I do not believe that the situation was clear cut, at all. It was a judgment call I employed to make sure that that thread did not jump the rails. The thread has not jumped the rails–whether because of or despite my intervention I would not hazard a guess. The Second Stone asked what my purpose was and I answered him. You have asked a couple further questions and I have answered them. I am making no profound case that I have posted a totally correct and irreversible opinion, (other than indirectly indicating that there is nothing for me to “reverse”).
Not at all. That sentiment or something like it was expressed by multiple posters in multiple posts in that thread with no Mod reaction.
Fair enough (to me). I can accept your answer. And right, there’s nothing to reverse. I suppose The Second Stone expects a statement like “You are right, you did nothing wrong, I shouldn’t have admonished you” or something. I can accept it was a judgment call and there’s not even an official warning.
I guess I’m just wondering what about “moral turpitude” turns the argument into a specific case. Or is it just that the accusation is leaning toward confrontational and harsh?
Since the phrase “moral turpitude” was introduced to the thread in the context of telling one poster to refrain from attacking other posters, an almost immediate response that another poster would, indeed, use that phrase in regards to a philosophical position looked too much, to me, like a futherance of the personal attack. It was the connection, not the definition, that evoked my response.
This is how the series appeared to me: PosterA: People who believe X are doodyheads. PosterB: People who believe X are just misinformed. PosterC: People who believe X are nudniks. PosterD: People who believe X are terrible, evil people who should roast in hell. Mod: PosterD, it is not appropriate to say posters who believe in X should roast in hell; there is no reason to assume that they are meshuganas. PosterE: Well, I would call believers in X meshuganas. Mod: PosterE, let’s not make this personal.
Something like 90% or more of all complaints about modding seem to be about just one particular mod, don’t they? But it’s certainly possible that it’s everyone else who has a problem, not him, I guess.
Gotta disagree about tom’s modding being driven by politics, either way, though. He’s just capricious, and defensive as all get-out when challenged on it.
Irishman, your clarification for me that the states’ rights issue was limited in this discussion to the Civil War period is appreciated.
The Second Stone, I pass no further judgments on your comments about states’ rights. But may I suggest that you lose vital communication when you pack too much information into one sentence as in the following:
But I did not say they were “terrible, evil people who should roast in hell.” That is what we call a straw man. I didn’t say it. I said “moral turpitude” in the meaning of intellectually dishonest in an immoral cause. Which it is. Spreading racist lies might be an evil act, but the people who do it are not necessarily evil by nature. Nor do I believe in hell and roasting in it for myself or others, doers of evil acts or people who are evil by nature.
Zoe, that is the most masterful sentence ever written in the English language. Tight, compact, yet sprawling and all over the map, full of sound and fury, signifying everything.
Here is a thread where DSeid called me an asshole in GD and Tomndebb shrugs it off.
From the context it is absolutely clear that he is talking about me and no one else or any amorphous group of people. It is the same situation and Tomndebb tolerating someone flinging “asshole” in the Pit at a poster. From the context of the two threads, it is really apparent that I would have been warned or banned had I referred to a whole group, or a someone, as an “asshole” in that manner. It is a double standard, plain and simple.
And here in this thread Did FDR Will and Allow Pearl Harbor? Srdja Trifkovic's Take on the Conspiracy Theory - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board I carp about conservative in general making shit up about FDR and Pearl Harbor and comparing it to the Aug 2001 memo Bush got. Tomndebb again smacks me down for generally bashing conservatives who do this (I don’t bash conservatives who don’t). Yet in this thread, he admits that general remonstrating of a group is allowed.
The only two consistent things in these threads is that Tomndebb protects conservatives calling names and smacks me down for much less. There really cannot be any dispute that Tomndebb is holding different people and groups to much different standards. I object to it.
Thank you, tomndebb, that really clarifies it for me.
Now I look at The Second Stone’s response, and what it says to me is even though he used the second part of your statement, he didn’t make the mental connection that that implied the first part of your statement.
Ahh, the joys of communication. ElvisL1ves said:
I’m pretty sure twickster is a she. Oh, not who you meant?
