Poll: Should Paul Tergeist be banned?
UPDATE, Thursday, 1/14/07: Paul has won in a landslide. I don’t know how to shut off voting so we might still see some returns from Guam trickle in, but I’m calling the election now. Paul’s in.
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Old Lady Chloe asks, “Can you ban that idiot?”
I certainly can; but should I? I’m nothing if not a slave to my readership, so I’ve decided to put the question to a vote.
In truth I have wondered for some time if there might be an inverse relationship between Paul’s commentarian presence and the participation by other readers of this humble blog, who perhaps refrain from commenting because they’d rather not expose themselves to Tergeistian feces-flinging. But I’m not sure. For all I know people are out there laughing hysterically and thinking Paul’s the highlight of the blog.
So, people, what do you think? Is it time to vote Paul off the island?
The poll is after the flip.
21 Responses to “Poll: Should Paul Tergeist be banned?”
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Chris says:
I’m not sure what the difference is between options one and three.
But Failure To Amuse is a capital offense. Off with his head!
January 16th, 2007 at 7:48 pm EST -
Infidel says:
No. Okay he isn’t English, and he isn’t Hawaiian, but he lives in Hawaii and there are no other balloons in the Pacific.
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Violet says:
No. Okay he isn’t English, and he isn’t Hawaiian, but he lives in Hawaii and there are no other balloons in the Pacific.
Actually there is another Hawaii balloon sometimes. So if we kill Paul we’ll still have one Hawaii person.
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Violet says:
Actually I just checked geomaps and both of our Hawaiian visitors have been here in the past 24 hours. One of them is on the Big Island and the other is on Oahu. Don’t know which one’s Paul.
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Timothy Shortell says:
When I first started reading, I often thought that Paul was generally just being an ass, though he was occasionally funny in doing so. Now, though, I think he has earned a certain respect for playing the role of jester so well. I think it sometimes helps the echo chamber from forming.
There are much worse ways of trolling. But I guess I have a pretty high threshold for taking offense.
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foilwoman says:
I’m not usually offended by him, but that’s probably because I’m not paying him any attention. I vote for non-expulsion. Not that this isn’t a dictatorship (which is just fine: my blog is a dictatorship as well).
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Chris says:
But Timothy, Violet would never EVER let her blog become an echo chamber because she is WAY too smart not to see through that kind of sycophancy! At some other, lesser blogs maybe. But not here. Not as long as Violet’s in charge.
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Violet says:
Chris, the box of kool-aid-flavored treats is over by the tip jar. Help yourself.
And I apologize for not answering your earlier question. The difference between option 1 and option 3 is that 3 entails enforced reform, whereas 1 means exile. Of course if making obnoxious comments is a teleological imperative for Paul, then 3 may be moot.
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Paul Tergeist says:
I voted to ban him. Hey, I get to vote don’t I? And not only that, I have the power to do it! :-)
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Pippa says:
Oh, but I like him. In a strange, prodding-sore-tooth-with-tongue kind of way…
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Victoria says:
Actually there is another Hawaii balloon sometimes. So if we kill Paul we’ll still have one Hawaii person.
Well, I can’t make my balloon show up anywhere than over the general vicinity of Richmond, Virginia, but I did graduate from a Hawaiian high school (Kapa’a High, on Kauai) – maybe that counts for something?
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Badger3k says:
I rarely read comments, so it might help if you had some example of what he has said or done.
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Badger3k says:
Sorry to post again so quickly, but I went and did my own search (should have done that before). From the comments on the last few posts, I’d have to vote against banning if that means anything (coming from someone who rarely reads and/orr comments, I mean). Compared to some of the fundies, anti-vaxxers/mercury militia, creationists, and most of the freepers/LGF crowd, he seems pretty tame.
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simply wondered says:
Tergeistian feces-flinging – are you playing the horsey type to his yahoo (too lazy to attempt to spell hwynym and too long past my eng lit degree to look at the book again…)?
funny how it keeps becoming about him…. -
simply wondered says:
shan’t be voting as i just don’t care … what’s the difference, anyway?
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simply wondered says:
badger 3k ‘I rarely read comments’(!) so why on earth do you think you should vote? isn’t that like eating the shell but not bothering with the egg?
