It has long been my understanding that accusing other posters of lying is verboten in GD and P&E, but not in other forums. That understanding was based on explicit moderator statements, e.g. here (with agreement from several other mods) and here.
Is this still current, or has the rule been expanded to other forums?
Regardless of whether or not it’s a violation of some rule, if Poster A says “you’ve said in the past [such-and-such idiotic statement]” and Poster B knows that it’s absolutely untrue that he ever said such a thing but obviously can’t prove the negative, then barring responses like “this is blatantly untrue” or “please stick to the truth” is empowering dishonest personal attacks.
Why wouldn’t Poster B simply ask for them to link to where that was said or retract it? If you claim that I once said “I love Nickleback!”, I’m going to ask for a link or retraction (unless you link to this post ).
Here’s the link. I nearly reported your post, based on the insinuation that Aspenglow was lying. Laziness stopped me. I’m glad that sort of thing got noted.
The rule against lying is GD / P&E specific. That has not changed.
In most other forums, while there is no specific prohibition of lying, many accusations of lying would be considered as an attack upon the user, which is forbidden outside of the Pit. This would be moderated on a case by case basis.
Saying something along the lines of “this is untrue” is probably going to be fine in most cases. Saying “please stick to the truth” is maybe a bit fuzzy as you are possibly insulting the user by implicitly calling him a liar. It might also be considered junior modding. Avoid things like “you’re a liar”. After all, it’s possible that the user is simply mistaken. It’s the old “attack the post, not the poster” rule.
As was previously suggested, saying that you did not say such a thing and asking for a cite would probably also work in most cases.
As I’m not 100% sure of this, I did some digging. In a much more recent ATMB thread it appears calling someone a liar is equivalent to insulting them.
I’m basing the above on this thread from last June.
As always, the Pit would be an exception.
ETA: Sorry, have to add. Avoid any question on the subject and just let the other poster know that they’re incorrect about what the posted and let them provide the proof to back it up.
If someone says you’ve said something, and you think they’re wrong, then call them on it. I’ve done it many times. Occasionally I’ve been wrong and someone showed it. Usually either I was right or the poster wasn’t able (or chose not) to back up their accusation. I recommend this strategy if you think someone made an inaccurate claim about your posts, no matter the forum.
What you said was “I think it would behoove you to be more careful to stick to the truth when posting to this MB, especially when making claims about other posters. But no one can force you.” That comes across to me not as simply saying something was untrue, but accusing the person of repeatedly stating untruths about other posters out of reckless abandon to the truth. I could debate whetehr that counts as saying they are “lying,” but it does seem to me to be an accusation of ill intent.
That said, I’m glad you brought this up, as the mod note kept me from posting something that I thought might be important.
It looked to me more like you guys were talking cross purposes. Their accusation was that you had previously vociferously argued against Russian collusion in the 2016 election, but, when they quoted posts to try and back that up, you said the Russian thing was irrelevant. So it seemed to me like you interpreted their post to mean something else.
I have, however, noticed a situation where I asked for proof of the accusation, didn’t get it, but the poster continued to act as their post stood anyways. This has even happened to me with PMs–with a couple mods, even.
After reading the link helpfully provided by @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness, I would personally characterize the above sentence as a misrepresentation of the situation in question.
Well yeah, it would be pretty simple to ask for that. The problem is that it’s too easy for the poster to either 1) ignore the request, or 2) to link to something and claim it is effectively equivalent to the claimed statement, relying on the tendency of most posters to not get involved in digging through the context of the other thread enough to sort it out.
Agreed. But it’s frequently the case that posters post with reckless disregard for the truth, and they are emboldened in doing this by the fact that they can get away with it.
I thought accusations of lying were forbidden everywhere except the Pit. I guess an exception could be in Thread Games, where I suppose you can make a game out of lying.
To the OP, the “this is blatantly false” looked fine to me, and I guess the moderator. The “it would be behoove you…” part seemed pretty out of bounds to me. To me, it’s the kind of statement that only should be made in the Pit, since it’s attacking a poster and not advancing any sort of conversation.
Possibly. But it was in response to the poster saying “you’ll receive no apology from me”, which amounted to saying she continued to stand by her earlier statement.
This is a case where you sincerely disagree with a poster’s interpretation of what you said. It seems pretty clear to me that Aspenglow came by their belief about what you said after conducting some research into your past words, and whatever disagreement was sincer on their part.
One approach to this disagreement is to say, “Ah, I think I see where you’re getting that from. However, you’re misunderstanding what I said. Let me clear it up.”
Another is to tell offer them condescending advice on how not to, uh, “post with reckless disregard for the truth.”
The only way that “research” justifies the assertion is by the vague notion that anyone who argued against the general Trump-Russia collusion story had by extension disagreed with every single factual assertion that anyone ever claimed backed up the theory. That is nonsensical enough to count as “reckless disregard for the truth”.
The poster did not have a “sincere” belief that I had ever disputed the Manafort-Deripaska story, which is what they were claiming, nor did they ever attempt to back up that claim.
@Fotheringay-Phipps, I don’t quite understand the purpose of this thread. Is it because a moderator said that you shouldn’t accuse other posters of lying in a mod note? Whereas, the moderator should have said, “dial it back, that kind of accusation belongs in the Pit”?
I can’t help the way the thread developed. The purpose of the thread was 1) to get some clarity as to whether the lying rule applied outside GD & P&E, and 2) to note that the rule itself had a significant downside.
It was obviously triggered by the moderation of the other thread, but not about it specifically. I am not concerned about mod notes, warnings, or any other potential sanctions. Nonetheless, I do like to stay within the rules as a general matter, for reasons of principle.
I have more than once found that you attribute disagreements to dishonesty, insincerity, or “reckless disregard for the truth,” when there are more innocent explanations. This is an issue with you, not with other posters.
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