As specified in section 172, sub section 34 paragraphs 5-7, this is the thread to discuss the recent happenings at the mother ship.
The contractually obligatory civility thread
Jul 12, 2010 by libjpnComments
Jul 12, 2010, 12:13:25 dr ngo wrote:
Civility there is not great, admittedly. But threats to "ban" by one of the few with the power to do so - over comments no more uncivil than dozens of others, IMHO - do not help.
Mind you, if someone gave [b]me[/b] the power to ban those who hacked me off, those who, IMHO, were so illogical, disruptive, immature, repetitive, rude, and flatout WRONG as to warrant it, I would probably abuse the power too.
Which may be why this option has never actually arisen.
Jul 12, 2010, 13:10:39 JanieM wrote:
I agree about the threats to ban. If I had any more time to waste over there, one thing I thought of saying was that both Sebastian and Slarti are too quick to make threats to people they themselves are fighting with.
I tried to come back with some sober thoughts today after a bit of snark last night, but really, I'm looking for some other way to spend my time, and it's long overdue. All this oh poor victim me on the part of people like Sebastian (who is one of the most cold-hearted, slithery bastards of a debater I have ever seen) and Marty (who is just an asshole pure and simple a lot of the time), and especially the hearkening back to some golden age -- it's too much. Marty can hardly have been commenting at ObWi for much more than a year, if that, and the blog hasn't changed all that much in that time. There have been periodic infestations of the Jay Jerome variety ever since I arrived (Jan 2008), and even as a relative newcomer I get the idea that there were some incredibly rousing battles in earlier years. So where do they get this nostalgia? Marty gets it where he gets everything else, out of the miasma that passes for his thought processes. Where Seb gets it I don't know.
Of course, with Marty in particular it never seems to occur to him that he invites what he gets, and that what he dishes out is as nasty as what he gets. And Sebastian "quite frankly" took the Sarah Palin method of investigating himself and declaring himself innocent as charged.
Bah, nighty night, and thanks for the chance to vent, lj, and I'm glad I have your email address (did you get a quick one from me earlier today, or last night?). Who knows, I might stop in Japan if I make another trip to China.
Be well.
Jul 12, 2010, 22:23:02 libjpn wrote:
Thanks dr ngo, janiem and the massive 2 figure audience of TiO. A couple of below the fold observations.
Seb's combativeness seems to occur in conjunction with him having some problems or upsetting things in his real life. That is an explanation, not an excuse, and I tend to make my comments addressing him only one post because it seems like a constant thing with him. I don't like the way he interacts with people on the list and he seems oblivious to the fact that the way he phrases things is deeply insulting.
Also, I'm not sure, but I get the impression that his idea of 'police your own side' means beating up on people who attack him. But to me, by the time that things have gotten really heated, I sure as hell am not going to step in. I most recently stepped in during the econ debates with billyp asking billyp to calm down a bit. I'm sure that was not even noticed by Seb because the fight continued on for another page of comments and the fact that I didn't slag bobbyp probably meant that I wasn't policing. I imagine that was one of the threads that he felt bent out of shape about, but if he isn't going to take the opportunity to tone things down, I don't see why it is incumbent on any commentator to try and sort things out. I always feel like a ref who goes to grab the arms of one boxer and finds the other one following behind to deliver a punch while the guy is tied up.
I also note Seb's suggestion that Thullen is a (the?) catylyst for the incivility. Everyone had the good sense to not bite at that hook, so you should congratulate yourselves.
My own impression of Slarti's ban threats is that they are mostly obliquely directed at Jes, who views them like catnip, or perhaps a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction pact. And Slart has dropped the ban hammer on a number of ostensibly conservative posters who have colored outside the lines, which is something that I'm pretty grateful. I am a little confused why JJ hasn't gotten banned, he's clearly putting himself on the board with different aliases, and that is like too much lye in the soap in that it eats away everything it touches.
