Has Houseman been banned?

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Elvis Starburst

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I'm guessing the undercurrents of racism, sexism and other such fun stuff also didn't do him many favours either.
Welp, beaten to it. Guess that answers that then.
Ahahhhhhh, I forgot about that. I remember the exact thread too. Hoo boy, that was fun to see. We all knew he was a bit touchy towards women but that final death knell solidified some people's assumptions.

It's more just that there was a sort of set of behaviours / attitudes in the way he interacted he had in common with quite a few other people I've encountered who say they are autistic: elements of obsessiveness, obstinacy, not quite getting people and their communication, and fixation on logic. These can be aggravating for other people, but they don't make someone a "shitlord".
As someone who deals with that sort of thing on the regular, it's possible that he may have had something going on like that. Or perhaps he was just so firm in his beliefs that he could pass for being on the spectrum. But those traits aren't the reason why I called him a shitlord in a previous post. It was everything else (The fascism, clear supremacy beliefs, insistence on disagreeing with absolutely everything people told him, among other examples pulled from different users on this thread)
 
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Elvis Starburst

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Anyway, on the subject of unpopular banned users, I miss...EPIC WYNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was fun:).
I'd put "fun" in the biggest quotations possible, personally. But seeing this reminded me of the Wild West, and that was certainly """fun""", eugh
 
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Catfood220

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I recognize that name, but for the life of me don't remember them. That may have been before my time on V1.
He mainly posted in Wild West and most of it was memes and nonsense, but he got away with it because it was in Wild West. Then he got banned from Wild West and his schtick didn't fly on the rest of the site and was promptly banned. He also broke the site to prove that the site was made of wafers and blue tack. Strangely he wasn't banned for that.
 

Chimpzy

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He mainly posted in Wild West and most of it was memes and nonsense, but he got away with it because it was in Wild West. Then he got banned from Wild West and his schtick didn't fly on the rest of the site and was promptly banned. He also broke the site to prove that the site was made of wafers and blue tack. Strangely he wasn't banned for that.
Yeah, I remember the latter. And that his excuse for that was that the rules did not specifically forbid fucking with the site, or some such. That was his other schtick, that the rules were bad and needed to be changed, tho I think he just wanted permit to shitpost. Rather ironically, those same rules he decried were the first thing he called on for his defense whenever he got pushback. Also, selfproclaimed memelord.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Yeah I remember Houseman saying he was black and I took his word for it despite his other lies. Like conservative black people are thing but he took it to a new level I thought it was another example of high tier trolling.
Oh man, you have no idea how far down the dumb hole people can be. Just because someone is black does not mean they aren't dumb as hell and not racist against black people.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
That guy is based af. Not everyone has the balls to call out both promiscuous men and women. And no other black man has the guts to pose with a cotton picking sack.
 

SckizoBoy

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He mainly posted in Wild West and most of it was memes and nonsense, but he got away with it because it was in Wild West. Then he got banned from Wild West and his schtick didn't fly on the rest of the site and was promptly banned. He also broke the site to prove that the site was made of wafers and blue tack. Strangely he wasn't banned for that.
I stepped away when Wild West became a thing (only posted a bit in FG and OT like once in a blue moon). Was it because R&P got a bit(?!) out of hand? And why'd they shutter Wild West, because that got a bit (?!) out of hand in turn? o.0
 

Thaluikhain

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People banned on V1 shouldn't be allowed back on V2.

Let this be a lesson.
Well, if they were banned for a good reason, but with all the changes with people running the old site over the years, I'd imagine there were some bad bans. Not saying this applies to Houseman, though.
 

Drathnoxis

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To clear things up, I can confirm the ban reason in the screenshot is genuine. As Tippy said, though, it was very much a case of death by a thousand cuts.



B-cell was banned for making racist and body-shaming remarks in a Gaming Discussion thread.
Thanks for the explanation. Can you give a link to the offending post or thread? I'm just curious what he said.
Weird that. Never got an alert for that mention 🤷‍♂️

Although it has already been confirmed, the answer to your question would have been "easy as pie if you know what you're doing, hard as nails if you don't.".
That said, I agreed with your application of Occam's Razor though. Seemed like too elaborate a stunt.
Probably because I edited the mention in. I suspected it might not work. Thanks for the answer.
 

