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You know, I think we're getting a bit mixed up here.
Dead Megatron called Flyboy specifically to post in his birthday thread, and then complained of an uncalled personal attack when he did.
Flyboy's next post was about Kali and Dead Megatron's flrting, at which point Kali suggested to Flyboy that it would be better for him if he did not read the thread - which is of course entirely correct, but fails to take into account the fact that the birthday boy had specifically called Flyboy (and myself, as it happens) into the thread.
Trolling takes its name from a type of fishing, in which one drags one's line backwards and forwards across a lake behind a boat, seeking to catch a fish.
Now, if your argument is "Flyboy, you are better than Dead Megatron. We expect you to express that superiority, for example by ignoring him when he specifically mentions your name and invites you to contribute to a thread" - well, that's fine. However, in doing that you are making a judgement about Flyboy and DM's relative merits as human beings. Flyboy, on the other hand, is not as far as I can tell at any point making a judgement in the three posts he makes to the birthday thread about DM's merits as a human being, but rather to the value of his contribution to Barbelith:
For you, perhaps. For the rest of us, it seems the sorry state of affairs we've endured over the last annus horribilis is only going to continue, and possibly worsen.
This seems specifically to refer to Barbelith - Flyboy talks about the last year, during which DM has been contributing to Barbelith, and not the last 29 years, during which DM has been alive.
Is there any chance at all that the two of you might GET A SODDING ROOM? Preferably one that can be locked from the outside?
This is about behaviour on Barbelith.
Perhaps I'm wrong, and this thread should be a place wherein Dead Megatron, and the contribution he has made to the board, are celebrated. Perhaps people should link to their favourite Dead Megatron posts, the ones where he's been most intelligent, witty, perceptive. Perhaps this will alter my opinion that encountering a post by Dead Megatron in a thread is, at best, inconsequential, and at worst, a bit like finding a turd on one's front doorstep.
Absolutely, specifically about his contribution to Barbelith.
After that, Dead Megatron says that he is close to seeking the banning of Flyboy and Triplets, with no apparent indication that he is JOKING!!!, and at that point I think the game changes rather.
So, those posts, as far as I can see, are about the impact Dead Megatron, and his flirtation with Kali, have on Barbelith. They are without a doubt negative, but when you say:
However, as it stands, I think any member is able to question another's relative merit to the board but not, to my mind, their relative merits as a human being which - chances are - you are not especially privy to, in any case, and not in the manner of personal abuse.
You appear not to be talking about any of these posts, which represent the entirety of Flyboy's contribution to the thread.
Venn diagram time. Circle one - things Flyboy has said on Barbelith in the time leading up to this Policy outbreak. Circle two - things said in Dead Megatron's birthday thread. Circle three - things that are insulting in a way that appears to go outside people's contribution to Barbelith.
Circle one and circle three seem to have an overlap - I think there are comments in the Barbecrush thread that are personally insulting to Dead Megatron - but they have nothing to do with:
(It's entirely likely I am being sanctimonious about birthday threads, too, because - look - here's mine, and here's yours. They're very nice, and we obliquely wish one another happy birthday. That's really super nice, too. I'd have found someone dripping poison in either very upsetting and deeply unnecessary, I should think.)
Because they are outside the set of things said in Dead Megatron's birthday thread. The overlap of circle two and circle three contains, among other things, Triplets comment that DM's birthday commemorates the failure of an abortionist. However, this is not in the set of things Flyboy has said.
Unless I have missed something, the intersection of circles one and two contains three items, which I have quoted above. I don't see any of those as reaching beyond Barbelith, and so do not see them as fitting into the intersection of circles one, two and three. Unless you believe that Flyboy actually wants Dead Megatron and Kali to meet in an actual room somewhere between Brasil and Georgia - perhaps Chihuahua - which Flyboy can then fly to and lock from the outside, but that's frankly a stretch.
So, if we're going to do this, I think we might want to start by not a) mixing up what Flyboy said and what Triplets said and b) not mixing up things said in the "protected" birthday thread and things not said in the "protected" birthday thread, before then going on to question what is a comment on somebody's contribution to Barbelith and what is a comment on somebody's worth as a human being, and then onto when an uncalled comment is actually uncalled.
PW:
As for Flyboy, I PM'ed him and explained my stance on all this yesterday (I think). I even jokingly gave him a heads up in the Your Watch thread towards the Moderation Requests thread; which I admit was part playful
What you said was:
And talking of cowardly shots to the back of the head, have you been and read the Moderations Request thread, yet, regarding your recent behaviour toward DM?
Where you directed him to a thread in which you called him a fuck-hole (yes, I know, you apologised subsequently, but right at that moment, not so much). Do you honestly believe that that reads as "playful"? Or that you are, in the eyes of anyone reading it or even in your own eyes when you read it back, joking? Do we need to talk about this, now? Only, I am profundly uncomfortable with this "joking" defence against what might actually otherwise look kind of like bullying. You are joking there, Dead Megatron is joking when he says that he is thinking of moving to get Flyboy and Triplets banned... Flyboy has not to my knowledge so far claimed that he was joking, and I think that that is perfectly appropriate, since this is not really a laughing matter. |
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