Did Mod cause the collapse of evcforum?

Yeah but that would be true of any one of us, just by the numbers. That's fair, but maybe there are some subjects you would be offended about - perhaps, if we started calling your wife or mother a filthy whore? - and that you wouldn't consider neither an appropriate subject for debate nor consistent with the Forum Guideline about treating other people with respect.I might indeed be making a very interesting, salient philosophical point with a post that began "now, suppose that bluegenes' filthy whore mother was right in front of you, with her suppurating herpes sores and ragged vagina, spread wide from dozens of her johns" and you might very reasonably say something like "dude, seriously, knock that shit off. It's really fucking offensive."An adult would respond by changing his language, using different examples that weren't so personal or offensive. If NJ wanted to talk about moral relativism, and how moral relativists determine that one thing is right while another is wrong, there are dozens of innocuous examples he could have used. Why is Scrabble ok but murder is bad? Why is shoe shopping allowed but female genital mutilation verboten? He could have gone literally anywhere.Instead he chose to return again and again to the example that he had been repeatedly told caused offense and distracted from his argument.Why did he do that, if not to troll homosexuals and their allies?

Yeah, it's a bit akin to arguing about angels on the head of a pin.

Please, call me "Crash." And I told you why I was here.Why are you here? In this thread, I mean? Er, no, that's not what happened at all. I never left as "further protest"; the events that I would have left in protest over happened after I had already left. As I said in A Few People Asked... AZPaul, I don't expect everyone, or really anyone, to jump up and down and say "Crashfrog is back, hooray!" And that's fine. I was a divisive figure before and I fully expect to remain one, now.But what you're saying are "facts" just aren't so. You're just making things up. Then I'm somewhat forced to wonder why you're so intent on participating in a thread that's about NJ and his attitude, my warnings of disaster to the moderation team, and who should or should not have been stronger/weaker/benevolent to this one or that one, since you've just said you don't care about any of those things.Why are you here, Paul?

It's possible, but I've already explained why it's unlikely, why the more charitable interpretation is flawed, and moreover a troll like NJ doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. He had, and exhausted, the benefit of the doubt the first time he engaged in gay-baiting and was politely asked to stop.

I wasn't absent. I've been lurking since I posted "A Few People Asked...".When Rrhain brought up the GenDiscMod11 thread, and Modulous opened this thread to re-hash those issues, I decided to oblige him. Like I said before. I had, and now I just did. Think you could answer mine, now? It's clear you're not interested in any part of this thread, so why are you in it? Just to call me names? Maybe you could put those in an email instead and save everybody the trouble of pointedly ignoring them.

Not bad, and I trust that means you take my point.Yes, a charitable reading of NJ's post is possible (as long as you completely ignore grammar and logic.) But NJ didn't deserve the charity. He'd long exhausted the benefit of the doubt.

Interesting people, an effective and easy-to-use BB software, a subject focus that I'm interested in, and a set of clear and effective forum guidelines that promote highly informative discussion. Again, you're saying much that just isn't so. I've not "pissed" on anything, either here or in GenDiscMod11. I've raised substantive issues I had with moderation and then defended my viewpoint. Percy, Mod, the rest of the moderator staff, and everybody else continue to have my respect as people.I'm just of the position that, in the specific case that Modulous opened this thread to talk about, mistakes were made."Pissing"? Sorry, Paul, you're completely full of shit. Since I've not done that - since literally no part of your characterization of this thread is accurate - what do you expect to get, here? I can't justify something I didn't actually do - to wit, I didn't "storm in", since I was already here, and I've not pissed on anybody.That's actually what you're doing, Paul.

Yes, absolutely - Berb blew up and his behavior absolutely merited suspension. Well, I appreciate that. Now, let me get to the two pages of other people's replies!

Since we're making our closing arguments let me condense.
@Straggler: I never said it was so obvious and blatant that it couldn't be explained away, in isolation, by someone absolutely committed to discarding the rules of grammar and logic in an effort to avoid perceiving what is directly in front of his nose.But you can explain away anything like that. Even the evidence for evolution.@Hyro: Gosh, now that you're expecting it, kinda takes the wind out of my sails, doesn't it?Still, I can't really walk back the stuff I said about you. You were offensive, people told you you were offensive, and instead of making amends and changing your behavior - for the sake of appearances, a self-serving advantage in pretending to be the bigger guy, even because it would have been the Christian thing to do - you doubled-down and chased Berberry into GenDiscMod11 to harass him.Dude, not cool. But, you know, I told Holmes this once - you have every opportunity not to do that in the future. Outside of what I've already said in this thread I don't intend to chase you around the forum to harangue you with your past. You'll get no problem from me, I promise. Cold readers do it by instinct too, you know. Frequently aggresive bigotry is not a conscious choice. All too often it's something we fall into, and defend, without thinking.Anyway. Like I said, your past is of no more concern to me, I promise. I'm prepared to consider the posts under NemJug to be those of another person, since it's clear you've put that person behind you. Sounds a lot like my own journey. Yup, you may be the next generation of Crashfrog. Ruminate on that, the next time you want to experience pure terror.

Eh, I don't think about it like that. I mean I'm heartened that you've come around to a more tolerant way of thinking, but it was nothing I was responsible for. Your own good sense is responsible, and you deserve all the credit. I was thinking I might stick around for the summer, thought I might try to keep to actual evolution threads. I'd like to produce more light than heat. Not sure I've accomplished that in this thread, but...

