Last month, I posted a bit of whiny rant about my dissatisfaction at being mysteriously and stealthily banned from RedState.com.
And now for a bit of a “closure post”, as by not having heard anything from the fine folks at who run that show over there for nearly a month, I figure I’m not likely to get any resolution or restoration of my account.
Initially, I was quite frustrated1 at being summarily “excommunicated” (as I had enjoyed commenting there) without being informed as to why I got “blammed”, as some moderators might do.
I pondered this a bit, and tried to figure out why some folks had a lot more leeway (as in this guy - “aceintx” - who almost begs to be banned) and others got banhammered very quickly, and then a few like myself who “never knew quite what hit us”. After doing some further digging about, and reading through some of the whinging by other (former?) RedState users who were being “bullied” by the moderators, I’ve come to a conclusion:
Life is Not Fair.™
Ironically, this is the same statement oft-quoted by the regular “in-crowd” at RedState, usually seen after they go into playground-mob mode to dump on some poor schmoe who has made the mistake of getting a bit mouthy (or perhaps just ran amiss) of any of the dozen or so moderators who lurk through nearly every thread… and once the poor schmoe asks “Why are y’all picking on me?” or “How come [username X] gets to talk about [subject Y] and I’m told to keep my muzzle shut?”, or worse, just mouths off and really digs himself a hole… invariably, the answer a moderator or some in-crowd user will shoot back with is:
Life is Not Fair.™
And what makes this even more “unfair”, is the fact that it is not readily apparent to the new user who the moderators or other high-muck-a-mucks of RedState are. (Hint: be content to lurk for several weeks before posting, if you really care to know who to tread carefully around, and learn what the “don’t-go-there” topics are).
But this is pretty much par for the course for any internet community, and RS is by no means the worst “offender” in this regard. On the right, I’ve seen FReepers really savage the few poor schlepps who run amiss of the generally agreed upon culture there - and on the fever swamps of the left like DailyKos or MyDD, righties or lefties who fall short of their party line are quickly and brutally curbstomped into submission or non-existence (in virtual fashion, of course).
And all of this pales by comparison to MMOG gaming fora, which really brings out the kids (both the actual middle-schoolers as well as the creepy 35 year-olders who’ve not quite yet matured out of a middle-school mindset).
Once again, it bears repeating - as every fact is established by the testimony of three witnesses:
Life is Not Fair.™
Perhaps my expectations for RS were a tad higher, and I allowed my generally thick internet skin to be a tad thinner than normal.
Unlike many singly-operated blogs (like mine, where it is fairly obvious who runs the blog) or web forums driven by engines like phpBB or Yahoo!’s yBB (such as the now defunct gaming forum I administered before I started blogging a few years ago), RedState moderators are not easily identified by nifty bolded orange text with the word “Moderator” or Admin” next to their names.
Unless you pay close attention to the manner and tone of how they post (Hint: they are the guys who either own the site like Ben Domenech or Jeff Emanuel, or some of the other folks listed here - which by the way, is a very partial list).
In a somewhat perverse way, this adds to some of the high drama that can unfold at RedState, especially in a contentious primary season such as this, where many opinionated folks come out of the woodwork… and sometimes find themselves mouthing off to another poster whom they do not realize they is a moderator or even one of the owners, such as this exchange between the user perien2 and several of the moderators and users which resulted in the one of the owners responding thus:
Your problem is twofold: by Jeff Emanuel
(1) You have no idea who you’re talking to
(2) You’ve confused this place with somewhere you have the “right” to be, and the “freedom” to say whatever you’d like.
Both portend a very, very brief lifespan for you here, even without the waste of bandwidth your diary contributions have been to this point.
I have to admit that I got somewhat ruffled by the sometimes rather arbitrary and even childish behaviour of both some of the “in crowd” and even the moderators when they suddenly “de-cloak” and hammer the offending posters with a tersely-worded warning or even a summary ban.
The bottom line is though… RS *is* a private domain and the owners have the right to limit what gets said and who may speak on their forum (just like my blog is mine to do with as I please within the bounds of law)… and if the owners don’t care to give me the time of day, then so be it.
My only regret is that a community such as RS that chooses to some degree to shut the mouths of those who disagree with The Consensus run the risk of stifling different perspectives, and eventually risks being an echo chamber.
But as has already been said, Life is Not Fair.™, and that is their site and choice to make.
I’ll be back in a bit with Part II, as to how this lesson applies in another, greater sphere.
