You've called the ''the locker room talk'' guy a bully on a few occasions and that is what I was gently referring to.
Regardless you and few others on here do like to ''marginalise'' Darts quite a bit. And it's a little bit more than disagreeing with him, so don't give me that.
You know I've never used the word ''marginalise'' in a sentence before......Crimson mire would be astonished.
If you're referring to trump, sure he's a bully. It is widely (don't convert that to universally) accepted. But calling him a bully is not quite the same as giving my opinion on the topic of bullying
As far as Darts, well, where to start. This may be a long post but I hope you read it all because I am taking your question seriously and want to give a respectful reply. As such I want to explain myself as clearly as possible.
If we treat him like margarine and not butter (is that what marginalise means?
), and I know this is a bad phrase to use when discussing domestic violence, he brings a lot of it upon himself.
Firstly, there is the issue of him derailing threads. He continually posts stuff totally out of left field that have subatomic connections at best to the topic at hand. There's the thread about Danny Grant dying and out of nowhere he is asking trivia questions about Steve Shutt. The only connection I can think of is that they are both hockey players and they both played for Montreal but not even at the same time. He asked how it was that Shutt became a Hab. When he got called on it, he doubled and tripled down. I forget exactly but his justification was something that someone else mentioned in passing as part of a longer post. Maybe someone else remembers better. Aside from it being totally out of nowhere, in a thread dedicated to honour, memorialize and reminisce about someone many of us watched play, I felt his derailing was very disrespectful. It did not seem to register with him.
When the markets started crashing people were concerned and there was a thread where people had questions about their mortgage payments. So Darts decides to enlighten us and regale us with his knowledge about how Olympia and York dealt with debt problems and how it was different from trump's approach. I asked that, aside from banks being involved, what relevance would that have to the plight of the average guy with a wife, kids and a mortgage. Those are super wealthy people and live in a different universe from most of us who are working really hard and struggling to just get ahead and provide for our family. He ended his Aesop Fable by telling us that the moral of the story was to not play hardball with the banks. I asked him 1) how billionaires that owe hundreds of millions or more to the bank has any correlation to average Joe family guy and his mortgage of a few hundred K and 2) in what way could that average guy ever play hardball with the bank. In what world do they have any leverage with which the bank is intimidated or vulnerable? Once again, he doubled and tripled down on his post. It was relevant to the thread and there was a lesson to be learned. Maybe you understand his thought process but I admit I was baffled.
I admit my post yesterday on Que. schools opening was
partly off topic and you called me on it, but you've read enough of my posts to know that that was pretty much a one off as I endeavour to keep on topic. But I admitted it yesterday and tried to explain myself in the process. It is in no way a regular thing with me. Darts, however, does it over and over and over and has never once admitted maybe, just maybe a post of his was misplaced.
And then there are the inane things he says which he thinks are brilliant.
He tried saying that striking teachers in Ontario are responsible for the fact that teenagers are irresponsible, especially when they'd visit friends during the early stages of Covid. Can you imagine that. Teenagers being irresponsible. Irresponsible teenagers is a universal phenomenon that spans probably every culture and every era. But to him it is the fault of Ontario teachers and how dare they strike when they can't even teach kids to be responsible. To prove his point he cited all the spring breakers on the beach in Florida during Covid. How does that relate to Ontario teachers? It did not sink in. Again, do you have insight into his mindset because I don't.
It was too long ago to remember all of them, but there was a thread where he proposed some absolutely crazy ideas that sports should incorporate. One of them was eliminating field goals from football because why should teams be rewarded with any points at all if they are not able put the ball over the goal line. Getting points by kicking a field goal is rewarding failure.
When Bianca Andreescu got a knee injury, it was, and I quote, "
most likely due to overtraining because tennis is a non-contact sport". I don't think it was unfair to ask how he came to this conclusion as he doesn't know her training regimen and how it compares to other tennis players. How does he know that it was "most likely"? And to expound on that, it must mean that every tennis player who gets an injury most likely overtrained. He would not even consider the possibility his assumption may have been flawed.
I have provided a few examples of what frustrates me, personally. I admit that I can be very nitpicky, but I consider myself a very logical thinker (trump aside) and my posts can sometimes be overly long because I try to unambiguously make my point in a logical manner and it takes more words. Another admission. I don't have much patience for people who cannot or will not accept arguments based on logic and it shows in the tone of my posts. So as far as Darts, initially I tried to unemotionally comment on what I perceived as inappropriate posts. But as his posting style persisted, yes I did lose my patience. My examples may seem quite trivial as seen on case by case basis, but you know that over time little things can wear you down. That is where I am at.
I, in no way am trying to speak for others, but his being marginalised displays that I am far from the only one who he irritates to no end. There may be a half-dozen of us who comment on his posts more frequently, his BFFs as he likes to call us, and it is usually in the sports forum. But I've seen him get mocked dozens of times in other forums by many different posters for his incomprehensible and/or irrelevant-to-the-topic-at-hand posts. Their reasons may be different but he clearly irritates many people. There must be a reason for that.
One last point, he was previously banned from the board by the mods under a different handle. I believe it was Rockslinger. So he is no angel or shrinking violet.
You may not agree with me and my reaction to him and that is fine, but I tried to describe honestly for you where I am coming from as best I could. But if he is being marginalised it is because there are many people who do not respect him.
Sincerest apologies to the great Al Kaline, but this is where you asked the question.