Response to Mark Rippetoe

Outlaw Pete

Th AH mod Mark Rippetoe accused me of posting a "grossly inaccurate and dishonest description" of why I was threadbanned from the repeal the 8th thread and given he did so on a public forum I think it's only right and proper that my reply to his ridiculous remarks should also be posted on a public forum.

What drew the remark from Mark was my suggestion that I (and others) had been banned from the repeal thread for making slightly disparaging remarks. I'm not sure why he feels this was a "grossly inaccurate and dishonest" description given that was the very reason which the banning mod himself gave in my case via PM (which can read here).

When I asked the mod at the time why I was being threadbanned out of the blue, given I hadn't received so much as an infraction or an on thread warning, he replied:

<snip>

He then linked to the following comment I made:

A healthy woman (who is pregnant from consensual sex) that would choose to have her healthy preborn baby's heartbeat stilled, is not a real woman to me, no.

Also, any man that would support a woman stilling his child's heartbeat under the same circumstances, ain't no man to me either.

Now, given the out and out abuse that was on that thread at the time, much of it directed at me (and which went unactioned I might add) making a comment about what I feel constitutes a 'real' woman or man surely can be described as 'slightly disparaging'. It certainly wasn't a comment which warranted an immediate thread ban, that's for damn sure.

So, Mark, would appreciate it if you would justify your remarks please as I feel there was nothing grossly inaccurate or dishonest about my claiming to have been thread banned for making a disparaging remark. Anything else the mod said in that PM amounted to little more than that he didn't appreciate my opinions on abortion. Now surely you wouldn't suggest my views warranted a thread ban.

Hoping for specificity if at all possible. Far too much over reliance on 'You were being a dick and don't be a dick' nonsense from mods these days in an effort to excuse removing users from threads.

As an aside:

Permanently banning a user from a thread should not be the first mod interaction with a user but for the rare circumstances where an extreme rule breech has occurred. That's why the infraction system was brought in to begin with and it's also why the DRP is limited to bans and infractions of course given that it was felt that mods from there on out would infract users when actioning them.

It remains a gaping loophole for mods that if they infract a user that user can challenge their decision but if they just threadban the user instead, without also issuing a card, the user cannot challange that moderation action. Hence why so many moderation disputes end up in the Help Desk.

A simple remedy to this is for Admin to insist that if a moderator is thread banning a user they must also card them. Think of all the time and effort you will save Help Desk mods if that simple change was implemented.

Beasty

Help Desk is where thread bans can be "appealed". I will ask the relevant CMods to head over here to review your comments.

One thing about threadbans though is they do not form part of any "official" record, and would not normally be considered when applying other sanctions (although if someone breaches a threadban, that in itself is ignoring a mod instruction and can trigger a card or ban)

If we started applying yellow cards when threadbanned they would then appear on the user's profile, and could easily be taken out of context when another mod is considering acting against a user. They my also trigger sitebans when posters breach any probation applied by an Admin.

In many cases the relevant threads disappear after a while and other users may be none the wider about such a sanction

As I've already mentioned this is the place to appeal them (once an attempt has been made to resolve it directly with the mod), and as they do not form part of the DRP the mod in question, as well as others, may contribute to the discussion. Posts are pre-moderated and non-constructive/off-topic posts may not be approved

One further distinction with the DRP is PMs cannot be quoted here without the express permission of the sender

Pawwed Rig

Hi Pete. What exactly do you want out of this?

Mr. CooL ICE

FYI, to avoid confusion, I was Dole Scrounging Vegan Crossfitter, i.e. the mod that threadbanned you from the 8th thread last year.

Anyway, I dealt with you via PM back then and you didn't accept my reasons for the threadban. You escalated it (via the Helpdesk) and admins agreed with the threadban. So I'm not going to tread over old ground again.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

So, Mark, would appreciate it if you would justify your remarks please as I feel there was nothing grossly inaccurate or dishonest about my claiming to have been thread banned for making a disparaging remark. Anything else the mod said in that PM amounted to little more than that he didn't appreciate my opinions on abortion. Now surely you wouldn't suggest my views warranted a thread ban.

Hoping for specificity if at all possible. Far too much over reliance on 'You were being a dick and don't be a dick' nonsense from mods these days in an effort to excuse removing users from threads.

Listen, between our PM exchange and your previous Helpdesk thread, you are too entrenched in your position that what you posted were "the slightest disparaging remarks". Nothing I can say here can convince you that they weren't. You would never have gotten threadbanned for making slight disparaging remarks, let alone having the same threadban reviewed and agreed upon with admins.

Anyway, the post you quoted in the Alabama thread read to most like it was aimed at the Alabama lawmakers and no all pro-lifers. Yet somehow, you thought otherwise and used it to get in a dig at the moderation team based on who thanked the post. If you want to continue on a crusade to complain about a threadban you received over a year ago, I can't stop you, but that's definitely not the way to go about it.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Permanently banning a user from a thread should not be the first mod interaction with a user but for the rare circumstances where an extreme rule breech has occurred. That's why the infraction system was brought in to begin with and it's also why the DRP is limited to bans and infractions of course given that it was felt that mods from there on out would infract users when actioning them.

