User Hypoxia has been permanently removed from the BBS. Interspersed with their otherwise innocuous posts were daily misogynistic or otherwise “casually bigoted” one-liners that I suppose were meant to come off as “old man yells at cloud”-ish, but instead meant I could count on at least one flagged post a day from this user, usually resulting in a derail or otherwise sucking the oxygen out of a conversation.
I was trying to figure out what his story was. Like was it some kind of act being put on?
But I shall wonder no more.
User Loudmouth suspended for failing to be cool.
I sometimes feel bad when I see that somebody has been suspended or banned, because I know how much fun this BBS can be. But then I remember that it would be a lot less fun without moderation to weed out outright assholes or just comments that hijack the conversation.
User Mike_Flores has been removed from the BBS For spreading QAnon conspiracy theories and equating the arresting of seditionists with the rise of Nazi Germany.
I thought he was comparing the US to the GDR (East Germany)? 
Did I miss a nazi comparison in his wall-o-text, too?
Yes, indeed you did - there’s probably an axiom about the more extended the wall of text, the greater the chance of invoking Godwin’s Law in there somewhere…
Godwin’s law corollary…
[ETA] Also, how silly! We can’t both be commies AND nazis! Pick an insult, people, and stick with it all through out your conspiracy theory laden wall-o-text!
Sure you can. They’re both socialists – the Nazis called themselves that, and I’m sure they wouldn’t lie – and famously got along well in cases like signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, save only a few exceptions like literally everything else in history.
User Dioptase1 has been given a brief timeout for getting precariously close to victim blaming in a topic about police violence, and after moderation, instead derailing the topic to make sure their point was taken the way they intended.
Seriously, don’t do this - the topic is about violence being committed against people by those in power. If you can’t see past your own personal pride and find the next ten replies are about how you are being misinterpreted, instead of about the act described in the post itself, all you’ve done is derail the conversation, while stifling discussion about the actual topic. That is not fair to either the community nor the true victim.
It does seem like a lot of the bitterest arguments I see on here started out because somebody didn’t like how their words were interpreted…and if I’m being honest, that somebody is all too often me.
It really does hurt when a person whom you respect takes your words in the worst possible way, but misinterpretation is inevitable when you have so many people from so many walks of life all in one place. In the future, I will make an effort to either edit posts for clarity or, when I have already gotten responses, to put up a single, brief “Just to clarify, I meant this, not this, sorry for the misunderstanding,” and let that be the end of it.
Yes, when I’ve been misinterpreted, I try to apologize first before attempting to clarify. Because if I’ve been misinterpreted, I’m the one who has failed to convey my point clearly in the first place. It does sting, but I remind myself how incredibly low the stakes actually are, as I peck on a keyboard in my cozy house, eating chocolate-covered almonds.
That sounds luxurious!
User nooooooostromo has been given a timeout for malicious use of the flag system.
We encourage flagging posts that violate our guidelines - PLEASE do so - but seeking out specific users and going through their entire post history searching for borderline posts to flag is petty and serves only to waste the time of the mod team - especially when most of the flags are otherwise acceptable. Please don’t do this.
Ten sequential replies in a topic, that alone all by itself is something that I personally would view as a highly problematic behavior.
If a post has already been up for days or weeks and hasn’t already been flagged and removed, it’s safe to assume that the community has seen it and not had any problems with it.
still, clearly, there are some who seem to regard those comments and replies that had
as targets, ripe for the picking.
sad, really.
It is sad. I don’t know how widespread this issue is, but if it is widespread, it might be a good idea to look into setting a time limit in terms of for how long posts are flaggable. (Though I am not an expert on website design and do not presume to be able to guess how technically difficult this would be to implement.)
