Posts by William Bennett53

I honestly should have seen this coming, and if anyone had warned me I’d eventually find myself saying this, I probably wouldn't have believed them. But here we are:

Forza Ferrari! 🙏 🙏

The School of Life, I agree; any attempt to blame an entire national or religious group for the actions of a tiny fraction of its members is absolutely unacceptable. Such behavior must be actively prevented and penalized until it is completely eradicated. I will review these reports again and intervene wherever necessary.

Furthermore, since you are acting as a clone for a permanently banned user, this profile will also receive a permanent ban.

Look, while a forum member isn't responsible for hate speech uttered by someone else, they do have a responsibility to use filters and avoid spreading nonsense from outside sources. When a member fails in that duty, it falls on the moderators to step in and stop it.

Did you bother reporting those posts using the flag icon?

Please bear with me; I’ll give the guys a nudge so they have something to talk about.

The moderators here have already touched on this subject, and there was a clear consensus: we need to lock this thread down. It’s quickly devolved into just another massive trolling magnet where people are shouting about everything under the sun regarding homosexuality, rather than actually sticking to the intended topic.

It seems you’ve chosen to ignore both the explicit explanation regarding the penalty and the very clear instructions on how to file an appeal, so I believe we have reached the end of this discussion.

Jerry Robinson56, your vision of what constitutes "fair moderation" can be quite an exhausting read at times. Moderation isn't something triggered on demand; amidst a sea of endless posts, moderators have to exercise actual judgment to decide when someone has truly crossed the line and intervene accordingly. That doesn't mean they should jump down someone's throat over every minor provocation—if that were the case, we wouldn't need human moderators at all; we’d just use algorithms designed to flag specific patterns and react automatically.

You told a female user on this forum that she was "special needs," and you received a well-deserved warning. There is absolutely no debate there, so please, spare us the long-winded essays you use to try and justify it.
She provoked you with that petition, and she received a warning for that as well. When she called you somewhat autistic, she also got a warning for being insulting. Perhaps she deserved a second identical warning for repeating the same label within such a short window, but that falls under the discretionary judgment I mentioned earlier.

And now you're bringing up old grievances involving various other mods again... For heaven's sake, next time you feel someone deserved a warning, just use the report button. If nobody responds and you eventually decide to start a thread, just write a two-sentence explanation without resorting to those "everyone is out to get me" conspiracy theories.

Given how much immigration bolstered this country during the American Civil War, and considering the immense cultural and economic value these individuals bring to their local communities, I find your comments deeply insulting to them. And no, this isn't about the fact that you fail to mention those who left for other places; it’s about your dismissal of those who have arrived or seek to arrive here. One shouldn't degrade an entire group of people simply because they were forced to relocate to a different part of the world out of necessity.

As for everything else, members of anarchist, activist, or LGBTQ+ communities possess the exact same rights in the Midwest as any right-leaning American or Catholic. If anyone doubts that, they are more than welcome to consult the Constitution. Furthermore, precisely because this is a forum centered on American values, it is the moderator's duty to ensure that no single individual attempts to monopolize patriotism or American identity, using them as a pretext to spread hatred and discrimination under the guise of free speech.

bluecyclist64, did you report this?

Listen, everyone, this thread is going under lock and key.
Saurus, other people's cards have nothing to do with you. If someone has an issue with their specific card, they can file a formal complaint through the proper channels.

Now, since it seems you’re looking for some sort of sweeping generalization, let me be clear: we don't just shut down active discussions on the Politics board on a whim. Threads are only closed when they present a genuine problem. For instance, we recently had to shutter two separate threads because, under the guise of "protecting men," users were essentially using them as a platform to harass women however they saw fit. Moderation became impossible because the posts devolved almost instantly into blatant misogyny. Having learned from those experiences, we have to moderate similar topics with extreme caution from the very beginning to ensure they don't veer off course.

So, it isn't that Clone wants to close this thread; rather, they simply won't allow it to spiral—just as I won't—and that is why we are keeping it within its intended boundaries.

I ask you all to please have a little patience...
We are currently discussing this matter, and once we reach a definitive conclusion, I will ensure it is posted right here in this thread.

The conversation has completely gone off the rails...
In any case, we should stick to the established protocol: there are no forbidden media sources, but there are certainly forbidden directions for discussion. If someone crosses the line into hate speech, they ought to be held accountable, regardless of whether they were simply quoting an article that makes the same point. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the users for what they choose to share, while it remains the moderators' duty to step in and make corrections when users fail to police themselves.

If anyone from the administration would like to weigh in, feel free.
I'm done.

Greetings! The only subject we should be discussing here is the issue of posts containing massive blocks of copied text.
And let's keep this discussion at a high level rather than making it personal. If you see someone violating the rules, please just report them using the triangle icon.

If we set aside the fact that this thread is focused on a specific user rather than the actual issue of massive copy-pasted walls of text, I find myself agreeing. Large blocks of copied content that make a discussion impossible to follow shouldn't be permitted. Now, that isn't necessarily an issue if it’s just a one-off occurrence or something rare. It is entirely possible that, in this particular instance, all those articles and lists were actually necessary for the debate—and if that's the case, then fine. However, if users were doing this habitually, or if certain threads were being consistently cluttered this way, the moderators would need to step in and shut it down. I believe they mostly already do, but regardless, I'll be sure to bring it to their attention.
I appreciate the helpful intervention. 👍

As far as I'm concerned, the New York Post is total garbage; most of what they publish strikes me as nothing short of tragicomic. That said, as others have pointed out, there is an equally ridiculous amount of nonsense appearing on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Consequently, if we were to start cherry-picking politically relevant sources among various outlets and newspapers, we would very quickly find ourselves in a ridiculous bind where a potentially well-written piece from the New York Post might be rejected, while some absolute drivel from, say, the New York Post or USA Today gets a pass.

Therefore, I don't see banning an entire portal or newspaper as something that would yield any positive results. If anything, those junk producers would just lean into it, playing the martyr and claiming they are being censored online by political opponents.

The solution lies elsewhere: a link to a stupid article should be treated individually, just as it has been until now. In other words, moderators can simply continue to delete links to trolling, off-topic, or just plain moronic articles (and issue penalties if necessary), and when something does manage to stay up, such links say more about the person who shared them than anything else.

In my view, the much larger issue is the sharing of "news" from media outlets that lack any semblance of editorial policy. By this, I mean Facebook, blogs, and other forums. We have frequently seen instances where links to complete fabrications originate from such sources. Regarding this, I believe moderators are free to be even sharper and more diligently sanction those who share such things (especially in cases where people, knowing the source is irrelevant, create a quote but fail to include a link to, say, Facebook).

The boss is keeping an eye on this thread; if he has anything further to contribute, he’ll step in. In the meantime, I am locking this discussion, as the conversation has drifted quite far off course.
@Uširo, I truly hope you hit it big on your next windfall and decide to invest in a better server, given how much this one seems to be lagging lately. 🙂

Mission accomplished to everyone's satisfaction, though I find myself quite restless. 👍