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Always treat other members with respect. Argue the position, not the person. Avoid abusive, harassing and invasive behavior. Avoid needling, hectoring and goading tactics.

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We had a really interesting discussion, Paul. It's too bad you were too busy needlessly hectoring me to participate. Any other abuse you'd like to send my way is best directed to my email address.

Ok, I guess, but literally more than a dozen of us saw what you say isn't there.Were we delusional? Conspiring behind the scenes to feign offense at perfectly innocuous statements?Can you honestly imagine Rrhain, Holmes, and I agreeing to conspire about literally anything at all? I don't think we would be able to get past deciding on the name of the secret organization without killing each other. I'm pretty sure I put at least one of those guys in my email blacklist.Might this just be a case of being called a "round-heeled doxy", and not being insulted simply because that works on a level where you lack the certain specific knowledge to appreciate? (For instance Rrhain can read that phrase and tell me exactly what role I played in my high school's production of "The Music Man." Can you? Without Googling it? Do you think most people could?)I told Hyro I wouldn't get into his conduct in the past any more, and I should keep that promise. Let this be my last word on the subject. But let me just leave you with this - do I strike you as the type to be oversensitive? Especially about the feelings and sensibilities of other people? I think a walk through my back catalogue should give you an idea about how concerned I usually am about people's feelings.

Sure he could. He was told precisely how he could do that, both then and now.If he really wanted to discuss how moral relativists could find some thing immoral and not others, there are an infinite number of examples he could have used, none of which would have had anything to do with gay sex.Why is Scrabble moral, he might have asked, and not murder? Why is it wrong to rape someone but not to bake them a cake? Why does our moral sense recoil at the prospect of eating human flesh but not at eating the flesh of cattle?If moral relativism was actually the subject he wanted to discuss, that discussion could have proceeded from the basis of any number of illustrative examples. There was absolutely no need to continue using the language that I and many others found so divisive, inflammatory, and ultimately distracting from his point.And since it did distract from his point, why did he continue to use it? Well, he's told us - because he was a homophobic jerk-off back then.Remember what I said at the time?

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Suffice to say, while that may have been the argument you intended to make, you did so in an offensive manner, and you really should have known better (since you've done it before to the exact same reaction.) At the very least, using trigger language like you did makes people respond to your language instead of your argument, so you should reconsider making such comparisons simply from a practical standpoint of not giving your opponents an excuse to avoid your points.

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If I say something like "a nigger leaves a train station going south at 50 mph, and a spic leaves another station 50 miles south, going north at 30 mph, how fast are they going when they drive-by each other?" it doesn't really matter that I'm trying to make a point about algebra, not about race. I've been deliberately offensive and opponents, obviously, are going to ignore my much less interesting point and react to my bigotry. Why should I expect them to do any different?

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I invite you to use other comparisons in the future, if only out of self-interest.

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Are you saying that I can't make a point about word problems and the use of algebra except by using racial slurs against black people and Hispanics? Curious, my Calculus textbook is able to do so in over a thousand examples of word problems.How is that possible if what you say is true?

Ok, but again - if it was moral relativism he wanted to talk about, which is what he said he wanted to talk about then and says its what he wanted to talk about now, again, there's no reason to try to make that point specific to gay sex.There are dozens of other applications of moral relativism, after all, and if it's moral relativism he wanted to talk about, there's no reason to apply it specifically to gay sex.Nem/Hyro connected it to gay sex because he wanted to talk about gay sex, not moral relativism. If he wanted to talk about moral relativism he could have used literally any example besides gay sex, which he had already been told was offensive and distracting. But it's an offensive argument, and the offense distracts from the point, which could be made on the basis of more innocuous examples. Just out of rational self-interest someone who wants to talk about moral relativism should pick an example that isn't so offensive, so people don't have an excuse to ignore the point. So people don't have an excuse to derail the thread with complaints about the offensiveness of the comparison.I mean, that seems utterly obvious to me. If you want to make a point about algebra in word problems, don't pepper your word problem with racial slurs, because that's what people are going to respond to, not the algebra. Agreed. And therefore, like Percy, I'm somewhat puzzled why you believe that being a museum of all flavors of bigotry is essential to the mission of being an evolution vs. creationism board. We don't need fundamentalist Christians to show up and tell us how disgusting they think the gheys are. We don't need thread after aggravating thread of loving gay relationships being equated with rape.How does that advance the debate of evolution and creationism? We don't need to allow Christians to open thread after thread against homosexuals and their allies; we just need them to deliver the arguments for creationism, and respond to rebuttals by addressing evidence. Now, Percy lets people talk about other stuff too, but none of that is essential to the mission of EvC. I'm always surprised when people don't evince enough self-awareness not to make the "but some of my best friends are.." argument.

I don't think that even comes close to being accurate, especially since a substantial number of people who were on my side back then are now permanently banned and can't pipe up to say so. There was, actually, and Mod's all but admitted it. I don't expect an apology, in fact I think I've gotten all the admission it's possible to get out of him, and at any rate it doesn't exactly matter given the changes to moderator philosophy around here.But your participation in this thread, AZPaul, has been the complete and vulgar invention of events that occurred only in your imagination. You've even admitted it.