The Smiley Smile Message Board

Anyone know? He sent me a concerning PM a few days ago, but I was on vacation and didn't read it until now.

He was banned

It's all for the best

What exactly did Ghost really do? Sure he was kind of annoying, but he wasn't (who was?) as bad as "nobody".

He was nobody.

1) He *was* 'nobody'.
2) He made a few homophobic comments, and posted one immediately after I issued a final warning.

was nobody really that bad? I'm beginning to suspect he probably wasn't that bad, just another case of the same old bullcrap that this forum goes through every month.

It's funny, some people here make it seem like nobody is this omni-present figure with multiple accounts playing off each other, manipulating and tormenting the innocent. It almost borders on the paranoid.

It's not paranoid. It's reading. Every year or so we have some new, "fun" poster. He likes drugs! He likes moogs! He thinks Brian is gee-whiz cool!

And it is interesting to have somebody new posting stuff, especially someone who 1.) knows something about the band and 2.) has an unusual viewpoint, so everyone plays along.

And then after a few months, the poster starts to get a little ... strange. He does stuff about Hitler. He writes stream-of-consciousness diatribes. He starts _nearly every thread._ And he begins to provoke people for the sheer pleasure of the provocation. Which just isn't the way this place has ever worked. Yes, people get irritated and annoyed nearly every day. But it's seldom for lulz. It's over the music and our passionate opinions about same.

So then people start to challenge him and become irritated. And he can't take it. He either 1.) becomes incredibly defensive or 2.) even stranger or 3.) leaves of his own accord.

This happens nearly every year. Sometimes twice a year. And the pattern of the run-up and flameout, as well as the general content of the posts -- always very focused on drugs, moogs, sex, fat Brian, and on and on -- strongly suggests to me that this is all one guy. Or most of it.

I don't understand all the mod stuff that goes into all of this stuff. How DID you know it was nobody for sure?

I think that the fact this pattern keeps repeating may be evidence, not of some malicious hand-wringing "nobody", but of the confrontational attitudes of posters here. Maybe the same thing keeps happening because people always react the same way, with the same negativity and annoyance, the same need to confront the new poster and put him in his place, the same attempts to regulate and moderate discussion and humor here so that it all conforms to some personal standard of "interesting" or "entertaining". Somebody comes here, they just want to post a few funny things, people get pissy about it, they start being really rude, the new poster gets frustrated and upset with the reaction he's getting, the conflict escalates and then the seasoned vets triumphantly ban the new guy, effectively burning their faceless tormentor "nobody" in effigy.

I was "nobody" too, and it's not fun. I just wanted to have a little laugh, post some things I thought were interesting, and then some people here began to take what I said much too personally, as if just posting a theory they didn't like was tantamount to a direct insult.

The problem isn't HIM, the problem is US. We're bitchy internet nerds who get all righteous and angry about trivial bs and can't for the love of all that is holy just decide to *not* post something.

[qutoe]The problem isn't HIM, the problem is US. We're bitchy internet nerds who get all righteous and angry about trivial bs and can't for the love of all that is holy just decide to *not* post something.[/quote]

I dunno about that; due to issues in my own life(medical and otherwise...) I haven't been that active here lately.

 I wouldn't compare you to nobody/ghost at all...yeah, we've had our differences in opinion in the past (and I do indeed take responsibility for part of it ), but you've also posted things that I agree with 100%. We're human; we're not always going to agree. As for ghost, as I've said previously, I actually kinda liked the guy. Towards the end though he started posting things that were way out of line, such as his posts towards Wirestone. I couldn't excuse that.

The point of my post wasn't to admonish of absolve anyone. Everyone will think themselves innocent of any wrongdoing, but people here post really bitchy things, and then when arguments break out, and people get upset they refuse to believe that they've done anything wrong. It was always the other guy that started it, but that's usually not the case.
I don't have any hard feeling towards you Billy, that's not what I was trying to get at. I was trying to get at how I was very nearly banned for being "nobody", and the fact that's so often the only reason people here need to go on a witch hunt is stupid. Maybe Ghost should have quit while he was ahead and shut his mouth, sure, that's reasonable. But it should have never even gotten to that point.

It's not so much about any one specific poster here, or one specific incident. It's a pattern that seems to reoccur every month. Oh no somebody is posting "childish" stuff, stop the presses! Oh no, he's making too many threads, what will we ever do? Please. People here need to learn how to just leave things alone, debating is one thing, but it's when people start taking things personally and getting snippy and territorial that problems occur.