Threadbans are used to avoid cards and infractions. Based on user feedback in the past, mods have tried to cut down on the number of cards/bans doled out. Threadbans are the result.

Outlaw Pete

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Hi Pete. What exactly do you want out of this?

Hi, Pawwed Rig. I appreciate your reply and hope you will at least hear me out on this, as so far I have not been. I will try to be as brief and concise as I can (dyslexic though, so you might have to read some sentences twice to make sense of them :)).

You ask what it is that I want here and all I want is for the points which I made (re my initial thread ban) to get addressed rather then be pushed under the carpet which is (with respect) what I feel has happened so far.

Mark said he "dealt with" me at the time of my thread ban and yes I was dealt with in the sense that he PM'd me citing four things which he felt amounted to my needing to be permanently removed from the thread........ but three of those four things cited should never have been used as grounds for a thread ban and I don't know how any mod could think otherwise and here's why:

The first of the things Mark accused me of was of speaking about surgical abortions in the context of medicinal abortions. You see he (and others) were of the mistaken belief that all abortions below 12 weeks would be medical abortions but that was incorrect.

Here's a quote from me in TGC at the time on that very point:

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

I keep seeing this kind of comment being made, and not just by yourself, but many users, and indeed some Irish medical professionals, and it is totally false. There is zero reason to think that abortion methods in Ireland will be much different to that of the UK and will only require women here taking pills.

In fact, in the UK 84% of abortions between 10 -12 weeks are surgical and even if we go down to between 3 - 9 weeks gestation, 28% of those abortions are surgical also:

The prolife side of the debate did attempt to point this out but were shouted down and in one case a user was threatened with a ban if he continued to suggest that abortions below 12 weeks would be anything but medical.

Here's the page from the HSE regarding surgical abortions which has been set up since the law was changed.

So that brings us to the 2nd thing Mark cited as grounds for why the threadban was deserved and that was because I had expressed the belief that abortions on the back of a DS diagnosis were eugenic in nature. Well, so do many. William Reville, an emeritus professor of biochemistry at UCC, wrote an article for the Irish Times sayings as much:

Down syndrome births account for about one in every 546. There are about 7,000 such people in Ireland. How do they feel when they hear predictions of the elimination of their own kind by identifying all future Down syndrome individuals as foetuses and killing them? Do they not justifiably feel that their own lives are being judged to be of little or no value?

There are aspects of new eugenics that are laudable but this particular prenatal screening reaction is not such an aspect.

The 3rd aspect of my posts Mark cited to justify the threadban was that I had dismissed the concept of body autonomy. In his PM he linked to this post where I made the case for why I believe body automony should not be considered sufficient reasoning for why a healthy woman should legally be able to abort a healthy baby. Indeed I have made this argument many times on AH over the years and so there is no logical reason why it should have been considered "baiting/flaming" as it was the accusation.

Lastly that brings us to what could be considered a disparaging remark but I intend to speak about that in my reply to Mark's post so I'll leave it there for now.

If you do intend to look over this for me though, Pawwed Rig, no hurry my end.

Outlaw Pete

Mark Rippetoe wrote: »

FYI, to avoid confusion, I was Dole Scrounging Vegan Crossfitter, i.e. the mod that threadbanned you from the 8th thread last year.

Ah I see....

Anyway, I dealt with you via PM back then and you didn't accept my reasons for the threadban.

The reasons you gave for why you banned me from the thread included mere viewpoints I'd expressed, Mark, and how exactly could my expressing opinions constitute "baiting/flaming" exactly? Particularly given that they were views I've expressed many times on AH before.

You said in your PM that my posts were rubbing users up the wrong way but do you not think certain posts from prochoice users rubbed me (and others) up the wrong way also? Posts saying we really just want to control women, don't care about born children, that prolifers are nutters, evil etc? All unactioned by the way.

Truth is we were (and are) held to a higher standard of posting in threads. Here's a Boards mod saying as much.

A couple of examples of what I'm talking about:

In this post a user says "Repeal the 8th" and all is well (not suggesting it shouldn't be) but yet when a poster said "Save the 8th" she was threatened with a thread ban.

Littered throughout the thread were prochoice users saying 'It's not Prolife, it's Anti-Choice' but yet when a user says "It's not Pro-choice, it's Pro-Abortion" they're too threatened with a threadban.

In your PM you also cite the fact that my posts were reported a lot, but again, how can this be used as reasoning for issuing a thread ban? Another mod (a more level headed one ) posted:

Nosnon wrote: »

Mod-Ok, this is getting beyond ridiculous. STOP using report post to try get others banned. Ye are all as bad as each other. If ye can't debate respectfully then leave the debate. If you have no answer to someones points then suck it up and move on.

This Mod was spot but yet you cite volume of reported posts as if it is somehow proof that a user has done something which warrants them being permanently removed from a thread. In a thread, might I add, were 90%+ users are prochoice. Come on, it's a given that prolife users are going to be reported more.

