Effective dealing with 'impolite' posters

turgon

Recently Ive been at loggerheads with brianthebard. About 2/3 weeks ago myself and a number of other posters were (persistently) questioning his views on Communism. I wasn't really getting any answers, and finally he left the thread without responding to many of the queries put to him. Far from disappearing from the Political Theory forum he is always there on the socialist threads thanking posts he agrees with but never actually contributing or addressing people he disagrees with. I thought the leaving thing was a bit impolite, but I let it slide.

Then this electricians thread started. brainthebard came on supporting the Unions, and this is how our discussion went:

brianthebard wrote: »

kotl's has repeatedly said that they're no longer looking for a pay increase, but to trade their promised increase off to prevent a pay cut. I think its more than reasonable.

turgon wrote: »

Is it? In the good times they wanted pay rises but in the bad times they want pay to stay the same? Even though the economy is deflating. And the cost of living is going down.

brianthebard wrote: »

Yes it is, they're already taking a cut by not being able to benefit from the increase they were promised.

turgon wrote: »

Ok. So what you suggesting is that the employers should now negotiate a 5 year pay deal that will steadily bring down workers pay due to deflation etc. Then when the "good times" come in 2 or 3 year the employers wont have to raise pay; rather them just not giving the pay decrease will be reasonable.

Right?

So then there was a period where BtB was posting on the thread but completely failed to address the last point I made. So I said:

turgon wrote: »

Care to respond to post #31 [post above]?

brianthebard wrote: »

Nothing to reply to, no thanks.

turgon wrote: »

No. Not even to say the scenario is wrong? Or right? Or are you afraid either admission will mark a hole in your ideals?

brianthebard wrote: »

No.

I thought that, this being a discussion solely between the two of use, that this was pretty impolite. I didn't mention it in the thread, and I let it slide in the immediate term.


Then came this thread on Libertarianism. I am not a Libertarian, but I lean that way, and brianthebard is obviously completely anti it. The main pro-libertarian argument was being forwarded by donegalfella, who in one post questioned the legitimacy of a source given by brianthebard. brianthebard then went on to criticize donegalfella's style of debate:

brianthebard wrote: »

Once again you decide to insult me and denigrate the sources provided rather than engage with the questions.

Now I thought this was a little bit too much, considering the above. So in a completely off-topic post I said:

turgon wrote: »

brianthebard, do you think donegalfella would be in a better position if he adopted your tactic; that is to leave the thread entirely when it becomes uncomfortable and only come on now and again to thank posts that agree with him?

Or, of course, theres always the "No" option; that is to openly refuse to address posts that might lead to you conceding some point, as seen in all its glory on the electricians thread yesterday.

GuanYin later came on and reasonably told me to stop engaging in off-topic commenting on other posters etc, and I havent posted there since.


The question is, what to do here? GuanYin suggested reporting the post but whats the point - brianthebard wasn't breaking Boards.ie rules nor the forum charter. Instead he just being impolite.

In the first case it is not that solid - he left the thread as a poster and stayed as a' thanker,' and, as he himself said, I cant force anyone to stay anywhere. However in the electricians case he blatantly refused to engage in debate with me. Theres no formal moderator route against what he did, and theres no way to point it out without being told to try that route.

A dilemma.

sceptre

Quick answer: without completely taking the mickey with multiple hourly (or probably daily) reports (which obviously you're not doing but it's often easiest for everyone else reading when they apply it to their problem later if I mention that at the start), if you reckon there's a persistent problem, it works better for us as mods, probably you as a poster, possibly a third party as a poster and almost definitely for the forum as a whole, if you report it rather than ignoring it or eventually lashing out on a thread.

Obviously that doesn't mean something will be done to your liking or even that anything will be done but at least you can be sure that the mods are aware of it and reasonably assured that they've got at least one point of view on what the problem is.

That's a general response to a general query.

