Issues on the Los Angeles subreddit

I mean, why does Pontius Pilate bother you guys so much? If he’s trolling, just report the post—and if he’s just being annoying by constantly defending the MTA, just ignore him. I guess it's really not that deep. 🤷

lonepanther4 said:I honestly don't get why everyone gets so worked up over Pontius Pilate. If he’s being an obvious troll, just report the post, and if he's just being exhausting by constantly defending the MTA, then just ignore him. 🤷

I mean, once you've spent way too much time reading the same nonsense and watching someone worship Bloomberg and his whole operation, you eventually hit a breaking point, so if everyone is genuinely fed up with someone who's basically known for trolling and having some questionable biases, we should probably just remove them from the subforum and call it a day.

Every other post he makes ends with thanks to the Mayor and the City Council... which is basically just him applauding some new successful heist they pulled off.
This kind of trolling drivel has no place on this forum, and neither do the people writing it.

It takes far too long to get there

lonepanther4 said:I don't get why everyone is so worked up over Pontius Pilate. If he's trolling, just report the post. If he's just being annoying by constantly defending the MTA, then just ignore him. 🤷

Signed.

I guess I don't really see what all the fuss about Pontius Pilate is either. 🤷

There isn't a single soul left who hasn't been absolutely blasted by his sarcasm, insults, and straight-up nonsense regarding this topic.

It’s honestly pathetic—people come here to vent about something crappy that happened to them during their day, looking for a bit of empathy, and instead, they get hit by someone acting like Pontius Pilate, just kicking them while they're down, mocking them, and flat-out humiliating them. I’ve reported a whole string of his posts a while back, but nothing ever happens... ☕

He drags every single debate into these absurd, toxic extremes, dodging any actual logic when he can't back himself up, and then has the nerve to label everyone else as idiots or blame them for everything... Why are we even allowing this level of unchecked arrogance toward an entire group of people? This harassment has been dragging on way too long, and at the end of the day, we all look like fools for putting up with it—all because of one single user.

Nathan Moore6 said:I guess if you spend all your time reading the same old nonsense and watching people worship Bloomberg and his crew, you eventually just lose it. If everyone is fed up with someone who’s basically known for trolling and has a history of being problematic, then maybe they should just be kicked from the subforum and call it a day.

But the thing is, it's not true for everyone. 😉

For those of you who are actually annoyed, you have the lovely option of clicking "ignore." 🤷

It seems lately there's been a trend of deleting discussions involving Pontius Pilate rather than actually banning him—how lovely... :klap:
@moderators: here is a textbook example of a Pilatean post regarding why that indoor pool in the Holy Land wasn't open when scheduled,
our very own Pilate responds this way and then proceeds to elaborate

Alex Morales3 said:...

People walk in frustrated by something that happened that day, looking for a place to vent, only to run straight into a Pontius Pilate who kicks them while they're down—insulting, mocking, and flat-out humiliating them. I’ve filed a string of reports on this before, but nothing ever happens...

This isn't a rebuttal; consider it an addendum to the explanation of why this bothers us.

I didn't weigh in on the MTA thread, but I will speak on other topics.

The NYC PDF section isn't about philosophy or politics. I come here to read and share useful local info, offering help where I can. I have zero interest in scrolling through dozens of pages of snark and whining just to find one scrap of data I actually need. There are plenty of other corners of this forum for that kind of chatter—go ahead, write it, read it, enjoy it—but 'City News' and 'Public Pools' aren't the places for it.

Folks tried to nudge him toward having a civil, serious conversation, but he refused. Personally, I don't mind people stating their piece—in fact, I welcome it. This guy clearly HAS some knowledge about the city, but he doesn't share it in good faith and won't stop being provocative.

It grates on me to see a malicious actor participating in a thread where I just want a productive discussion, or even just to read. This isn't some sudden outburst of rage over a specific grievance; it's been going on far too long for that. Sure, I could ignore him. I've spent months watching his antics in silence, but it doesn't work—it just gets worse. Pretty soon, there’s no useful information left, just a mountain of bickering and petty back-and-forth.

What is Pilate's motivation here? Why does he do it? It has gone way too far to be a defense of Bloomberg & co; in fact, it’s gone so far you’d think he’s trying to bury Bloomberg by making his advocacy look absolutely idiotic. If he were smarter, I might suspect political motives, but it feels more like he’s just a troll at heart—someone who feeds on making others lose their cool.

Compared to the rest of the forum, the NYC PDF section looks like it’s been left without moderation for ages. Reporting posts hasn't yielded any results; there hasn't been a single change.

steelwalker26 said:What exactly is Pilate's motivation here—why go this far? It seems to have drifted far beyond merely defending Bloomberg & his associates... it’s reached a point where one might suspect this was written by someone actually hoping to sink Bloomberg by making his defense look utterly foolish.

That is quite likely, though he did overstep the mark 👎
...

cosmicridge5 said:But honestly, the thing is, it's just not everyone's cup of tea 😉

And if you guys are feeling annoyed by it, you have the lovely little "ignore" button right at your disposal 🤷

Look, the guy has a few flaws under his belt, and I really don't get why anyone would try to defend him, especially since most people here clearly find him pretty exhausting

Look, we hit a massive snag when politics started bleeding into this subforum, which honestly shouldn't have happened in the first place. So, after chatting it over with the other mods, we’ve decided we aren't going to let these political debates spill over here anymore. If you want to argue about politics, there’s an entire separate section specifically for that.

As for Pontius Pilate, most of what he posts is just straight-up trolling, and I totally get why everyone is feeling pretty much at their breaking point. There really shouldn't be a situation where the vast majority of users have to rely on the ignore button just because one guy refuses to stop being difficult. He's already been warned to quit "discussing" things in such a trollish way. While bans might not actually change him—or stop others from copying his act—the mods are going to start using other ways to sanction people who behave like this.

Anyway, that's basically all the NYT mods have to say about this whole mess.

steelwalker26 said:reporting posts hasn't actually done anything; we haven't seen any changes at all.

I just wanted to jump in and clarify that our reporting system was acting up for a while—it wasn't working consistently, and it was only working selectively, so it took us some time to realize it wasn't fully functional. My bad on that!

Could one of the admins maybe clear something up regarding the moderator trickie Q.? Looking at the PDF for Washington, D.C., I'm just a little confused about how someone can jump all the way to admin status with only 103 posts, especially since I haven't really noticed her being active around here at all.

Thanks so much!

Nathan Moore6 said:Could one of the admins please clarify things regarding moderator Trisha Q. on the Washington, D.C. subforum? I mean, how can someone become an admin with only 103 posts, especially since I haven't even noticed her being active over there?

Thanks!

Just to clear things up, she isn't an admin, she’s a moderator. While we definitely prefer our most active members for these roles, this is actually a very active user who just happens to be using a different account on the Washington, D.C. subforum. Since she plans on using this specific handle much more frequently moving forward, it made the most sense to set everything up under this one. If you're still feeling confused about it, feel free to just shoot Trisha a private message directly. 🙂

As for the state of the forum, the mod team is currently huddling up and discussing potential changes. We’ve actually added a few more hands to the team, so reports should be handled much faster and more efficiently now. Also, just a heads-up: political debates won't be allowed in here anymore since we have a dedicated subforum specifically for those discussions. As for the trolls you guys have been reporting, we're shifting them under a different moderation protocol, so that should get cleaned up pretty soon too. Huge thanks to everyone for all the reports and for staying involved.