Marley23, a mod, makes a crack about another poster’s education:
“1948 is before WWII? By any chance was your history teacher named Bluto?”
In response, the poster called Marley23 an “asshat”.
To which that poster was scolded and told to take that tone to the pit. No warning was issued, but shouldn’t Marley23 be the one to take that tone to the pit? Marley23 should take those cracks to the pit. It was rude and unnecessary. Simply pointing out the error would have been better suited for Great Debates in my opinion. Cracks about another poster’s education is pure shit-stirring.
Sometimes I’m baffled by the rules around here so I’m just curious if this behavior is okay for a mod, not okay for a regular poster.
I’m a new member and I might not know what the fuck I’m talking about but it’s my understanding that this board has a long, long tradition of snark. If snarky posters were told to dial it back we’d have a very, very different board. We’re proud of our snark and Marley was in a sense being a Dope patriot by participating in our board’s pastime.
The other forums I visit are mainly ones centred around a product, or in some way ‘themed’. I have never - not once - come across mods behaving as they do occasionally here. Maybe I’ve lead a sheltered internet life, but the culture here between mods and posters seems more - how can I put it? - energetic. There may be positives to using that sort of behaviour; it certainly gives the Straight Dope character, but, in my experience, it is unusual.
ETA: the above was posted before I saw AClockworkMelon’s contribution above. It seems to correspond to what I was talking about.
I made an Animal House reference in response to an obvious mistake in the thread title. If you feel that’s unnecessary, really - too bad. It was a joke and it’s well within bounds in any SDMB forum. And considering I let Blinking Duck off with a note rather than a warning for calling me an asshat, I don’t think there’s anything to complain about.
What’s not permissible in GD are personal insults, trolling, threadshitting, and things of that nature. I realize comparing the thread title to “it wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor” is not a compliment - I was pointing out a mistake - but I don’t think it comes anywhere close to being a personal insult or anything against the rules. There are no rules against jokes or pointing out errors, and I’ll note out that my joke in that thread was followed a couple of minutes later by a serious answer to the OP’s question.
So, unless a mod gives robotic responses 100% of the time, you should be able to throw decorum right out the window? What volunteer in her/his right mind would want to work in that type of environment? Are there other message boards of this size or greater that allow this type of moderator abuse?
If you can’t see the insult in Marley’s post, you aren’t looking very hard. My first reaction when reading the post was, this one’s gonna get a warning from the mods. Then I realized that the poster was a mod. Insulting someone with cute pop culture references doesn’t magically make the remarks not insulting.
Did you pick up reading comprehension from Eeyore?
Yes, “By any chance was your history teacher named Bluto?” strikes me as a gratuitous insult. Jokes are allowed on the SDMB, but they should not be at the expense of a poster. I hope that Marley23 will reconsider and apologise. If he doesn’t, then it’s clearly acceptable for anyone here to ask whether Marley23 learned how to moderate from Bluto.
Marley’s jibe was pretty mild. Very much in line with the Cecil Adams style of mild jibery, and not a personal insult, just a joke about something that really was a pretty dumb factual error. I don’t think it’s anything that would have drawn a warning if a non-mod had said. Some people are being overly sensitive here. I’ve got Marley’s back on this one. Nothing to apologize for. Lighten up or go find a Disney board.
You may have meant it in a “funny” way, but for those not intimately familiar with the dialog of a 32 year old movie, it certainly could be construed as insulting.
Pointing out the error - fine
Continuing on to directly imply that the poster did not commit the error by mistake, but rather because of a crappy education… That was being a dick.
The fact that your dickish response was followed by a serious answer merely highlights the dickishness of your response IMO.
The snark was fine! I have NO objection to what he said. I just wanted him to know I saw the insult and responded with more of an aknowledment that I saw th e insult. Honestly, my insult was not very ‘high powered’.