Listen, between our PM exchange and your previous Helpdesk thread, you are too entrenched in your position...

Well, I could say the same to you. You are clearly staunchly prochoice. I remember on the thread you even said that you had contributed money to the Prochoice campaign and so let's not pretend I am the only one with a dog in the race here.

You would never have gotten threadbanned for making slight disparaging remarks

Well, if the threadban wasn't just for the disparaging remark then what was it for, Mark? You're the one that said "If I had to pick one thing" and then cited that comment. You said I spoke of surgical abortions in the context of medical abortions but I did not (as outlined above to Pawwed Rig) but even if that were true, even if you were right, it's no justification (even if just partially so) for permanently banning a user from a thread for heaven sake.

So, let's get to that 'disparaging' remark.....

Are you really trying to tell me that a user (in AH) saying that a person is not a real woman or real man, if they condone a healthy woman aborting a healthy baby, is worthy of a permanent thread ban? I have already listed above some of the insults that were directed at myself and other prolife users, such as being called nutters and evil etc, and so in that context, and given those posts all went unactioned, can you in all honesty say the comment was so bad the user that made it had to be removed from the thread? Come on.

Let me ask you this if I may, would you have thread banned a prochoice user had they said someone's not a real man or woman if they don't support women doing what they want with their own bodies? I highly doubt it. If anything you'd be more likely to thank it given you thanked this post where a prolife user was called a "despicable person".

Anyway, that's it, would appreciate it, Mark, if you would give my arguments and reasoning some thought and at least address the points I've made with reagards to reasoning. Cheers for your time.

Mr. CooL ICE

You must have missed this bit:

Mark Rippetoe wrote: »

So I'm not going to tread over old ground again.

And as a quick recap:
1) You joined a busy thread, started trying to fight with everyone. I threadbanned you.
2) You appealed it over PM. I said no.
3) You escalated it to Helpdesk. An admin took it on board and said no.
4) You made a snide dig at the moderation of the AH mod team as a whole based on who thanked a post, and I gave you a warning not to discuss moderation on thread, so you started this thread.

And amongst other things, you've managed to dig up a post I thanked from 14 months ago and are trying to use it against me. Holy crap dude.

I consider you to be a bit too obsessive over this. You seem prepared to trawl through my post (and thanks) history in an effort to rules lawyer with me. I have neither the time, the willingness nor the patience to indulge you over something like this.

You got a threadban. Over a year ago. Get over it.

Outlaw Pete

Mark Rippetoe wrote: »

You must have missed this bit

No, Mark, I didn't miss that. It's just not an accurate statement is all, as this is not "old ground" as you have never given a reason for why you think it's okay to use a user's views and opinions (even if only partially so) as grounds for permanently removing them from a thread.

1) You joined a busy thread, started trying to fight with everyone. I threadbanned you.

This is absolutely not true and I hope Pawwed Rig (or an impartial member of Admin) takes a look at this accusation from you and checks to see if it there is any truth to it.

Here are my 1st and 2nd posts on that thread and they are in no way argumentative. In them I respectfully give my thoughts on the topic, and that they were well thanked from users on both sides of the debate should be a testament to that.

On the contrary, it was the prochoice side of the debate who immediately started to argue with me as is evidenced by this reply to my 1st post. In it I was immediately accused of wanting to make rape victims carry a child to term, something I in no way had suggested and anyone who knows my position on abortion knows I have no issue with exceptions being made for rape victims in abortion legislation. Not that I have a problem with that reply, it was easily refuted.

I am glad you made the claim though, Mark, as it just further shows that you removed me from the thread for unjustifiable reasons.

You made a snide dig at the moderation of the AH mod team as a whole based on who thanked a post, and I gave you a warning not to discuss moderation on thread, so you started this thread.

Nope, untrue, my post was quite clearly directed at mods who thanked the post, not the 'AH mod team as a whole' as you suggest. I'll never understand how mods can thank such posts on one side of a debate and then action users for far less on the other. Well, that's not true, I can understand it, I just can't understand how they get away with it.

And amongst other things, you've managed to dig up a post I thanked from 14 months ago and are trying to use it against me. Holy crap dude.

Mark, it's the same thread so not sure why you're underlining how long ago it was. In fact, you thanked the post with the personal abuse directed at a prolife user just two days before you felt my 'real man/woman' post was so insulting that in warranted my needing to be permanently removed from the thread. If you can't see how that shows a inconsistency on your part, at the very least, then I don't know what to say to you or anyone else that thinks it doesn't.

There was clear biased moderation on the thread and the reason I raised the issue again is because it is still going on to a large degree. I mean, would a prolife user get away with a post like this? You bet they wouldn't and nor should they.

I consider you to be a bit too obsessive over this. You seem prepared to trawl through my post (and thanks) history in an effort to rules lawyer with me.

No, didn't trawl through your posts, I seen it at the time as it stuck out given that you were actioning prolife users hand over fist for a hell of a lot less.

Beasty

Both sides have had their say. As already acknowledged the threadban was unsuccessfully appealed (to Admin level) some time ago. There is nothing I can see that will contribute further to this and I'm closing it up