
posted by billy goat gruff at 9:23 AM on May 29, 2008

OK, I will play, and play nice, which means only the non-political; feel free to e-mail me for political things. I think I will help that guy with the Excel question now. Have a nice day.
posted by BrooklynCouch at 9:26 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

a fine and properly capped "Cooter"

Oh no you didn't.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:28 AM on May 29, 2008

Could you go help the person who wants their wall demolished?
posted by fixedgear at 9:32 AM on May 29, 2008

My grandma was a self hating jew. My father was adopted though, so I only inherited the self hatred.
posted by Jofus at 9:34 AM on May 29, 2008

dirtynumbangelBAGELsteve
posted by pineapple at 9:35 AM on May 29, 2008

So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow.
Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light.
And the night got deathly quiet, and his face lost all expression.
Said, "If you're gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right.

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run."
posted by dawson at 9:36 AM on May 29, 2008

Fixedgear, I recommended asking the question on Brownstoner.com
posted by BrooklynCouch at 9:38 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yay Couches!
</non sequitor>
posted by Skorgu at 9:44 AM on May 29, 2008

a fine and properly capped "Cooter"

Is there a GreaseMonkey script to plaster the Cooter Countdown Clock™ all over the place? If not there should be and everyone should use it.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:46 AM on May 29, 2008

I think it's a token gesture at best, Burhanistan.

He was told the conditions under which he could come back.

He came back.

He didn't follow the conditions.

You better believe that's a paddlin'.


And thank you, steveapple. I missed a trick there, with the bagels and all.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:47 AM on May 29, 2008

StevEVOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo........
posted by Lynsey at 9:47 AM on May 29, 2008

The corpse in Steve's library
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:55 AM on May 29, 2008

marxchivist: I have a lower case user name and I'm far, far from cool.
posted by absalom at 9:55 AM on May 29, 2008

And.... Scene!
posted by Sparx at 9:57 AM on May 29, 2008

I don't really have much to say about the parisparamus/BrooklynCouch situation, but I've always wanted to join in on one of these running gags. Really, it's half the reason I signed up.

posted by The Man from Steve
posted by The Man from Lardfork at 10:03 AM on May 29, 2008

Today I've learned that we all have our own ParisParamus to face. For some, that ParisParamus is drug and alcohol abuse. For others, is it is the capitalization of their nickname. For still others, it is Steve. But, I believe the people of Metafilter can conquer their own personal ParisParamus, who happens to be the actual ParisParamus!
posted by stavrogin at 10:06 AM on May 29, 2008 [8 favorites]

Not so much with the google-stalking, please.

Paris, if you can manage to be good to your word and avoid dropping a duece in any more threads, keen, all is forgiven, welcome home and we'll slaughter the fatted calf. Hooray.

But you've been around the block enough to know what does and doesn't start shit around here, so your coy "oh gosh, I'm just saying what I believe" schtick isn't gonna fly and is just going to hasten your departure if you keep trying to trot it out. Just don't be a dick in the first place if you want to stay.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:06 AM on May 29, 2008

the littlest brussels steve
the littlest stevie sprout
the steviest brussels sprout
steve's littlest brussels sprout

Hmm.
posted by the littlest brussels sprout at 10:10 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

The guy graduated college in '85. The time for...

Ageism rears its ugly head once again.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:11 AM on May 29, 2008

Holy shit !

Some kind of HTMLchemy there! Mind is blown.
posted by Mister_A at 10:12 AM on May 29, 2008

Dammit, my g&t is all warm and flat now.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:12 AM on May 29, 2008

My name is Adam.

-Steveurus
posted by sciurus at 10:14 AM on May 29, 2008

Metafilter's Own Steve Savage hasn't been on the site for a while now... just sayin.

- Nick Versteve
posted by Nick Verstayne at 10:15 AM on May 29, 2008

I am not PP, damn it!

