The Hitler Youth

I'd like to address a new phenomenon I have witnessed of late--a form of fanaticism on the rise, it seems. It is the phenomenon of kids jumping right out of the cradle and into military uniform--and then proceeding to institute a military-style bureaucratic "regime" (as it were) in the world that they inhabit--regulating their environment with characteristic small-minded officiousness.

Whence does this trend originate? Could 9/11 have made such a profound impact on our society as to turn an entire generation into the apparent resurrection of the Third Reich?

I speak as a free spirit who loves the wide, expansive freedom of America and hates to see our liberties get legislated away in a new climate of fear--a McCarthyistic reign of terror. No more, say I! Let the neo-Nazis, the Hitler yungen--be silenced once and for all and let free people everywhere, young and old alike, celebrate their demise!

Another topic I'd like to address in here (as an aside) is Yoda's new popularity indicator which presumes to define whether or not you are well-liked or accepted. This is such an obvious farce, it isn't funny. Any poll I have ever encountered anywhere--at least any legitimate poll (and there's the qualifier) gives only one vote per person. Yet Yoda's popularity poll gives an unlimited number of votes per person. How absurd is this? It completely lends itself to being manipulated by a small minority, who can then proceed to dictate terms to everyone else. They can exclude or alienate anyone they happen to dislike or disagree with, thereby imposing their own provincial tastes and ideas on everyone in a tyrannical, even Nazi-like fashion.

In other words, kind of like George W. Bush's Florida electorate, Yoda's MoFo poll is only too easy to rig and set up.

I move to suggest that it is a complete farce and deserves no attention or regard from anyone at all.

What are your thoughts on these two issues?

The system does not allow for an unlimited number of "votes" per person. It has limits on how frequently you can vote, and also has checks and measures in place so that most members cannot "vote" for one person too often, proportionately.

Seeing as how your popularity was given a similar appraisal under the "one person, one vote" poll posted some time ago, it shouldn't be so hard to believe that your negative rating at least somewhat reflects reality.

I don't know . . . somehow, I find that less than credible! Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's the memory of all those deleted threads and edited posts . . .

haha I see you're taking my advice! Seriously though, the whole whining about the admins thing is something this forum doesn't need. you get too many people doing it and the forum will crumble. The rating system is just for fun man, who cares if you're quadruple negative? It makes you unique on here.

Hmm . . . that's an interesting way of looking at it! Kind of like "Wanted, Dead or Alive," huh? Truthfully, though, while it's great to be unique, I'd say that that's a kind of uniqueness I don't necessarily need!

Anyway, it's out of my hands! Thanks for your advice, though, Frank. I'll try to take it to heart.

Well, I've been, and am right now, the outcast on other forums so I kind of know how you feel. Although, as I said the other forum has the reverse type of people on it. heh

Use a dagger.

1st Issue: I haven’t seen anything remotely resembling what you are implying...


2nd Issue: You’re whining….. Again...

Click... click... click....

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Well, I guess I just don't see myself as a populist. I try to appeal to a niche crowd and shy away from mainstream adulation. Perhaps, in my zeal to maintain a certain standard in terms of content, I offended a lot of people who seem to find trash appealing (!) I guess, my strategy kind of backfired and, as such, I got inundated with hostile comments which led to a negative reputation. Anyway, like I said, my approach has generally been to try and shy away from the mindless masses and find a niche audience and/or group--to engender meaningful dialog rather than peddle in populist trash. Let's see how it goes in the future.

I think this trend is very much out there. Maybe you need to look a little more carefully.

I don't think it's whining--it's voicing a legitimate complaint and I think the points I have raised are valid.

You're ignoring my point. You're complaining about this method of gauging user opinion, when you fared just as poorly under the old one.

If you want to know why, look no further than your decision to disapprove (accompanied by a comment of "You suck big time!") of my first post in this thread, despite the fact that it answered your concerns with facts and a reasoned deduction in a polite manner. Your immaturity, not your honesty (which you've shown a severe lack of), is the culprit.

I don't want to get into that discussion all over again! I've already addressed that issue elsewhere--I suggest you re-read my comments in that context. Also, the first poll indicators were pretty favorable to me--and that was before you started your little campaign of hostility against me! But enough about that! I don't want to begin that old story all over again!