I'll take a look at the specific problem, or at least put it in the queue of things to be looked at. Don't assume I'm regarding it as unimportant by doing that by the way - there's quite a lot to look at from the posts you've quoted and going back a bit. In advance of doing that though, as a general rule these things often turn out to have two culprits as you might suspect, with both being wrong in different degrees or facets of the same problem. I'd bet half the Christmas cake I just found that this will turn out to be the case here too, at least to some degree.

I really don't have a problem with a note that there is a problem, or a reported post referencing other posts to illustrate a problem. As you're well aware (and obviously this is part of your dilemma), we'd rather know than not know. Even if it ends up with one of us banging your heads together and advising you not to talk to each other. Which is a possible outcome but I'll have to look at the stuff first.

WhiteWashMan

Without wanting to step on sceptre's toes here, I have to admit that I am not seeing a 'problem'.

While it is annoying that youa re trying to engage in meaningful discussion, not answering a question is not really the domain of an administrator, not to be brutally honest, a mod.

If someone engages in opinions and discussion you are not happy with from the standpoint of level of answers, then quite frankly, Id completely ignore them and consider their opinion to be worth about the same as the broadband they write upon.

/opinion

turgon

Thanks for the replies.

sceptre wrote: »

if you reckon there's a persistent problem, it works better for us as mods, probably you as a poster, possibly a third party as a poster and almost definitely for the forum as a whole, if you report it rather than ignoring it or eventually lashing out on a thread.

I understand. The reason I did not do this in the first place was because what brianthebard was doing wasnt really against the rules, and thus I thought notifying the mods would achieve little. However, if I feel the need to bring this up again (with this particular poster, probably not) I will take this course of action.

sceptre wrote: »

I'll take a look at the specific problem, or at least put it in the queue of things to be looked at. Don't assume I'm regarding it as unimportant by doing that by the way - there's quite a lot to look at from the posts you've quoted and going back a bit.

Even if you feel it isnt worth your effort I wont take it personally. I realize there are probably more important things for Politics mods and Admins to be doing.

sceptre wrote: »

In advance of doing that though, as a general rule these things often turn out to have two culprits as you might suspect, with both being wrong in different degrees or facets of the same problem. I'd bet half the Christmas cake I just found that this will turn out to be the case here too, at least to some degree.

I fully agree, and if you do feel I acted in an inappropriate way (particularly with the off-topic posting) I will be willing to accept the official punishments (infractions etc) you send to me as a result. As an Admin, your judgment on what is right or wrong - what it appropriate or inappropriate - is obviously better than mine.

WhiteWashMan wrote: »

While it is annoying that youa re trying to engage in meaningful discussion, not answering a question is not really the domain of an administrator, not to be brutally honest, a mod.

Which is why I didnt take the "official" route. I dont know if Sceptre is replying in his role as Admin or Politics Mod, however if he feels this issue is unimportant then I wont take it personally. "How petty the conflicts of man" and all that!

Scofflaw

I feel I ought to add to this that turgon is not the only poster who has had this particular issue with brianthebard. I have wound up infracting another poster for responding to the tactic in question, and while I feel the infraction in question was justified, there was clearly another side to the story.

cordially,
Scofflaw

The Sweeper

Do you mean you believe he's passively trolling by simply making statements, then refusing to back his statements up when refuted? Or something else?

Scofflaw

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

Do you mean you believe he's passively trolling by simply making statements, then refusing to back his statements up when refuted? Or something else?

It's not as overt as that, and I'm in two minds about it. It verges on that, in that a poster puts forward a point of view, and after being refuted, stops arguing, but continues to visibly support any other poster who takes up the same point of view. It's not exactly wrong, but it is kind of cowardly.

cordially,
Scofflaw

turgon

Scofflaw pretty much summed it up well there with his usual conciseness and eloquence.

Maybe, given that this isnt an official breach of conduct by brianthebard, its my fault for rising to it. Perhaps I am too passionate.