Freedomain Radio

Why do people get banned from a forum?

Why have people been banned from THIS forum?

Good question ...

NonEntity, eye2i2 ...

These are two that I know of and whom I've had some contact with at other forums. There is no FAQ here indicating that merely posting at Liberating Minds is a bannable offense, but the email I received the other day would seem to indicate otherwise.

What really burns my banana is that someone asked some honest questions and instead was treated to load of shit.

This seems to happen on all kinds of boards I go to (no matter how "harmless" the main focus is).  And a testament to the fact that internet forums are a "serious" social environment.  You have a lot of people who take things personally.  I've been on musician related forums where people threaten to fly other people out to beat them up at some undisclosed location.  Especially after getting banned and especially towards whoever seems to be in charge (admins, moderators, etc.).  Everyone seems to think whoever is in "charge" (which usually amounts to blocking porn and banning personal attacks) is just like some Hitlerite.

There's a lot of the self-attack provocations ("what are you retarded?  psychopath?  sociopath!") and just incredible amounts of machismo.  Since philosophy is full of nerds, you don't get so much of the latter here probably (thank goodness).  And I don't think in many cases people ever cool down (though it's surprising that people will admit their supposed "internet addiction" that they wish to escape; which they never identify as their own subjective anxiety).  The internet is getting older as popular social environment.  And I've seen grudges go on for 5-10 years.  And being an outsider looking in, I just go from being bewildered to annoyed at times.  They really don't realize how subjective their quarrel really is.  Which brings us back to relationships:  they would probably be embarrassed to show some of their threads to family or non-internet friends.  The internet is still sort of a testing grounds for persona development.  Which is healthy, I believe... the internet is "real."  But people haven't been able to admit that new technology is beneficial and so retain this strange distance.  Which is why you have people objecting to on and offline persona being one thing and not a schizophrenic mind that takes some information seriously and not others.

thirdear:

There is no FAQ here indicating that merely posting at Liberating Minds is a bannable offense,

These people have said some fairly insulting and hurtful things about myself and my friends here, why would you want to talk with people who are not honest, who denigrate people we care about and attack the things we all treasure?  Aren't we trying to get away from those kinds of people?  Isn't the goal to free ourselves from all that?

The name "Liberating Minds" is quite ironic, to me it's like the "Ministry of Love" and "Ministry of Truth" in the book 1984.  They can't Liberate their minds drom their obsession with attacking FDR as if it is somehow worse than other things they should be attacking, which tells us everything we need to know about their hierarchy of values.

Nathan:

These people have said some fairly insulting and hurtful things about myself and my friends here, why would you want to talk with people who are not honest, who denigrate people we care about and attack the things we all treasure?

FWIW, I've been around a looooong time. I'm older than dirt, well not really, but I have been on the information superhighway since it was a dirt road, so I have to deal with some of these people anyway because I am and have been an admin, let alone participant, at numerous web sites, Liberating Minds not included.

NonEntity and eye2i2 have never, to my knowledge, been dishonest with me or said anything hurtful about me -- and -- no one here has ever been dishonest or hurtful toward me. To my knowledge, I've never said anything hurtful or dishonest to either of those two individuals, nor to anyone here -- and I'd like to keep it that way.

Aside from the fact that saying something hurtful is not synonymous with being dishonest, if NonEntity or eye2i2 have said or done something hurtful or dishonest to you or anyone else here, that is unfortunate, but it's not my responsibility to apologize for them

What I see are some people who have a disagreement with some of what has been happening here. I'm not making any judgment as to the nature of those disagreements because they don't involve me. I don't particularly appreciate it when someone implies that I am a member of a cult, but neither of these two individuals have said so with respect to me and I have had some interesting and productive conversations with them. I don't appreciate the manner in which some of the people there speak about some of the people here, but I also don't appreciate the idea that I might be banned here for merely posting at another forum without regard to the nature or context of my posts.

I fully support Stef's right to ban anyone for any reason, though having moderated several online forums over the years, I think the manner in which banning is put into practice here is rather abrupt. But it's Stef's web site. He can do whatever he wants.

They can't Liberate their minds drom their obsession with attacking FDR as if it is somehow worse than other things they should be attacking, which tells us everything we need to know about their hierarchy of values.