2 perien probably brought a decent measure of the “Ira Populi et Deorum” of RS on himself though, as he kept pushing his point after insulting the community (he originally commented about someone else requesting a ban of an actual troll - who did a drive-by post replete with ALL CAPS!11!!1!-clad warped logic - that by requesting the ban, the user was demonstrating that the RS crowd was “a sanctimonious mob of political-prudes.”)
I banned you here: http://www.redstate.com/node/46826#comment-660801
And yes, your post came two days before Leon’s definitive word on the matter:
http://www.redstate.com/stories/miscellanea/and_now_a_word_for_our_commenters
But it’s not as though we’d been silent before then on that kind of behavior.
Life’s not fair, but that concept has zero to do with your banning.
Comment by Neil Stevens — 1 March 2008 @ 1:36 am
Not so bad. I was banned from Polipundit back before the Drummond Affair, when the place was a genuine freak show. I was behaving myself and never found out why. The RS folks seem pretty sensitive, nevertheless.
Comment by Rhod — 2 March 2008 @ 1:30 am
Well, Neil… I appreciate your reply here - I seriously had no idea why you had banned me, and thought I’d go to my grave none the wiser.
In fact, I’m a little surprised that you finally did come to visit my little corner here, given my relative insignificance in the scheme of things.
I am comforted in some small measure in finally hearing from a RedState moderator, although at this point it won’t get either of us a warm coffee or a muffin at any respectable discount.
I’d have liked it a great deal more, if you or one of the other mods had been up front earlier by having given me specific warning - or even just informed me of the “blam” in the thread — it might have been more informative and instructive to your other users; but that’s where that “Life is not fair” thing comes into play.
Really, I have no hard feelings about it at this point; I am well content to occasionally browse RS, as there are a few nuggets that can be found there, even if my two cents are unwelcome there.
I do hope that you and some of your fellow moderators lighten up a bit: banning every soul who uses “politically incorrect” speech or who otherwise does not agree with (your interpretation of) the party line is a far stretch from “reading them out of the party”, and may have the effect of reducing your contributing readership to little more than an echo chamber - much like D.Kos’s operation is today. Just friendly advice, of course which I have a notion you will certainly disregard.
Now as touching on my particular “infraction”, I looked over at Leon’s post - and I can *sort of* see where you all are coming from. Sort of, I say.
Because I know in myself I have no ill will toward Latinos (or any other ethnicity or race for that matter, being a white guy married to a Japanese non-citizen resident myself).
Perhaps a more accurate term would be “disrespectful” or “unprofessional” or even “unbecoming of a rational discussion”. For one thing, I could more easily understand the desire to stay away from name-calling as being immature and inappropriate. That is my fault for getting swept up in an irrational fit of pique.
For another, I believe that to consider my comment as being “racist” is wholly inaccurate on account of the fact that being “Hispanic” is not a distinction of race (such as Caucasian, Asian, or African or Native American, etc.)
Being Hispanic is more a matter of ethnicity and an affiliation specifically with the Spanish-speaking peoples of Central and South America (who encompass a number of and a mixture of many races). So if we must sandbag over “isms”, or worse, identity politics (which more of a hallmark of Democratic Party’s politics)… I guess I might have been engaging in “nativism”.
Note that I bear no ill will against anyone who chooses to legally immigrate: but two things I do not suffer lightly is the arrogance of, and the betrayal by, certain politicians who would open our nation up what would effectively reward an unrestricted movement of foreign nationals with citizenship ahead of and in spite of the patience and hard work of those legally immigrating and assimilating themselves into our Republic.
I’m sad to see that your decision is an incorrect judgment of my motives for using mockery in my political criticism of the party establishment’s current position on illegal immigration. I’ll admit that I could have likely worded my reply more tactfully; but I believed (incorrectly) that RS was a forum where folks would not be so thin-skinned as to misunderstand what I was saying. I know different now, and I guess this is where we part company.
But for the sake of argument - I’ll wholehearted agree with what the user Pangloss said at #31 (in the second thread where Leon points out the policy) :
Well said, and on that account, I’ll think twice before posting [elsewhere on the web, not RS] invective on politicians who advocate for open borders and the like, to the disgust and disapproval of most Republican-inclined voters.
So, for whatever it is worth, thank you for finally being man enough to let know for what I was banned for. That sort of thing does still matter in this day and age… and in spite of our “disagreement”, I appreciate it.
Comment by seekeronos — 3 March 2008 @ 2:12 am