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Started by wolf39us, July 13, 2014, 10:53:57 AM

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Sal1981

Quote from: aitm on March 19, 2020, 09:56:15 AM
Gregory is taking a small vacation for annoying me. 2wks. Then you can come back....or not.
I suspect he is a bot.

Draconic Aiur


PickelledEggs

I discussed it with the rest of the mods. We came to the decision that we will permanently banning Baruch for continued trolling and unnecessarily stirring the pot, etc.

It's been a long time coming.

Unbeliever

Good, now maybe we can get more people to post, at least until Trollboy comes back as a sock puppet.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

SGOS

#139
Quote from: PickelledEggs on January 07, 2021, 09:10:00 PM
I discussed it with the rest of the mods. We came to the decision that we will permanently banning Baruch for continued trolling and unnecessarily stirring the pot, etc.

It's been a long time coming.
Good, I was concerned that he would be coming back.  Baruch's compliance with mods has always been temporary, but right after a warning he tests the waters and begins pushing the envelope until he ends up right where he was before the last warning.

But he's not just a nuisance.  I believe he intentionally degrades the forum and enjoys doing it for his own satisfaction.  I often wonder how many interested atheists have looked through a page of topics and left without bothering to sign up, thinking this was a one man operation, where the forum owner responds to everything, and if he has nothing to say, he calls everyone a communist, and then goes onto the next topic.

Imagine if you came to this forum to check it out.  You wouldn't even notice the intelligence, because every thread is dominated by a bitter misanthrope that wouldn't be allowed to post anywhere else.  I stay because I was here before Baruch, and liked the group.  But I wouldn't have waded through a week of Baruch to bother finding the good.

I've seen a lot of would be troublemakers "get the axe," and my response has always been, "Yeah, he deserved that."  But with Baruch, it is an pleasurable relief to have him out of here, and I believe the forum will be a lot better off for it.

I've had him on ignore for almost a year, but even that wasn't satisfactory, because his posts would show up as quotes when someone (less and less toward the end) would respond to one of his outlandish assertions.  The ignore function doesn't actually get rid of his presence.  There were all these lingering ghost images I'd have to avoid, like I was walking through a minefield of stupidity and bitterness.




PickelledEggs

Quote from: SGOS on January 08, 2021, 09:11:09 AM
Good, I was concerned that he would be coming back.  Baruch's compliance with mods has always been temporary, but right after a warning he tests the waters and begins pushing the envelope until he ends up right where he was before the last warning.

But he's not just a nuisance.  I believe he intentionally degrades the forum and enjoys doing it for his own satisfaction.  I often wonder how many interested atheists have looked through a page of topics and left without bothering to sign up, thinking this was a one man operation, where the forum owner responds to everything, and if he has nothing to say, he calls everyone a communist, and then goes onto the next topic.

Imagine if you came to this forum to check it out.  You wouldn't even notice the intelligence, because every thread is dominated by a bitter misanthrope that wouldn't be allowed to post anywhere else.  I stay because I was here before Baruch, and liked the group.  But I wouldn't have waded through a week of Baruch to bother finding the good.

I've seen a lot of would be troublemakers "get the axe," and my response has always been, "Yeah, he deserved that."  But with Baruch, it is an pleasurable relief to have him out of here, and I believe the forum will be a lot better off for it.

I've had him on ignore for almost a year, but even that wasn't satisfactory, because his posts would show up as quotes when someone (less and less toward the end) would respond to one of his outlandish assertions.  The ignore function doesn't actually get rid of his presence.  There were all these lingering ghost images I'd have to avoid, like I was walking through a minefield of stupidity and bitterness.




I'm gonna step out of mod-mode for a sec and say that I hated Baruch. Especially as a mod, I hated him. I've noticed myself, as well have to glaze past every single one of his posts, ignoring them, even though technically, as a mod, I shouldnt be ignoring posts.

ok, back to mod-mode
The tricky thing I, and other mods here had to consider is "Do we silence a voice?" "He's barely breaking any rules." Etc. the line was muddied, because he was so methodical in, like you said, pushing the envelope. Prodding at boundaries was his specialty. And the fact that he successfully got us all to ignore him, including us mods, proves that he was due for ban.

Thank you all for supporting this decision. Banning long time members is never an easy decision, even when it is someone as agitating to deal with, as Baruch was.

