What will your reaction be if you are suspended?

Yeah, I got it. A throwaway joke about there being no freedom as in speech and not about freedom as in beer. I just don't have much of a reaction to your novelty personality side to give and just had something more to say about the coming changes to the site.

Well, kinda, but ya missed the main point, Bob. To wit: Richie, he ROCKS, eh!?

Well, it sho nuff sounds right fine, eh, Bob? Kinda like a smorgasbord, ya know? I love them things! I always bring along a 55 gallon drum to fill up so I can have a little snack later, too.

I can also live with missing your main point too. I generally prefer to talk to people who communicate well and don't make a game out of being mysterious. They aren't being deep, merely murky.

Life is too short to spend it on people whose manner of communication is essentially a game they are playing with others for their own amusement and I'm unlikely to waste too much time trying to understand what you are trying to say given that you deliver it in a novelty persona whose ability to communicate clearly comes and goes as it suits your fancy.

You are frequently misunderstood here, and you will often complain about it. But you go out of your way to be misunderstandable so like many others I don't double down and try to decipher your ramblings, I ignore them or peruse them with all the superficiality with which they are delivered. The water is murky, it is not deep.

A pity cause you sound like someone who could make more sense without the really awful, awkward and inconsistent facade you've adopted.

Well, that's at least theoretically possible, I spose, but me, I never really had no kinda sense to start with.

So, then, the more murkier, the more better, I figure.



But caincha see? Life is short. That's the point. To kinda paraphrase that punk-ass Cyndi Lauper: Layman just wanna have fuh-uuuun!

Oh aww, shucks huh? I suppose you feel you've cornered yourself into this adopted personality then. Sticking to it that long, entirely pointless, con.

I hope you get what you need out of it it then. Even if it's just massive shits and giggles beyond what I think I could ever get out of it after the, say, fifth or sixth time.

Kay, then, fair nuff.

Maybe he's this guy . . .



. . . or this guy. . . .

I kind of like the real layman. And sometimes its tedious trying to figure out where he is under all the blather.

A lot of folks don't realize I'm Joe Sixpack's sock puppet. Whenever he wants to be understood, he uses me. Other times, he's just a good old boy.

Thanks for your excellent answer.

That's essentially mine as well, and (being an egoist) the one I expected to dominate.

Obviously there is no right or wrong answer. Just one that makes the most sense and displays an admirable level of confidence and independence.

Seriously, I think it comes down to the possible causes for suspension and how confident you are that you would not trip one.

Right now and from what I can tell suspensions have been imposed for:

1) Use of a slur directed at an individual but potentially offensive to a larger group of people sharing the characteristics that are basis for the slur e.g. calling someone a "fag"

2) Seriously accusing, without evidence, someone of a behavior that is not only criminal but loathsome. e.g. Insisting someone is a "pedophile." (I am not certain if evidence of an explicit intent to humiliate or ostracize is required, or if such intent is implied. In the case in point, it was very clear that the intent was to humiliate)

3) Engaging, ad nauseum, in an exchange of insults which is entirely off topic, clearly repetitive in nature and content, and shows no sign of coming to an end any time soon.

As regards #3, I'm not sure if the use of vulgarity is a required condition. In the case in point, vulgarity was used and apparently timur was advised that his suspension was due to use of either "inappropriate," or "obscene" language. I can't recall the precise term, but it's somewhere in this thread. I suspect, however, that timur received a sort of form notice because Robert couldn't bother with going into detail. Just before or after the suspensions to timur and frank were imposed, Robert chimed into the thread to let us know that the prior practice of freezing a thread wherein an interminable argument had arisen would no longer be employed. Instead "micro-suspensions" would be imposed. Considering the timing of the suspensions and Robert's post, I have surmised that the interminable argument offense triggered the suspension of timur (and frank) rather than use of obscene or inappropriate language. I was a bit surprised when I learned that the "micro-suspensions" imposed on the pair were each one week in length. I had thought that a "micro-suspension" would last 24 to 48 hours.