Like I said, I didn't care about Ghost, I didn't think he was funny, and I'm not really trying to defend anything he said or did. I just didn't go in the threads he made, I didn't really read his posts, I just ignored him and I ended up hardly even noticing him. It's not hard to do.

I love this community, and though I've never met anyone here, I do consider you guys to be friends. I'm not trying to call anyone out, I'm just saying that the only reason there are so many "nobody"s that seem to pop up is because we create them. It's the atmosphere and general attitude of people here that leads to this problem popping up again and again.

In 100% agreeman, and we all need to take steps to assure that nothing like this ever happens again.


In retrospect that was so off base as to be legendarily stupid. My bad.  -_-

Fishmonk, it's really late, and I'm really tired, but I really disagree with you. This notion that somehow trying to enforce some minimum standard of civility makes people act out is absurd. People really should take responsibility for who they are and what they say. It's why I created a thread, after an earlier scuffle, making clear who I was and what I do -- if anyone cared. My point is that I'm willing to say who I am and that I stand behind my words. It's one of the reasons why -- with a few regrettable exceptions -- I try to think before I post.

You seem to suggest that it's the right of anyone to take on a name, find a funny icon, say whatever they want, bait whomever they want, and feel no consequences from that. That ignoring these people solves the problem. But ask a black person or a woman how easy it is to ignore discrimination or harassment. Ask gay teenagers how easy it is to just shrug off the bullying of people in schools. The fact is, words have consequences, and if we act like they don't, we are only perpetuating the harm they cause.

And so when these people complain -- when the people who these words demean protest -- guess what they hear? Their protests are the problem! Not the slurs and epithets that have been hurled their way. Not the casual abuse that has infected the discourse. No, it's the people who are asking for civility and calm, courtesy and maturity who are the bad guys. They don't know how to have fun. They're not getting into the spirit of the thing. How can we enjoy ourselves if we actually have to think about others?

So ghost is the victim! Neat trick.

Anyway, I'm clearly a humorless grump on this topic, so that's it for me.

it's true

i find it hard to imagine getting offended at anything he or anybody else here writes

except when people f*** with love you!

Argh. Why was his account deleted, then? Good thing I can respond to his message. :(

The board being down kind of took the edge off, but I still wanted to point out how maybe the situation could have gone differently.

You guys got really pissed off when Ghost said:
"Rich people don't speak of being personally offended when 'richness' is made fun of. So why should gay. Do you have terminal disease."

Because he was comparing homosexuals to people with a terminal disease. But if you actually take a moment to read what he wrote, you should see that he was actually comparing homosexuals to rich people (the heartless bastard!). In effect he was saying the exact OPPOSITE of what you said he did. His point was that homosexuality is a positive thing, something to be proud of. You took his comment in completely the wrong way and allowed yourself to get upset when, if you had taken a deep breath, you might have found his sentiment far more agreeable.

Then you taunted him and called him out in the Disney thread. The Wilson Bros thread was closed, Ghost moved on and was posting about whatever in the Disney thread and you chose to derail that thread by stirring up drama that should have been laid to rest.

To be perfectly frank I don't think you handled the situation very well. You should have calmed down, taken a second to try and actually hear the guy out, and then moved on if you couldn't agree.

Yes, he didn't mean what you think he meant, Wirestone.

But then he didn't exactly try to explain himself. He just got very defensive.

Human nature eh?

There is a lot of truth in what Fishmonk is saying. If you don't follow what everyone else is doing, you get turned on. It happened to him for daring to voice a contrary opinion.

Personally I usually end up just rolling over and baring my teeth in a submissive manner.

that's how i interpreted it as well

Call me stupid, but I don't get that interpretation of a pretty loose analogy.
'So why should gay' is hardly the most eloquent way to state the analogy, using the phrase 'terminal disease' is a loaded term to use given the context and if he didn't enjoy offending people because, he would have explained himself properly and apologised for offence caused to me and others. But he didn't, admitted as much, and revelled in it. That's that.

#edited for profanity, because hey. Adds a intense element. shouldn't be doing that.

Three points:

Your post doesn't explain what the "terminal disease" has to do with anything in the original quote. Using terminology like that in the context ghost used it in is playing with fire. If your satiric intent isn't clear, and I don't think ghost's was, you can't be surprised by strong reactions.

You inaccurately depict what went on in the Disney thread. Many folks were talking about ghost's behavior there for many pages before I became involved -- look at pages 19, 20, 21, 22. He was threatened with a ban by the Real Beach Boys before I posted a word to him.