Hey, I'm getting exactly the same sort of feedback on my own posts. I don't think I'm being ostracized for my "lack of maturity" at all--not unless you equate maturity with conservatism. True, I am not exactly conservative--but far from immature. I don't know exactly what I have done to elicit such a negative response, but it all smells fishy to me.

Anyway, Yoda--one question. When I check my CP, I'm only able to view the last 5 or so comments. How do I check the backlog of comments made for or against me, so that I can get an indicator of the course of events leading up to my bad rep in here? Also, how do I find out who the authors of the comments and reputation points are? Apparently you seem to be able to make out where they come from. Why is it that all I can see are the last five or so reputation points allocated to me and no indication of where they originate? All of this makes it look like this whole system is less than fair--as if there is a group of antagonists who have nothing better to do, it seems, than to slam me with hostile nonsense whatever I post.

And, in all fairness, given the fact that you, yourself, have endorsed underhanded tactics against me in the past--such as editing my posts and filling them with insulting garbage or deleting crucial threads at important junctures--this scenario seems pretty likely to me. Who's to say that you and your friends are going out of your way to give me a bad name on the forum by slamming me with negative reputation points? And, in doing so, inciting others to follow suit?

So, I request to be given access to the backlog of comments posted for or against me (apparently there are over 325 such comments) along with an indication of where they have been coming from. I can bet that most of them have originated from 3-4 people in here at most, and I can name them--yourself, blibblobblib, Sexy Celebrity, Caitlyn, Siver Bullet, and maybe one or two others--the faction in here that hates my guts. I can bet that this small faction accounts for at least 75% of the hostile comments posted against me--which seems to derive from the grudges they hold against me. As for the rest of the MoFo membership, I bet most of them haven't even bothered to voice an opinion one way or another.

There was an entire thread about what you "have done to elicit such a negative response." As you might remember, you eventually ignored the gripes against you, dismissing them off-handedly.

And frankly, if inventing identities to defend yourself, constantly leaving and returning, and hurling childish insults (shall I compile a list?) isn't immature, nothing is. In case you've forgotten, I'm not the only one who's come to this conclusion.


The reputation system by default allows administrators to see such things, for one very simple reason: karma wars. Systems like this are delicate, and if things are not monitored, people will inevitably degrade into passing out negative reputation just because they don't like someone, and not because the post in question is at fault (like your latest disapproval, for example).

However, at your request, I've upped the entries displayed from 5 to 10, in part because others have expressed a desire for a higher number in the past.

Oh, please! I won't even bother to comment on that!

And you're saying that this hasn't been happening already? Wouldn't you say that the majority of the negative reputation points I have received thus far have come from people who "just don't like me"--for whatever reason--as opposed to being in any way connected to the content of the post? Anyway, the fact that the forum admin can access such information while the rest of us can't should mean that the forum admin should be completely discounted from the whole process. Otherwise, it becomes completely unfair--who's to say that the forum admin, having access to the sensitive information--aren't rigging the system in their own favor? Speculation on my part, to be sure, but a valid concern, surely.

Thanks for that, but it's still a tiny fraction of the 335 slams I have received thus far--and I don't even know where they have been coming from.

From this point forward, unless Django discusses something other than odd conspiracy theories, I'm going to ignore him. I have no reason to dislike you Django sir--I actually think you're pretty intelligent, but I can't stand the structure of the following hypothetical thread dialogue that has appeared so many times since your membership:

Django: " Yoda is Hitler"
Yoda: "Back that up then."
Django: "No one likes me."
Yoda: "Nobody likes people who make claims they can't back up."
Django: "I can't back them up because you edit my posts."
Yoda: "I don't edit your posts."
Django: "Well your henchmen do."
Yoda: "They're not my henchmen. They don't like you for their own reasons. Should I list them?"
Neutral member: "We like you, you just need to be more subtle."(Repeat this many, many times)

Long pause.

Django: "Yoda is Hitler."
Yoda: "Back that up."

And so on and so forth Ad nauseam

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I have been formatted to fit this screen.

r66-The member who always asks WHY?

Reading through the comments against my reputation points, what strikes me is how personal they are. Only a few of them really address the issues--the content of the post. And those tend to be positive reputation points. The rest of them are so obviously hate-filled slams from people who just blindly hate me for no particular reason (I won't bother to speculate about the reason). They don't even bother to understand what I have to say--they just slam me arbitrarily.