For a different angle, we don't really 'need' conservatives as we used to when liberals were pretty much united by the awfulness of Bush the Younger. There is enough contention between liberals of various stripes that often times, when an avowed conservative sticks his oar in (don't have any female conservatives, do we) it seems more to try and make a Lenin-like attempt to "heighten the contradictions".
I also have to think that what drives a lot of the self identified conservatives at ObWi is not so much a commitment to conservative values (because if it were a commitment to such values, they would sound a lot more like Daniel Larison than the NRO Korner Krewe) but a commitment to refusing to trust the crowd. People like Brett and others take pains to announce that it's not that they don't trust Republicans or conservatives, it's that they trust Democrats even less. While some might suggest that it is a cynical attempt to not get tied to the obvious idiocies of the Republican party, I get the impression that they often self define themselves as people who are always suspicious, always demanding proof, and a liberal environment like ObWi is going to give them a lot more room than a conservative one, which would probably boot them out at the first sign of apostasy. The only problem is that employed to the extent that they do, it often becomes a nihilistic exercise.
Jul 12, 2010, 23:58:25 DonaldJ wrote:
I haven't seen Slarti abusing his power. He and Jes go at it, but Jes pushes him. I'm usually on Jes's side on the issues, but sometimes she needs to be reminded of posting rules. She'd probably admit that herself some of the time.
Sebastian--He definitely overreacted in that thread. And maybe like most of us, he's blind to how he comes across.
Marty is ridiculous. That's just my general impression, reinforced most recently by his latest post (or maybe the only post) on the Nasr thread.
And Jay Jerome should be banned, though I don't know if he actually violates any of the rules. So maybe he shouldn't be banned, but just ignored. Though I guess that's hard to do.
Someone over there mentioned three missing contributors--
Nell has popped up recently on rare occasions. Or I think she's popped up at ObiWi. I know she appears at A Tiny Revolution now. She said she had taken a long break from the internet.
I miss Gary's contributions a lot, though occasionally I wanted to strangle him. ThatleftturninAlb is also missed, though I hadn't realized it until he was mentioned. Hilzoy's departure did a lot of damage to the blog, directly and indirectly, though I think Eric has done a pretty good job with his posts.
Jul 13, 2010, 00:44:35 DonaldJ wrote:
I have just concluded that Marty is a towering intellect compared to McKinney from Texas--apart from his careless citation of an Onion article as something real (which had me cracking up), he's like some throwback to the Paleozoic era (I'm thinking the immediate post 9/11 environment) where any positive thing said about any Arab means you're in favor of blowing up Israeli schoolkids.
Jul 13, 2010, 00:56:01 Slartibartfast wrote:
"one thing I thought of saying was that both Sebastian and Slarti are too quick to make threats to people they themselves are fighting with"
I think you have misunderstood, and Donald hasn't. Jesurgislac was in essence demanding that I ban someone for doing what was, in effect, no different than what she does.
That was just my way of refusing. Sorry if it wasn't direct enough to be obvious.
I've only done that with J, as far as I can tell. I try to take it easy with the ban-hammer, except when it comes to folks who are attempting to circumvent a standing ban other than through official channels (i.e. via an email to the kitty requesting reinstatement).
Last weekend was a great heaping pile of fail on ObWi, wasn't it? I'm not sorry I missed the whole thing; there was much crabgrass-pulling and sod-plugging (which probably sounds almost like an obscenity in British) to be done last weekend.
And TDF-viewing. GREAT finish yesterday!
Jul 13, 2010, 01:02:07 Slartibartfast wrote:
Oh. I believe Eric dispensed with JJ, but I would have, eventually. He didn't dispense with all of JJ's posts, but he did most of what was needed.
Jul 13, 2010, 01:06:44 JanieM wrote:
Sorry Slarti, I let my irritation get the better of me this weekend. The Slarti and Jes dynamic is in its own niche.
