Oooooh, ooooh, oooooh!! Trolls got a regular poster to quit! They win! What a victory! It’s like VE day but even better!!
Do you all idjits realize how insignificant all of this is? Paul quits posting cause he’s tired of it. Ok. And the importance of this is?
That’s right, nothing.
It’s like the 4 year old that won the art contest. Good for him but I don’t think it’s going to affect the status of the universe.
NahanniJuly 28, 2006
Paul is just poster child #769784365 for the fact that Liberalism is a mental disorder.
I do have to thank people like Paul, though. People of his ilk are making it quite evident to everyone just how deranged and unhinged the left in this country is today.
I have (or had) two really liberal co workers. One a bit more rational then the other. The more rational one is just a regular guy from New Jersey who has been a Democrat all his life, the other is a beret wearing old hippy moonbat. The moonbat one is fiery in his beliefs but is truly a gentle soul and a sweet, funny and intelligent person when not discussing politics. The guy also knows alot about gardening and Roses in particular.
The Jersey guy started coming around about six weeks ago. I don’t know what it was that caused his “road to Damascus” moment. Now he is making a gradual turn to the right. I did tell him that it was ok because I did so about 6 years ago and felt awfully strange about it for a year but afterwards I felt much better. Better because I no longer had to pretend that I believed in and supported the crap coming out of the Democrats/MSM/LLL’s in order to “keep the faith” when I knew in my heart it was a load of BS.
My most liberal coworker who once would quote me stuff from places like Truthout, Alternet, DU, Kos et. al. like they came straight from G_d made a very startling comment to me the other night. He said “I hate to admit it but you were right when you told me that the people who run and post on those websites are mentally disturbed. They are truly getting scary!”. I told him that if he thinks they are scary in their own “fever swamps” you should see their posts on websites of people who disagree with them. I can hear the ice cracking on the boy. I know that he will never even get to center ground in his beliefs, but I am going to guess that the fire is out for him. I get the feeling from him that he feels very betrayed and lied to.
I may have missed it, but didn’t SluBlog ask Paul if he modified any posts on this thread to change what people were saying?
Deleteing and inserting a reason for daid deleting is well with any blog owner’s rights, but not putting words into mouths of commenters.
Has this actually happened?
D-HoggsJuly 28, 2006
I am not sure about putting words into the mouths of commenters. But he is most definitely deleting comments, and without a reason other than his own ego. Earlier, I posted and Paul responsed:
>Paul, how does posting comments equate to being a READER of a blog? I have been a reader of this blog for several years, but have posted few comments, compared to others that is. The amount of comments you post has nothing to do with whether you read a blog or not.
EXCELLENT question
We are to belive that he is a long time reader who never posted here but suddenly feels the need to post 4 times in an hour.(or so)
Yet he’s also on Ace’s blog ragging me at the same time. (no trollish behavior there)
If you want to belive the story at face value feel free.
But I have some swamp land to sell you if you do.
Posted by: Paul at July 28, 2006 10:48 AM
I commented back that Paul had not answered my question at all. That because someone only comments 4 times on a site is certainly not proof that said person is not a reader of the blog. I asked again, how does posting comments equate with being a regular READER of a blog? There is no correlation there, there are plenty of persons who read blogs every day and never comment on them. As I said, I have been reading this site for I think 3-4 years now and have only commented a handful of times, in comparison.
Paul threw in one of his usual snarky comments stating that I am ignorant for believing a story at face value. I stated to Paul that I never said the man was or wasn’t a regular reader, just that Paul’s logic equating commenting and reading was wrong, and that Paul should know about believing stories at face value given that he took GG’s “it wasn’t me” defense as an alibi. I guess thats where Paul got upset and deleted all of this. Typical.
My posts did not sound “insane,” except to the few bootlickers Paul has left.
The first post he deleted said, “Actually, I’ve been too stingy in giving Patterico his props for putting together the ultimate presentation of the evidence in a single coherent narrative, rather than being spread over several posts. Further, he cleaned up the timeline, something others had tried, and failed, at.”
Yeah. “Unhinged.”
It then went on to say (reconstructing, of course) that, be that as it might, almost all the evidence Patterico lays out had been laid out before. I noted that it was already known — when Paul was still promoting the Magic Boyfriend theory as the most likely scenario — that “Rick Ellensberg” used the same sort of verbal tics as GG, and posted within 9 minutes of each other.
And, of course, the Nail in the Coffin post was expressly mentioned to Paul right here. And of coruse an email was sent about it to Kevin. Etc.
Almost everything in Patterico’s post was known within the first three days of the story — thursday, friday, saturday — when Paul was continuing to maintain that those who disagreed with him were not using “logic.”
This is the substance of the “unhinged” posts Paul deleted. They were not deleted because they were “rants,” they were deleted because they accused him of dishonest face-saving on this matter. And backed it up with “logic.”
TO use a glenn greenwaldism, I love how Paul cut out substantive points from a post leaving only the angry kiss-off to him about previous deletions — “Who. the fuck. do you think. you are?” — deliberately misleading people into believing that represented the substance of the post, when it did not.
All Paul had to say was this:
“I had trouble buying this because I had difficulty believing someone could so thoughtlessly risk his credibility over so little. And yet, that seems to be the case. I confess I haven’t followed this story very closely, but, upon reading Patterico’s dynamite final summation, I am now convinced that he and ace and the others were right all along.”
Geeze– was THAT so hard?
Instead, we get yet anothr bullshit bit of face-saving and baiting from Paul — “I was actually right when I said you were wrong even though, you know, it looks like I was wrong” — and yet more insults.
someoneJuly 28, 2006
“Deleteing and inserting a reason for daid deleting is well with any blog owner’s rights, but not putting words into mouths of commenters.
Has this actually happened?”
Yes — Jack M.’s comments have been tampered with.
Anyway, Paul’s departure is taking longer than Boromir’s death scene (movie version)…
The bad language, by the way, only began after Paul deleted my posts. Before that, I was clean-mouthed, though I did make note of his egotism and insecurity and dishonesty.
Patterico’s post explained what we know. My posts here explained WHEN WE KNEW IT, for Paul’s edification, as he seems to be under the misimpression that all of this evidence just popped up yesterday.
Despite my writing longish posts explaining when this evidence was known, Paul did not even do me the service of copying and pasting the posts into a .txt doc and saying, “I’m deleting these, but here they are, if you’d like to put them on your site.”
Someone asked me by email why I was writing over here at all, breaking my Rule Zero, “Never comment on anyone else’s site.” The reason was simple– my blog has been too focused on inter-blog spats lately, and I didn’t want to put up a post about Paul on my own blog. I wanted to respond to Paul here, and leave it at that.
When Paul simply began deleting any post that refuted his claims, I realized this was no longer an option, and any reply to him would have to come on a blog where he couldn’t show off his Blog Muscles and exercise his Mighty Powers of Deletion.
Again, it was a fairly simple matter to say, “I appear to have been wrong; the evidence against Greenwald is far stronger than I realized,” without attempting to AGAIN get into an ego-protecting pissing match about Paul’s actually having been right all along (despite, again, having been wrong).
Christ, there would have been no gloating at all had he said that. I would have just said, “Thanks for seeing the light. Patterico’s summartion is, indeed, a thing of beauty.”
But no. The egotistical “I was right even when I was wrong, and Ace was wrong even when he was right,” and then, of course, the childish tactic of deleting posts that demonstrated his cluelessness about all of this in an effort — he now claims — to protect me from “embarrassment.”
PS: I’m not sure that blog owners have the right to delete comments at all. The power? Yes. The right? Not so much. People are, get this, allowed to disagree with bloggers in their comments; comments aren’t supposed to be just a Hallalujah Chorus of praise for the blogger.
