The brettmcd situation

God I love that gif.

I think it's pretty clear, especially from brett's latest posts in this thread, that he doesn't think his posting is at all the problem. With that in mind, I think he should either be banned entirely from the forum or banned from those subforums where his participation is a net negative; at the very least, that includes the Sanctum Santorum and the Drama Llama Holding Pen, and possibly J&EE.

Gee, I'e had brett on ignore for months and the noxious metaphorical odor of his presence is still around.
If the solution is that everyone must put brett on ignore in order for him to stop shitting up threads, then that's functionally identical to banning him, and he should therefore simply be banned, as it's simpler and doesn't permit him to be odious at new posters.

That's honestly the ideal response; but the internet being what it is there are people who simply can't bring themselves to ignore him. The question is a) does that sufficiently disrupt the forum to warrant moderator attention and b) if it does, what should the moderator do?

Upthread someone suggested banning brett from P&R and Drama Llama (which is where probably 75% of his threadshitting occurs) and then making it clear to both brett and those who can't see his kitten pop up without losing their shit that enough is enough and the next step is bans. Short of straight up bannination, this is probably the best thing to do.

Wikipedia disagrees.

I enjoy this idea. This idea brings me great pleasure because it's a big ol' warning flag as opposed to "SHOULD WE BAN HIM YEAH LET'S DO IT". It's like in school where you get the verbal warning, the written warning, and THEN THE PRINCIPAL.
Temp ban, perma ban from separate areas of the board, perma ban from everything.

*hugs you*

I'm sorry you had to see that, fade. It's okay. The bad man is going to go away and not kill grammar anymore very soon now.

Never once said there arent things I can change or anything like that. I take issue with the people who say the problem is ONLY me and excuse everything people like Pogo, Bill and others post in response to almost anything I post.

Brett, you're right that nobody else responding that way would trigger the same response, but you need to go a step further. The reason that nobody else would get that response is that nobody else has the body of work that you do. You have to own that, man. You cannot keep pretending that the reason you have so many conflicts with others is that everyone else is just an asshole. You have a role in that, and you're clearly aware of it, but you keep stopping short of admitting some accountability.

The first step for you here is to remedy that and acknowledge your own responsibility. No, everything is not your fault, but your continued refusal to admit that your threadshitting, false equivalences, and mopey martyrdom are pretty huge contributing factors is not helping anyone else dial their own aggression down a few notches.

I know I'm being incredibly naive and optimistic by even hoping to get through to you - better people than me have tried numerous time and failed - but I'll give it a shot just in case you're receptive.

Your post in that thread comes latest in a string of posts where your opinion was made well-known. The issue is why you choose to participate in threads where you claim to have no interest in. Your very post says as much. If you don't care and it doesn't interest you, stop posting in that thread.

And no, it doesn't feel all that great when someone attacks you out of nowhere, but that is what you do time and time again. You refuse to accept or acknowledge you share the blame (at best) when you post in a thread and it turns ugly. Lum himself said that 70% of your posts are shitposts. I bet you don't believe a single post you gave ever made falls under that category.

Not even this blithering of yours.

This is why you now respond to attacks with this clunky "Oh, my stars! Such violence upon my personage without prompt or reason!" It's so you can whine to Lum about how mean everyone is to you and you were just minding your business (calling people names and being a putz). It's embarrassingly transparent.

I am sincerely not trying to be mean, as I am a person that does this on occasion, but your lack of punctuation makes it difficult for me to really understand what you just said. Mostly the bit I bolded.

EDIT: wait no, I got it.
Hun. Sticks and stones. You say something and someone says something not nice? Ignore it.
We all need to practice ignoring is what needs to happen.

Overwhelmingly, the onus is on you to not be a threadshitting shitposter, not on people like Pogo, Bill, and others to refrain from jumping your shit. I don't know whether your posts in the MMO threads are worthwhile (I haven't spent much time in there lately, since I burned out on both WoW and GW2) or in the Sports forum (which I don't frequent), but unless you want to completely change your posting habits and behavior, your presence in Sanctum Santorum and the Drama Llama Holding Pen has no redeeming qualities to make up for the negatives involved.

I used to really, really want this world to exist, too. But many of the people here aren't capable of ignoring brett and/or don't think they should have to. So that idea is a non-starter.

And once there are too many horrible posts from multiple people, it becomes basically impossible to ignore and drowns the forum.

No, I don't think practice ignoring is what needs to happen. We've had a year of practice here on BF, and many of these folks have had several years prior to that back on Qt3 and elsewhere. If ignoring was going to work, it would have worked by now. It hasn't, so something does need to be done beyond just empty blanket admonishments to everyone. (I've tried that; it's pointless.)

I'm eager to see Lum do something tangible about this rather than having us all sweep it under the rug yet again.

I call foul. I'm not gonna speak for anybody else's experience, but Brett's been both malicious and hateful to me personally a number of times. He'll happily put words in my mouth - ironically, as I've called out people both here and Qt3 for doing the same thing to him - and has ignored any effort I've ever made to try and be reasonable with him. I don't particularly care that he's done that, because arguing with him is like using a flamethrower on a blind kitten, but he's not some precious little snowflake who can't understand why the mean people are so mean to him all the time. He's perfectly conscious of his actions, and chooses to continue.

Look, put it like this: If anybody else shit up threads the way he does, do you believe that person would already be banned? Because I do. Brett, instead, has been given countless second chances, and has had countless people attempt to be reasonable with him, on at least a half-dozen forums that I know about.