I actually abstained from ObWi for a couple of weeks in June; maybe that's why I didn't realize that JJ had been finally, officially dispensed with. And is that why we're getting idiocies from Pop Adelman now, who surely is really JJ?
Jul 13, 2010, 01:34:39 Slartibartfast wrote:
Yes, he is.
PhillyCheesesteak is JJ also, in case it wasn't already dead obvious.
Jul 13, 2010, 01:36:14 Slartibartfast wrote:
"Sorry Slarti, I let my irritation get the better of me this weekend."
No worries, JanieM.
Jul 13, 2010, 01:37:25 nous wrote:
Seb is a lawyer and has that <i>wonderful</i> lawyerly trait of never once acknowledging any argument that runs counter to the one he is trying to sell. He will pare away parts of his own argument but will never adopt and incorporate any part of a counter argument unless he can do so in a subversive manner and he will certainly never capitulate. I gave up on arguing with him a while back because every time someone engages him on a point in a way that frustrates his aims he just disengages from that line of argument and doubles down on whatever he thinks he has left.
Jul 13, 2010, 01:42:57 russell wrote:
I think I must have grown up in a particularly contentious environment, because the conversation on ObWi seems pretty normal to me.
Everybody gets pissy now and then.
I do miss hilzoy, and Nell, and TLTIABQ. I get my Farber fix on Facebook.
Jul 13, 2010, 02:41:01 Slartibartfast wrote:
My take on it is most of the ObWi discussions are primarily about assigning we'rebetterthanyou points, which has gotten fairly boring to me.
Possibly because there's not many available to me at present. I have to admit that could be a factor.
Jul 13, 2010, 03:23:11 JanieM wrote:
I'd suggest that Barb is JJ too, except that the style isn't right. Either that or "he"'s a better chameleon than I would have thought.
Jul 13, 2010, 07:45:12 libjpn wrote:
Wow, busy evening. I think Barb is someone who tangled with Sebastian over at Crooked Timber and is coming here to give him grief.
I think that when you kick off an alias of a banned person, there should be an announcement, like they have on soap operas when they replace one actor with another actor for the same character. Helps establish continuity.
There was actually a fair point that Eric doesn't link to reasonable conservative arguments. But it seems to me that people who do reasonable conservative arguments (for a limited range of values for reasonable) are either no longer conservative (Sullivan, Frum) or are spending most of their time eviscerating other stupid conservative arguments (Larison) Perhaps there is some vast underground store of reasonable conservative arguments hidden somewhere, safe from prying liberal eyes. (just to be clear, I think there are conservative arguments to make, but if they are made in the way nous accurately describes Sebastian to do, they no longer draw on the any wider consensus and become easily mocked)
DJ is right, Marty is probably a lot sharper than McTx, but McTx shows some real contrition from time to time. Makes him much more tolerable. However, I recall when McTx was suggesting that he write a guest post or three. I have a sinking feeling that it would look like one of those nature films of a shark feeding frenzy.
Jul 13, 2010, 09:39:36 JanieM wrote:
"I have just concluded that Marty is a towering intellect compared to McKinney from Texas"
This can't be possible. Marty has the worst case of "can't tell the difference between my head and the world" of anyone I've ever seen. It's not even his head, really, it's just every little vague feeling he has, from which he makes vast generalizations about everyone and everything.
Until today I would have said McKinney was a lot smarter than Marty, but now I'm not so sure. I *have* had the thought that if I ever need a lawyer, I hope I can find a smarter one than McKinney. I think I have been spoiled by the lawyers I *do* happen to know.
And speaking of lawyers, I'm grateful to nous for putting words to what it is that makes me so dislike Sebastian's effect on the blog, all aside from his short fuse. I have tried to formulate it to myself at times, and the closest I could come is that he so often tells *other* people they don't understand things, but I have never ever once seen him back down on a point, concede a point made by someone else, admit that *he* misunderstood something, or anything like that. It's robotic with him. And since he is picayunishly and Seb-favoringly defining what good discussion is these days, I would have to say in return (if I thought it would do any good, which I don't, so I won't, at least over there) that it is by definition not even possible to have what *to me* would be a good discussion with him, because of what nous described.
