to ask everyone if getting suspended for something like this is policy you really want here.

Since you are soliciting personal opinions: yes, absolutely.

By the way, you have no grounds to be talking about ill will here. People have given you repeated friendly advice and warning that your behaviour is alienating. I don't believe anyone on here has been as immune to repeated negative feedback from the community as you. Only 2 days ago, on the occasion of a comment that made for fairly unpleasant reading, I politely reminded you of your very excellent plan to limit your contributions on MO to mathematics. The upvotes on my comment indicate that it reflects the sentiments of a measurable part of the MO community. Instead of heeding it, you continue in the same vein. I don't see how you have any reason to be surprised by the suspension.

Indeed, the explanation that you are purposefully provoking these incidents strikes me as almost as plausible as the possibility that you cannot help it. And if the former is the case, then the suspension is even more justified, since such behaviour is called "spamming" and the posts should be flagged, instead of downvoted. Please don't bother to argue now, since the only thing that will convince me personally one way or another will be your future actions.

That and my increasing frustration with MO.

I don't think that that's a valid reason to post on meta. You will have to deal with your frustration yourself, without taking up other peoples' time. Ultimately, the frustration is only within yourself and will not be changed by anyone but you.

@Ryan, Alex: I'll leave meta alone for awhile after responding to these.

I DID read critism and take it carefully and I meant what I said a week ago. But this was an unusual case-the question was by it's very nature, subjective and opinionated. I made the reasonable-but VERY erronous-conclusion it would be "safe" for me and that I couldn't break my "probation".

"Describe a topic in one sentence." (I'm really paraphrasing, but that was the gist of the thread.)

Would either of you consider this an "objective", research oriented question in the classical MO sense?

I say no.It was asking for an informed opinion-from the mathematically informed on MO-on how they personally percieve a particular subarea of mathematics and to sum thier perception up in one sentence.

And I gave what I thought were 2 very reasonable attempts to describe 2 areas of mathematics: combinatorics and probability. While I think the objection to my statement about probability was fair,I was frankly shocked by the reaction to my combinatorics statement. 2 fairly respected combinatorialists-John W.Kennedy and Christopher Hanusa-both have expressed the agreement to me that combinatorics is classically concieved as a finitary subject.

("Probability is real analysis with the concept of an expectation." This is really true of continuous random variables only,of course.You could get cute and say combinatorics is analysis on finite sets,but that's a reach at best........)

The downvote frankly shocked me-and the "piling on" with no restraint seemed almost comical to me. I should have left it there,you're both absolutely right about that. But honestly-I was just flabbergasted and couldn't keep my big mouth shut.

And here we are.

Someone else in here told me "don't play in traffic" on MO. I seem to have gotten myself run over again.

And lastly,for the record, Alex-there's nothing delibrate or malicious about me coming back in here and screwing up. I don't like being told what to do,never have. And as a result, I shoot off my mouth when I shouldn't a lot of the time. I think I've been very polite and not rude at all-I've tried very hard to maintain proper social decorum even when I disagree. But it's not good enough because this isn't my site and I DON'T make the rules. And that makes me wrong no matter how I try and justify it.

And for that reason, once again-I apologize to the room. And in particular to anyone who may have found me "rude".

Farewell for now.

Andrew L.

@ Qiaochu The point has been made. I'm gone for now.

@sigfpe Hold it. I'm an ogre,not a troll. If you're going to insult me,do it properly.