I had mostly stopped reading #politics-and-religion because of the arguments with him. It was such a waste of everybody’s time. Thanks for your explanation, Tom.
Depends where you live in California!
And thanks for the very detailed and insightful community followup. Big thumbs up from me 👍
I started a long post about this, but really Tom and Oghier already said what needs to be said.
I’ll just add that people who argue in good faith are hard to find on the Internet, and Qt3 is the rare exception. It would be a shame if every single discussion site out there were transformed into A/B testing environments for troll farms, like the Cambridge Analyticas of the world want them to be. I applaud Tom for taking sensible, moderate measures to help protect our community and stimulate authentic discussion.
Well done Tom. I defended him when he seemed to be a bored college kid with time on his hands. Perhaps it is just pure contrariness but I found some of his posts thought provoking. I believe that the best way forwards in the US include either splitting into a multi-party system (seems unlikely) or having enough communication with Republican voters to bring a sizable fraction back into reality. But discussion, even if it might be partially trolling, is one thing and paid instigation is something different.
I appreciate Tom’s candor and handling of the situation. I hope everything is on the level. But somehow I wouldn’t be surprised to soon see a Breitbart article about “I visited a liberal hivemind, here is what I found”
If this guy could have fucking bothered to post about videogames half the time, it would have at least been less obvious than it was.
That’s what bugs me the most. There was barely even a token effort to be a gamer on a forum about… gaming.
Also, a moment of silence for people who run forums dedicated to politics. Brrrr. I get a chill just thinking about it.
When they make the (straight to youtube) movie of it, I hope the fascist actor they pick to play the unhinged libtard me, me is Stephen Baldwin!
I do want to point out that this man being a Trump supporter, was not the problem. Not every Trump supporter has the same views or presents themselves as this one did. Who he voted for, not really the issue.
I’m glad he won’t be posting in P&R anymore. His contributions were value-subtractive and only generated a lot of annoying noise.
Tom - thanks & sorry you now have to deal with his lying to you.
I think the thing to learn is that so many red flags were being raised - by longtime and well regarded posters, that to ignore this was not good. An disagreement between few people is a personality problem, a disagreement with a majority of posters is cause for alarm.
Say what you will about P&R but the I’ve found it one of the best places to catch up on the what is going on, and P&R contains some of the more thoughtful, insightful writing that I read anywhere. It’s also very full of super smart people that have a lot of history on topics including financial / law / medical / among others, and who bring different perspectives to many topics.
While I’m sure that some will always call it an echo chamber, I think that is a gross mis-characterization. While it’s true we’re almost all united against Trump as a person, when you delve into individual policies, frequent disagreement occurs.
I’m far more of a reader than a writer and it was frustrating to see this piece of shit continually dodge and move goalposts to not address things he was being called out for. Posts about keeping a country pure and questioning BLM were out right trollish taunts that I’m sure gave him responses for what he was seeking.
I would say that most of my IRL friends are republicans, as well as my family. It has caused me to abandon some friendships, but by & large, I think we still learn from each other and appreciate the sparring that occurs (except for my Dad, we can’t talk politics AT ALL).
But when there is someone for who there is no hope, and who refuses to listen or outright dismisses anything not posted on their FB timeline, I cut ties. While I can be sorry for the friendship lost for a small time, I’m better off as it would have come to pass eventually because I have no patience for intellectual dishonesty. So in a way, Trump getting elected caused all the wolves to lose their sheep’s clothing and let me recognize them for what they are. Racist, xenophobic assholes who have lost all touch with history & what made this country great.
I could care less about gman. He’s a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve any more time than he’s already wasted and thank god he won’t be posting anymore. Because Qt3 is a worse off place with him posting.
Thanks again for laying it all out with your transparency Tom. I know it must be difficult for you to reconcile your friendship with him.
To everyone in P&R, thank you for all your insightful commentary on all topics, your intellectual honesty and for calling out bullshit when it deserves it.
I’m not asahamed to say that I learned some things conversing with him. I also agree with @Mark_Weston when he said earlier that some of the behavior in response to him was deplorable. There are people here who refuse to have their beliefs challenged, even when those challenges make some sense, and want to hide behind a snugly blanket of “this person is alt-right so I don’t have to listen to anything they say.”
It’s ok to have your beliefs challenged. Maybe you learn something in the process. Maybe your beliefs become armored with that knowledge. Maybe you learn to think about the problem in a different way.
As for Breitbart, a bit of a story: in the run up to Obama’s first election, I became more energized politically than I ever have been in my life. That carried over well into his first term and I like to think I live under a rock a bit less than I used to. That started to happen again after Trump won the nomination, albeit for very different reasons.
Not too long after the horrid disbelief of the election, I was listening to Julie Mason’s show, The Press Pool, on SiriusXM POTUS. She has on a lot of differerent people on, including people tat get vilified around here like Maggie Haberman and Chris Cilizza. On this particular day, she had a guest from Breitbart. I was appalled, frankly. Why the hell was someone like THAT on POTUS, which is centrist for those that aren’t aware.
She clearly had gotten some complaints on Twitter, because she addressed it on the air. She spoke about how she had lost her WH correspondent gig with the Houston Chronicle and took a job with the Washington Examiner at a time when the Examiner was not particularly well respected, because that’s what she could get to put food on the table. She made the case that that’s how the business is sometimes and there are good people working at places like Breitbart, just keeping their heads down and trying to get through another day’s work. I don’t know why, but that has really stuck with me.
I don’t know who this guy is or what his job is, but like Stollen, I think it’s a bit of a shame he is leaving.
Tom, thanks for posting & sorry for your own personal experience with him.
Glad to know this shitstain won’t be posting his lies & bullshit in P&R anymore. I have zero interest in interacting with such a worthless slime in the other forums so I’ll just leave him blurred going forward.
Thanks so much, Tom, for moderating this so well. I often considered sending gman a private message, rather than a bunch of public grief, but I didn’t.
I do hope that he leaves P&R with a clear sense that most of us could see through his stupid tactics.
You mean his deception and outright lies.
I read the post and the replies, wanted to say it’s pretty well thought out, I appreciate it, and I’ll have you know I’m ALWAYS WILLING TO BUY PEOPLE IN LOS ANGELES LUNCH. The only thing I would like to be clear about is that threats to dox posters – however rationalized – are inappropriate in any discussion board. Thanks again for the great & thoughtful posts.
You are bad and should feel bad
@tomchick I don’t know how you expect us to interact with this guy in any part of the forum. He shows up in here and lectures about doxxing. Who the hell is threatening him? He’s a permanent victim in every discussion.
It’s not a lecture, I pointed out that site administrators here shouldn’t engage in the practice, or threaten to, which they very much did. And I’m not posting in the other P+R forum threads anymore, this is literally a thread for this specific topic for me to say thanks. And offer to buy you lunch if you’re ever in Los Angeles :)
Worst mea culpa ever.
Pro-tip for you, since you are apparently a youngster:
If you wish to get yourself out of the hole, you must first drop the shovel.