Back to Marty and McK...I don't really agree that Marty is sharper than McK., but I do wholeheartedly agree that McKinney is much more...what shall I say...companionable. He is willing to admit a mistake (even if not always the ones other people would like him to admit) and he seems to genuinely like people at the blog, and to be willing to say so.
Jul 13, 2010, 09:40:19 JanieM wrote:
Hey, if the blog was such a paradise of respectful discussion across chasms of disagreement back in the good old days, why does TiO exist?
;)
Jul 13, 2010, 10:22:08 DonaldJ wrote:
I was too harsh on McK--he really irritated me with that "Are you guys defending free speech really vouching for everything Hezbollah stands for" argument and when on top of that he cited an Onion piece to put us in our place I got mad. But he was pretty gracious about his mistake. I think he's wrong on a bunch of things, but I retract the unkind thing I said up above, which I wrote in the heat of the moment.
As for ObiWi's past, I think it's always had quarreling. Where I think it's gone downhill is mainly in the absence of several people.
Jul 13, 2010, 11:04:42 JanieM wrote:
"I was too harsh on McK--he really irritated me with that "Are you guys defending free speech really vouching for everything Hezbollah stands for" argument and when on top of that he cited an Onion piece to put us in our place I got mad."
This is the kind of thing that I find so frustrating at ObWi. Like other people, I would actually enjoy some good discussions/debates between "liberals" and "conservatives." But there's always all this meta stuff, and misdirection, and refusal or inability to actually follow each other's thought trains. I don't mean "meta" in the sense of discussions about the discussions, but rather in the sense of how the discussions so often feel like people are missing each other like ships passing in the night.
And I myself am not dedicated enough, usually, to try to "be the change I want to see" in this regard; I spend a lot more time reading ObWi than I should, but it's random little bits of time throughout the day -- not conducive to coherent, complex thought trains.
And maybe there is something different in the whole atmosphere now. When I first moved to Maine, the then-editor of the op-ed pages of the Augusta paper (which is small, but meatier than you might expect in a town of that size since Augusta is the state capital) used to run parallel columns on some topic, one from the "left" and one from the "right." The columnists weren't actually debating, it was usually just a couple of syndicated people. But it was always interesting to see well-reasoned thought trains on hot topics.
Now when the paper does something like that, the thinking always seems sloppy and predetermined.
Maybe the discourse has deteriorated badly in 20 years, or maybe I'm just getting older and crotchetier by the minute. It's possible that if I went back to some of those 20-year-old columns I would find them sloppy too, having been educated by -- among other things! -- some of the better ObWi writers in the meantime. (I mean front-pagers and commenters both. I do miss TLT, among others, in the comments, and I'm glad Jacob is trying his hand at posting things. I hope he becomes a regular. Even if I do take a vacation.....)
Jul 14, 2010, 10:08:55 libjpn wrote:
This comment
http://obsidianwings.blogs....
seems typical. I really can't tell if Sebastian didn't actually go to the link or if he did and doesn't have anything to say to refute it. If I were refuting "Bob Dove, who worked as a Senate parliamentarian from 1966 until 2001, (and who) knows Senate rules as well as anyone on the planet.", I'd be embarrassed to reply to that with 'No, that isn't how it works', but I have the unfortunate suspicion that Sebastian is counting on people not to go to the link.
Jul 15, 2010, 22:54:50 russell wrote:
I actually have nothing negative to say about McK. IMO he's a stand-up guy. We all have our blind spots.
Marty gets under my skin now and then, but that's mostly because of this rhetorical tactic:
Marty: the sky is green
Anybody else: actually, it's blue
Marty: well, that's your narrative, and I wasn't talking about the color of the sky anyway
But overall IMO he makes a positive contribution to the discussion. He has his point of view.