He's mostly fine in any other forums but the political and drama forums. I can't even think of an issue.

That makes me so sad. :< So, so sad.
All of this just makes me sad. You'd think that, as adults, we'd all know how to kind of learn and grow and all of that. I think I am just too optimistic/naive.

I call for a ban from the political and January/DramaLlama forums, if that's where most of the problem is happening.

Does that mean you will start to respond to sincere attempts by nice and thoughtful people when they reach out to you then?

This is all rather bad feeling from my perspective. I want to say healing things but that won't work. I want to encourage Brett to find where he belongs, but that is also a sentence of banning. I was partially in his shoes long ago, I know what it is like to find a place that you want to speak at , but are unable to make communication happen effectively.

My solution was abandoning the place entirely, walking away. I found people not associated , and stayed far away for years. When I did come back it was in small bits and it is how I ended up here. (And I know some would wish I hadn't)

Sometimes the only solution is to stop the process entirely, I don't have a good answer for this.

I'd just like to point out that no less than two posters asked brett direct questions about what he would like or think would be fair on the first page or so of this thread, which he has chosen to ignore and only respond to the more insulting or baiting posts. This is his classic behavior in the P&R forums, for those who do not frequent them, and part of why we are having this conversation.

And no, don't turn this into another round of 'Why don't you answer X's question, brett?" over and over again. I would like to hear a response from brett about the suggestions made on the first page, though.

EDIT: Dammit, BlueJackalope !

*reads the Wikipedia entry*

...no, it doesn't.

He won't. He does not feel that he has ever done anything wrong and even if he did, he would never admit it.

I freely admit I have been part of the problem lately. Whatever happens I will make an effort to not be so.

Out of consideration for Lum and the rest of the forum, can we rein in the completely off-topic posts for the time being? Thanks.

He's coming closer than I've ever seen here in this thread, but still stops just short. "I never said you were the whole problem" is actually progress, for Brett. Just a little bit further and he might actually manage something like "I realize I've been shitting up threads and I apologize."

Oh who am I kidding.

I don't understand why everyone is talking about Brett in the Latin thread.

Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?

Besides, you get barbarians from Carthage in Civ and barbarians are men so Carthage is masculine. If the Latinos knew that, maybe people would still speak Latin.

That's the third-time I've been name-dropped by Brett today, unprovoked.

Now go ahead and list all the posters in this thread who say the problem is ONLY you. Then attempt to reach into the Children's Encyclopedia that is your brain and explain what your issue is.

Why do you believe so? You think Lum has a special spot in his heart for brettmcd that prevents him from banning him?

I can see the first two forums being places where there are issues that I need to deal with. But I honestly struggle to think of any issues in the january and everything else forum. Other then the 'split' in the depression threads but what was said there was nothing but sincere beliefs on my part in not telling people how they should deal with their depression.

Ironically, the reasoning is the same on his end - your body of work. If you don't want one of the facets of your forum reputation to be 'the guy that repeatedly goes extremely aggressive on Brett' then stop doing that, however justified it may be. Your choices aren't his fault.

PROGRESS.

For what it's worth, Brett, I agree that you don't seem to have as many problems in January as you do in the Sanctum and in Drama Llama.

Pogo you say people treat me the way they do because of a body of work. If you honestly believe that then you need to understand you also have a body of work in how you respond to anything I post. The way you phrased this post is just anothei part of it.

I have no idea. You'd have to ask him.

Then if that's the case, I suppose just stating that you are honestly going to work on those issues and actually working on them should be okay. I figure give you like a week or so to see if you really do make an effort and, assuming you do get better, things move on. C:

What percentage of your posts do you think are replies to brettmcd?

Sort of. Brett's the poster child for BF's "clean slate" approach (I think he was even namedropped at the time).

NEVER!

But to be on-topic - just do the math. Quantify Brett's positive utility against his negative whatever-the-word-is-for-negative-utility.

Positives:
- Brett is the only person here who argues a case worse than I do, so having him around makes me NOT the biggest tool in any given argument. After all, Brett could always show up.
- I can't recall seeing him make an outright personal attack against someone.
- He's a good balance for Pogo.

Negatives:
- Basically, isn't Brett the reason there's a Sanctum forum?

Would it be possible to enforce an ignore between brettmcd and Pogo? Seriously.

MulMizu I disagree. There's no reason why this supposed watershed moment for brett should turn out to be different than any other. I am firmly of the opinion that if he does "reform" his posts to some extent it'll only be to shift very slightly to the correct side of the "you will be banned if" line. Banning him from Sanctum & Drama Llama seems like the absolute minimum reasonable course of action.

And deprive me of my afternoon dose of Short Bus Political Theater? The dickens you say!

You just reminded me of a word I want to hear said more. Thank you.

Back on topic, I'm a fan of "one more chance"s. Especially because brett is actually taking responsibility for his actions as opposed to passing off the blame to someone else.

Clean slates are bullshit. In the decade or so I've been dealing with brettmcd on various forums I've seen him been granted an infinity of second chances, and I've seen him slowly and reluctantly wave at embracing the concept of self-reflection and personal growth when sternly pressed in the exact way he's starting to here. It always ends up the same way; he goes back to being the same old shitposter we know and loathe, and eventually gets banned.

There's a place for universal forgiveness and belief in reform; I believe in it for the criminal justice system, for instance. There's no reason for us to extend such charity here.