One-Week Suspensions

The very off-topic derailment in this week’s open thread forced me to do something I’d never done before on this site – close comments on a post. I really, really did not enjoy doing that. It also made me wary of posting the summary chart of how the healthcare vote went. People did manage to stay on topic and remain civil for the first couple hundred comments. But I was very disappointed that in the end, a few people wound up derailing the thread yet again.

So we’re giving one-week suspensions to certain users. I’m not going to name names, but I’m posting this as a diary since we do not maintain contact information for our users. If, starting today, you logged in and found you can’t comment or post diaries, you’ve been affected. You’ll be able to participate again in a week. Consider this a serious warning.

I’m also going to say this once more: It’s a big Internets. If you want to gripe about policy or simply act uncivilly, there are tons of places you can do that. But not here.

40 thoughts on “One-Week Suspensions”

  1. and not pull a ChadFL.  I miss that guy, no one has filled the FL-info void since he decided not to come back after his one week ban.

  2. thank you for whipping out the ban stick.  It always drives me nuts when the threads start looking like DKos.  If I want Dkos type of information, debate, interaction, Ill go to Dkos.

  3. I was briefly on a website called OurCampaigns at one point. I had thought it was kind of cool because people had a ridiculous level of knowledge about obscure elections and candidates that could not be found on other political sites. But people there turned out to be very exclusive and mean, and they were not welcoming of outsiders at all. I was surprised that the people on that website were so rude to new people and could not handle people disagreeing with them, and I stopped using it after a short time.

    I was so happy to find the SSP though because it also has people who know a lot about politics and campaigns, but they are usually not rude or mean about it. So it has been troubling to see all of the nasty attacks lately on this site. The SSP should stay a place where people can have civilized discussions about elections without veering off into the kind of close-minded debate that seems to have become a part of so many other websites.

  4. At the risk of irking the admins, I feel the need to ask if all policy discussion is verboten, even if it is viewed through the lens of an election?

  5. Anyone know what happened to him? He seemed like a pretty productive member of the site and he probably did more redistricting diaries than anyone else, most of which from before DRA had even been created. His last comment was on August 10, but after that he just stopped commenting. I don’t think he did anything worth getting banned from the site for and he always was civil and informative. If you’re out there Nathaniel90, feel free to come back!

Comments are closed.