I’ve only deleted the outing of personal information, over the line racist or homophobic screeds, and the like.
But in Paul-land, anyone disagreeing with him is a “troll,” and any post explaining why is in error, and demonstrating bad faith to boot, is “spam.”
millco88July 28, 2006
DHoggs,
I think Paul’s point is that a regular lurker probably doesn’t decide to post 4 times in an hour on the same topic. When you combine that with posting on Ace’s site under, I’m assuming, a similar name, leads to his conclusion.
Whether that’s correct or not is a bit different than claiming the question hadn’t been answered. It’s been answered; it’s just a conclusion with which you disagree.
Atreus AmishJuly 28, 2006
So your quitting Paul?
Think you can just stir some shit up and then just walk away, is that it?
Fraid not Paul. Fraid Not.
We representatives of the Proud Ace of Spades Lifestyle arent going to be satisfied utill Ace either butchers your parents and feeds them to you as a delicious Tex-Mex Chili…or you make a full apology.
I certainly remember jr. high school. It was a lot like this, and then as now, all I could do was be amazed at the pettiness of it all. Well, and now I can be sure not to read Ace’s blogging again, and to avoid any of Paul’s posts that start to go off in unhealthy directions. But other than that, just like jr. high school.
mantisJuly 28, 2006
Ace’s spaz patrol, attack!
InquiringJuly 28, 2006
Ace:
Bootlicker, huh? So anyone who happens to think you sound insane because of your multipage ranting about Paul being utterly wrong and how egotistical he is while you claim you are going to Frisch him must be a bootlicker? Jesus, do you know who you sound like right now? Here’s a hint, the guy who’s sock puppeting started this whole thing.
Seriously, mind the plank in thy own eye, buddy. Talk about fuckin’ ego.
You are so damn upset that he decided not to put up with your pearls of wisdom and grace as you posted multiple pages worth of text on comments all about how you are right and he knows nothing. Then as he deleted these, because, frankly, you can post them on your own damn blog, you started doing what again? Oh yeah, threatening to make him your next Greenwald and saying you were going to make him an internet verb ala Frisch, among other insults about his intellectual ability. (Don’t try to deny it, I saw those posts before Paul got to them; for me the low insinuation –intended or not– that Paul was somehow akin to Frisch was it, Ace=insane.true)
But nooo, you were entirely reasonable. He was the one out of line for deleting your comments then telling you he was not going to put up for that crap on his post’s comment section. How dare he! Does he not know the mighty Ace is wanting to berate him over and over and over and over and over again?! What else could you do but try to post another ten fucking times getting more and more hostile which each iteration?! Doesn’t Paul know that as you became angrier and more obsessive sounding he should have just let your harangues stand?! Again, how dare he!
Jesus Christ, dude, you are the last person who can go around throwing the intellectual dishonesty and egotistical claim with this issue. Own up –as in really own up, not the cop out, “yeah, I started cursing and getting upset” bullshit– to the fact you started to step way out of line considering what Paul actually did and then maybe you can start to claim the high ground again.
Trying to sound reasonable after the fact does not make you magically sound reasonable in the past.
Of course, you really do not need to worry about that, do you? I mean, besides me and a few other people who got to see it in all its glory before it was lost to the aether there is no evidence of just how far you actually went.
D-HoggsJuly 28, 2006
millco88, how exactly did my question get answered? ONCE AGAIN, I asked, how do you equate number of comments with being a regular reader? It is not possible. Besides my own practices of commenting, several other people earlier wrote that they are also regular readers and don’t comment. I also said earlier that I could care less about the commenter posting 4 times, I am not trying to defend him, I am simply trying to call out Paul’s “logic” that there is no way the guy us a regular reader since he only posted 4 times. Couple that with the fact that Paul tried to call me ignorant for believing a story on its face, when all I was doing was pointing out that his conclusion was wrong. For the record, I do not disagree with your conclusion, but it is just that, YOUR conclusion, not at all what Paul was saying.
Is it too much to ask that everyone get a grip here? It’s a minor point of disagreement on what constitutes proof of Greenwald’s sockpuppetry. A few technical points were in dispute. The amount of absolute rancid anger displayed is WAY out of proportion to the question in dispute.
Save that kind of anger for someone who deserves it, like Kim Jong-Il.
millco88, in case you missed it the first time, this is what Paul said,
>>”And you ain’t a long time read of this blog.”
>yes I am. you just deleted the proof.
WHAT?
There are 139,457 comments in the Wizbang! database.
Of those 139,457 comments you have made 4.
All on this thread.
Welcome to Wizbang!
Posted by: Paul at July 28, 2006 09:22 AM
It is there for you to plainly see, he specifically says that since the guy only posted 4 times he cannot be a long time reader. He even throws in the “welcome” line. That is what I was commenting on, nothing more. Paul’s conclusion is wrong, commenting does not correlate to reading, period.
Jack M.July 28, 2006
For what’s it’s worth, I posted twice in an hour.
I only intended to post once, but paul deleted the first one. I am unsure as to why he deleted it but left the post from Brian at 12:37 as my initial post said the same thing (in essence). Basically, it said that Paul would not be missed.
The second post was put up after the first was deleted. It stated my opinion that Wizbang! would be a better blog in Paul’s absence. This post was changed into the “trolly troll troll” comment that you see now. Assuming that Paul made the change, he did not make any reference to his having done so, thereby giving the impression I said things I did not.
I copy and pasted my original comments to Ace’s site, as people had stated that their comments were being deleted/changed, and I wanted a record of what I had posted in case mine were changed in a malicious manner.
And while I haven’t posted here much, I did in fact place second in a wizbang caption contest over 2 years ago. I’m sure that if Paul would like to search the archives he will find a reference to this, which backs up the claim that I have been a long time reader.
Just wanted to set the record straight. I can’t wait to see who takes Paul’s place!
jpm100July 28, 2006
From what I can tell, this started because Patterico made a clear case out of the same evidence to Paul. Paul said ‘oh, I understand now.’ and Ace couldn’t let that be.
I know at least one person with an ego problem.
LauraJuly 28, 2006
If Kevin replaces him, and that’s a big if, it would be a vast improvement.
SlublogJuly 28, 2006
Yes, Paul admitted it, after taking the time to insult his rivals again and engage in a bit of preening.
Why he could not simply bring himself to say “after examining the evidence, it seems those people I spent time mocking were right,” is curious.
ArthurJuly 28, 2006
Congratulations Ace and Paul. You both come out looking unhinged. Paul quits. Ace’s website is off the air (coincidence?). Greenwald is probably laughing his ass off on how his sockpuppets led to your mutual immolations.
john(lesser)July 28, 2006
Bye Paul. Your indignation was amusing, but your hypocricy was truly amazing.
With your history, this is probably another “joke”. Please this time don’t give us the punchline, it will only get better the longer you hold out. Preferably forever.
millco88July 28, 2006
DHoggs,
I think you can combine the 4 posts within an hour with the supposed posting on Ace’s site as supporting Paul’s position. I’m not interested enough to verify that, but putting those two together certainly makes Paul’s conclusion rational. It doesn’t mean it’s correct, but it is an answer to your question.
Personally, I find this whole episode fascinating because, to me, it illustrates why the so-called extremists in both parties (or ideologies) get so much attention.
Strange, it looks like my last comment didn’t get through… here it is again:
I see where Paul replaced Jack’s comment, calling him a troll. This is not what I am talking about. I would have made the fact that I edited the comment more clear, but that’s just me. The original question seemed to ask if Paul has edited comments to make the commenter look foolish like changing “I like ace” to “I hate ace”.