Finally, I don't want to protract or escalate this. We clearly have different views. I disagree with much of what you wrote in the post above (and in previous posts!), but I respect your right to say it, and you say it eloquently and without name-calling. Thank you.

I thought he did explain himself perfectly. His original comment is not misleading in anyway, it's very clear and straightforward.

"Rich people don't speak of being personally offended when 'richness' is made fun of."
Rich people don't become offended because they enjoy being rich and aren't ashamed of it.

"So why should gay."
Being gay is as good as being rich.

"Do you have terminal disease."
Rhetorical. The implied answer is no, given the first part of the comment. Being gay is like being rich, NOT like being sick.

It seems pretty clear cut to me, sure the guy doesn't have very good grammar, but it's only a minor error that doesn't make it any harder to figure out.

Frankly, I'm not sure how some of you are reading the comment in the way that you are. You seem to be looking for an excuse to be pissed off, ignoring the obvious meaning of the statement in favor of one that lets you be mad at Ghost. I think you overreacted hypehat, Ghost wasn't saying at all what you thought he was, and then you immediately proceeded to tell him to kill himself.

I can understand your sexuality is a touchy subject, but I really feel like the situation was unnecessarily dramatic. There was no reason for it to play out like it did, it was a useless, petty conflict. Ghost very very very clearly wasn't saying what you thought.

Bottom line is that the dude had some serious issues, wanted attention and posted stuff that offended a lot of people here and got banned, end of story. Now everybody's got the SMiLE Box to talk about... 8)

I can understand that Ghost was annoying or whatever. I just don't think he was really as bad as some make him out to be. Being annoying isn't the worst you can do, and I think what typically happens is when the board finds someone annoying they jump on the person first chance they get, blowing up something that should have been minor, or interpreting a stray comment in a dishonest way contrary to what the poster intended. Ghost wasn't evil, he wasn't even that bad, he was probably some lonely kid with suicidal tendencies looking for a few friends.

I just feel that people here need to just chill out in general, if you don't like someone, fine, but just take a step back and don't look for excuses to start stuff just because you find them obnoxious.

This same thing is just going to continue to happen, and I really feel like next time it does some people here should just try and give the poster the benefit of the doubt instead of letting their tempers flare over some trifling remark that was better forgotten. 

he did point out that he realized it could have been seen as an AIDS joke but it was too funny of a mistake to fix

Well, obviously he didn't explain himself perfectly, as I got offended. Very much so, especially given the sheer delight he took in winding people up. It's like being back in school or something, and I reserve the right to get angry at it.

I am sorry I responded in the way that I did. That was out of order, but I was not informed by ghost or by anyone else of real-life troubles he had until after he was banned bar one oblique reference in one of the numerous threads he started. His post was clearly a botched attempt at humour, and my point was to merely turn it around onto him. Homosexuality = a reference to terminal disease is 'obviously' 'funny'. Same goes for depression = attempted suicide. My point was not well made out, granted, but I was livid. To see people go 'Hey, I don't see what a bad guy he was, what's a few aids gags between pals' makes my blood boil, to be honest. I don't care how rationally you want to boil it down. It made me angry, and I responded so at the time.

In fact, the only PM he ever sent me was, and I quote, 'do you want to know the cure for aids'. What a hoot.

Yeah, we should all chill out. But some things hit nerves, alright?

All stupid alliterative/faults of grammar/unintentional argument scuppering in the above are noted, and duly filed til tomorrow cos i'm knackered. But Fishmonk, i know we disagree on a lot (politics, cannabissence), but you're a reasonable kinda guy and you don't enjoy fucking with people and that's the point I'm trying to make, really.

the cure for aids is vegatables

Come on, the Mods asked him multiple times to tone it down, he didn't and he was banned. Sometimes we all need to have a little self control. Ignoring Mods warnings doesn't win you any points either. Had he shown them respect and followed that they asked, he'd probably still be here.

When the moderators told Ghost to stop, he should have, fine. I'm not trying to bend over backwards to defend the guy personally. I really didn't even like his posts. This is more about the general relationship between posters here, than it is about any single poster being good or bad.

Sure you all are willing to recognize me as good contributor here, but just a few months ago I was getting dragged through the mud. People were rude and testy, people shouted about being "offended", I was nearly banned. It was very frustrating. I have no hard feelings, but I can sympathize with Ghost and Phil Cohen and many other posters who go through a similar thing. It's idiotic and these "nobody" witch hunts need to just stop.