I disagree with the last paragraph of your post, cortex. Because I am center-right politically, and most people here are way, way, way left of center, what passes for simply "interesting" and/or "thought-provoking" in the larger world strikes Mefi people as beyond the pale and/or "trolling."

So better for both of us that I, like my upstairs neighbor just not try (PP got burned, and is gone).

If something can reasonably be construed to have political implications, I will stay out of it--that's what the e-mail invite is for.

By the way, I just spoke with PP, and he says hi, and sometimes wishes he could return to Metafilter.
posted by BrooklynCouch at 10:16 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

Dammit, my g&t is all warm and flat now.

Get out of my class, go get some whiskey, then come back in.
posted by Mister_A at 10:17 AM on May 29, 2008

I believe the people of Metafilter can conquer their own personal ParisParamus, who happens to be the actual ParisParamus!

Okay, I'll start sewing Steve outfits for everyone!
posted by burnmp3s at 10:19 AM on May 29, 2008

owhydididosteve?
posted by owhydididoit at 10:19 AM on May 29, 2008

I am not PP, damn it!

dishonesty: the second-best policy.
posted by Hat Maui at 10:20 AM on May 29, 2008

Here is something to read while we wait for whomever it is to finish typing that long, impassioned, hysterical screed.
posted by Mister_A at 10:20 AM on May 29, 2008

Okay, I'll start sewing Steve outfits for everyone!

Sew! Sew like the wind!
posted by stavrogin at 10:25 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

That's it. Either I'm the One True Steve&trade, or I change my name to, oh let's say Matt. Yeah, that's it, Matt.

I'm getting sick and tired of having my name (which coincidentally is the name of my long departed grandfather who sailed across the Atlantic from Lithuania) dragged through the mud by interlopers high on neoconservatism and web-wannabes looking for a laugh.

- Steve&trade
posted by SteveInMaine at 10:26 AM on May 29, 2008

Damn, see what you made me do?
posted by SteveInMaine at 10:26 AM on May 29, 2008

*raises one skeptical eyebrow*
posted by yhbc at 10:27 AM on May 29, 2008

The plot stupidens.
posted by dirtdirt at 10:29 AM on May 29, 2008 [16 favorites]

Because I am center-right politically, and most people here are way, way, way left of center

"I am a reasonable centrist and the majority of people here are extreme leftists." Yeah, this is going to work.

Jut out of curiosity, was it a one-in-a-million fluke that you each moved into the one building in Park Slope where the other conservative happened to be living?
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:32 AM on May 29, 2008

"I am a reasonable centrist and the majority of people here are extreme leftists."

I like that the rebuttal is itself kind of a troll. That's classy.
posted by Artw at 10:33 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Regarding longboating, remember when we were talking about butthurt and the trade imbalance in memes? I think longboating is ours, so get exporting.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:35 AM on May 29, 2008

Jut out of curiosity, was it a one-in-a-million fluke that you each moved into the one building in Park Slope where the other conservative happened to be living?

I would ask if one or the other has severe insomnia, black-outs, or lost time. After your apartment blew up in a freak gas leak did PP invite you back to his dilapidated apartment to make soap?
posted by tkchrist at 10:36 AM on May 29, 2008 [13 favorites]

By the way, I just spoke with PP, and he says hi, and sometimes wishes he could return to Metafilter.

I'm voting for split personality.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 10:37 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

By the way, I just spoke with PP, and he says hi, and sometimes wishes he could return to Metafilter.


This is just getting sad. Or you're assuming that we are all too stupid to see through it.

Seriously, mattamyntex.. he's just continuing to fuck with us.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:37 AM on May 29, 2008

Someone sent me an email regarding this thread. I'm fairly disappointed to read this and see that I've been dragged into this garbage. I've been gone for a couple of months, and I was not planning on participating in the foreseeable future because I just can't tolerate the politicization of everything that occurs during elections. I don't have the patience to endure the overwhelming amount of heat everywhere in return for the minute amount of light produced. So I quietly drifted into the ether.