Did that happen? If so, it would be way (way) over the top
D-HoggsJuly 28, 2006
millco88, Once again, Paul blatantly says that comments corelate to reading. Plain and simple. I could care less about the 4 posts. Comments DO NOT CORELATE to reading. Why is this so hard to understand? Further, if you don’t care enough to verify something, don’t get involved in the first place.
scottyJuly 28, 2006
Paul,
Go back in time. It is 11:00 PM yesterday. You write a post that shows that you are trying to be reasonable about this GG thing and that you are not entrenched in your previous opinion. No, you are a willing to be persuaded by cogent argument. Little did you know that this post was going to have the opposite effect on those to whom your post was referring. Then, you stay up all night in back-and-forth debate. Things get very much out of hand. Now you realize that it is not fun and have decided to quit. May I suggest that the lack of sleep, the intense emotions, the things that were too harsh but were said anyway have all come together in a perfect maelstrom but it is not real. Do not give into the sleep deprived thoughts of quitting. Your fans want you to stay and stay you should. Get some sleep yes, take a break if you must. But don’t quit. Not on this matter.
Sincerely,
Scotty
millco88July 28, 2006
DHoggs,
You’re the one asking for an answer to a question when you’ve already received one. Paul’s position seemingly is that a “regular reader” wouldn’t post 4 times in an hour while simultaneously posting similar comments on Ace’s site. You can agree or disagree with that approach, but I’d say it’s a pretty rational position. Like I said before, just because you don’t like an answer doesn’t mean you haven’t been given one.
I think it’s a pretty safe statement that regular readers, on average, would post more than 4 times on a site, especially if those 4 posts occurred within one hour on a somewhat trivial matter, at least as far as the entire website is concerned. Perhaps the correlation isn’t 100% between reading and posting, but I think it’s fair to say it’s a positive correlation, which seemed to be Paul’s point.
If you can’t see that, then you’re just looking for an argument when there really isn’t one.
Laughing at youJuly 28, 2006
What astounds and disgusts me is the extreme mindless cursing and shouting going on (never mind the unbelievable *threatening*!). I can’t respect anyone, on any side of an argument, who has to resort to that kind of kindergarten playground nonsense.
I left PoliPundit months ago when I saw nutjobs take it over, resorting to horrific namecalling – and targeting people on their “side of the aisle.” I sure hope the lunatics aren’t going to take over Wizbang as well.
You know, it’s sure hard to think you can trust people when you discover that they turn rabidly on you upon any disagreement.
And now Ace seems to have quit as well. Either that or he’s experiencing a DDos attack.
Peronally, I thought that very early on, Paul was right to question the story about Greenwald. However, once Ace came up with the additional info including the sock puppet who posted something hours before Greenwald himself put the same info on his own blog — that changed my mind. I think it probably should have changed Paul’s too. Maybe it did, I don’t know. Anyway, Ace is right that most of the info was there days ago.
Shaun may have started this story, but I think Ace did the bulk of the work on it. It really bugged him that Wizbang didn’t seem to be giving him any credit both for his work and for, ultimately, being right about it, especially after questioning him so publically early on. So coming around and thanking Patterico for making the case was a bit of a dis, no doubt about it.
That said, Ace really got WAY TOO worked up about it, not just here but at another blog as well. In his calmer moments, he apologized for getting apoplectic, but then he’d start up again. Some of what he wrote is definitely taunting and juvenile. It’s not hard to understand why Paul would feel like deleting a few of those comments. No one likes to be treated like a guest in their own backyard.
Ace didn’t get the credit he deserved. It sucks, but that’s life. Does Jack Bauer ever get credit for stopping the nuke attack or the bio-terror? No, but he keeps going. That’s what makes him a hero to the audience. Similarly, Ace needs to have a little more faith in his audience. Personally, I’ve read and enjoyed Wizbang (and Paul) for some time, but this story is the first time I started reading Ace’s blog every day. And it’s great. I appreciated his work on this story and his humor. I think lots of people have. That should be enough, shouldn’t it?
The irony in all this is that it started out as a snide story about Glenn Greenwald’s ego, but now it seems to have become a story about the egos of conservative bloggers. That’s a shame. I like both of these guys but I think we can all agree this whole blog battle has brought out the worst in both of them. It’d be a real shame if that battle caused readers to lose out on the best in both of them.
Kiss and make up fellahs…metaphorically speaking of course. This ain’t Brazil.
someoneJuly 28, 2006
Actually, Inquiring, it’s your multi-page rants that make one wonder…
John, you said:
“Some of what he wrote is definitely taunting and juvenile. It’s not hard to understand why Paul would feel like deleting a few of those comments.”
Except Paul deleted the straight argument and left the taunts up. Pretty clearly less self-protection than editing his opponent to look as bad as possible.
Mac LorryJuly 28, 2006
Ace,
Paul said in his Beyond a Reasonable Doubt piece this morning that “Patrick took the time to make the case in a way that I now believe to be beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In the posts Paul deleted you attacked both Paul’s intelligence and his integrity. Here’s what you said in your July 28, 2006 04:28 AM post:
Your readers should know you have a rather long lag time on comprehending fairly simple information, and your ego will prevent you from honestly evaluating evidence.
However, once your brain started waking up, you said in your July 28, 2006 04:40 AM post that:
While Patterico’s presentation is wonderful, he only introduces two smaller pieces of evidence.
Followed by this statement in your July 28, 2006 04:43 AM post:
My characterization of Patterico’s work was far too stingy. He did in fact clean up the timeline, which was a bitch with time zone differences, and collected that all into one central narrative, and his presentation was impeccable.
By your third post you finally admitted the point Paul started out with, which was that “Patrick took the time to make the case…” You never grasped the fact that there’s a fundamental distinction between the evidence being available and making a coherent case based on that evidence. It’s the same distinction as between police work and prosecution. Unrestrained by either reason or good character you continued your personal attack on Paul in your July 28, 2006 05:38 AM post:
So don’t play this bullshit game of “If only I had been informed of all the evidence.”
You were informed, Paul. You were just being a dick. Or just being stupid.
Thinking these posts were deleted, now your’re trying to revise what you said. In your post on this thread you say this:
The bad language, by the way, only began after Paul deleted my posts. Before that, I was clean-mouthed, though I did make note of his egotism and insecurity and dishonesty.
I call that bullshit, and yes it’s bad languge. You were impugning another’s persons character and using “bad language” in the process. Paul doesn’t suffer fools lightly, so your posts got deleted, but only for a while.
Looks like you and your bootlickers have been made fools of, Ace.
Great work Paul and Kevin. It reminds me of the great April fools joke you pulled on 2005.
“Your participation – whether you agree or disagree with us – is welcomed and valued. We work hard to keep the comment section free from registration requirements, but it is possible that in the future circumstances will dictate a change in policy.
As a general rule comments and trackbacks will not be deleted. As with any general rule there are exceptions. Comments that will ALWAYS be deleted or modified include:
Comments which violate others copyrights
Comments that contain personal information about others such as addresses and phone numbers.
Comments containing too many external hyperlinks
Comments that are completely off topic
Comments that fail to observe special rules for commenting to that particular post. Failure to observe those published rules (often for contests) will most likely result in your comment being deleted.”
Therefore, no one’s comments should be deleted simply because the commenter disagrees with the host whether it’s Kevin, Lorie, Kim, Jay or Paul. Wizbang doesn’t even specify that off color language is reason enough for a comment to be deleted.
I have read comments on this post and the one Paul links to above, unfortunately I don’t know if they contain all of the comments or only a select few since it is obvious that Paul deletes comments.