JJ is a trip. My guess is that ObWi is his therapy. Maybe we can start charging him by the hour.
Agreed that Jacob is a great addition to the front page. What is he, like, 19 years old? The dude has done his homework.
Jul 15, 2010, 22:57:13 russell wrote:
The other youngster who's comments I always enjoy is Nate.
OT: we're on track for a million homes lost due to foreclosure this year.
Just because it isn't The Great Depression doesn't mean it isn't a depression. And I don't care what the Dow says.
Jul 16, 2010, 00:45:21 JanieM wrote:
Russell, you are more bighearted than I am, and I say that as a general proposition, not just in relation to the Marty topic.
The turning point for me came in this thread:
http://obsidianwings.blogs....
I responded to something of his with a truism (people close to a situation are not always the ones to have a “measured” response to it).
His reply to that was: "Other than to note it, I am speechless at the hypocrisy in this statement."
A number of people challenged him on this nastiness [including you, Russell, and Eric and hairshirt and a couple of others]. Eventually he wrote this:
[This part quotes Eric]: "I was merely asking because it was a fairly serious charge, and it went without anything resembling a satisfactory answer."
Eric,
I would attempt that answer, but, over time, I have come to the conclusion that in these instances I can have the conversation with myself just as easily:
Me: POINT ABOUT THE ACTUAL SITUATION
Janie(and or Jes): The only way anyone could have that point of view is if they were Choose one:racist, homophobic,sexist, etc)
Me:Not so, because of A(and/or)B
Janie(and or Jes): see above
I apologize if you felt hit by that brush, it wasn't intended but, I am not going to respond to the argument that white people don't count because they are, well, white people."
*****
I love this as an explicit admission that he does what I keep saying he does: he thinks that what goes on in his head is reality. In this instance he made it explicitly clear that he can't tell the difference between me and Jes and isn't interested in trying. When asked to cite my own words in support of the accusation he made against me, he cited the fantasy creatures in his head.
For me he poisons any thread he's involved in. I understand that that's my failing more than it is ObWi's, but it's a major reason I'm backing away. I also keep thinking of Tony P's assertion that none of us are in personal relationships except the pairings (like the Bostonians) that have actually met each other. But it's murkier than that for me, and in this case it *is* personal, whether I have actually met Marty or not.
I’m not the Dalai Lama. (“Poor Chinese. They make such bad karma for themselves.”) And I "shouldn't" let Marty ruin ObWi for me. But to some extent he has. And it’s not like there’s nothing else that’s interesting on the web or in the world.
In short, for me the crappiness of what Marty brings to ObWi outweights the benefits (and I do admit that there may be some) of having other people demolish his stupidities in coherent ways.
*****
P.S. as to McKinney -- yes, I agree that he’s a “stand-up guy.” That’s part of what I was groping for with “companionable.” His logic is often sloppy….how many countries *are* there of our size and diversity in the “post-industrial” era, actually?? ;)
Jul 16, 2010, 04:38:06 russell wrote:
[i]Russell, you are more bighearted than I am[/i]
many thanks janie, but I find this unlikely.
Jul 16, 2010, 12:17:21 DonaldJ wrote:
"I actually have nothing negative to say about McK. IMO he's a stand-up guy. We all have our blind spots."
Yep. Just take the criticism I had of him several days ago and replace it with this comment.
Jul 18, 2010, 09:05:30 libjpn wrote:
Wow, this is pretty amazing
http://obsidianwings.blogs....
JJ must be missing that small part of the brain that tells one to be embarrassed for oneself.
Jul 19, 2010, 02:56:27 russell wrote:
I picture JJ walking around empty bus stations muttering "Fools! Someday they'll see!!" to himself.
Bus stations with free WiFi, of course, so he can jump on ObWi and fight the good fight.