Now I see that I'm being compared to PP. I see people calling for his banning, and they are the same people who so frequently tried to get me banned too. I'm not PP. And I truly believe that I have provided more value and signal to this site than the people who so frequently tried to get me banned. I don't appreciate being compared to PP and being dragged into a thread when I haven't participated in months here. I don't appreciate the facile equivalence between my contributions and what PP has contributed. I ask that you not abuse me thus.

Scanning this thread, I'll offer these quick thoughts before I drift back into the the ether:

1. I do not know PP. I doubt I agree with him on much of anything. I don't consider him to be "on a team" with me. I do not have much knowledge of his transgressions because I don't really care to know what he has said. But if he told the mods concerning information sufficient to be banned in the first place, then there ought to be a zero tolerance attitude if he does return.

2. The whole site would be well served with a zero tolerance policy towards political firebombs--irrespective of from whence they come.

3. I'm completely for and would whole-heartedly support a policy that deletes and bans users who post comments that are partisan shit-flinging drivel amounting to little more than "F$#$k COCKSHIT LIBERALS R MORANS". Of course, that policy should be applied to all viewpoints. There is a whole lot of garbage on this site that is sub-Kos-level of shrill drivel that is merely the obverse of what everyone is bitching about PP doing.

4. The term trolling has really lost any useful meaning here. Surely it is not trolling to state a viewpoint that one knows will not be accepted or that will cause people to squawk. Trolling occurs when people take a position solely for the purposes of creating a trainwreck. But it cannot be trolling if a person honestly believes and advances that position. "Atheists R stoopid" is no more trolling than the litany of "Christians R stoopid" comments on this site. Both statements are worthless from a community-contribution standpoint and shouldn't be part of the conversation. But if one is trolling, then they both are. Surely no one will take the position that lazily dismissing atheists is somehow a troll while lazily dismissing monotheists is not.

The accusation of "trolling" here too often smacks of little more than "I don't like what he said." (I know this because I have often been accused of trolling under such circumstances). The accusation is frequently leveled against anyone who takes an "outside the mainstream" viewpoint. In those cases, the accusation is more damaging then the original point. But ask yourselves: who here consistently takes up the standard of minority viewpoints? If you can think of anyone, has that person been called a troll? I'm willing to bet they have. (Hell, I've been called a troll in the past, not for taking up a minority viewpoint, but for pointing out the fact that reasonable disagreement exists and that neither viewpoint is undeniably correct or wrong.) But seriously ask yourselves how is it possible that we do not have one person who is treated with respect and who consistently takes up minority viewpoints. All the ones who have done so have been insulted and driven away. How is it possible we don't have any consistent advocates of viewpoints which demographically apply to a large portion of a country? Are we that much of an echo chamber here? Is de facto or de jure?

I bring this up because it appears to me from this thread we now have people advancing the principle that certain viewpoints are allowed only if they are written and argued intelligently and diplomatically and in such a way as to be extremely careful how the reflexively rabid hordes will take them. So special conditions for participation are placed on the expression of certain viewpoints. That seems to be wrong. If we want to avoid bomb-throwing, I would think the more appropriate position is that conditions are placed on all viewpoints: no bomb-throwing anywhere. That would be nice, but that would require a lot of judgment calls that the mods are most-likely not willing to make.

5. Life is too short to be so wedded to your partisan views in such a way that you feel the need to compartmentalize the world into teams and then hate and rage against the other team.

6. The usual people who will want to insult me, bring up some nugget from my history, and tell me to shut-up for writing this can save themselves the energy. I'll quit reading this thread. (And no: the mere fact I'm leaving doesn't make this a troll...)
posted by dios at 10:39 AM on May 29, 2008 [29 favorites]

Oh, God.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:42 AM on May 29, 2008

Damn you guys! How dare you "drag" our other poor, poor, martyr in here. I bet he was kicking and screaming the whole way, too.