From what I can tell, Paul deleted comments from Ace because he didn’t agree with Ace (for example, Ace’s comment at 4:40am in the “beyond a reasonable doubt” post). After his comments were deleted Ace became belligerent particularly when Paul claimed Ace’s comments were spam. They may not have been entirely cordial, but they weren’t spam, either. Again, not being cordial is not a reason for a comment to be deleted according to Wizbang’s rules.
Ace, for his part, shouldn’t use derogatory language when trying to make a point (like calling someone the “c” word when commenting on other’s blogs), it just makes him sound crazy like some of the nutcases on DU and Kos. And no one takes a crazy person seriously.
Granted I’d be pretty peeved if Paul had engaged me in a conversation by linking to one of my blog posts, saying I was wrong then later agreeing with what I said only after someone else framed the discussion and then not allowing me to participate in the discussion — it’s like mocking someone but not letting them defend themselves.
Ace is at fault for not keeping his cool, Paul is at fault for being thin skinned and for provoking a commenter by deleting his comments without cause.
Both need to take the rest of the summer off to get a little perspective back in their lives. Neither blogger, in the whole grand scheme of things, will make that much difference in this world. It’s not like they’re doctors who save people’s lives. They’re simply fiddling with a hobby and have taken themselves far too seriously.
Paul, I am not a first time visitor, and I hope you don’t disregard my comment because I’ve never commented on one of your posts before. I’ve read Lorie Byrd here and at Polipundit.
I’m not an Ace troll – just a regular blogger who’s realizing that the right side of the blogoshpere is getting about as crazy as the left-side.
Sensible Mom, the one paragraph you omitted is important:
Each individual author is responsible for monitoring the comments to their posts, and ultimately determines which comments merit deletion. All Wizbang authors are briefed on the site policy, but given some degree of latitude to police their own comment sections. Complaints about a particular author can be addressed to the editor.
We have a very busy comment section, and have lost some regulars because certain posters are allowed wide lattitudes. I’m sure it all looks very cut an dried to you, but I assure you it is not.
Sorry I missed that part. I should have included it in my comment.
I know it’s hard to monitor comments and weed out unwarranted nastiness, and I understand that bloggers have different threshholds, but as an impartial observer (I don’t have a vested interest in either Ace’s or Paul’s versions), it seemed like Paul deleted posts to suit his interests. I don’t know if that’s how he usually operates since I prefer to read Lorie’s and Kim’s posts.
But if your overall policy is to welcome input, it’s obvious that that didn’t happen. Instead a commenter appeared to have comments unfairly deleted. That commenter wrongly went off the deep end and then others piled on creating what appears to be a 6th grade girl cat fight.
Terry JayJuly 28, 2006
Paul has done a terrific job on such topics as Katrina and New Orleans. Ace isn’t even interested in these areas, too little room for salacious word play (Strunk and White’s Elements of Bat Shit Crazy).
Hope Kevin can convince Paul to take a few days off and then continue in his areas of expertise.
PaulJuly 28, 2006
Sensible Mom (and others…)
I was done some time ago but since I do believe that you are not a troll I’ll add one more thing:
You should take special notice of one thing. Ace made 5 posts in about an hour and a half. Each one increasingly more insulting and obnoxious. (see Mac’s post) -Mind you Ace was working himself in a lather, nobody was responding, I was asleep.
The important thing to notice is that I DID NOT delete all 5 posts, I only deleted the last 4 where he was rambled all over the place. — I VERY VERY VERY secifically left the first post and took the core point he was making [that the evidence was there a week ago] and I addressed it. – And blew it out the park.
I did not stiffle debate, I deleted rambling crap. I could have deleted all 5, I didn’t. I kept the “debate” and nuked the trash.
If you read the thread -and the time stamps- I sat there for an hour asking Ace to take a breath and discuss it. He refused, instead calling me every name in the book.
Lastly I have to wonder about your presumed value system.
A blogger can go nuts in a comment thread, cursing another blogger then resorting to threats and your biggest problem is that those comments got deleted?
Thanks for your input. I’m not sure if you’re directing the value system comment specifically to me or not.
If so, you might have overlooked the fact that I said it’s inappropriate to go to someone else’s blog and call them off color names like Ace did with the “c” word. I find it repulsive, and I delete comments on my blog with that type of language. I think I also said Ace sounded crazy and belligerent – not ringing support.
But I also had a problem with comments being deleted (before the “c” word was unleashed) and called spam that clearly were not.
If you reread my comment you’ll see that I’m critical of both of you. You may think that’s unfair and that’s your right. It was just an observation from an objective party.
I stopped blogging this summer to spend time with my kids and have only posted a few times snice then when the kids were otherwise occupied. For some reason this blog war and the Debbie Frisch (sp?) attack on Jeff Goldstein caught my attention, and I’ve been reading about both stories at many different bloggers’ sites.
Ever since the Ben Domenech plagiarism scandal things seem to be spiraling downward in the blogoshere. The Polipundit crew split up, Kos and Armstrong made fools of themselves (not hard, I know, but still), the sock puppetry of Glenn Greenwald and now this blog war between you and Ace.
Maybe it’s just part of the blogosphere evolving where flame wars drive readers away from the mid-level blogs and the blogs like Powerline that stay above the fray continue to thrive. I don’t know. It’s unfortunate, though, because it seemed like we were above that. I think it diminishes the credibility of all blogs when we fight like a bunch of warring family members who scream louder and louder and then refuse to visit one another anymore.
I will say that taking a break has been great. Coming back to follow these stories only reminds me that there’s more to life than blogging.
Good luck, Paul. You seem like a nice guy (actually Ace does, too, when he’s not so frothy) that is stuck in a bad moment. A few days away will make all the difference.
Tom MJuly 28, 2006
Although I have a history of commenting here, and still read it often, I don’t consider myself much of a regular. I am no troll, however. Earlier, mllco88 wrote this:
“I think Paul’s point is that a regular lurker probably doesn’t decide to post 4 times in an hour on the same topic. When you combine that with posting on Ace’s site under, I’m assuming, a similar name, leads to his conclusion.”
Posted by: millco88 at July 28, 2006 03:38 PM
I agree with this, but ironically it goes to the heart of the dust-up. Paul seemed to feel that the likely scenario cannot be construed as the definite scenario, with the evidence at hand. He has abandoned position that here and reached a conclusion based on eevidence more circumstantial.
This is what gets me about this whole imbroglio. We make conclusions. We make suggestions. We make jokes, usually based on evidence at hand. All of us do that.
PaulJuly 28, 2006
fair enough SM good night.
ClusterChuckJuly 28, 2006
FWIW… I’ve read the Instapundit blog quite regularly, but I’ve never actually left a “comment” there…
I don’t think I’ve left a comment at *this* blog in over a year.
Well, now that Kevin has so graciously returned the evidence to be evaluated (see the thread where the posts were deleted from, “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt”)–
You tell me. Spam, or, as I said, informing Paul, as he already knew and dishonestly pretended not to know, that almost all of Patterico’s evidence was previously reported? (Including by, I should note, Patterico himself.)
Seems to me I it was the latter.
And it was embarrassing to Paul, not to me.
I was annoyed in the first posts. I was incensed when this dishonest coward deleted posts contradicting him and noting his dishonesty and cowardice.
And intellectual insecurity. Because someone’s who’s intellectually secure can just admit, “I was wrong.” Someone who’s not can’t — ever.
And so we can now see the “unhinged” “spam” posts.
They read neither “unhinged” nor “spam” to me.
But to Paul, anyone who dares to disagree with him is a “troll,” and any post that contradicts him is “spam.”
