<hms123> All is cool ... I'm not insulted (yet). As for the LifeMaster, yes, of course he's a monster: and his behaviour is quite beyond the pale. But should we really hound him out for this? And should we tolerate the lynch-mob mentality that seems to grow up around him? I'm unhappy with this, and I suspect that you are too.

Yeah, although what you said about Finnish could be interpreted as a way of saying there was no gender distinction, too. :) But you're right, and Hungarian also makes that distinction - much the same way as English has 'who' for people, as opposed to 'which' for objects. 'That' used to be a more appropriate term for objects too, but this distinction is being eroded as far as I can tell.

<Dom> Hebrew has those male/female pronouns for inanimate objects - and also gender-based syntax differences for just about anything. It's ridiculous, even worse than French. Particularly when one comes from a Hungarian background, which has none of that nonsense.

For example, Hebrew has not only he/she, but 'you' is divided into male and female versions, verbs have different suffixes based on gender, and so bloody forth.

So English is about midway between the two... ;)

<"We've got a live one here".>

<The usual and primary usage is to ask or allow, "let her" also works in our language interestingly enough, and the main thought is asking her for, not just ask or allow...>

<Should we hound him out for this?> Should a proposed <Christian> (a term I am starting to believe is for people against humanity) be allowed to spew at us? Seek <Karpov> forum for details, she notes a few,

<And should we tolerate the lynch-mob mentality that seems to grow up around him?> I find it interesting if more then one peoples provide a viewpoint against someone, then they are a lynch-mob, and doomed to such valueless views,

Could it actually be that they are responding as individuals with comments about someone who constantly attacks others? Perish the thought!

Call them a lynch-mob on a witch hunt, because more than one are against what another spews without actions taken day after day after day,

Honestly? Be the one person who he wishes every single day, that you die, receive an incurable disease, are run over, or any of a multitude of wishes he prays for, don't ask that Christian, ask <karpov> for details,

Like another noted, I think it's More about the question of why he is allowed to spew his wishes, hatred and hopes of death, pain and torment if any oppose his views and receive no chat limit, while others get banned, forever for saying the exact same things,

But this time it's for a reason,

Why can a christian pray for your death, murder, torture, to be run over, harbor hopes you eat poison, walk off a cliff, among numerous other death/pain/torment type prayers,

and another be deleted, removed, have no chance to respond again, Banned,

"Happily" cleaned up your forum?

heh

Some of us were there with you eh? All the same, I won't begrudge you a little revisionist history.

Although with <Switch> around it's a risky practice. He seems to be able to find any post from any year from any place and then swoop down from the Heavens at the most unexpected times.

I've been on the receiving end of several of these swoops.

I'm pretty sure he'd behave exactly the same way if he were a Stalinist.

Of course, then he'd be a bad advert for Stalinism, instead of a bad advert for Christianity. But I don't think it's fair to hit him over the head for being a hypocritical "Christian."

He'd be just as hypocritical if he were something else.

As <Annie> has pointed out on several occasions, his real problem is that he suffers from several debilitating personality disorders that make him "not fun" to be around.

I'm impressed you met <Mr. Crisp>. We've discussed him before, years ago now, with reference to John Hurt's fine performance in the biopic.

Well, the answer is yes and no.

The perception that AJ has been getting away with things other people are banned for is perfectly accurate, but at the same time users not named AJ have got away with a lot more than some of the complainers seem to appreciate. Most spectacularly, <angslo> (who doesn't have <any> redeeming qualities, such as an actual interest in chess) insulted people thousands (yes, thousands) of times before finally getting the boot. Similar things could perhaps be said of the worst So fans.

Some members really have been banned for a lot less. So while AJ does represent the extreme case in admins cutting slack, their handling of other disruptive users has been inconsistent at best; they haven't applied "one set of rules" to everybody but AJ.

Beyond simply not being banned, there are clear cases of different rules applying to AJ, but how significant those are is unclear. For example, one reason for AJ's towering winning percentage is that games submitted for database inclusion and meeting every relevant criterion have been rejected by the admins on no grounds other than that AJ had lost them. The same games with AJ winning would have gone up - and it's not as if AJ's wins have been any less a target for fighting and flame wars than his losses. While this is a definite double standard in that no one else has ever received similar protection, it's quite possible to think of reasons for it other than pure favoritism, and very occasionally the admins <have> - much to AJ's chagrin - allowed a loss or two to slip through.

The "free speech" complaint, viz. that AJ has more of it than other people do, is based on at least three things that all have something to them but can be exaggerated. The first is the issue, already noted, of AJ being allowed to stay where others have been banned. The second is that AJ's posts have survived mass purges when they shouldn't have, which is true but could surely be said of others as well; I'm not sure if there's a pattern of it happening more to AJ that can't be explained simply by his high involvement in such matters. The third is frustration at blowing the whistle on AJ a zillion times without much effect, which is understandable but has also happened with other disruptive users - and it's easy to forget about the times when blowing the whistle did have an effect.

In short, much of the criticism is perfectly valid but at this point people are shouting foul at the slightest sign of AJ being favored, including things they wouldn't even notice if someone they liked was involved instead.

Many non English call the American Forums barbarian dumps,

<including a simple and highly plausible one that has its own Wikipedia page>

There are many others who engage in similar antics (for different reasons, I assume), but who also confine those antics to a few places that are easy for me to avoid (Rogoff page, So page, Fischer page, etc.). AJ seems to look for opportunities to torment those of us trying hard to ignore him the old-fashioned way.

Like you, I have no one on ignore. To put him on ignore would mean that I wouldn't see his posts on the GM vs. The World games and that it would screw up my page count there. I might also think I should <ignore> him on the <Analysis Forum> or the <ChessBookForum>, neither of which seems an appropriate thing to do given that those are both intended as site resources.