Drathnoxis

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I stepped away when Wild West became a thing (only posted a bit in FG and OT like once in a blue moon). Was it because R&P got a bit(?!) out of hand? And why'd they shutter Wild West, because that got a bit (?!) out of hand in turn? o.0
I think they mainly closed wild west because Enthusiast Gaming was looking to buy the site and they probably didn't think a no rules meme zone was a good look for the site. They were wrong of course, but hindsight is 20/20.
 
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Drathnoxis

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Did your grandpa look at the posts that people made on his threads and actually learn from them, develop his way of thinking further, and make an effort to have his ideas challenged in hopes he might learn something new? Did he bring new, varied topics every now and again, going into different trains of thought? If he did any 1 of those things, he did many times more than B-Cell ever did.
No, I wouldn't say that he did. He was 95, it gets more difficult to change the older you get. He didn't really understand why they rejected his posts. I understand that you would really like my grandpa to have been better than B-Cell so you don't feel as uncomfortable about saying what you are about to say, but he wasn't really (I mean, he wasn't sexist or racist though). Don't get me wrong, he was a great grandfather, a hard worker, generous, and kind, but he wasn't eloquent nor open to changing his beliefs. Would the other people on the forums have preferred not to read his rambling, semi-coherent posts? Probably. But did reading and posting on the site make him happy and help give his life purpose? Definitely.

I don't lose anything by letting B-Cell post his threads. I can just ignore them if I choose. But B-Cell might have gotten more out of the experience than the rest of the community gains by having him gone.

Like Houseman, I think it was death by a thousand cuts. The mods saw B-Cell making these threads for YEARS on the V1 forum, and he never once changed his opinions or changed his format in any way. He just swapped out some words, changed the title, changed the topic, but otherwise the thread could be note for note copy-pastes from his previous ones. It got to the point here where it would devolve into bashing (In which I admit I took part in) because many of us wanted him so deeply to evolve even just a tiny bit. But I think it became clear that even years down the line he was still spouting the same copy-pasted nonsense that the threads ended up not being remotely about his "discussion" topic, and the mods felt it better to cut him out.
Frankly, this would be an absurd way to apply moderation and I'm glad that it turned out that he was banned for different reasons. Who decides what evolution is, or how frequently it needs to occur? You? How could something like that be mandated? When is it decided that someone has changed enough to be worthy of continued posting?

There's a clear attitude I get from the rules and leadership here that you have to be open to other people's opinions, and be ready to develop from the discussion and hopefully change and grow along with it, rather than just come here to spout one's opinion and refuse to budge even the tiniest inch, because that defeats the purpose of the discussion. If everyone else' opinions don't matter, then like I said before, the forum's just being used as a sounding board for one's opinion and nothing more. It's fine to have our values and opinions and hold them close. But unless we're here to actually be challenged and learn new things and hear new opinions, then why bother making a "discussion" post in the first place?
There are many people here, who have been here for around a decade that regularly make it clear that they are, in fact, not open to other's opinions. And again, who's opinions? Yours? How about Houseman's? Were you open to Houseman's opinions and ready and willing to change and grow along with them? No, of course not. It's absurd. Nobody is open to all opinions. Many people just want to give their opinions and don't care if people disagree with them.

Several people including myself tried to teach him, help him improve his topics and discussions, broaden his perspective, and so on. We genuinely wanted better topics from him, we wanted him to improve. B-Cell made it clear he didn't post to "discuss" like he said, or to learn, or to change, and he kept that up for years. And that's what did him in. He was just filling empty space only for himself as far as we and the mods could tell. There's a reason he earned the nickname "Biased-Cell" among a few users
Well, how could he help but be enlightened by your tutelage? I'm sure he should have been falling over himself to sup upon your nuggets of wisdom, well if you hadn't been making fun of him along with everyone else, that is. Or perhaps he should have realized that you were bashing him for his own good because you only wanted him to learn to be a better poster. Or maybe not. Maybe people don't want unsolicited advice and badgering them about how they need to broaden their perspectives and help them improve themselves is one of the best ways cause them to close off.

Please, get down from your high horse before you fall off and hurt yourself.
 
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IceForce

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I don't mind - people can learn and improve. But they can certainly be removed rapidly if it turns out they haven't learnt and improved.
That was the problem this time though, "rapidly" didn't really happen.

It was pretty obvious from the get-go that nothing had changed since the last time we saw him, but instead we had to wait for the "thousand cuts" to hurry up and happen again.
 