To make sure this post doesn’t now get deleted, let me add: You’re the greatest, Paul! I read you all the time! You were so righty-right in this whole dispute I doubt very much you could have been more right in your rightitude!
THAT is the sort of sentiment Paul does not consider “spam.”
millco88July 29, 2006
Ace/Paul,
Can you guys just let this go?? At this point, I doubt any more explanations from either of you is going to change anyone’s mind, except to make each of you look even more juvenile.
You’re just illustrating what’s so frustrating about comments sections in general, that we don’t even allow the other viewpoint. People do draw different conclusions from the same set of data. It doesn’t mean they’re evil or psychotic; it just means they disagree.
James CloningerJuly 29, 2006
Oh, Jesus Christ, you two…
Get a room, put some sock puppets on your penises, and battle it out there.
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Oooooh, ooooh, oooooh!! Trolls got a regular poster to quit! They win! What a victory! It’s like VE day but even better!!
Do you all idjits realize how insignificant all of this is? Paul quits posting cause he’s tired of it. Ok. And the importance of this is?
That’s right, nothing.
It’s like the 4 year old that won the art contest. Good for him but I don’t think it’s going to affect the status of the universe.
Paul is just poster child #769784365 for the fact that Liberalism is a mental disorder.
I do have to thank people like Paul, though. People of his ilk are making it quite evident to everyone just how deranged and unhinged the left in this country is today.
I have (or had) two really liberal co workers. One a bit more rational then the other. The more rational one is just a regular guy from New Jersey who has been a Democrat all his life, the other is a beret wearing old hippy moonbat. The moonbat one is fiery in his beliefs but is truly a gentle soul and a sweet, funny and intelligent person when not discussing politics. The guy also knows alot about gardening and Roses in particular.
The Jersey guy started coming around about six weeks ago. I don’t know what it was that caused his “road to Damascus” moment. Now he is making a gradual turn to the right. I did tell him that it was ok because I did so about 6 years ago and felt awfully strange about it for a year but afterwards I felt much better. Better because I no longer had to pretend that I believed in and supported the crap coming out of the Democrats/MSM/LLL’s in order to “keep the faith” when I knew in my heart it was a load of BS.
My most liberal coworker who once would quote me stuff from places like Truthout, Alternet, DU, Kos et. al. like they came straight from G_d made a very startling comment to me the other night. He said “I hate to admit it but you were right when you told me that the people who run and post on those websites are mentally disturbed. They are truly getting scary!”. I told him that if he thinks they are scary in their own “fever swamps” you should see their posts on websites of people who disagree with them. I can hear the ice cracking on the boy. I know that he will never even get to center ground in his beliefs, but I am going to guess that the fire is out for him. I get the feeling from him that he feels very betrayed and lied to.
I may have missed it, but didn’t SluBlog ask Paul if he modified any posts on this thread to change what people were saying?
Deleteing and inserting a reason for daid deleting is well with any blog owner’s rights, but not putting words into mouths of commenters.
Has this actually happened?
I am not sure about putting words into the mouths of commenters. But he is most definitely deleting comments, and without a reason other than his own ego. Earlier, I posted and Paul responsed:
>Paul, how does posting comments equate to being a READER of a blog? I have been a reader of this blog for several years, but have posted few comments, compared to others that is. The amount of comments you post has nothing to do with whether you read a blog or not.
EXCELLENT question
We are to belive that he is a long time reader who never posted here but suddenly feels the need to post 4 times in an hour.(or so)
Yet he’s also on Ace’s blog ragging me at the same time. (no trollish behavior there)
If you want to belive the story at face value feel free.
But I have some swamp land to sell you if you do.
Posted by: Paul at July 28, 2006 10:48 AM
I commented back that Paul had not answered my question at all. That because someone only comments 4 times on a site is certainly not proof that said person is not a reader of the blog. I asked again, how does posting comments equate with being a regular READER of a blog? There is no correlation there, there are plenty of persons who read blogs every day and never comment on them. As I said, I have been reading this site for I think 3-4 years now and have only commented a handful of times, in comparison.
Paul threw in one of his usual snarky comments stating that I am ignorant for believing a story at face value. I stated to Paul that I never said the man was or wasn’t a regular reader, just that Paul’s logic equating commenting and reading was wrong, and that Paul should know about believing stories at face value given that he took GG’s “it wasn’t me” defense as an alibi. I guess thats where Paul got upset and deleted all of this. Typical.
My posts did not sound “insane,” except to the few bootlickers Paul has left.
The first post he deleted said, “Actually, I’ve been too stingy in giving Patterico his props for putting together the ultimate presentation of the evidence in a single coherent narrative, rather than being spread over several posts. Further, he cleaned up the timeline, something others had tried, and failed, at.”
Yeah. “Unhinged.”
It then went on to say (reconstructing, of course) that, be that as it might, almost all the evidence Patterico lays out had been laid out before. I noted that it was already known — when Paul was still promoting the Magic Boyfriend theory as the most likely scenario — that “Rick Ellensberg” used the same sort of verbal tics as GG, and posted within 9 minutes of each other.
And, of course, the Nail in the Coffin post was expressly mentioned to Paul right here. And of coruse an email was sent about it to Kevin. Etc.
Almost everything in Patterico’s post was known within the first three days of the story — thursday, friday, saturday — when Paul was continuing to maintain that those who disagreed with him were not using “logic.”
This is the substance of the “unhinged” posts Paul deleted. They were not deleted because they were “rants,” they were deleted because they accused him of dishonest face-saving on this matter. And backed it up with “logic.”
TO use a glenn greenwaldism, I love how Paul cut out substantive points from a post leaving only the angry kiss-off to him about previous deletions — “Who. the fuck. do you think. you are?” — deliberately misleading people into believing that represented the substance of the post, when it did not.
All Paul had to say was this:
“I had trouble buying this because I had difficulty believing someone could so thoughtlessly risk his credibility over so little. And yet, that seems to be the case. I confess I haven’t followed this story very closely, but, upon reading Patterico’s dynamite final summation, I am now convinced that he and ace and the others were right all along.”
Geeze– was THAT so hard?
Instead, we get yet anothr bullshit bit of face-saving and baiting from Paul — “I was actually right when I said you were wrong even though, you know, it looks like I was wrong” — and yet more insults.
“Deleteing and inserting a reason for daid deleting is well with any blog owner’s rights, but not putting words into mouths of commenters.
Has this actually happened?”
Yes — Jack M.’s comments have been tampered with.
Anyway, Paul’s departure is taking longer than Boromir’s death scene (movie version)…
The bad language, by the way, only began after Paul deleted my posts. Before that, I was clean-mouthed, though I did make note of his egotism and insecurity and dishonesty.
Patterico’s post explained what we know. My posts here explained WHEN WE KNEW IT, for Paul’s edification, as he seems to be under the misimpression that all of this evidence just popped up yesterday.
Despite my writing longish posts explaining when this evidence was known, Paul did not even do me the service of copying and pasting the posts into a .txt doc and saying, “I’m deleting these, but here they are, if you’d like to put them on your site.”
Someone asked me by email why I was writing over here at all, breaking my Rule Zero, “Never comment on anyone else’s site.” The reason was simple– my blog has been too focused on inter-blog spats lately, and I didn’t want to put up a post about Paul on my own blog. I wanted to respond to Paul here, and leave it at that.
When Paul simply began deleting any post that refuted his claims, I realized this was no longer an option, and any reply to him would have to come on a blog where he couldn’t show off his Blog Muscles and exercise his Mighty Powers of Deletion.
Again, it was a fairly simple matter to say, “I appear to have been wrong; the evidence against Greenwald is far stronger than I realized,” without attempting to AGAIN get into an ego-protecting pissing match about Paul’s actually having been right all along (despite, again, having been wrong).