So I read the relevant parts of that thread, and the thing is, you are the one who first dropped insults. You are the one who said
You were specifically talking about Una Persson.
DSeid exactly copied your phrasing. Notice that tomndebb did not warn either of you. Looks pretty evenhanded to me.
You misunderstand. What he said:
tomndebb did not “bash you down” for attacking generic conservatives, tomndebb moderated you for making an off-topic political taunt with a likelihood for derailing the discussion.
The Second Stone said:
There’s nothing consistent between the moderations because they are separate incidents with separate reasons with the only common factor being that you made a comment that drew moderation from tomndebb. Any pattern you observe is confirmation bias, not inherent.
I do dispute it. The events you cite have different explanations than the one you claim. You have not made your case.
OK, The Second Stone, I am willing to ignore all the false charges and misinterpretations you have posted for the last couple of days, but if you are going to go back and start dragging up ancient history and twisting that, I suppose I need to address it.
Your feud with DSeid occurred on pages 3 and 4 in the New and improved nuclear plants may cost more than expected. thread. It began in an acrimonious exchange with you insulting several other posters, then hiding one of your insults behind terminology that they employ at Slashdot. DSeid responded inappropriately to you. I had looked at the thread prior to your actions and had not been back to it during your feud. When I returned, I found both of you going at each other and you making a big deal about his insults while ignoring your own; I told you both to stop, and I issued no Warnings.
In the second thread (to which you actually did provide a link), you will note that all I did was point out that you had entered a potential hijack to the thread and that you could discuss that separate theme in a different thread. Your claim that I smacked you down for “generally bashing conservatives” is pretty silly in light of my actual statement
It was bullshit then and it is bullshit now. You ignore completely your own moderating, of which I am complaining. The fact is in different threads you behave differently toward different posters, based on point of view. You didn’t go back at those other threads before now because they were not then evidence staring you in the face of your bias. Either it’s against the rules to call someone an insulting name, or it isn’t. Your little unwritten explicit tradition “directly” insulting rule was not one you cared to enforce when someone called me an “asshole” in GD. And that was a pretty unequivocal by anyone’s reckoning. It was direct. It was applied to me and only me. And then, as now, you pretend to be obtuse to that, where suddenly you can reach into my mind and invent an indirect insult to an individual poster where I intended none, and elevate your own use of a phrase “moral turpitude” above asshole. Now in most people’s minds “asshole” is a more coarse pejorative then the descriptive phrase “moral turpitude”.
Your moderating is filled with double standards. I can’t refer to a whole class of people as engaged in intellectual whoring when they are, and you letting people refer to one person as an “asshole”.
So, are you saying you want a warning for this comment?
You just called Una Persson “anonymously cowardly ignorant”. If you are willing to take your lumps for throwing your insult, then I suspect you can find a moderator who will throw warnings at both you and DSeid for lobbing insults in GD. But if you don’t want a warning for that remark, then you can hardly complain that tomndebb is being unfair by not giving one to DSeid.
If you were not intending to be insulting, then I suggest you consider your tone more carefully. From that thread, Una Persson said:
She certainly thought you were trying to insult her. Apparently so did DSeid. It doesn’t take anyone reaching into your mind to invent anything, all we did is read the words you wrote on the page. If those words came out wrong, then you should be more careful in your word selection and arrangement.
And remember,
If the moderators are not allowed leeway, then they are not allowed leeway, and it doesn’t matter what your intent was, you called someone an insulting name.
So, are you asking for warnings against both DSeid and yourself, or are you trying to argue that the moderator is being unfair while at the same time trying to get a warning applied to DSeid but not to yourself?
Yes, they certainly thought I was trying to insult her, and I was mistaken in using that phrase. I had thought it common. I was mistaken. I had not intended to insult, but I did in that instance.
I had incorrectly thought that people would understand the reference, but they did not, and they did not even after I explained it and offered links. The unofficial SDMB response was to allow “asshole” to be flung in GD.
It doesn’t change that what the response was was certainly an insult and it was not objected to by the moderators.
No, I am not asking for warnings against DSeid, I think that is long past time to do that. I am asking that the moderators change their double standards.