One person being banned for not agreeing in lock-step would not constitute a ‘trend’. The admins/mods, after all, ARE only human, even though they alone would know that person’s posting history.
I’m thinking that if there have been that many banned merely for disagreeing or for not being in ‘lock-step’ with JR, you could come up with more than ONE name. That seems only logical.
Point being, over the years, I’ve seen well-behaved trolls (I know, sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it) NOT get banned while disagreeing vehemently. I’ve been here from the beginning.
I think for the most part, the mods are fair. I’ve only objected once, in all these years, to the removal of a thread for no good reason I could see...other than the possible request of one poster to do so. That person would have had to be somewhat liberal, btw, to request the removal of the thread. In other words, NOT in lock-step with the rest of us on that thread. Which only supports my stance and position on this issue.
That’s part of what I’m talking about, Jim and the mods have a better perspective on a posters history than we do.
I’ve seen posters banned after being repeatedly warned over several months but the thread it happens on seems fairly innocuous and innocent.
Although I've only been here a year I've had the same experience. You pretty much have to be an in-your-face jerk or post something *really* over the top to get zotted.
If this weren't true then threads like this one we're on wouldn't happen nearly every day. So many people would get zotted that this kind of dissent wouldn't exist. But it does.
So in real life zotting is mostly based on behavior and *not* viewpoint except for the extremes. And the definition of "extreme" is pretty well understood by the FReeper community and enforced by Jim and his mods.