at the risk of being redundant, he is a self-serving egotist...and homely too :twisted: ...okay, that was mean-spirited...i don't per se mind him mentioning other sites, but they are all for his bogus claims of 'freedom of speech'...unfortunately, as frey knows, my dark secret is that i...er...visit rotten.com.... :oops: so i guess i can't really object to the gross out factor...on the other hand, i don't direct people on the board to my less savory haunts and try to gussy it up with high-sounding principles...

i guess fatguy is just one of those thorns to bear, like bonnee...when he pisses you off enough just go for a temporary ban, and tell him why

Okay well I'm glad you mentioned the bogus claim of Freedom of Speech. Because that is exactly why I'm so angry. It's not exactly "False advertising" but it's certainly a bait and switch. He claims it's a place for free discussion, et al. But you visit it and it's an absolute cesspool of everything vulgar. I sometimes wonder if Voltaire knew people like Fatguy existed if he'd feel the same way.

It's a very dangerous thing to use Freedom of Speech as a blanket for things that are truly obscene and have no place on these boards. Hell some of the people posting on his BBS are just a few inches away from being pedophiles and/or back woods militia groups based on their posts.

You may or may not have noticed but you'll never see a LexxLurker post quoting Bonnees posts because frankly I see that name and I move along and read the next post. Guess it's going to have to be that way with Fatguy too.

I'd never ban em, unlike Fatguy I understand the right to freedom of speech and the responsibility to keep it (Again see my friend Voltaire) but I was damn close to closing that post of his after I visited his site.

Sorry for ranting, thanks for the input, it's VERY much appreciated! :D

8) no problem; ranting here defuses some of the tensions on the board i think...nice to know others are equally annoyed by those two....

I think were all in agreement that Fatguy is annoying and further more; has the mentality of a teenager who's disgruntled with the world. Are we even sure that he isn't actually a teenager?!

I'm hesitant to join the lynch mob, because I think I did it too fast with Bonnee almost a year ago. After reading God Emporer of Dune I realized that "predators" are required for evolution, or in this case, keeping the sadboard moving and exciting. But at least Bonnee, toward the end, would argue something halfway intelligent. Or at the very least copy and paste some philosophers entire doctoral thesis to try to argue his point ;). With that said, I now pick up a torch and pitchfork and start shouting "dead thing pie!"

I think we compromised too quickly with him the last time over his scat fetish. Specifically our new policy toward posting links to controversial material. Personally I think making a post that says:
"Hey WXYZ! Click here!"
and the link goes to a page with a giant "Screw You" or someone's ass, is the same thing as actually posting it on the board. One could argue that by allowing that link we are condoning the material that its linked too.

We reprimand the other people (ex: promoters/one time posters) who effectively post an ad on the board for their event or product. Why are we treating his shame<s>less</s>full plug any different?

I would just ignore the prat. But I keep getting these emails with his posts so its kinda hard to ignore. One of these days (read: 5 weeks till finals) I'll come home stressed and impatient, read one of his 14 year old'ish insulta and head straight to the administration panel for a ban. But until that time, there are other actions we can take. Have we tried contacting him through PM to tell him to grow up? Better yet, whatever happened to our idea of placing a picture under the users info to alert the other users of his troll status?

This free speech thing is a touchy subject. Even closing his topic can be construed as a violation of those rights. I too, considered just closing that advertisement. I somewhat feel that considering his ideals, any action we take is a problem to him, therefore "in for a penny in for a pound". I already have a free speech argument set up for the troll image :twisted:

As for the porno on his site: we can't really say anything considering the vast selection in our own downloads section. ;)

I feel guilty over writing this, what with Fatguy being one of my oldest virtual sci-fi acquaintances, but...

Fatguy, Fatguy, Fatguy ... he is so self-obsessed, creepy, obnoxious and in-your-face. Sometimes he's also entertaining and interesting (or at lest he spurs on interesting discussion).

Some of the ideas being fortressoffreedom.com are grand ones, but his attitude undermines it.

I like much of his site, and don't have much of a problem with his forums. In terms of nude "pornography" there's very little of it. Too little IMHO (joking). ;)

His stated porn links are jokes. There is some good stuff/discussion at the site. Note Sue, for instance. My Shadow has really put him in his place quite a few times.

His morbidity disturbs me, as does his expressed self-rightousnesss and feelings of self-importance. I have afeeling he'll give up on his site, it hasn't done as well as he sometimes claims, and that must be extremely frustrating for him. His immaturity and vulgarity makes it look like a joke. His heavy-handedness, and ridiculously expressed high-mindedness "the site that will save the world" keeps people away, as does his patronising tone.

