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It's less about general criticism, and more that this is ymeskhout's specific hobby horse that has been flayed for years at this point, and regularly comes with standards called for against Trump that were not followed or applied (in general or by ymeskhout personally) on the lawfare against Trump. As with other pet topics, it repeats old themes to the point of evaporative cooling, which then leverage's ymeskhout's bad habit of dismissing/forgetting/claiming prior engagements on points either didn't occur or have been dismissed, for lack of an engaged opposition to engage otherwise.
As far as Trump-related lawfare goes, ymeskhout's a partisan and an old one at this point. At this point I only pay attention when he starts being petty towards people calling him out, like how this time he edited-in a callout- against The_Nybbler and then edited it out after being called out for it.
Is there any theme discussed at this point on the Motte for which one could not make the exact same argument as the one you make against @ymeshkout?
People tend to have their opinions, which they change rarely through discussion. And culture war issues are only so many.
If your contention were made into a rule, this site would need to shut down.
This mistakes my contention. The contention is not that a position doesn't change and this should be banned- the contention is that the position is re-raised regularly without regard or even accurate reflection of previous engagements, and with poor conduct towards other in the process.
Ways to avoid this include not misrepresenting people's current positions, not mis-representing previous engagements, and not making one's hobby-horse a top level post with regular slights towards other posters.
This also describes many other regular posters on the Motte (and @ymeskhout much less so than many others I could name), and yet strangely receive far less pushback, and even provoke resentful carping when they push it too far and get modded.
Most reports we see are 100% partisan and can be summarized as "A person I don't like said something I don't like."
Both sides(tm) do this, but because of the increasingly skewed nature of the Motte, the majority is directed at people like ymeskhout expressing left-wing viewpoints.
Do you have any examples of other posters who regularly post top level threads about a singular topic without regard or even accurate reflection of previous engagements, and with poor conduct towards other in the process? Particularly examples of posters who do it more than @ymeskhout, but I'll settle for anything really.
I know you think I am an insipid partisan dick, but I would have readily pushed back against anyone repeatedly calling out other users and picking fights in top level posts, regardless of their ideology - but I haven't seen any other top level posts doing that. Did I just not want to see them?
Yes, but I am not going to call them out by name. Also, there are several people who rarely or never post top-level threads but will regularly go off in a subthread about their hobby horse.
Other than being slightly patronizing and snarky at times, I do not think @ymeskhout shows poor conduct. And while we discourage snarkiness and sarcasm, even from mods, it's a flaw most of us fall prey to occasionally, and piling on him for "poor conduct" because he was a little snide in responding to someone who constantly engages in bad faith partisan sniping does not move me to demand an apology.
People always think they know what I think based on my modding, and they're usually wrong.
FWIW (and @ymeskhout can confirm this) I have privately voiced my objection to this kind of "calling out" of people just because you've had an argument with them in the past. But a lot of people seem to interpret "criticizing Trump"/otherwise expressing a partisan viewpoint as "picking fights."
As a top-level post, it's not that common. As petty sniping in the threads, or in reports - it's constant.
It's not the hobby horses that bother me, and I think sniping inside threads is de rigueur. Ymes has gone to this well many times, and the only times I have objected are when he has also called someone out. Because calling people out in top level posts is bad for the motte. Top level posts set the tone, and call outs in top level posts generate more call outs and increase the baseline antagonism of the forum.
It looks to me like you determined this was about Trump, but to me it looks like what ticked everyone off was the edit snarking at nybbler. If it had just been ymeskhout and nybbler slapping each other in the comments, everyone would have, well maybe not been fine with it, but limited their grumbling significantly. Even if there are a lot of users just upset that he criticised Trump - which seems likely - there is a core of valid criticism there and it's centred around the call out. Is there a silent majority who loves the call outs or something? Because distilling it to 'criticising Trump' seems like an easy way to dismiss the grumbling, but not a way that will reduce future grumbling.
Usually?
Calling someone out wasn't exactly a great starting point, as I said, but I've seen ymeskhout get jumped on for "writing verbose Trump-bashing lawyer-speak" even when he isn't calling someone out by name.
What do you want me to say, dude? You honestly haven't made that much of an impression on me, but no, I do not think you're an "insipid partisan dick." Try harder and maybe you'll get there.
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