Philosophy Now Forum

...Maria ?
...Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand...

The sound of music for some, might have been to hear of a certain individual being banned.
This is so rare as to be worthy of a thread named in that person's 'honour'.

OK, you know this is about BW who has been an ongoing contributor to the PN forum for...hmmm...probably a decade?
I have a few questions about this.
Clearly, BW has value in terms of input and provoking thought. The recent reaction from posters to his latest arguably most sexually offensive post targeting ArisingUK seems to have been enough to trigger a banning. How many complaints, and in what form, does it take. A simple reporting of a post, or a more detailed 'letter' of justification - all behind the scenes ?

Some took the opportunity to challenge BW upfront. BW and his continuing cycle of an obsessive and sexual nature brought up issues of online abuse and the growing concerns related to stalking.

And yet the OP by Amod in the 'banning thread' was that of power wielding for a different reason. Amod was pissed off at BW's repeated suggestion of a financial relationship between him, Rick and the mods. Eventually, after questioning, Amod added ' recent multiple complaints about the content of some of his images' as another trigger. So far, so good.

But not enough. As I wrote in the thread, now deleted, it was not only the content of his images, but his pursuit of ArisingUK as someone he has a relationship with which is...from his point of view 'loving' but in fact, was shown to be 'vicious'. What else do you call it when he sees himself as a bull, Arising as a cow being raped and running headlong into a passing car ?

So, this is what is being swept under the carpet. By humour and denial, by some.

The problem remains - it has happened before and will do again. In 4 months time.
How do you solve it ? Do you ask the person who has been banned if they can see what they did was wrong, or what ?
Do you ask BW how he views his relationship with Rick, the mods, ArisingUK ?
Do you ask if his implicit and explicit thought/images of an offensive type are under control? Does he even see them as offensive rather than 'loving and giving' ?

Or is it just a big laugh, an experiment in philosophy or what ?
How do we act when push comes to shove?

I assume that what peeved the mods was that they had to delete two of his threads. One where he used a sexually violent gif*, and a second where he declared the mods were in his service, and that PN magazine is a loss leader designed to drum up business for this forum where they make $$$ out of all his amazing philosophical brilliance. I'm fairly new here and I've noticed him go off on that one a couple of times.

That should be something one can only write with tongue firmly in cheek. But he seemed to get rather tetchy if contradicted, which implies he really is able to believe such a thing. Perhaps a time out on the naughty step will give him an opportunity to calm down and have a little think.

The mods probably have a private forum where they keep a little record of who is cruising for a banning. On most sites it's a bit like the Masons: when the last mod stops objecting, you get radished. Operating an interwibblies forum like a democracy is how you end up with 4chan.

* I don't think we should read too much into that tbh. I very much doubt Arising did. BW always just picks one out of the funny pictures pack at random and finds some word salad to justify it as an afterthought.

I've never seen BW be mean to anyone. I must have missed the thread. He has a rather 'quirky' sense of humour. Besides, I think Arising is a big boy.

Thanks for your interesting responses. Now moving on to other life stuff.