16 threads without a reply...

[PN-G bamatex]

Yes, but only because this board is FUBAR.

This board is going to be what you make of it.

I first started commenting on this board as a sophomore in high school. That was a little more than five years ago. At that time, we had posters who would make smitty look like Larry Sabato.

One was DickVitale, who I've already jokingly mentioned in this thread. You think Big girl is bad about reducing everything to racism? DickVitale was a Houston area basketball coach who thought that everyone whose favorite color wasn't black was racist. You don't like President Obama? Racist. You think taxes are too high? Racist. You think we spend too much? Racist. You agree with the war in Iraq? Racist. You like vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate? Racist. You're white? Racist. It didn't matter what it was, everything was a matter of race to him, and he would bring up his racial commentary in every single thread regardless of the subject over and over and over again, just like smitty and some of the others do with Benghazi and Cloward and Piven and whatever else.

And Dickie V wasn't alone. We had another poster called stang4life who was very much the same way. She was never as confrontational as DV, but she was an expert at provoking people via emotional manipulation. BlueDove liked to get on the bandwagon too; he was much more active on this part of the board then than he is now. DV's most serious internet ally, though, was a poster named SFA85. He accused us all of "hiding behind our mother's skirts" in our "lilly white neighborhoods" because we wouldn't meet him outside of the World Gym in Beaumont to settle things with our fists like he kept demanding. Just about every thread he commented in contained some kind of emasculating insult or physical threat.

You know what kept this board going at that time? Do you know why most of us stuck around? Because most of the people here recognized all of that for what it was and chose not to sink to their level. Hippy, and tvc, and westend, and bullets, and baddog and a handful of others called the crap where they saw it, and then got back to the topic of the thread. There wasn't any of the trolling you like to do. And do you know what happened? DV and SFA kept trying to push the envelope until they got themselves suspended and, at least in DV's case, eventually banned. stang4life found her little petty tactics less and less effective and one day finally decided to basically tell us all we were beneath her and she was leaving the board.

For about a year and a half after that, this board couldn't have been much better. You would come in here and find a dozen different threads with real discussions taking place - no threats, no insults, no irrelevant tangents about this news source or that special interest group. Just real discussion. Granted, the cycle eventually restarted itself when a guy named True Blue showed up, but the point is, the longer you choose to emulate their tactics, the longer you perpetuate this cycle. Instead of saying this board of "FUBAR" and choosing to help keep it that way, I think we'd all be better served if we stuck to the substance of the debates and didn't delve into this political pettiness.

[thetragichippy]

This board is going to be what you make of it.

I first started commenting on this board as a sophomore in high school. That was a little more than five years ago. At that time, we had posters who would make smitty look like Larry Sabato.

One was DickVitale, who I've already jokingly mentioned in this thread. You think Big girl is bad about reducing everything to racism? DickVitale was a Houston area basketball coach who thought that everyone whose favorite color wasn't black was racist. You don't like President Obama? Racist. You think taxes are too high? Racist. You think we spend too much? Racist. You agree with the war in Iraq? Racist. You like vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate? Racist. You're white? Racist. It didn't matter what it was, everything was a matter of race to him, and he would bring up his racial commentary in every single thread regardless of the subject over and over and over again, just like smitty and some of the others do with Benghazi and Cloward and Piven and whatever else.

And Dickie V wasn't alone. We had another poster called stang4life who was very much the same way. She was never as confrontational as DV, but she was an expert at provoking people via emotional manipulation. BlueDove liked to get on the bandwagon too; he was much more active on this part of the board then than he is now. DV's most serious internet ally, though, was a poster named SFA85. He accused us all of "hiding behind our mother's skirts" in our "lilly white neighborhoods" because we wouldn't meet him outside of the World Gym in Beaumont to settle things with our fists like he kept demanding. Just about every thread he commented in contained some kind of emasculating insult or physical threat.

You know what kept this board going at that time? Do you know why most of us stuck around? Because most of the people here recognized all of that for what it was and chose not to sink to their level. Hippy, and tvc, and westend, and bullets, and baddog and a handful of others called the crap where they saw it, and then got back to the topic of the thread. There wasn't any of the trolling you like to do. And do you know what happened? DV and SFA kept trying to push the envelope until they got themselves suspended and, at least in DV's case, eventually banned. stang4life found her little petty tactics less and less effective and one day finally decided to basically tell us all we were beneath her and she was leaving the board.

For about a year and a half after that, this board couldn't have been much better. You would come in here and find a dozen different threads with real discussions taking place - no threats, no insults, no irrelevant tangents about this news source or that special interest group. Just real discussion. Granted, the cycle eventually restarted itself when a guy named True Blue showed up, but the point is, the longer you choose to emulate their tactics, the longer you perpetuate this cycle. Instead of saying this board of "FUBAR" and choosing to help keep it that way, I think we'd all be better served if we stuck to the substance of the debates and didn't delve into this political pettiness.

 

 

Exactly.....and a few of the posters you mentioned are still around.......I bumped into SFA85 a couple months ago in the football thread.......he's still the same.....lol

[PN-G bamatex]

Exactly.....and a few of the posters you mentioned are still around.......I bumped into SFA85 a couple months ago in the football thread.......he's still the same.....lol

 

Oh, I know he is. But I haven't seen him get anywhere near as inflammatory as he used to, and I don't think he's posted on a political thread in years.

[westend1]

You guys can put all the blame on the individuals named and I can say they deserve their share, but don't think it hasnt gotten just as bad on the other side.  Someone posts a stupid article, you point out that it is stupid, and suddenly you are a communist/low info voter/looking for handouts or any of the other stock names.

[thetragichippy]

You guys can put all the blame on the individuals named and I can say they deserve their share, but don't think it hasnt gotten just as bad on the other side.  Someone posts a stupid article, you point out that it is stupid, and suddenly you are a communist/low info voter/looking for handouts or any of the other stock names.

 

There are a handful of name callers from both sides

[PN-G bamatex]

You guys can put all the blame on the individuals named and I can say they deserve their share, but don't think it hasnt gotten just as bad on the other side.  Someone posts a stupid article, you point out that it is stupid, and suddenly you are a communist/low info voter/looking for handouts or any of the other stock names.

 

Don't think for a second that I was assigning all of the blame to some of the liberal posters on this board. I mentioned a few conservatives by name as well, and I've taken on both Nash and smitty over the state of this board before - you, specifically, should recall that. I was just using DV and his cohorts as examples because that, in my opinion, is the worst it's ever been.

[Big girl]

It's called derailing a topic on purpose.

Smitty does it in every single thread because he's incapable of having a rational discussion and thinks he's making a valid point.

Stevenash also purposely derails a thread if he knows you're making a valid point and wants to change the subject. Stevenash is like bill o Reilly and Hannity. Intelligent guys who are crafty at shifting "debates" in their favor.

I've started to do it because all my topics get derailed so you better believe I'm not wasting my time attempting to have a rational discussion

I have started doing the same thing as well.

[shovel]

I had forgotten True Blue! I too, miss Dickie V!

[Baba Ganoush]

I had forgotten True Blue! I too, miss Dickie V!

You can still see DV around Mid County. I saw him recently in a non basketball role.

[stevenash]

Is he still saying that there will  never be another team like Ozen and another coach like Boutte?