A&A infraction in Increase in people identifying as having No Religion

Absolam

I would like to dispute an infraction from looksee for nit picking irrelevance / trolling. I have PMed the Mod in an attempt to explain the relevance of what I posted but she does not wish to engage any further.

Tokyo

Good morning Absolam,

seeing as you have exhausted all discussion with the mod in question, I'll take a look at things for you. Can you please forward me the PM exchange you engaged in with the moderator?

Absolam

Thanks mike_ie. PMs forwarded.

Tokyo

Sorry about the relay, Absolam - long weekend and all that. Thank you for forwarding me the PM exchange, and I'll take a closer look at the card in question.

Tokyo

Sorry for the delay in this Absolam - I've been travelling for the past two days, and was too exhausted last night to deal with it properly.

I'm aware of your history in the forum, and I've read through the thread in question, including the posts that are surrounding yours. I've also spoken to the mod team there, and I am going to overturn the yellow card that was applied. But there are some caveats that go along with this.

We both know that your posting style has raised issues in the past in the Atheism & Agnosticism, and that you have only recently been allowed to return to full posting mode in the forum (The CMod team were involved in the decision to let you post there, so I'm aware of the back story on this). And being honest, I can completely understand the level of frustration exhibited by posters and moderators there. Reading through your posts, you do have a history of posting walls of text, which either nitpick the twenty or so posts before it to the nth degree, consists of needless hairsplitting, or are convoluted specifically so that if anyone argues it, you come back with 'ah but I didn't say xxx did I? I said yyy'. This drags down any chance of a reasonable debate, and as far as I am concerned, this constant browbeating of other posters into submission under an avalanche of words completely goes against the spirit of the forum - it's a place where I'd expect reasonable discourse from each side of an argument, rather than needlessly verbose word games. A&A is not your own personal AMA, so please stop treating it as such.

The problem with following such a consistent approach is that when you do try to make a reasonable argument, it gets diluted down by your previous behaviour. You've created a situation where you need to establish your credentials as a poster who can be taken seriously, and that's an issue entirely of your own making. However, in the case of this particular card, while I do see plenty of evidence of all the above tactics, I do consider there to be more signal than noise in your responses in this instance.

The end result is this - the card will be overturned. However, you were provided with a set of explicit instructions to reassess your posting style on your return to A&A last week, so please consider this your in-thread warning as it were. You are obviously an intelligent articulate person who has a breath of knowledge of the subject matter at hand - you don't need to post 1000+ words to posters in order to prove so (and that includes splitting responses across five consecutive replies), or respond with word-by-word analysis of other posters responses. If nothing else, I take this DRP as proof that you can be succinct when arguing your point, and I'll expect to see more of that in A&A in the future.

If you are willing to accept that, we can consider this issue resolved, but it's your final chance to reassess your posting style in the forum. If not, you can request an admin review of the situation.

Regards,

~Mike

Absolam

Thanks Mike, I appreciate your reply, and I'm glad you were able to consider the card in the context of the post rather than anything else.

I'm well aware of the conditions set out by Robindch, and I'm more than happy to go along with them, knowing that it took discussion with a CMod to get to that point. I also know I can be verbose and some posters think that's tactical, so I don't mind trying to trim what I say to assuage those concerns.

Thank you for your decision, and I hope my future posts make you feel justified in it.

Tokyo

Okay Absolam, thank you for taking what I have said onboard - I do hope you hold true to your word. I'll set the wheels in motion to revoke the card and set this DRP as being resolved.

dudara

Marking as resolved, thank you all.

dudara