Somewhere a bridge has gained its Troll back.

[IdaBriggs]

489. I am one of the feminists on DU.

I try not to be rude and mean.

We do have posters who love to create drama and throw things. Sometimes *i* am one of them -see my "homeless vet" post. You can usually identify the "not nice" ones by the fact they make stuff up so they can create flame wars. They frequently have a history of multiple hidden and abusive postings.

They just lost a target. Based on my experience, they will try to find a new one. I think this behavior makes DU Suck.

Blessed be the Admins, they have provided the "Ignore" feature. I am currently using it judiciously, and with minimal effort, my DU experience dramatically improves.

I mourn the loss of a long term DU'er who I don't believe was a Right Wing Troll. I believe the insult taken over the "Hobby Lobby" post was disproportionate, and an innocuous thread about shaving (which was Lounge material) was inappropriately invaded by posters who are now dancing with joy because someone they did not like is gone.

Who was here for twelve years. Who they could have ignored.

I find many of their arguments ludicrous. "He abused the system by editing offensive posts!" Except the Admins said the "edit" should be used to fix things when we had inadvertently offended each other. "He poked at the feminists because Hobby Lobby!" A thread about being sick of the topic looks pretty innocent to me, especially when the "Ignore Asshole" feature is available, which means it might not have been about our little thread chasing narcissists. "He hates a sick DU'er!" Again, interpretation is key, and I did not read the hostility others saw. The "host" issues seem like craziness that got carried away, and a cooling off period might have saved the whole situation from becoming a debacle. (Maybe - we love a good debacle! Lol!)

Words mean something. People who celebrate what happened as some kind of victory strike me as small examples of people who misuse power - in this case, the power to include or exclude people one likes or dislikes based on....drama, instead of the ideas that hold us together, which on this message board are "Good Democrats in political office are good for this country."

But "opinions are like orifices - everybody has one" so I can accept that other people have different opinions, even though I disagree with them. There is really no point in debating this one because the fact is, this incident is over; the flames are simply waiting for the next inevitable war that will start soon....

As I said, I don't think the banned person was a right wing troll. I think the admins decided he was more trouble than he was worth, and that is their call because this is their playground, and we all agreed to play by their rules when we joined.

I found the answer I was looking for when I joined the thread asking "what happened?" I learned some good and not-so-good things about some of my fellow DU'ers, and now, with this last post, I am going to go back to a fun political discussion, inspired by Fox News, about marrying pets. (I am a big supporter of marriage equality, so making fun of stupid analogies is enjoyable, plus squee! Pictures.)

I hope everyone involved has a good day.