I came across the following exchange yesterday in a diary that was on the rec list for a few hours:
When I was in the Army ... (5+ / 0-)
... stationed at an Air Defense Artillery brigade back in the day, their motto was, "If it flies, it dies." Now, if you gave that the [diarist's source] and [diarist] interpretation, we were certain to be shooting down birds, paper airplanes, flying fish, balloons (of any shape or size, even those tethered), spacecraft, and all planes and helicopters, both foreign and domestic. Of course, nobody actually believed that.
And the diarist replied:
Actually, [commenter], you're wrong... (42+ / 1-)
...this isn't "[Source]'s interpretation." And, it's not my "interpretation." It's the ... documents [referenced in the post]. (Oh, yeah, that!)
Spare us your "it's all perfectly legal" bullshit, and your inevitable trolling of these ... diaries. Your commentary, at this point in this 20-month story, is patently shameless, hardcore, rightwing trollery. Furthermore, your commentary has been--CONSISTENTLY--about personal attacks on the messenger(s), and screaming how everything's "perfect legal."
I think you should post your own propaganda diary... I'm sure you'll get plenty of Rec's in this, supposedly, Democratic community.
Look at your comment, [diminutive of commenter's name]. You're flat-out UNHINGED!
That's my HR there. I've never seen a more clearcut example of the "batshit insane" rule for community standards. If you look at a
thesaurus, "unhinged" is listed as a synonym of "insane". So how does this comment merit 42 uprates?
Follow me below the fold for a look at the discussion that ensued and the reasons that were given for the uprates.
Here is the standard I used to determine that the diarist's comment was HR-worthy. This is from "New community guidelines final draft" by kos which I found from a link in the Help section:
6. Insults.
It is impossible to have a real debate when you call the other party, say, "batshit insane." At that point, you're not engaging in debate, you're just engaging in a pissing match. And while that may be fun for you, it isn't fun for anyone else. So maintain a sense of decorum. There are plenty of people on the site who avoid HRs despite engaging in the most contentious topics. It can be done. Just be courteous and stick to the facts.
Sound advice, and I hope it will be followed in the comments to this diary. To avoid the appearance of "calling out" anybody, I have avoided using names in the diary but you can read the thread that followed the above two comments
here.
My explanation to the diarist for my HR was succinct:
You know what a personal attack is? (2+ / 0-)
Calling somebody unhinged. You know what's not a personal attack? Anything in [commenter]'s comment.
Although this was my first comment, it received no replies and now it appears far downthread. When I made this comment, the diarist's reply had 16 recs so I posted this as a follow-up:
To the 16 upraters so far (1+ / 0-)
From the community guidelines:
Uprating personal insults is as bad if not worse than making the insult itself because this rewards the insulters and encourages them to continue the same behavior. Doing so will likewise cost users their ratings privileges for a period, with long penalties for repeat infractions.
So what part of "you're flat-out unhinged" is not a personal insult?
I also asked the help desk to look at the comment and the upratings to see if I was somehow misinterpreting "you're flat-out UNHINGED!".
Here is a sample of some comments from the conversation:
Well, perhaps the admins (20+ / 0-)
should finally come right out and ban us all.
It's the story of the Democratic Party in miniature: make sure the only voices left are the Responsible Ones that are, except on a few social issues, increasingly indistinguishable from Republicans. Then bemoan your electoral defeats while at least having a convenient whipping boy.
You [commenter] started it with the name calling ... (26+ / 0-)
...the '[diarist] treatment' [sic] for christ sake.
And what does it matter who brings forth this. It is the truth. Not some damn interpretation, it is exactly what they and the documents say.
And frankly being legal or not is well and beyond the point. History is repleat with injustices that were legal at the time.
And it is also repleat with supporters of those injustices.
As noted repeatedly, the poster initially being replied to by the diarist seems to regularly cast aspersions on the diarist, and not his diaries' contents. That's simply not okay, and opening a help desk ticket on it because Personal Insults! seems more likely to garner unintended consequences for the reporter.
You seem to forget which side (1+ / 0-)
the Site Ownership and its disciplinarians are on.
You should [care](9+ / 0-)
because it's important to the big picture here:
I don't know [commenter]'s history nor do I care.
History WRT the diarist and this specific subject? Sorry, but it is relevant, absolutely.
and come to think of it, (2+ / 1-)
"unhinged" may be kind. The only other explanations I can think of are "disingenuous" and "paid-for." Perhaps there are others; I'm willing to entertain them.
[HR'd by the commenter]
Their denial is so transparent and flimsy that there's little else worth bothering to do than call them the kinds of names they earn: crazy person.
Where have you been for the last 20 months? It's (14+ / 1-)
not like {commenter] hasn't trolled almost every single [topic] diary for the last 20 months. [Diarist]'s comment was out of exacerbation [sic] and lack of patience with dealing with the same types of ad hom, baseless, and right wing trollery from [vulgarity]. Why do we keep having to suffer the trolls? Because people like you keep enabling them.
Stick It (1+ / 0-)
No matter how progressive I am or not, some people are crazy.
What a desperate attack. Why did you bother?
What a remarkable douche you are (14+ / 0-)
To HR that comment. It's not like [commenter] isn't already the master of the abusive HR on this site, or that his passive-aggressive trolling of [diarist]'s diaries weren't a hardy perennial of life here.
Remove that HR. It's nothing but HR'ing for disagreement, as your obvious double standard demonstrates.
Ohwa taremar kabaldoo shyam.
Don't pretend ignorance to excuse your bad behavior. Plenty of people here have given you the context. Wilful [sic] ignorance is for conservatives, and if you're defending one of the [...]'s most prominent apologists here, maybe that's what you are.
There's over a year and a half of very conspicuous context here, context in which [commenter] has consistently been a famous troll on this subject and with this diarist. His original comment above is an allusion to many, many personal insults over all that time.
If you don't know this, don't presume to judge. If you do, you're simply lying.
In response to why the "rightwing troll" hasn't been bojo'd:
Because he's a party partisan (12+ / 0-)
... and no matter how trollish, they almost never get bojo'ed around here. His behavior in [diarist] diaries is the very definition of trollish behavior, in case you didn't already know.
Well, instead of insane, you could simply be complicit.
If you're the only one HRing something, perhaps you're the problem.
Here are my observations. The "context", which can't possibly be known to new or casual readers, excuses an insult of a type that's actually used as the example of the type of comment to HR. Somehow, a "rightwing troll" has evaded bojo for 20 months because he's a Democratic "Party partisan" and has so infuriated the diarist that the diarist is no longer responsible for violating the site rules. (There's a word for getting so angry that you're not responsible for your actions; I just can't think what it is). At least 14 people apparently agree with the first comment above and want to be bojo'd over some slight most here don't remember or know about. That's the only explanation I have for reccing the douche comment.
The final comment above could be correct though, I suppose. Was I way off base here? I waited until the rec period for these comments had expired before publishing so that I wouldn't drive any HRs or recs to the comments. I created a poll below so that the community as a whole can vote on whether the comment I HR'd (the diarist's - all other HR's are by the commenter)