Cut him down off that cross and let him go back to Nazareth already.
posted by tkchrist at 10:43 AM on May 29, 2008 [3 favorites]

First Santa, now dios.
What the hell is going on, man?
posted by Dizzy at 10:43 AM on May 29, 2008

It's way easier to dismiss an opposing viewpoint if you label them a troll and ridicule them.
posted by Dave Faris at 10:45 AM on May 29, 2008

SteveInMaine: "I'm getting sick and tired of having my name (which coincidentally is the name of my long departed grandfather who sailed across the Atlantic from Lithuania)..."

"Steve" is a Lithuanian name? Steve Stankevičius? Steve Vasiliauskas? Steve Krancewicz? Steve Stankus?

(My long-departed grandfather also sailed across the Atlantic from Lithuania. But he wasn't named Steve.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:45 AM on May 29, 2008

The comments thus far about d--s are short, small in number, relatively benign, and he hasn't been mentioned at all since last night. It would be just awesome if nobody took the bait at this point.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:46 AM on May 29, 2008

Hi Dios.
posted by Divine_Wino at 10:46 AM on May 29, 2008

I disagree with the last paragraph of your post, cortex. Because I am center-right politically, and most people here are way, way, way left of center, what passes for simply "interesting" and/or "thought-provoking" in the larger world strikes Mefi people as beyond the pale and/or "trolling."

This is the Oh Shucks routine, dude. We don't give fuckall at this point what your political or religious or professional implications are. You know what you're doing; you know how to choose your words carefully; and you have a long history of carefully choosing them to cause a mess. Save the injured objections for someone else: you cut the shit here (which includes the paraleptic shit about how you're cutting the shit despite it not being shit and oh gosh if only people would understand, blah blah blah) or you leave. You shot your goodwill a long time ago, and you've done a pretty good job so far of preventing it from coming back. Meh.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:48 AM on May 29, 2008 [4 favorites]

Cortex and I are both half-Jew actually, so that's like one whole Jew mod!

So, I can hear the parody of the Adam Sandler Chanukah Song right now:

Jessamyn's half-Jewish, Cortex is half too. Put them together, what a fine lookin' Jew!

And then mention Miguel and you could work amberglow in there, too...
posted by y2karl at 10:48 AM on May 29, 2008

Oh, for god's sake. Hi, dios. This really, really wasn't about you, fwiw.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:49 AM on May 29, 2008

The accusation of "trolling" here too often smacks of little more than "I don't like what he said." (I know this because I have often been accused of trolling under such circumstances).

You've been accused of trolling because you had a consistent habit of shitting in threads and then leaving. If you want to move on, dios, own up to your past behavior and change.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:50 AM on May 29, 2008

EVERYBODY BE QUIET I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY!!!
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 10:51 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Steve.

--Steve.
posted by Skot at 10:52 AM on May 29, 2008

it's already been said, nicolas léonard steve carnot
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:53 AM on May 29, 2008

Jeebus. These guys must a have formed a little club. I bet they have decoder rings and a ramshackle club-house made of old pallets and discarded corrugated aluminum and everything.

"Okay Dios I c..."

"No. NO. Use my He-Man-Mefi-Haters secret club name!"

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot. Okay 'Spartacus', I now call to order our thri-weekly meeting of the He-Man-MiFi-Haters Club. Please signify your attendance by masturbating loudly..."
posted by tkchrist at 10:54 AM on May 29, 2008

I miss you a lot, dios.
posted by jamjam at 10:54 AM on May 29, 2008

"I say we change the default name for Dave Faris to Special Dave Faris."

I have a cousin with Down Syndrome who's named Dave Ferris. In my unkinder moments, I allow the two to conflate. Of course, my Dave is only really about "broads" and eating as much junk food and candy as he can find, so there's rarely any real overlap. Oh, and hating Paul Harvey. Even mentioning Paul Harvey within earshot (and he's got surprisingly good hearing) will send him into a grumpy rant about how much he hates Paul Harvey. It's been the only thing that I've seen him expend more than ten words on in nearly a decade.
posted by klangklangston at 10:57 AM on May 29, 2008

DO NOT TAKE THAT THING FROM HIS HAND
posted by dersins at 10:58 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

5. Life is too short to be so wedded to your partisan views in such a way that you feel the need to compartmentalize the world into teams and then hate and rage against the other team.