Christ, there would have been no gloating at all had he said that. I would have just said, “Thanks for seeing the light. Patterico’s summartion is, indeed, a thing of beauty.”
But no. The egotistical “I was right even when I was wrong, and Ace was wrong even when he was right,” and then, of course, the childish tactic of deleting posts that demonstrated his cluelessness about all of this in an effort — he now claims — to protect me from “embarrassment.”
PS: I’m not sure that blog owners have the right to delete comments at all. The power? Yes. The right? Not so much. People are, get this, allowed to disagree with bloggers in their comments; comments aren’t supposed to be just a Hallalujah Chorus of praise for the blogger.
I’ve only deleted the outing of personal information, over the line racist or homophobic screeds, and the like.
But in Paul-land, anyone disagreeing with him is a “troll,” and any post explaining why is in error, and demonstrating bad faith to boot, is “spam.”
DHoggs,
I think Paul’s point is that a regular lurker probably doesn’t decide to post 4 times in an hour on the same topic. When you combine that with posting on Ace’s site under, I’m assuming, a similar name, leads to his conclusion.
Whether that’s correct or not is a bit different than claiming the question hadn’t been answered. It’s been answered; it’s just a conclusion with which you disagree.
So your quitting Paul?
Think you can just stir some shit up and then just walk away, is that it?
Fraid not Paul. Fraid Not.
We representatives of the Proud Ace of Spades Lifestyle arent going to be satisfied utill Ace either butchers your parents and feeds them to you as a delicious Tex-Mex Chili…or you make a full apology.
Whichever is more painful.
I certainly remember jr. high school. It was a lot like this, and then as now, all I could do was be amazed at the pettiness of it all. Well, and now I can be sure not to read Ace’s blogging again, and to avoid any of Paul’s posts that start to go off in unhealthy directions. But other than that, just like jr. high school.
Ace’s spaz patrol, attack!
Ace:
Bootlicker, huh? So anyone who happens to think you sound insane because of your multipage ranting about Paul being utterly wrong and how egotistical he is while you claim you are going to Frisch him must be a bootlicker? Jesus, do you know who you sound like right now? Here’s a hint, the guy who’s sock puppeting started this whole thing.
Seriously, mind the plank in thy own eye, buddy. Talk about fuckin’ ego.
You are so damn upset that he decided not to put up with your pearls of wisdom and grace as you posted multiple pages worth of text on comments all about how you are right and he knows nothing. Then as he deleted these, because, frankly, you can post them on your own damn blog, you started doing what again? Oh yeah, threatening to make him your next Greenwald and saying you were going to make him an internet verb ala Frisch, among other insults about his intellectual ability. (Don’t try to deny it, I saw those posts before Paul got to them; for me the low insinuation –intended or not– that Paul was somehow akin to Frisch was it, Ace=insane.true)
But nooo, you were entirely reasonable. He was the one out of line for deleting your comments then telling you he was not going to put up for that crap on his post’s comment section. How dare he! Does he not know the mighty Ace is wanting to berate him over and over and over and over and over again?! What else could you do but try to post another ten fucking times getting more and more hostile which each iteration?! Doesn’t Paul know that as you became angrier and more obsessive sounding he should have just let your harangues stand?! Again, how dare he!
Jesus Christ, dude, you are the last person who can go around throwing the intellectual dishonesty and egotistical claim with this issue. Own up –as in really own up, not the cop out, “yeah, I started cursing and getting upset” bullshit– to the fact you started to step way out of line considering what Paul actually did and then maybe you can start to claim the high ground again.
Trying to sound reasonable after the fact does not make you magically sound reasonable in the past.
Of course, you really do not need to worry about that, do you? I mean, besides me and a few other people who got to see it in all its glory before it was lost to the aether there is no evidence of just how far you actually went.
millco88, how exactly did my question get answered? ONCE AGAIN, I asked, how do you equate number of comments with being a regular reader? It is not possible. Besides my own practices of commenting, several other people earlier wrote that they are also regular readers and don’t comment. I also said earlier that I could care less about the commenter posting 4 times, I am not trying to defend him, I am simply trying to call out Paul’s “logic” that there is no way the guy us a regular reader since he only posted 4 times. Couple that with the fact that Paul tried to call me ignorant for believing a story on its face, when all I was doing was pointing out that his conclusion was wrong. For the record, I do not disagree with your conclusion, but it is just that, YOUR conclusion, not at all what Paul was saying.
Is it too much to ask that everyone get a grip here? It’s a minor point of disagreement on what constitutes proof of Greenwald’s sockpuppetry. A few technical points were in dispute. The amount of absolute rancid anger displayed is WAY out of proportion to the question in dispute.
Save that kind of anger for someone who deserves it, like Kim Jong-Il.
Here comes a couple of them now! They’re everywhere!
millco88, in case you missed it the first time, this is what Paul said,
>>”And you ain’t a long time read of this blog.”
>yes I am. you just deleted the proof.
WHAT?
There are 139,457 comments in the Wizbang! database.
Of those 139,457 comments you have made 4.
All on this thread.
Welcome to Wizbang!
Posted by: Paul at July 28, 2006 09:22 AM
It is there for you to plainly see, he specifically says that since the guy only posted 4 times he cannot be a long time reader. He even throws in the “welcome” line. That is what I was commenting on, nothing more. Paul’s conclusion is wrong, commenting does not correlate to reading, period.
For what’s it’s worth, I posted twice in an hour.
I only intended to post once, but paul deleted the first one. I am unsure as to why he deleted it but left the post from Brian at 12:37 as my initial post said the same thing (in essence). Basically, it said that Paul would not be missed.
The second post was put up after the first was deleted. It stated my opinion that Wizbang! would be a better blog in Paul’s absence. This post was changed into the “trolly troll troll” comment that you see now. Assuming that Paul made the change, he did not make any reference to his having done so, thereby giving the impression I said things I did not.
I copy and pasted my original comments to Ace’s site, as people had stated that their comments were being deleted/changed, and I wanted a record of what I had posted in case mine were changed in a malicious manner.
And while I haven’t posted here much, I did in fact place second in a wizbang caption contest over 2 years ago. I’m sure that if Paul would like to search the archives he will find a reference to this, which backs up the claim that I have been a long time reader.
Just wanted to set the record straight. I can’t wait to see who takes Paul’s place!
From what I can tell, this started because Patterico made a clear case out of the same evidence to Paul. Paul said ‘oh, I understand now.’ and Ace couldn’t let that be.
I know at least one person with an ego problem.
If Kevin replaces him, and that’s a big if, it would be a vast improvement.
Yes, Paul admitted it, after taking the time to insult his rivals again and engage in a bit of preening.
Why he could not simply bring himself to say “after examining the evidence, it seems those people I spent time mocking were right,” is curious.
Congratulations Ace and Paul. You both come out looking unhinged. Paul quits. Ace’s website is off the air (coincidence?). Greenwald is probably laughing his ass off on how his sockpuppets led to your mutual immolations.
Bye Paul. Your indignation was amusing, but your hypocricy was truly amazing.
With your history, this is probably another “joke”. Please this time don’t give us the punchline, it will only get better the longer you hold out. Preferably forever.
DHoggs,
I think you can combine the 4 posts within an hour with the supposed posting on Ace’s site as supporting Paul’s position. I’m not interested enough to verify that, but putting those two together certainly makes Paul’s conclusion rational. It doesn’t mean it’s correct, but it is an answer to your question.
Personally, I find this whole episode fascinating because, to me, it illustrates why the so-called extremists in both parties (or ideologies) get so much attention.
Strange, it looks like my last comment didn’t get through… here it is again:
I see where Paul replaced Jack’s comment, calling him a troll. This is not what I am talking about. I would have made the fact that I edited the comment more clear, but that’s just me. The original question seemed to ask if Paul has edited comments to make the commenter look foolish like changing “I like ace” to “I hate ace”.
Did that happen? If so, it would be way (way) over the top
millco88, Once again, Paul blatantly says that comments corelate to reading. Plain and simple. I could care less about the 4 posts. Comments DO NOT CORELATE to reading. Why is this so hard to understand? Further, if you don’t care enough to verify something, don’t get involved in the first place.
Paul,
Go back in time. It is 11:00 PM yesterday. You write a post that shows that you are trying to be reasonable about this GG thing and that you are not entrenched in your previous opinion. No, you are a willing to be persuaded by cogent argument. Little did you know that this post was going to have the opposite effect on those to whom your post was referring. Then, you stay up all night in back-and-forth debate. Things get very much out of hand. Now you realize that it is not fun and have decided to quit. May I suggest that the lack of sleep, the intense emotions, the things that were too harsh but were said anyway have all come together in a perfect maelstrom but it is not real. Do not give into the sleep deprived thoughts of quitting. Your fans want you to stay and stay you should. Get some sleep yes, take a break if you must. But don’t quit. Not on this matter.
Sincerely,
Scotty
DHoggs,
You’re the one asking for an answer to a question when you’ve already received one. Paul’s position seemingly is that a “regular reader” wouldn’t post 4 times in an hour while simultaneously posting similar comments on Ace’s site. You can agree or disagree with that approach, but I’d say it’s a pretty rational position. Like I said before, just because you don’t like an answer doesn’t mean you haven’t been given one.
I think it’s a pretty safe statement that regular readers, on average, would post more than 4 times on a site, especially if those 4 posts occurred within one hour on a somewhat trivial matter, at least as far as the entire website is concerned. Perhaps the correlation isn’t 100% between reading and posting, but I think it’s fair to say it’s a positive correlation, which seemed to be Paul’s point.
If you can’t see that, then you’re just looking for an argument when there really isn’t one.
What astounds and disgusts me is the extreme mindless cursing and shouting going on (never mind the unbelievable *threatening*!). I can’t respect anyone, on any side of an argument, who has to resort to that kind of kindergarten playground nonsense.
I left PoliPundit months ago when I saw nutjobs take it over, resorting to horrific namecalling – and targeting people on their “side of the aisle.” I sure hope the lunatics aren’t going to take over Wizbang as well.
You know, it’s sure hard to think you can trust people when you discover that they turn rabidly on you upon any disagreement.
And now Ace seems to have quit as well. Either that or he’s experiencing a DDos attack.
Peronally, I thought that very early on, Paul was right to question the story about Greenwald. However, once Ace came up with the additional info including the sock puppet who posted something hours before Greenwald himself put the same info on his own blog — that changed my mind. I think it probably should have changed Paul’s too. Maybe it did, I don’t know. Anyway, Ace is right that most of the info was there days ago.
Shaun may have started this story, but I think Ace did the bulk of the work on it. It really bugged him that Wizbang didn’t seem to be giving him any credit both for his work and for, ultimately, being right about it, especially after questioning him so publically early on. So coming around and thanking Patterico for making the case was a bit of a dis, no doubt about it.
That said, Ace really got WAY TOO worked up about it, not just here but at another blog as well. In his calmer moments, he apologized for getting apoplectic, but then he’d start up again. Some of what he wrote is definitely taunting and juvenile. It’s not hard to understand why Paul would feel like deleting a few of those comments. No one likes to be treated like a guest in their own backyard.
Ace didn’t get the credit he deserved. It sucks, but that’s life. Does Jack Bauer ever get credit for stopping the nuke attack or the bio-terror? No, but he keeps going. That’s what makes him a hero to the audience. Similarly, Ace needs to have a little more faith in his audience. Personally, I’ve read and enjoyed Wizbang (and Paul) for some time, but this story is the first time I started reading Ace’s blog every day. And it’s great. I appreciated his work on this story and his humor. I think lots of people have. That should be enough, shouldn’t it?
The irony in all this is that it started out as a snide story about Glenn Greenwald’s ego, but now it seems to have become a story about the egos of conservative bloggers. That’s a shame. I like both of these guys but I think we can all agree this whole blog battle has brought out the worst in both of them. It’d be a real shame if that battle caused readers to lose out on the best in both of them.
Kiss and make up fellahs…metaphorically speaking of course. This ain’t Brazil.
Actually, Inquiring, it’s your multi-page rants that make one wonder…
John, you said:
“Some of what he wrote is definitely taunting and juvenile. It’s not hard to understand why Paul would feel like deleting a few of those comments.”
Except Paul deleted the straight argument and left the taunts up. Pretty clearly less self-protection than editing his opponent to look as bad as possible.
Ace,
Paul said in his Beyond a Reasonable Doubt piece this morning that “Patrick took the time to make the case in a way that I now believe to be beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In the posts Paul deleted you attacked both Paul’s intelligence and his integrity. Here’s what you said in your July 28, 2006 04:28 AM post:
However, once your brain started waking up, you said in your July 28, 2006 04:40 AM post that:
Followed by this statement in your July 28, 2006 04:43 AM post:
By your third post you finally admitted the point Paul started out with, which was that “Patrick took the time to make the case…” You never grasped the fact that there’s a fundamental distinction between the evidence being available and making a coherent case based on that evidence. It’s the same distinction as between police work and prosecution. Unrestrained by either reason or good character you continued your personal attack on Paul in your July 28, 2006 05:38 AM post:
Thinking these posts were deleted, now your’re trying to revise what you said. In your post on this thread you say this:
I call that bullshit, and yes it’s bad languge. You were impugning another’s persons character and using “bad language” in the process. Paul doesn’t suffer fools lightly, so your posts got deleted, but only for a while.
Looks like you and your bootlickers have been made fools of, Ace.
Great work Paul and Kevin. It reminds me of the great April fools joke you pulled on 2005.
Wizbang has a comment policy which says,
“Your participation – whether you agree or disagree with us – is welcomed and valued. We work hard to keep the comment section free from registration requirements, but it is possible that in the future circumstances will dictate a change in policy.
As a general rule comments and trackbacks will not be deleted. As with any general rule there are exceptions. Comments that will ALWAYS be deleted or modified include:
Comments which violate others copyrights
Comments that contain personal information about others such as addresses and phone numbers.
Comments containing too many external hyperlinks
Comments that are completely off topic
Comments that fail to observe special rules for commenting to that particular post. Failure to observe those published rules (often for contests) will most likely result in your comment being deleted.”
Therefore, no one’s comments should be deleted simply because the commenter disagrees with the host whether it’s Kevin, Lorie, Kim, Jay or Paul. Wizbang doesn’t even specify that off color language is reason enough for a comment to be deleted.
I have read comments on this post and the one Paul links to above, unfortunately I don’t know if they contain all of the comments or only a select few since it is obvious that Paul deletes comments.
From what I can tell, Paul deleted comments from Ace because he didn’t agree with Ace (for example, Ace’s comment at 4:40am in the “beyond a reasonable doubt” post). After his comments were deleted Ace became belligerent particularly when Paul claimed Ace’s comments were spam. They may not have been entirely cordial, but they weren’t spam, either. Again, not being cordial is not a reason for a comment to be deleted according to Wizbang’s rules.
Ace, for his part, shouldn’t use derogatory language when trying to make a point (like calling someone the “c” word when commenting on other’s blogs), it just makes him sound crazy like some of the nutcases on DU and Kos. And no one takes a crazy person seriously.
