...because ALS had hatched it as a scheme to "sucker" the evolutionists into hamstringing themselves on the debate threads. How do we know this? Because ALS sent an email to someone crowing about his "victory" and about how the evolutionists were falling for his trap. Not that it wasn't pretty obvious anyway from his draft proposal, but it was pretty nice of him to incriminate himself that way.
That alone would have been no cause for disciplinary action IMHO, but when the idea of a more workable agreement caught fire and people worked together to hammer out a good one, ALS flipped and started spewing thwarted outrage in all directions -- including at Alamo-Girl, who was *everyone's* nominee for an even-handed referee, and she performed the task with the patience and wisdom of Solomon. For this she was attacked as a "sell-out" by the creationists (ALS leading the charge) because she dared treat everyone with equal respect, instead of helping the creationists wage no-holds-barred war on the evolutionists.
*That* was when he broke the camel's back.
Frankly, I'm surprised he had remained unbanned *that* long. He had been suspended at least once before that, perhaps more. ALS had racked up a track record as the most intentionally disruptive poster on the debate threads, flooding them with posts consisting of one-line insults or belittling pictures, to the point where on some pages ALS posts were nearly every other post, swamping the actual conversation with insults and disruptions.
Typical example out of hundreds (if not thousands):
[Virginian-American wrote in post #1867:] Actually, IIRC, Pythagoras came up with that argument. It was a bit of a surprise to me when I read Archimedes' On floating bodies, the first hypothesis is "the surface of a body of water at rest is part of the surface of a sphere centered at the center of the earth".Oh yeah, great way to elevate a science discussion...[PatrickHenry responded in post #1870:] Coulda been Pythagoras. I really don't know. But the Greeks had the shape of the earth figured out, and its size. As for Archimedes, it always amazes me how sharp he was.
[ALS's followup in post #1883:]
To: PatrickHenry
a few other things that amaze you...
1,883 posted on 05/22/2003 8:39 PM CDT by ALS
You can keep complaining about how "unfair" ALS's banning was, if you want, but personally I don't think FreeRepublic needs a conservative version of Michael Moore, who baits people, drowns them out, misrepresents what they say, and generally is constantly trying to stir things up in a troll-like manner. His banning wasn't just justified, it was *long* overdue, and the fact that he was here as long as he was is a testament to the amazing restraint of the moderators.
It was the evolutionists that insisted that an agreement to be civil include the 'right' to insult people!
No such claim of any such "right" exists within The Agreement.
What *did* transpire was that a proposal for a blanket "no insults" clause failed to pass because most folks agreed that if included the Agreement would die a death of a thousand cuts as people began to hairsplit over whether each post might be construed as "insulting" or not to any particular person (how about, for example, "that's ridiculous"?). Some folks feel insulted if you prove them wrong. And so on. As a first pass, it would be hard enough resolving disputes on more clearly defined issues, without bogging things down by making "insults" the main bone of contention. Nonetheless, the Agreement as finalized outlawed certain types of attacks everyone agreed could be clearly recognized, such as "belittling" language directed towards another poster.
They held up everything for a week.
*All* the drafting discussions took a total of several days to hammer out.