There may, of course, be other specific suspension triggers. Unless it has been revised recently, the TOS doesn't delineate any so a member must either keep track of the informal notices Robert posts (such as the one about the interminable argument offense) or reply upon his or her own common sense and decorum to provide guidance. I don't foresee Robert providing us with a list anytime soon.

This could prove tricky if any of the causes are entirely subjective or at all arbitrary. Of course this is an exaggeration of the dilemma, but if one day Robert decided he had had enough of people calling one another "stupid," and imposed "you're stupid" suspensions, quite a few people would get tripped up.

Like you, I trust the foundation of civility provided to me by my parents, teachers, pastors and the like to guide my behavior. In a more stringent and aggressively monitored forum, I could easily have warranted one or more suspensions by now, but they would be, to my way of thinking, ticky tack. Fortunately this isn't the case with A2K and one of the reasons I have been somewhat reluctant to embrace a few of the changes Robert has announced. With time and consideration I have come around to most of them.

Of the three known causes for suspension, I'm not concerned that I will trip any of them. I would only use words like "fag" or "dago" in jest and then only with someone who I was certain would appreciate the joke and not take offense. I honestly don't believe anyone here fits that bill, and that's only because I don't know anyone here well enough.

I am also not concerned about the "Serious Accusation Without Evidence" trigger. It's just not something I would do. After 40 years in the corporate world ( some 30 or so with e-mail being available) I have learned to be circumspect about what I write. Such "training" hasn't stopped me in the past nor will it stop me in the future from calling someone a "fool" or a "jackass," but while these are hardly terms of endearment or the sort of thing I would call a client or employee, I feel they have their place here.

I've been known to continue a one-on-one argument longer than anyone, other than my antagonist, cares to experience, but I'm confident that I'll grow tired of the back and forth well before it enters the realm of interminable argument

Now if Robert ever imposes a long winded response intended to please no one but the person responding trigger, I'm in a lot of trouble.

Yeah, Finn, you can slop it out there in big-ass chunks, sho nuff. Truth be told, if I didn't generally appreciate your insightts and ability to express yourself, I wouldn't even try to wade through many of them.

I get long winded with quotes I spam from links sometimes, but, generally, I just make short posts, because, looky here, eh?: There's always the next post to be made. If I got more I wanna say, I just make another post, know what I'm sayin?

The guy likes to criticize all over but is afraid of committing to any position. Eg on climate change, or on relativity (we had a long discussion about relativity some time back).

It's a pretty cheap game to disagree with everything and everyone, and never agree with nuthin'... I knew a dog who could do that, always barking at everything and everybody.

Bingo - the troll code.

Just making suspension and rules and enforcement of rules transparent as well as adopting the new thread format will fix 80% of the problems here.

I still think involving members in moderation for set terms will also help.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to everyone in such great detail. Even to the trollish amongst us.

Oh I know what your saying and while I appreciate the advice, I have no intention of taking it. I'm not about to deliver what I have to say in smaller, more digestible chunks because some are immediately stricken with heartburn when they see something in writing that is more than three paragraphs long.

I'm certainly capable of the pithy one liner or a response of several concise sentences, but some replies deserve more, and sometimes I am in the mood to write more.

I very much enjoy writing. It's one of the main reasons I participate here. The enjoyment is greater if someone is reading what I write, but, seriously, it's not essential to the enjoyment. I also keep an electronic journal and much of what I write here finds it's way in some form to the journal. (Thank God of for copy and paste).

Now there will be some who simply find what I write to be tedious and of no interest, regardless of length. That's fine. But the people who will not read a post simply because it is long, confound and trouble me.

Thanks in large measure to social media, and TV before it, modern humans are losing one of the greatest gifts their ancestors have bestowed upon them: Language and the ability to express one's thoughts and emotions.

The sharp, clever and deceptively voluminous one liner is very difficult to write and takes talent. There are many people here who believe they have that talent, but are fooling themselves. A good short story is difficult, a great poem is more difficult and a beautiful haiku is more difficult still.