That is so rich coming from the insinuating weasel worder who in memory yet green did play being against the war is being a traitor card:

Interesting that the paper suggests that a significant reason would be because of a lack of political will. Perhaps that thesis gives credence to the allegations that people who are constantly critical and trying to sway public opinion against the war really are giving comfort to our enemies and not supporting the troops. That is, trying to turn public opinion against a military operations is to work actively to the defeat of the military.

Man, that guy is a whole Soviet Encyclopedia to himself the way he rewrites his own history
posted by y2karl at 11:01 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

You've been accused of trolling because you had a consistent habit of shitting in threads and then leaving. If you want to move on, dios, own up to your past behavior and change.

What, still sore about the time Metafilter bitchslapped you in favour of dios?
posted by Krrrlson at 11:04 AM on May 29, 2008

Don't feed the troll.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:04 AM on May 29, 2008

"from whence"

This is my "whilst."
posted by pineapple at 11:04 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

What, still sore about the time Metafilter bitchslapped you in favour of dios?

Dios, PP, and Krrrlson. It's like a trifecta of anonymous trolling.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:07 AM on May 29, 2008

STehv
Theve
Thev
Shteve

...aw, fuck it.
posted by lysdexic at 11:09 AM on May 29, 2008 [4 favorites]

*shits in thread*

*leaves*

--stevegy
posted by syzygy at 11:10 AM on May 29, 2008

Is there a GreaseMonkey script to plaster the Cooter Countdown Clock™ all over the place? If not there should be and everyone should use it.

Just to be sure, I didnae reset no goddam clock, did I?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:10 AM on May 29, 2008

You people and your stupid names.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 11:11 AM on May 29, 2008

This thread calls for the image tag. Images of bunnies, cute kittens, happy clean babies, and warm pies. And Oolong, I miss Oolong.
posted by marxchivist at 11:15 AM on May 29, 2008

DO NOT TAKE THAT THING FROM HIS HAND

hey, does anyone remember when whoever brought this phrase to mefi (was it klang? I honestly have no recollection) admitted that he'd sort of half-invented it himself after mis-remembering a quote from Witness? Yeah, I'm glad we all remember that.

also, hey you know what's awesome? when y2karl and krrlson come in to start lobbing dug-from-history grenades at each side! here's a better idea! shut the fuck up! the both of you!

this is a thread about parisparamus, who was an admitted troll and who is currently pretending to be an imaginary neighbor to himself. it is not a thread about dios (what the fuck, dios. you were barely even mentioned. you didn't need to come in here and pull that shit... again.) and it is not a thread about blazecock pileon (for fuck's sake. you do not get to say "don't feed the troll" immediately after feeding him. christ.).

I am not PP, damn it!

Yes you are.
posted by shmegegge at 11:19 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

WHY IS THIS THREAD STILL OPEN
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:20 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

can we get back to the discussion about the TV show we're going to collectively produce about three aggrieved conservative lawyers who all live in the same building in park slope and their twisted relationship with a left-skewing website?
posted by Hat Maui at 11:20 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

Poor little Oolong.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:21 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wait, I get it now. It is an allegory for the Republican presidential nomination! Trying to distance yourself as much as possible from your predecessor while copying their MO to the T!

Clever. But I'm on to you, PPIII.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:22 AM on May 29, 2008

THIS THREAD IS STILL OPEN BECAUSE HONESTLY I'M NOT SURE WHY AT THIS POINT SINCE DUDE FINALLY SHOWED UP AND THINGS ARE JUST LOOKING KIND OF VERGING-ON-UGLIER, SO, YEAH, LET'S GO AHEAD AND CLOSE THE FUCKER UP
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:23 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites]