That’s been my point all along. The thread didn’t go off the rails until Lynn gave the bogus warning by digging up the mothballed “Inaccurate thread titles” rule and then misapplying it (since there was never any hint of Euth doing this before as far as I can see and Dex clearly states that it’s a “repeated pattern” of misbehavior that’s trolling.)
I don’t get how they can let the suspension stand when it’s a direct result of an unfair warning. If the cops break into your house without a warrant and you take a swing at one…yeah, you’re guilt of assaulting the cop, but since the cop was there illegally.
If the cops bust into your house without a warrant and start shooting at you, and you shoot back, you’re probably safe. Nothing to do with a poisoned tree, though. Just self-defense.
Very strange to see this thread turn into a reasonable discussion, I must say.
Oops–I just called a buddy of mine who’s a lawyer and he said exactly the same thing, acsenray. That was a horrible analogy on my part and didn’t serve to illustrate the point I was trying to make (kinda the opposite). Sorry about that.
As I see it, there are three seperate issues here:
Misleading thread title.
As with you, I would have expected a thread title edit only. As it was, Euth was only told “Don’t do this again.” He wasn’t suspended for the thread title. Even though I disagree with the thread title being “trollish”, the only punishment up to this point is a finger wag.
Abuse to Moderator concerning an official action against that poster.
The moderators have the same role as police, in that they enforce the “laws” (code of conduct) on the boards as they understand them.
Is it OK if I assume we know why you don’t argue with the traffic cop on the side of the highway?
A similar principle applies here. There are ways provided to us within the system to appeal a mod ruling.
The method Euth chose was not it. And since he was reacting to a “finger wag”, his reaction seemed a little excessive to me.
Off topic posts/highjacking a thread
Getting into a (hotly contested) debate regarding a moderator ruling within that same thread will derail the thread (it was being derailed in the thread in question before it got locked), and that (I think) is what is intended with the instruction to open another thread.
If the thread was in the Cafe Society, most users here would have opened a new thread in the pit, because they have come to understand that that is where mod action debates occur. What got a little confusing was was that the thread in question was already in the pit, so some users thought “why do I need another thread?”.
The answer is so that your original topic does not get derailed.
This was a minor transgression (IMO). As it was, no action was taken against Euth for this violation.
Lynn instructs Euth to open a new thread (post #67) to debate the mod action, but didn’t make it absolutely clear why he should. (Maybe she thought he already understood why.)
Climb down off the cross. You didn’t get snapped at for trying to help, you got snapped at for taking an unwarranted backhand swipe at the posters you were trying to help.
I don’t think it was the finger wag that bothered Euthanasiast, but the unfair accusation of trolling. He might have snapped just the same had it been you or me, instead of a mod.
Sorry to disagree, but my opinion is that Lynn gave Euth an offical warning (which goes on his “permanent record”) Lynn specifically said she was speaking as a mod.
The word “warning” doesn’t have to be invoked for it to be a warning.
And I think this illustrates why, more than anything else, we need some clarity in the rules. The “don’t be a jerk” thing doesn’t work if we don’t know where the line is.
Per one set of criteria, misleading thread titles are ok as long as they’re not repeated offenses. Per another, they’re grounds for a first-offense warning.
We’ve got multiple posters trying to decide if the poster even WAS officially warned (I still vote “yes” per Gaudere’s quote above.
This is not a model of clarity and I’m glad that time’s being taken to discuss it.
I think you’re not on the ball here, Fenris. As I understand it, current policy is to have Warning very clearly spelled out in the actual Warning post. Mods can and have put on their moderator hats plenty of times before to control a thread’s direction or poster’s behavior without actually invoking official discipline. Clearly pointing out that a post was a Warning has been a standard mod rule for a while now specifically to eliminate the ambiguity between official discipline and a rap on the knuckles.
I suppose Lynn could have gone against standing policy, or standing policy has actually changed, but I think it’s more likely you’re just mistaken on this, as it’s one of the few truly consistent and bright-line rules they’ve been following for the past couple of years.
You have invoked me! It used to be we didn’t need to spell out “this is an official warning” quite so explicitly, as long as it was a official moderator note like “don’t do X, you know better poster Y, don’t do that again…”. Sometime we decided that we did need to be more clear about it. You’ll note my post is from 2003. So Bosstone is correct.
Ah! I hadn’t realized the rules changed. I withdraw my objections–if Euth wasn’t warned, then most of my argument/concern disintegrates (except for the “thread title misleading/trolling” thing).
Damn-proven wrong twice in the same thread. (Th’ thread was from 2003?! How did I not notice that?)
To be fair, if it was just a ‘correction’, it was certainly a forceful one. But I think had Euth defended himself and acknowledged that he screwed up (which he did do) without resorting to cussing out Lynn and Giraffe, the incident would have left everyone’s mind within a day’s time.
I recall running across one misleading title and asking a mod what we do in such cases. He told me which mod to report it to the next time it happened.
Then along came the thread about Georgia Schools and Dinosaurs being called “Jesus Horses.” The title faulted the Georgia School System or the Georgia Legislature, I think. But even the poster of the thread admitted that it was actually a joke from SNL. Some folks don’t read very carefully and continued to make fun of Georgia for their stupid law.
As I had been told to do, I sent an email to the appropriate moderator about changing the title to an accurate one. The title was not changed and I didn’t even get a response. Oh well. So much for that technique.
The misperception that it was a Georgia law continued to spread and there were, I think, two more threads about it.
Some falsehoods are okay to perpetuate if they fit in with a mod’s bias? What am I to think when I don’t get a response? (And yes, I always check my email and private mail.)
Right, because the misleading thread title was about “Jesus Horses”, and that was perfectly fine. But Og forbid a misleading thread title about PP, 'cause that’s Trolling.
That’s been my point all along. The thread didn’t go off the rails until Lynn gave the bogus warning by digging up the mothballed “Inaccurate thread titles” rule and then misapplying it (since there was never any hint of Euth doing this before as far as I can see and Dex clearly states that it’s a “repeated pattern” of misbehavior that’s trolling.)
So Bosstone is correct.
