I think after 10 you could figure out why you are being banned. After 20 it's pretty clear that people are just out to collect the bans. We've all observed that on SI there is an "in your face" contingent that has gotten the odd idea that on SI, unlike in the rest of the world, they should be able to talk to whomever they want, in whatever awful way they want, without any consequences. Obviously this is somewhat delusional thinking, but the net gives them a shield of anonymity for their delusions, and their awful behavior, and their odd belief that they have a right to be as aggressive and disrespectful as they want to be, and still have access to a poster or a thread. Talk about weird thinking. There are very few posters like that though- and almost all of them hang out mostly on the political threads, and they are now, by this time, because of their many bans, fairly well isolated.
The best thing one can do is ignore them. They are so insignificant SI administration doesn't even bother with them any more. Let's face it- the political threads are pretty much worthless to SI, which is why SI admin doesn't bother with them. Moderators do the work instead, and when a poster is banned many many times it is quite clear there is something wrong with the poster. 3 or 4 bans, or even 7 or 8, and there could be some cause to cut a poster some slack- but over 20 and you know it's the poster, and not the moderators.
Strangely people seem to get confused about this, and muddle it up with free speech, which has zero to do with SI, a private business which allows users to cut up the business space in to small chunks for various discussions. None of this has anything to do with free speech, as it is defined by case law. But to read some posters on SI, you'd think they didn't know that. Maybe they don't. |