No it doesn't. If some people have a disagreement with Stef or with what is happening here in general, that dosen't mean that they still don't have a problem with the state, or religion, or anything else. It also doesn't imply that any particular individual is attacking FDR any harder than anything else they might be attacking. All it means is that such people are attacking FDR at a board that has a focal point for doing so in the same way that people will attack their perception of the price of gasoline because it is a focal point on practically every street corner in the country, as if the price of gas is somehow worse than the price of milk, cigarettes, or (one of my biggest peeves) concert tickets.

But how does questioning my contact with two former members of this forum, as if to question my values, address the questions I was responding to, let alone the questions asked by the individual in the linked post?

John Ess:

I've been on musician related forums where people threaten to fly other people out to beat them up at some undisclosed location.

You, too?

thirdear:

What really burns my banana is that someone asked some honest questions and instead was treated to load of shit.

I gotta admit I didn't know anything about the situation with eye2i2. Instead, I automatically jumped on the bandwagon because I got caught up in the joke. I apologize for that..

Nathan:

Why talk to or defend yourself with people who insult your intellectal integrity from the very start?

Why do you think she contacted you specifically?

Thats a very good question Nathan. I wanted them to stop for sure. It felt pretty aweful being dehumanized, for the sake of pleasure and under the heroic mask of rescue.

Another good question. I believe, its because she is under the belief that FDR is about kicking your parents to the curb. Period. No questions asked.

I'm not sure why I got targeted either, unless it was the absolute rawness of digging out the dirty laundry in the closet, and it just so happened to be about my mother. 

GregG:

It's that simple - and it's the standard Stef set here, from the very beginning - the goal is the pursuit of happiness. Happiness is not possible if you surround yourself with corrupt and abusive people.

... yes. I should have just not responded. I would have saved myself from, today and how yuck it made me feel. I can see definitely how consorting voluntarily with this select few, has wrecked my fluid happy I seemed to have been maintaining fairly well.

If anything, its experience.

Now to go to the journal and work it out.

its probably best to be very on guard and very cautious of anyone who contacts you from LiMi, i.e. be very curious about their position, ask questions, point out everything that doesnt make sense.

if they insult you- disengage i.e. if they insult your ability to think for yourself and claim you are so weak minded you can be controlled by someone far away in canada on the net who can make you beleive you have to leave a supposedly perfectly happy relationship etc

and after a while of doing this with many LiMi members you may find you get fed up of trying anymore as it probably doesnt come to any fruition and you'll just decide to stop engaging. Hence why stef blocks IPs which come from LiMi.

MeladorianGal:

Does anyone here have any dealings or understanding first of all, who these people are?

A long time ago before some of those folks got ejected from these boards I knew a few of them. Since then I have gotten rid of them because they were just vile and toxic people. Many of them do have messed up personal lives and instead of examining that, they take it out on others. I can't say the same for every single person on that board, but chances are that good people are not going to stick around there for very long.

My advice for anybody looking in on the outside is to watch what people do and not what people say. My experience with some of the now LiMi folks is that they just talk trash, make accuastions, and are not pleasant people to deal with, compared to many of the folks here at FDR.

Once again I have engaged where I shouldn't have. *Sigh* Here's a snippet from the FTL BBS. It's sort of relevant to this thread.

"Dylboz-
If you are a member of FDR, your account will be deactivated if you visit LiMi."

Me-
Post the link and let's see if I get banned.

"Dylboz-
I'm not saying you are a coward or a fool, that's another projection."

Me-
You said that I won't go to site X because I'll get banned from site Y and I'm too invested in site Y to do so. That is cowardice. And you obviously like to throw the word "Projection" around without knowing what it means.

"Dylboz-
I'm just saying, you asked for that stuff, and that is where it is. "

Me-
No, you weren't. You suggested that I'd be afraid to go look at it because of some imagined retribution from my cult leader.

End of snippet.

Obviously, I shouldn't have even entered the fray, but the compulsion to engage is one of my trouble spots, and I still have a way to go. Apparently people here... I'm gonna cut myself off there. No need to go over the details of what some of those people are saying.

It does lead me to redouble my efforts to address my issue with going to bat every time someone throws a ball. *Double Sigh*

 ''Issue with going to bat every time someone throws a ball''

I love the expression, I do that as well as it happens.  Desire for confrontation or something.

I might have just made it up, but I refrain from taking credit, because I'm sure there's a million variations on the same concept floating around, you know?

I think it's a good way to describe my behavior, though.

If it makes you feel any better, Shaw, your engagement of trolls alleviates my desire to engage. Maybe I should put you on my payroll.

I woulnd't kick yer payroll outta bed for eating crackers, that's for sure, J. ;-)