Granted I’d be pretty peeved if Paul had engaged me in a conversation by linking to one of my blog posts, saying I was wrong then later agreeing with what I said only after someone else framed the discussion and then not allowing me to participate in the discussion — it’s like mocking someone but not letting them defend themselves.
Ace is at fault for not keeping his cool, Paul is at fault for being thin skinned and for provoking a commenter by deleting his comments without cause.
Both need to take the rest of the summer off to get a little perspective back in their lives. Neither blogger, in the whole grand scheme of things, will make that much difference in this world. It’s not like they’re doctors who save people’s lives. They’re simply fiddling with a hobby and have taken themselves far too seriously.
Paul, I am not a first time visitor, and I hope you don’t disregard my comment because I’ve never commented on one of your posts before. I’ve read Lorie Byrd here and at Polipundit.
I’m not an Ace troll – just a regular blogger who’s realizing that the right side of the blogoshpere is getting about as crazy as the left-side.
Sensible Mom, the one paragraph you omitted is important:
Each individual author is responsible for monitoring the comments to their posts, and ultimately determines which comments merit deletion. All Wizbang authors are briefed on the site policy, but given some degree of latitude to police their own comment sections. Complaints about a particular author can be addressed to the editor.
We have a very busy comment section, and have lost some regulars because certain posters are allowed wide lattitudes. I’m sure it all looks very cut an dried to you, but I assure you it is not.
Kevin,
Sorry I missed that part. I should have included it in my comment.
I know it’s hard to monitor comments and weed out unwarranted nastiness, and I understand that bloggers have different threshholds, but as an impartial observer (I don’t have a vested interest in either Ace’s or Paul’s versions), it seemed like Paul deleted posts to suit his interests. I don’t know if that’s how he usually operates since I prefer to read Lorie’s and Kim’s posts.
But if your overall policy is to welcome input, it’s obvious that that didn’t happen. Instead a commenter appeared to have comments unfairly deleted. That commenter wrongly went off the deep end and then others piled on creating what appears to be a 6th grade girl cat fight.
Paul has done a terrific job on such topics as Katrina and New Orleans. Ace isn’t even interested in these areas, too little room for salacious word play (Strunk and White’s Elements of Bat Shit Crazy).
Hope Kevin can convince Paul to take a few days off and then continue in his areas of expertise.
Sensible Mom (and others…)
I was done some time ago but since I do believe that you are not a troll I’ll add one more thing:
You should take special notice of one thing. Ace made 5 posts in about an hour and a half. Each one increasingly more insulting and obnoxious. (see Mac’s post) -Mind you Ace was working himself in a lather, nobody was responding, I was asleep.
The important thing to notice is that I DID NOT delete all 5 posts, I only deleted the last 4 where he was rambled all over the place. — I VERY VERY VERY secifically left the first post and took the core point he was making [that the evidence was there a week ago] and I addressed it. – And blew it out the park.
I did not stiffle debate, I deleted rambling crap. I could have deleted all 5, I didn’t. I kept the “debate” and nuked the trash.
If you read the thread -and the time stamps- I sat there for an hour asking Ace to take a breath and discuss it. He refused, instead calling me every name in the book.
Lastly I have to wonder about your presumed value system.
A blogger can go nuts in a comment thread, cursing another blogger then resorting to threats and your biggest problem is that those comments got deleted?
Odd value system you have there.
Paul,
Thanks for your input. I’m not sure if you’re directing the value system comment specifically to me or not.
If so, you might have overlooked the fact that I said it’s inappropriate to go to someone else’s blog and call them off color names like Ace did with the “c” word. I find it repulsive, and I delete comments on my blog with that type of language. I think I also said Ace sounded crazy and belligerent – not ringing support.
But I also had a problem with comments being deleted (before the “c” word was unleashed) and called spam that clearly were not.
If you reread my comment you’ll see that I’m critical of both of you. You may think that’s unfair and that’s your right. It was just an observation from an objective party.
I stopped blogging this summer to spend time with my kids and have only posted a few times snice then when the kids were otherwise occupied. For some reason this blog war and the Debbie Frisch (sp?) attack on Jeff Goldstein caught my attention, and I’ve been reading about both stories at many different bloggers’ sites.
Ever since the Ben Domenech plagiarism scandal things seem to be spiraling downward in the blogoshere. The Polipundit crew split up, Kos and Armstrong made fools of themselves (not hard, I know, but still), the sock puppetry of Glenn Greenwald and now this blog war between you and Ace.
Maybe it’s just part of the blogosphere evolving where flame wars drive readers away from the mid-level blogs and the blogs like Powerline that stay above the fray continue to thrive. I don’t know. It’s unfortunate, though, because it seemed like we were above that. I think it diminishes the credibility of all blogs when we fight like a bunch of warring family members who scream louder and louder and then refuse to visit one another anymore.
I will say that taking a break has been great. Coming back to follow these stories only reminds me that there’s more to life than blogging.
Good luck, Paul. You seem like a nice guy (actually Ace does, too, when he’s not so frothy) that is stuck in a bad moment. A few days away will make all the difference.
Although I have a history of commenting here, and still read it often, I don’t consider myself much of a regular. I am no troll, however. Earlier, mllco88 wrote this:
“I think Paul’s point is that a regular lurker probably doesn’t decide to post 4 times in an hour on the same topic. When you combine that with posting on Ace’s site under, I’m assuming, a similar name, leads to his conclusion.”
Posted by: millco88 at July 28, 2006 03:38 PM
I agree with this, but ironically it goes to the heart of the dust-up. Paul seemed to feel that the likely scenario cannot be construed as the definite scenario, with the evidence at hand. He has abandoned position that here and reached a conclusion based on eevidence more circumstantial.
This is what gets me about this whole imbroglio. We make conclusions. We make suggestions. We make jokes, usually based on evidence at hand. All of us do that.
fair enough SM good night.
FWIW… I’ve read the Instapundit blog quite regularly, but I’ve never actually left a “comment” there…
I don’t think I’ve left a comment at *this* blog in over a year.
Well, now that Kevin has so graciously returned the evidence to be evaluated (see the thread where the posts were deleted from, “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt”)–
You tell me. Spam, or, as I said, informing Paul, as he already knew and dishonestly pretended not to know, that almost all of Patterico’s evidence was previously reported? (Including by, I should note, Patterico himself.)
Seems to me I it was the latter.
And it was embarrassing to Paul, not to me.
I was annoyed in the first posts. I was incensed when this dishonest coward deleted posts contradicting him and noting his dishonesty and cowardice.
And intellectual insecurity. Because someone’s who’s intellectually secure can just admit, “I was wrong.” Someone who’s not can’t — ever.
And so we can now see the “unhinged” “spam” posts.
They read neither “unhinged” nor “spam” to me.
But to Paul, anyone who dares to disagree with him is a “troll,” and any post that contradicts him is “spam.”
To make sure this post doesn’t now get deleted, let me add: You’re the greatest, Paul! I read you all the time! You were so righty-right in this whole dispute I doubt very much you could have been more right in your rightitude!
THAT is the sort of sentiment Paul does not consider “spam.”
Ace/Paul,
Can you guys just let this go?? At this point, I doubt any more explanations from either of you is going to change anyone’s mind, except to make each of you look even more juvenile.
You’re just illustrating what’s so frustrating about comments sections in general, that we don’t even allow the other viewpoint. People do draw different conclusions from the same set of data. It doesn’t mean they’re evil or psychotic; it just means they disagree.
Oh, Jesus Christ, you two…
Get a room, put some sock puppets on your penises, and battle it out there.
God, I’m so sick of this Glenn business…