We will be less tolerant of people like him, that attempt to make our boundaries more ambiguous than they are meant to be. Rules are rules and when someone slightly breaks or bends a rule once or twice, that is fine. We're all human, after all. However, when someone does it constantly, it adds up, and action will be taken.

the_antithesis

Quote from: SGOS on January 08, 2021, 09:11:09 AM
Imagine if you came to this forum to check it out.  You wouldn't even notice the intelligence, because every thread is dominated by a bitter misanthrope that wouldn't be allowed to post anywhere else.

Frankly, he was posting so much, I thought the forum was basically dead except for him talking to himself. Regardless of content, no one wants a one man show in an internet forum.

SGOS

Quote from: the_antithesis on January 08, 2021, 10:49:17 AM
Frankly, he was posting so much, I thought the forum was basically dead except for him talking to himself. Regardless of content, no one wants a one man show in an internet forum.
That became especially evident when one opens "Recent Topics" heading to find an interesting topic, and sees that the last poster for each topic is always the same person.  Usually, I didn't even open them to see if maybe someone else had posted just before Baruch.  If I was really bored, I might open some of them, often to find that the last 8 posts were all from Baruch, and no one had posted there for the last four days.

Mike Cl

I used to regard him as almost a champion of ancient religion history.  He does have a great depth of knowledge.  But for the past 2/3 years he seems to be going downhill, much like trump.  He ended up simply being inane.  He is now only a bitter old man whose only intent is to irritate.  Good riddance. 
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Mr.Obvious

Will not be missed.
I never pushed for him to be banned. Because frankly, as has been said, he didn't really break many rules. So I never felt I had any reason to cast a voice to his mere presence. I never blocked him, because that went against my personal code. And I never hated him, because there never was enough room next to the overwhelming sense of pity.

But he clearly had, in my view at least, not a single shred of interest in holding a discussion , debate or any meaningful interaction. And not because he had a different opinion than most here. Not because he had a different voice.
But because he had no opinion. Only a perogative to counter.
And because he used no voice, only sounds: only uttering unhinged words that meant as little as he intended to.
And not because he did not respect ideas. Not all ideas deserve respect. But because he did not respect even the concept of conversations.

He never listened or he did his best to pretend he didn't. He went out of his way to muddle any discussion he could find. And when locked in a talk, did his utter best to rob it of any and all meaning. And I've never seen such an obsession to deploy smokescreens and red herrings. I imagine him thinking himself a dumb man putting up a show of being a smart one. But as for me, by default, I can not see any brains of note in a man that does not even understand what a conversation even is.

I disagree that he went downhill. He has always been exactly what he has been the last few months. I never once thought he had anything clever to say. Only a passion to say nothing in as many words possible. To not hear and to not be heard in kind.

In any case, his, what definitely looked like, attempt to get himself banned finally worked. Maybe he is happy about that. Maybe he is not.
I won't pretend to know. I won't pretend to care.
And I won't sully any more words.
He wouldn't listen to them anyway.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

drunkenshoe

Exactly what I feel. Almost word for word.   

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on January 08, 2021, 11:56:55 AM
Will not be missed.
I never pushed for him to be banned. Because frankly, as has been said, he didn't really break many rules. So I never felt I had any reason to cast a voice to his mere presence. I never blocked him, because that went against my personal code. And I never hated him, because there never was enough room next to the overwhelming sense of pity.
"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

Gawdzilla Sama

I was a day away from leaving forever. The entire front page was his posts.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Shiranu

Quote from: SGOS on January 08, 2021, 11:33:30 AM
That became especially evident when one opens "Recent Topics" heading to find an interesting topic, and sees that the last poster for each topic is always the same person.  Usually, I didn't even open them to see if maybe someone else had posted just before Baruch.  If I was really bored, I might open some of them, often to find that the last 8 posts were all from Baruch, and no one had posted there for the last four days.

That's a large reason I haven't looked at very many threads; a mix of having to go back 2 pages of his posts to find someone else talking, and knowing that likely the only person that would respond to my post would be Baruch.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Hydra009

#148
Most forums, including this one, have a "no spam" rule for precisely this reason.  It's disruptive and it drives regular posters to post much less or consider leaving the forum.

There's a big difference between an especially active member posting a lot in one day and someone who's basically just babbling like a lunatic to no one in particular for pages and pages to the annoyance of everyone else.  I dunno about everyone else, but I interpret that as spam.  Imho, that sort of repeated behavior should be addressed with a warning, then a time out, then a permaban.

Baruch's ban was a long time coming for a disruptive poster who never changed his ways long after people told him that his behavior was annoying and - for lack of a better word - noisy.

Gawdzilla Sama

The Big B needed attention and being obnoxious will get it.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers