Posted on 02/13/2003 6:20:56 AM PST by Admin Moderator
Edited on 02/13/2003 7:35:18 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Since my last vanity announcement on keywords went so swimmingly (it ended up with something like 5000 keywords added to it) I thought a great idea would be to throw some propane on some other fires with a vanity.
Breaking news is being abused again, big time. This goes in cycles, with sometimes people being responsible, but other times people not being very responsible.
We are in one of the not-very time periods.
Please, do not post something in Breaking News because you think it is something you want people to see. Place something in Breaking News only if it is
Some things that are never breaking news: Stories that have been posted before, stories that are over a day old, opinion vanities, freep this poll, or anything from the op-ed section of any newspaper.
Now, on to the WoD [War on Drugs] flamewars. There are a few problems with them. The flaming on them is tremendous. It is wrong for several reasons, and it should stop and the first thing we are going to do to try to get them to stop is to make a request for them to stop. If you feel the need to flame someone for something they say on one of these threads, do this (and yes, it involves a lot more work than just hitting reply, but such is life):
Instead of hitting abuse on someone on a WoD thread right away (unless it is extremely bad), please just advise them to do what I am saying here- take it to the backroom. Link them to this if need be. And if you don't want to get into a flamewar, leave it at that. If you do, then join them in the backroom and have at it. The WoD flamewars overwhelm the latest posts page with a neverending sequence of posts that are just mindless insults. Please, spare us, and don't try to put it on the moderators to determine who fired the first shot. There are rarely clean hands here, and no matter what we do one side or another is going to complain.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Freeping. I expect no fewer than 500 taunts at us in the keywords here before this is over. Thank you, and God Bless. ;-)
It gets pretty Pavlovian, right up to the point someone asks a question that there isn't a canned response to, and then it dies.
BZZZT! Those are individual men, while drug dealers are legion. Thanks for playing ... Next!
Regarding #110 personal attack. please delete and warn abuserSomeone looked at your complaint and looked at the post. Here is the post in question:
To: TimesinkI am sorry, but we simply don't see the abuse there. Not even close to being over the line.Does Rush sit in a dark office all day long secretly believing that it's all hopeless and "President Hillary" is a God-given metaphsyical inevitabiliy?
No, ace, and neither do I. But anyone who doubts the mainstream press will be in a constant state of orgasm if Hillary runs has no IQ.
110 posted on 02/07/2003 9:34 PM EST by M. Thatcher
At 6:41, you hit abuse on it again.
At 6:59 you hit abuse on it again.
At 8:48 you hit abuse on it again. This time you added in that you think favoritism is being employed:
Regarding #110 personal attack. do those with numbers under 10000 not have to obey FR ruleS?At 9:21 you hit abuse again.
You were then suspended.
This isn't the first time you have made yourself a pest via the abuse button. You hit abuse 6 times over an extended period about this post a few days earlier:
To: TimesinkI am sorry but we simply don't see any abuse there. Some thicker skin might help.Ok. Since you had my last reply pulled, I'll try again so that I don't hurt your feelings. The use of newbie is incorrect as well as it is rude and indicates you don't have an argument.
308 posted on 02/05/2003 3:46 AM EST by hotpotato
But if you go out of your way to be a pain, odds are your posting abilities will be suspended or removed. Sorry, AM.
But terrorists are legion also. Next. Support your local terrorist. Buy drugs.
I went over to LP, but it's way too inactive for my tastes, and of course has far more than its share of loony tunes. I'm too much of a news/politics junkie to be able to survive on ten new threads a day.
On a totally different matter, why in the hell does this thread exist? The AMs are the ones on drugs if they think anyone is making use of the completely unworkable keywords system. There's a reason why thousands of us continue to use the bump lists that still exist, even though we haven't been able to create any new ones for a solid year: Bump lists work. Keywords do not.
Terrorists have unwilling victims, so whatever the odds of success we have to try; that is not true for dealers, who have willing customers.
Support your local terrorist. Buy drugs Support the War On Some Drugs that makes his product wildly profitable.
There, now that's correct.
Which part of "You have no IQ, ace?" is NOT a personal attack?
I am sorry but we simply don't see any abuse there. Some thicker skin might help.
Then perhaps you should remove the rule against personal attacks, or at least drop a Freepmail telling people why a given post is tolerated. And the way you delete posts (as 308 was) only to reinstate them later.
Oh, by the way AM, how come the checkbox on the Report Abuse page reads "Sign my name to this complaint (names on complaints are otherwise not revealed to moderators.)" when both your examples prove it's a complete lie?
(See, Skooz?)
By the way, the moderator who said "no action" to your first complaint on that one? It wasn't a moderator. It was Jim. And his comment about it was "grow some thicker skin", and I would suggest that might be a helpful idea.
Well, if you'd gone back in the thread and followed this branch, you'd have seen that the "no IQ" line was indeed directly aimed at me, and not a general comment.
By the way, the moderator who said "no action" to your first complaint on that one? It wasn't a moderator. It was Jim. And his comment about it was "grow some thicker skin", and I would suggest that might be a helpful idea.
Might I ask what the point is of Jim, or anyone else, posting "no action" and "grow a thicker skin" in a place where only other moderators will see it? All the reporter gets is thin air. Since you know the names of every complainant every time they report anyone, you might as well have John change the software so that the reporter gets the decision bounced back to them in Freepmail.
Only one of my abuse reports was checkmarked to include my name. Thus the only potential possibilities are: 1) All abuse reports have the username right next to them on the Mod's screen; or else 2) If you don't check the box, your name is only one or two mouse clicks away for the Mods.
(Cue your favorite Spaghetti Western background music)
A dusty street, somewhere in some no-name, one horse town in the Old West. It's High Noon- but the main street is deserted. Townspeople are fleetingly seen- drawing the shades or closing their shops to hide within. A gust of wind propels a tumbleweed by, as if the climate of rank antagonism has caused it too, to seek shelter. The wind eddies, carrying with it an acrid reek and a whorl of blue smoke from an alley down the street.
Clem, of the Cannabis Clan, is in town.
Meanwhile in the saloon, Sheriff Bob Boozensmokes stubs out a cigarette and downs his last shot of whiskey before it's time to take care of business. He sits alone in the smokey room, his hat on the small wooden table in front of him. It is time.
With a sigh, he stands. He reaches down under the table for the weapon he has selected for the job- the US Army M2-2 Flame Thrower. First opening the valve on the butane tank to pressurise the system, he grunts and wrestles the 70 pounds of fuel tanks and compressed gas propellant onto his back. He cinches the straps, and adjusts the load. One last check of the igniter system. He lights another smoke, plants his worn old hat on his head, and steps out into the glaring noonday sunlight. Spurs jangle. He takes the expected position at the head of the street. Long, deep scorched scars on the town's buildings bear mute testimony that this has happened here before.
He can't see Clem, but he can smell him.
Down the street, Clem steps out from the shadows. He is similarly burdened with his own flame thrower of indeterminate manufacture. A joint hangs from his sunburned lips.
Both men survey one another through squinty eyes, and slowly wobble and sway closer, narrowing the gap between them in the street. They stop at a distance from one another, a distance only obvious to a seasoned flame-warrior.
"That stuff is bad for you, and we don't like it here. It's against the law", slurs Sheriff Bob. "Dude, your booze and cigs kill more people each year than my dope ever will" giggles Clem, between barely supressed snorts of laughter. He reels, and catches his balance. He straightens his hat, which is made of hemp.
Silence. A hard look. A moment becomes an eternity.
Both substance-addled duellists mash first their ignition triggers and a blinding split second later the fuel-release trigger. Hissing jets of burning liquid death, roiling black petroleum smoke. A missed burst splashes heavily across the front of the General Store- instantly setting it ablaze. Cursing emerges from within the morass of smoke and flame.
The WoD Flame Wars have begun.
(Ever start to write a reply and just have it run away with you?) :-)
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