Let's face it, Yoda, your whole reputation point system has proven to be nothing more than a convenience mechanism for people to send hate-mail to people they happen to dislike for whatever reason. What has any of that got to do with anything?

For all I know, the majority of the "hate-mail" reputation points might well be coming from the KKK! What does that prove? That the white supremacists on the forum hate me for my ethnic origins and choose to slam me over racial issues? That the right-wingers despise the political stance I have taken and slam me for being an outspoken political independent? Or, perhaps, the whole deal is an organized attempt at subtly ostracizing me, because doing so overtly on the forum would only backfire, given the fact that I'm a nice enough guy.

It just looks very, very suspicious and cold-blooded to me! 335 hate-filled messages directed against me behind my back. Who hates me that much? I'd like to know that. If you have been slamming me behind my back, I'd like to know who you are and what is the basis for your antagonism.

Okay, first of, I don't claim that Yoda is Hitler--only that he is not exactly doing a great job of being an unbiased forum admin. Secondly, I don't claim that no one likes me--only that some people have been continuing an ongoing hate campaign against me. Thirdly, I have backed up my claims on any number of occasions, but when I do, they are simply ignored or discarded. Fourthly, the fact that my posts have been edited behind my back is an indisputable fact, and the fact that whoever has the access level to do so (in this case, Silver Bullet) has done so with Yoda's consent follows inevitably from the facts in question. If he had the access level, he had to have gotten it from the forum admin! Ergo, Yoda's implicit consent. Finally, the point regarding subtlety is well taken--I'm doing my best, but sometimes a direct approach is necessarily called for.

Also, I'm not trying to advocate any sort of conspiracy theory--I'm just citing certain facts and calling other issues into question.

And you're right--this is tedious. I'm here to discuss issues of interest to me, but I keep getting dragged into these dull, boring discussions because, it seems to see, certain people seem to have nothing better to do than to slam me and undermine my presence in here any chance they get. If you find this tedious, I assure you that I find it doubly so.

I cant believe your still WHINING AND WHINING!! r3port3r66 you have got it just right. First of all you whine about how Yoda uses his power as admin to make you look bad. Then other members (like myself) get drawn into your imaturity when you start posting on other peoples threads for no reason and they manage to make you feel bad about it, so you go and defend your "poor, misunderstood" self by posting posts about how You didnt realise how young we all were. And NOW your harping on about how the rep points are so harsh and unfair. Ive only ever given u neg points about the things you say and the actions you take on this board (I.e your Rudy V's posts...Hello? Grow up)

YOUR SO BORING

Instead of acting like a child and whining about it and making like 4 posts "parodying" SC's "Uday Vs Jason" thread, Grow up, forget about it, and work at trying to get those rep points up. Not gonna happen though. If you or your whining affected me at all, i would give good evidence to my attempts to reason with you in the past and good examples of how childish and self obsessed you are....but i cant be bothered any more. Its like a DJANGO-warp....round and round you go..... Take some of your own advice - "Stay Cool " You dont even know the meaning of it.

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

Yes, I know you won't. That's exactly my point. You continually expressing bewilderment over why you're disliked, but have nothing to say when the question is answered for you.


My ability to see what reputation is being handed out does not give me greater power with which to hand it out myself.


Actually, the bulk of it comes on posts in which you're complaining about something, or insulting/accusing someone. If you were receiving negative reputation simply because you're you, it stands to reason you'd have more negative marks from posts that had nothing objectionable in them...but you don't.


If race were the issue, how do you explain the excellent reputations of Cait (part Native America) and r66 (part Mexican, if memory serves)? And if the issue were political, why do some of the forum's most rabid liberals possess similarly positive reputations?


You do not have 335 hate-filled messages directed towards you. Most regular users can give or take more than just 1 point of reputation with each approval/disapproval. In reality, you're looking at maybe a fourth of that, at most.

Anyway, if you'd like, and if no one objects, I could probably throw together a short list of the people who have given you negative reputation. My guess is it's about a dozen different users, some of them repeatedly.

TO BLIBBLOBBLIB:

You're right about all this being boring as hell! I don't know why I let myself get dragged into it! I wish I could just ignore people like you when they voice irrational and juvenile hostility towards me for no particular reason. I guess I just have a lot to learn!