It's not this one sided thing, "oh he's a dick, he got what he deserved. I didn't do anything wrong, he started it", stuff like that is what I feel is the problem. Ghost may have been annoying, and he may have said some things that didn't come out the right way, but I feel like it wasn't just him. There was a negative reaction to Ghost that I thought he didn't deserve, there was a territorial aggressiveness that some treated him with. There's plenty of blame to go all around to everyone. It's not simply a case of "he was an butthole so he got banned".

Next time there's a new (or old) poster who's making waves, I just think that people should just calm down. You don't have to respond to every post he makes, if you think his opinion is faulty the universe will still go on if you don't tell him about why he's wrong, so don't feel like your obligated to. Don't make offtopic jabs at the guy, don't post low-content responses to him just to be rude. Just let it go. That's all I'm saying, and that's all that I think needs to be said.

We can go round and round on this all day, so I think I'll just duck out now. My point has always been though, that as much as you think you KNOW poster-so-and-so to be wrong headed, or stupid, or annoying, or a troll, or whatever, just goading him and starting sh*t isn't going to do anything to improve the forums, it's just going to lead to senseless arguments, hurt feelings and someone getting banned. I feel the whole Ghost situation was very much two sided, as are all similar occurrences with other posters, and I feel that if the other side simply steps up, gives the guy the benefit of the doubt, and takes a moment to cool off we won't have these persistent cluster f*cks mucking up our forum every over month.

Is that really so disagreeable?  

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Would anyone happen to have his e-mail or an alternate contact?

The guy was a jerk -- sorry!

Some of you don't seem to get that if you're constantly met by aggressive posts by people who don't seem to understand the humour or don't agree with your view, you can get irritated.
Ghost didn't give any hate. He made some jokes, but he didn't mean anything bad. Like fishmonk said, if you'd tried to understand some of these "offensive" posts, they weren't bad at all. In fact, I think most of his posts felt very loving, not hateful like some of your responses were. Until you started fucking with him, that is.


I love this board, but I don't like when you ban people like that. Don't ban all the groovy kids man. I shouldn't compare it to society but it's kinda fascist just throwing people out because of their views, or something they've said. I think you're creating hate here.  :(

Or "Kulturkritik"

FWIW, I found ghost irritating the way a small, indisciplined child at a restaurant or a cinema is irritating. Easy enough to say "ignore him" but then I had to pass over multiple posts of his on threads that interested me (the guy was everywhere), I got pissed. So the guy has issues and health problems - BFD, so do I, but I don't make an excuse of it. That's the joy of MBs, in this sense they're a level playing field.  The guy was a royal and increasing pain, he was repeatedly warned, ignored that and got his ass banned. If this were a real gathering, he'd probably have been taken outside and roughed up: another joy of MBs, no hurt is real.

Cohen was, and is, a different case - he was pissing on everyone's fire on an hourly basis, purely because no-one was telling him what was going on (and he couldn't figure out why). So, he assumed that the project was in trouble, even after people involved in it, or who knew considerably more than he did (not hard) told him it wasn't. Turns out that the silence was because the set was being increased from 3 CDs to 5 and folk had better things to do than give the likes of us a play-by-play. Like ghost, he had it coming, it came and he got his. And lord forgive me, but that pleased me immensely.

Never mind ghost, what's happened to Andrew G. Foe? As Charles Caleb Colton said, "imitation is the sincerest (form) of flattery".

I have a funny feeling that NewGuy might be ghost/nobody. Or maybe a new troll altogether.

Newguy=Nobody ;)

I don't think so...

New troll then if this guy doesn't chill out and follow the rules. Billy, those scenes on your avatar are hilarious, are they from a soap because when I was a kid, I used to watch wacky soaps when I was sick from school. :lol

Also, does anyone know, is Andrew's Fern getting enough water?

My 2 cents.  This is ALWAYS good advice.

I wonder, does anyone else think that people of different ages have different writing styles?  I mean, since we are all READING as opposed to seeing visual cues, sometimes a person could (logically) take offense where no offense was intended, since we don't have a VISUAL cue to let the listener/reader know not to take offense.

I think the Mods do a pretty good job of letting people have their say.  But I can see where someone would be banned if they are constantly abusive, insulting w/ personal attacks, etc.  I assume the Mods keep a short leash on that.

Well, anyway I think Fishmonk's comments were excellent.

People seriously believe newguy is ghost?

:(