so let the games begin

[iverglas]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=454881&mesg_id=454881

I am needing an explanation for the deletion of all my posts near the top of this thread:

the subthread starting here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=454881&mesg_id=454942

and this message:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=454881&mesg_id=454961

If you need some background: the poster in question has a special hate on for me, and many of his barbed remarks in his various posts are aimed, without naming me, at me.

This particular thread itself arises out of an earlier exchange -- well, my effort to generate an exchange:
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=447511&mesg_id=448831
-- unanswered despite many pleas. The poster instead started a new thread in obvious response to that, rather than ever reply to that post. And then my responses in his new thread were deleted.

I appreciate that moderators and admins may have no desire to wade through that OP or the poster's next. I doubt that anyone did.

But if another poster's entire response -- a set of replies that were directly on topic and responsive to the opening thesis -- is to be deleted, somebody needs to have some actual reason.

The entire thread itself was a veiled call out -- a debate from an existing thread, with one particular poster, made the subject of a new thread rather than responding to that poster. Note that the entire first post in the new thread is about a piece written by Mortimer J. Adler -- the piece and author cited by me in the post in the other thread that the poster in question had repeatedly declined to reply to. This is the poster child for:

Do not "stalk" another member from one discussion thread to another. Do not follow someone into another thread to try to continue a disagreement you had elsewhere. Do not talk negatively about an individual in a thread where they are not participating. Do not post messages with the purpose of "calling out" another member or picking a fight with another member. Do not use your signature line to draw negative attention to another member of the board.

(I will say that starting a new thread "to try to continue a disagreement you had elsewhere" with another member, even if that member is cleverly not named, is a fortiori a call out.)

I don't especially care about that, although the incivility of it quite likely coloured my response. I care about being silenced when I responded.

I would ask that I be provided with the text of the deleted messages.

Thank you.

[Skinner]

1. They were removed as personal attacks.

The first one accuses the other person of not being a liberal.

The second one uses a rude nickname.

[iverglas]

2. as I requested

I would like to have the texts of the posts.

Perhaps you really are not aware of the number of times I and many other people have been called "authoritarian", and that is just the mildest of the epithets, in the Guns forum.

Freedom-haters, liberty-haters, friends of Nazis, oh, and then of course there is the rank bigotry in the references to my and others' nationality.

I frankly don't believe I accused anyone of not being a liberal. "Liberal" isn't actually a compliment where I come from or in most of the world (cf. Phil Ochs), so while I do, not infrequently, enquire as to how someone's comments* coincide with liberal / progressive / d/Democratic philosophy/policy, I don't accuse people of not being "a liberal" because that's no concern of mine. My words would have to be twisted to get that meaning, while the epithets directed at firearms control advocates by gun militants call for no interpretation.
__________________
* statements like:

"taking out that one life may have served a valuable purpose in cleaning up the gene pool"
"gun owners - the chlorine of life"
"my property is worth more to me than the life of any thief" followed by
"Apparently that makes them a subhuman lifeform that deserves to be used for target practice. -- You got that right."
-- all from different posters, all culled quickly from a single thread, referring to the killing of a 17-yr-old would-be vehicle thief by the vehicle owner.

Many wonder how people who make such comments ended up at Democratic Underground, and stay.

And there was nothing remotely approaching such filth in anything I have ever posted.


edit: please see
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=455202&mesg_id=455573
and replies.

Again the thread, by the same poster, was aimed squarely at me, it just took a while for the poster to get around to the point (the links in that post to statements made by myself, which are blatantly misrepresented in that post to the point that the post is an outright lie).

I seriously do not believe that someone who adopts the theory that a person's right to life may be "forfeit" by the commission of a crime is a liberal, by any definition of the term. And I would be quite free to say that in any other forum at DU, I am quite sure.

[iverglas]

3. is there something you would like to tell me?

A PM might be nice.

[Skinner]

4. I'm not sure I do have anything to tell you.

If you want to spend your time butting heads with people in the Guns forum, that's your choice. But I think you need to understand that there is only so much we can do in there, and frankly, I don't really have much interest in getting involved.

It's my job -- and the moderators job -- to enforce the rules, regardless of who breaks them. It's not easy, but we do the best we can.

[iverglas]

5. sorry ... I wandered off to do something interesting ...

My cryptic question has now been answered; seems I was caught by a very coincidental bug. ;) (I haven't tested it but I'm going with definitely coincidental.)

I suppose there may be "only so much" that can be done in the Guns forum, the problem being that too little of it is done, too late -- a symptom of the interest level, I guess.

The idea that the statements I quoted above and the posters who make them, just for starters, are welcome at this website, well, words fail.

I've spent a decade refuting a particular lie about Dianne Feinstein that surfaces in that forum, oh, monthly (a quotation taken out of all context and promulgated on right-wing websites as proof that Dianne Feinstein stated she sought to "ban all guns"). Still it is posted, over and over -- a clear attack on an elected Democrat based on a right-wing lie -- and still the people who post it continue to post. This is but one of my many favourite things about the forum.

The forum is infested with right-wing lies, right-wing media sources, right-wing ideology, praise for right-wing public figures ... and it is read around the world; I'm sure you did not fail to note The Guardian taking note of remarks about the mass murder in Norway (if only the campers had all had guns!!) made there by a poster tombstoned later the same day; the interesting thing I noted was that it was my reply to said poster that had been deleted a day or two earlier, while his posts stood ...

If a regular old DU member ever makes the mistake of wandering into that forum, they are set upon by the waiting, um, hordes, and generally beat a rather quick retreat. It's an odd experience for often long-time, essentially mainstream members of the site.

Me, I just don't like right-wing lies, so occasionally I drop by and amuse myself and the odd other genuine progressive in the vicinity by showing them up. Tombstoned trolls then go off to their lairs elsewhere on the net and tell tales about me (before returning under new names, as they also describe in detail elsewhere). That's amusing too. ;)

Anyway, no answer to my original question, so I'll get back to hunting down other people's ancestors on line while waiting for Parliament here to resume and work to pick up.