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Jeff says:
I really don’t think banishment is in order. As with the Rev Pistle, he is more often funnier than he is rude, even if it is not intentional (?).
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cicely says:
Honestly – most of Paul’s comments go through to the keeper with me – meaning I don’t understand them and I don’t spend a lot of time trying. I laugh at the funny bits I like the sound of or actually ‘get’. I can’t play with the satirists (I think they’re satirists…;-/ ) because my brain is too small but I wouldn’t vote to ban them. I trust Violet to know when to tell them to shut-up. This is a big responsibilty, Violet, and you were wise yet again in putting it to the vote so we can all share it.
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flawedplan says:
I am sensitive to the drag he can be on patience and energy, but there’s a lot to be said for seeing Vi in action; I’ve learned a lot by seeing the arguments between her and Paul. There’s the content, what she and Paul are discussing, and there’s the process, which I see as Vi showing us how it’s done. Who can’t use models in learning to define and strengthen yourself against harassers? The grace is phenomenal. And I can be like Paul too, so the way I see it, if Paul is safe here, we’re all safe. That’s getting harder to find in everyday in blogtopia.
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ehj2 says:
When someone loves you, you can trust the integrity of their voice even when it is insane. There is truth in it, even if it is grating and incomprehensible and sometimes meaningless.
There is a part of Paul in me, and since I rarely speak with that voice, I sometimes consider Paul to be the expression of that voice for me.
If Paul is a jerk, then I stand with him as a jerk.
On the same note, but from a different angle …
I’ve lived and worked with men who are invested in the military culture, and who have been changed to the core by it. If you’ve spent much time in a world where your naked flesh and bone is exposed to hot metal at supersonic speeds, you develop a suite of routines for determining as quickly as you can who you can rely on when it gets rough. There is real survival value in being able to quickly identify the thin skinned and nervous and overly-sensitive. It’s easy to see why such habits (even conversational ones) can become ingrained — because if people get ruffled feathers over a conversation, they would be hopeless in any real conflict.
If we say we honor the military and mean it, we’ll make a space within our conversations to honor the conversational style it induces in those who serve. We’ll learn to recognize it and accommodate it in some way. If he punches you in the shoulder, deck him if that’s what your ego demands. If he insults you, break his jaw if you have to. Be a stand up person. Be yourself. You could just do what I do. Smile and buy him a drink.
Paul isn’t always very funny. But battlefield humor often isn’t funny. And it isn’t pretty. It’s in your face reality.
These are serious times that cry out for serious people to do serious things. In a real sense, we’re in a war here, and Paul seems to speak to that in many of his comments.
I hesitate to offer this whole comment because it is a mistake to imagine one understands another person’s thinking or motives — or to speculate how their background might have influenced their current persona. I’m not making that mistake here. I’m just commenting on my impressions of what Paul has written, and the value of his voice to me.
Paul loves being here. He invests in understanding being here. We need to reciprocate — Paul himself is worth understanding. He is saying the same thing we are saying but in his own terms — which means we lose if he changes his conversational style. He’s on our side, and I like him just the way he is, on our side. I don’t want him to be something different, on our side.
As has always been true, every voice is needed, and the universe itself would be bereft if any were lost. All the birds aren’t supposed to sing the same song; few flowers smell alike.
Or, as Jung would say it, completeness (or wholeness) is ultimately more important to the psyche than temporary perfection in a part.
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Violet says:
Paul loves being here. He invests in understanding being here. We need to reciprocate — Paul himself is worth understanding.
Thanks for saying this. I love having Paul here too and am actually deeply fond of him. But sometimes I’m the only one getting his jokes, and I’ve not always been successful in communicating to others The Wonder That Is Paul.
I’m really glad this poll has elicited so many statements of understanding and support. I sometimes get private comments asking or complaining about Paul from people who sincerely believe that he is a sexist/racist troll just like all the sexist/racist trolls out there in the rest of blogland. It’s understandable; Paul is often indistinguishable from genuine assholes. You have be fairly keyed into the vibe here (what Mandos calls the meta thing) to get what’s going on. I thought the poll would be an interesting way to get all this out in the open.
As it is the votes against banning Paul have consistently run at about 65%, which is a landslide of Nixonian proportions. So Paul’s definitely earned his place here. I don’t know how we’ll handle the face mask thing, but first we have to talk him into coming back!