It's just difficult to take him or his site seriously. Whatever... I do hope it does well, but it will require some changes in him for that too happen. At best it might become a popular site for trolls, and then he will be forced to moderate his board which will be quite the embarassment as it goes aginast his stated principles. He's already contradicted himself several times at the site, especially regarding his long list of rules which ... hmm, seems he's modified them a bit. They're fair enough (in a way, I like the one about only taking him to court in Ontario ;))...

http://fortressoffreedom.com/Legal

He can be quite the hypocrite, and I'm not even sure if he realises how much he contradicts himself.

I feel guilty because it was my Prisoner forum that brought him out of lurking (I had had no contact with him for ages, and was surprised to see him). He has made a worthwhile contribution there, but sometimes he really disturbed me. I've had to chastise him several times by PM and email. One thing that upset me was that even though we are old 'friends" I knew he was testing me as a new moderator; pushing me by PM, trying to manipulate me, and trying to trip me up, trying, unsuccessfully to take me into his confidence so he could extract information. I won't give any specific examples because that would be a betrayal of trust, and anything told to me in confidence (PM or email or in this forum) I will not divulge (unless criminal).

Like Bonnee who has tried similar tactics with me, his loyalty and 'friendship' cannot be trusted. He'll turn on anyone when it suits him.

Sorry, just getting some things off my chest. What's really important is whether Fatguy puts Sad members off the site. I've received a few complaints regarding Fatguy by Prisoner posters, and I've had to rebuke him for his actions several times. He's very high-maintenance. On the other hand, his participation has also enhanced the forum. And there are many people I know who really like Fatguy; he was the guy at lexx.com voted the one most people will listen to, or something.

I wish he would stop promoting his site; one can always effectively do it by having it in your signature anyway while posting on other topics.

So, ultimately I like Fatguy, but he really gets to me at times. He is so obnoxiously in-your-face. I really don't want to see him gone, he has stimulated discussion here in the past although I often haven't liked his tactics one bit, but at least he got people posting and expressing their ideas (a stimulating discussion is often controversial).

I've decided to make Fatguy the moderator of a new SadBOARD forum, "Stick it up yer Arse". I'm sure you'll agree that he's the obvious choice ;)

Tee hee, yes ok, there was never any doubt that the fatdude was ever going to be that well thought of. Nevertheless, I find him as much fun as Bonnee and whenever he pisses me off I just have a mild pop at him in a vain hope of shutting him up (never worked though).

I'm with FX on this, Fatguy is one of those members who I/we just love to disagree with and who regularly gets close to 'the line' without often stepping over it.

Personally I feel that he is over-enthusiastic about crappy subjects (and ones which have been dealt with well in other places), but I just godda put up with him. I guess FG is dying to offend someone in a meaningful way, one that's constructive and one which opens up useful debate - wadda plonker!

Thanks for the input guys!

Headge, I got nothing against porn! :P To each their own. What I do have something against is clicking on his link and the first thing I see when I exit his post is a thread entitled:

Do you like Jailbait?

Granted I did not click on the link, but I'd be willing to bet it has something to do with what we all know the term means. And that does bother me.

Shit like that should not be linked through here, PERIOD in my opinion. I feel there's a responsibility laid upon us when you allow people to link things through a website. It attaches you to the subject matter wether you approve of it or not by giving people carte blanche to post their websites. And the last thing I ever want to see is an old time poster saying:

"Okay this is getting out of hand, goodbye all!"

I doubt anyone is that easily offended, but I'd rather not wait and find out. Sure people can choose NOT to click on the link. But what he advertised was a place for free discussion and free speech. I get spam in my email that is less vague than that. Hypothetically (while I doubt it highly) we could have young kids visiting these boards, and we've just provided them a portal we would never intentionally send them through. But this is getting increasingly hypothetical and it's not likely to happen, just something I do worry about in the back of my head.

I agree with you *entirely* about Fatguy being a necessity in society. Without morons on the far right and far left, generic people like myself would never come to appreciate their freedoms and more importantly analyze them. Without people challenging even the most basic established rules, you don't come to understand why they exist. But this is a long topic for later, and requires mass quantities of alcohol. :twisted:

As I said though, Im just washing my hands of the Fatguy situation. It's obvious he's getting to me a bit more than he should, so I'll take a step back and breath.

Thanks again guys. :)

He is a wanker and I think perhaps he need to be told that the incessant promoting his site must come to an end. It has nothing to do with scifi cult fiction and he should peddle it on some of the gun-nut, republic of texas, and snuff stuff r us sites.

And no, I do not think the occasional off hand inclusion of sentence like 'he stared down to earth from his porta potty' are scifi cult fiction tie ins.