Social media like twitter are a blight on our society and culture. Because it is so difficult to write something of actual substance and/or wit within the confines of the limitations set by Twitter, 99% of what is posted is incoherent drivel, constituting a meaningless din of binary zeroes and ones. There are millions of immature fools who are desperate to attract attention and devoid of any ability to write and so they resort to obscenity. Thus the culture and language is degraded further.

You probably watched the Ken Burns documentary series on the American civil war. If you did, than you, like me, may have been struck by the quality of the writing in letters written by soldiers from either side. I'm referring to the men in the lower ranks, not the officers who we can presume were all well educated. Now, I appreciate that Burns didn't randomly select the letters used in the series, but there were enough different ones to suggest the quality of writing was not an aberration. After the series was over, I did some further reading and found that, indeed, the ability to write, and the desire to write letters longer than two sentences was fairly widespread among the literate of the day.

Can you imagine the letters that would be written by today's youth? First of all no one writes letters anymore, which is lamentable but in and of itself no major blow to culture, but we have reached a time when volume of content (in an e-mail, a Facebook post, or, Heaven forbid a forum designed for intelligent, detailed discussion) is not only off-putting to most, it is ridiculed.

We are not paring down the excesses of our communication, we are crippling it. This unfortunate phenomena extends to verbal communication as well.

There also doesn't appear to be any effort being made in schools (Grade school or college) to teach or encourage writing, or for that matter substantive communication. The college graduates I have interviewed for positions with my company, have been barely literate, let alone accomplished.

I appreciate precision and I probably should spend more time editing my posts than I do, but that's time I don't want to spend. If the price is some people won't read what I write, so be it, but I would rather wax on then limit myself to banal, staccato bursts of nothing.

I'm not everyone's cup of tea not only because of how much I write, but what I write. As heartbreaking that realization often is, I have found I can endure it.

I don't agree very often with you (and openly even less than that ), but thanks for this (kind of) essay! I enjoyed reading it very much!

I think your experience with these forums and suspensions greatly exceeds my own. I have been a long-time member of only two: Abuzz and A2K. I've visited and tried out a few others, but the formats usually turned me off. By that I mean the collapsible/expandable threads within threads like that which is used on Facebook. As it appears that is where A2K is heading I have some trepidation.



This seems like a no-brainer. What would the point be of returning to a site like that, knowing that your point of view would quickly or eventually result in another suspension, and so on. I guess someone could see it as a challenge and just keep coming back to piss of the group, but I would think a place like that would eventually make your suspension permanent. Definitely not a place for me, or for that matter, anyone with even a slightly open mind.



Yes they do, and it is unsettling at times because while 99.9% of these people are blowhards or harmless punks, 0.01% may actually be deranged enough to follow through on threats. Best to keep your personal information to yourself when using the internet.



Absolutely agree, but the current A2K community is large and diverse (which I like) and here only segments of the community may not want you, while others (perhaps the minority) do. No one should allow a loudly braying majority to drive them away. However, the new format will change this considerably, and I feel certain that there will be communities where I will not be welcome, and that's just fine. I very much doubt I will want to join any of them, but if I do and am rejected I will just have to find a non-violent way to kill myself. My wife would not be happy if she had to clean up blood spattering.



The embarrassment I would feel would be if I was suspended for truly offensive behavior. For instance if, for some reason, I had a meltdown and called someone a "fag," I would feel ashamed and embarrassment, not because I was suspended, but because of the offense. I would likely return to apologize, but then move on. I'm not particularly concerned that this will happen, but anything is possible.

You're welcome and thank you.

Bravo, Finn.

I have a finite amount of free time. Every moment that I spend posting on a2k is a moment that I'm not playing World of Warcraft.

Were I to spend less time on a2k for awhile, I would play World of Warcraft more for awhile.

I also have a bunch of recorded TV shows that I need to watch and erase. Likely I'd get caught up on that, at least somewhat.