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Secondhand Revenant

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Oh some of what I read here makes me feel maybe the forums are worth checking a bit more regularly again. Less houseman, less someone else who might be banned but only saw it speculated on. Nice. B-cell I never saw much but sounds like a good one too
 

Nick Calandra

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We've been extremely lenient on the bans and warned Houseman more than a few times to chill on the conspiracy theories and trolling. Nobody on the mod team is stalking him outside of the forums lol. Nobody got time for that.

He was on thin ice with me after the avatar change a couple months ago, I don't even remember what it was now, but it wasn't good. We banned him then, and then I unbanned him in good faith and he continued doing exactly what he had been doing before. He also made his trolling abundantly clear when he's engaged in every political thread and has never voted by his own admission.
 

Elvis Starburst

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No, I wouldn't say that he did. He was 95, it gets more difficult to change the older you get. He didn't really understand why they rejected his posts. I understand that you would really like my grandpa to have been better than B-Cell so you don't feel as uncomfortable about saying what you are about to say, but he wasn't really (I mean, he wasn't sexist or racist though). Don't get me wrong, he was a great grandfather, a hard worker, generous, and kind, but he wasn't eloquent nor open to changing his beliefs. Would the other people on the forums have preferred not to read his rambling, semi-coherent posts? Probably. But did reading and posting on the site make him happy and help give his life purpose? Definitely.

I don't lose anything by letting B-Cell post his threads. I can just ignore them if I choose. But B-Cell might have gotten more out of the experience than the rest of the community gains by having him gone.
That's fair enough, and not a perspective I considered back then. I can admit that.

Frankly, this would be an absurd way to apply moderation and I'm glad that it turned out that he was banned for different reasons. Who decides what evolution is, or how frequently it needs to occur? You? How could something like that be mandated? When is it decided that someone has changed enough to be worthy of continued posting?
Once Jojo clarified things I remembered the exact post for B-Cell's ban. I had forgotten that was the final nail in the coffin for him, and thanks to some further clarifications by Nick and others for Houseman, all I can simply say was that I was wrong in my assumption of the reason for both of their bannings. Several B-Cell threads both on the V1 and V2 forums were locked by mods for the reason of repetition, so he had a clear habit of doing the exact same thread weeks or months apart with very little variance. I concluded that he was probably on thin ice for that sort of reason. Though Jojo's clarification made me remember his clear sexism by the end that really sealed things for him.

There are many people here, who have been here for around a decade that regularly make it clear that they are, in fact, not open to other's opinions. And again, who's opinions? Yours? How about Houseman's? Were you open to Houseman's opinions and ready and willing to change and grow along with them? No, of course not. It's absurd. Nobody is open to all opinions. Many people just want to give their opinions and don't care if people disagree with them.
True enough.

Well, how could he help but be enlightened by your tutelage? I'm sure he should have been falling over himself to sup upon your nuggets of wisdom, well if you hadn't been making fun of him along with everyone else, that is. Or perhaps he should have realized that you were bashing him for his own good because you only wanted him to learn to be a better poster. Or maybe not. Maybe people don't want unsolicited advice and badgering them about how they need to broaden their perspectives and help them improve themselves is one of the best ways cause them to close off.

Please, get down from your high horse before you fall off and hurt yourself.
Your sass is highly appreciated.

At the start of B-Cell's repetitious thread making on the V1 forum, I, among many others, did see it as tiresome. But then there were a few moments and threads that showed some actual genuine effort, and showed signs that B-Cell was capable of making some rather quality content. So of course I tried to encourage him to make more threads like it, cause I thought "Hey, if I and several other users felt it was worthy of praise (And made that clear in our posts), then maybe we can see more like it." It was stuff actually discussion worthy, not his version of "discussion." But then of course he reverted back to his basic threads he's always made.

Did I feel rather dejected from this? Of course. But as you say, unsolicited advice isn't always wanted or welcomed, and I have myself to blame for getting involved and creating the feeling that I've sunk my own time and effort into someone that I, in the end, didn't feel was worth dealing with. When in reality, I shouldn't have been involved in the first place without asking first.

Would I go back and handle myself with B-Cell differently if I could? Probably, yeah. Sometimes all it takes is a little piece of perspective from one person to help re-contextualize everything I thought I knew about a person or situation, and make me question my actions. I'd apologize if he was here to do it. My only hope is that he doesn't carry what I said with him
 
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