Just so they can “enjoy” the boards. Admins/Ed, is this true?
We’re talking about moderators posting as posters, in a forum that they don’t moderate, right?
Do City cops ignore drivers without licences, because licensing is a state matter?
Is that yes?
That’s a No. “Police” are expected to uphold the law at all times, not just when they feel like it, or, more to the point, when it suits their political agenda.
Ok. You still haven’t answered my question.
What is your question, then. Spell it out for me, I’m slow.
Coupla quick points:
- We’re not cops.
- There are no hard and fast rules about it, but I think it’s fair to say most of us try to respect the other mods’ discretion and let them handle their forums as they see fit. If I see something that I think is a violation in another forum, I might act on it, report it, or leave it alone, depending on what the violation is.
- No, really, we’re not cops.
I like to make a distinction between the types of rules being discussed. I break them down into rules and guidelines. “No personal insults outside the Pit” is a rule: if you break that you usually get a warning. Other items, like “don’t alter text in quote boxes,” “don’t post more than one verse in a song,” or “don’t link to campaigns,” are guidelines because if you break them, a mod might make a note or break a link, but rarely are posters warned for them. They’re etiquette here and while we expect people to stick to them, we don’t consider it a big deal if they forget because it does little or nothing to detract from the boards overall.
Do you do anything on this site other than second guess Gfactor’s moderation in the Pit, Carol Stream? From where I’m sitting it looks like you mostly hunt for reasons to be offended and then tell him how he should be handling them if things don’t go your way.
You guys are missing the point. I’m not criticizing the Mods, I’m wondering why the Members can’t be arsed to follow the rules in the first place?
Really? Are you sure? Because your thread title, your OP and your other posts say otherwise.
You’d have to ask the members in question, not us. The most obvious answer is that not everybody knows all the rules. In the thread that lead to your question, Drain Bead explained why he didn’t know the rule. We’re not going to make a federal case out of everything that happens on the board and I’m wondering why you feel we should.
Are you really wondering why Carol feels that Mods should make a federal case out of everything that happens on the board, Marley? Were those feelings actually expressed?
Drain Bead is a she.
I’m also wondering if the moderators feel it’s their “right” to post at the SDMB, just because they “enjoy” it?
If so, I have a follow-up: do you think Hitler was “right” to “enjoy” killing Jews?
Modding requires the exercise of some discretion in making a series of judgment calls. Like** Marley** explained, there are different approaches to different types of mod issues. When I mod, things I see as willful misconduct are going to get hammered. Post porn on that board, and it’s an instant ban. Things that are starting to get out of hand will get a “knock it off” response. Things I see as technical mistakes…like posting something in the wrong forum, or duplicate threads, are handled in more of a “let me fix that for you” manner.
Incidentally, Gfactor is the best mod here. From what I’ve seen, the guy simply does not have a temper. His approach is generally restrained, polite, but firm.
In that specific post? Arguably. In Carol Stream’s total body of work? I stand by that.
My apologies to Drain Bead for the error.
Are members allowed to ignore threads in which they don’t really have a clue as to what’s being asked or why, just so they can ‘enjoy’ the boards?
Whatever it is it’s outrageous and I’ve never been so shocked in my life.
Ignorance of the rules should not be an excuse. It’s not in the rest of the world.
Would a link to Joe Wilson’s campaign website have been ignored? Or would that have been axed in a New York minute?
I guess we will never know.
I’m coming to Carol Stream’s defense because, for one thing, he’s right; and for another, because people like Giraffe (in whom I’m disappointed and surprised) and aldiboronti are shitting in this thread when Stream is simply trying to get a ruling from a mod who’s ordinarily very fair, but who’s playing verbal games with him about rules and guidelines, at least one of which isn’t true (Misquoting in quote boxes is a rule). Drain Bead would, I hope, be the first to admit that she knows the rules around here, having been here longer than I have. It is no secret that Carol Stream is almost hated by a great number of people at this board, and you can blame him for that if you don’t want to take responsibility yourselves. But you cannot blame him for asking about why you don’t enforce rules equitably. (The answer, if you need it, is because you’re human beings, and human beings have biases.) Just be honest with him, and stop all the evasive crap. It is unbecoming.
First off:
Giraffe, comparing moderators to Hitler is about as thread-shitting as it gets, and trivializing the Holocaust is pretty much in the realm of being a jerk. Cool it.
Second:
I have not read the entire thread in question, it’s nine pages long. I did read 2 - 3 pages, but there was no link to the offense, to where/when Gfactor edited it, to what the mods said in the meantime, etc. So, I’m not going to comment on the specifics here, but since the OP of this thread was asked in general terms, I’ll answer in general terms.
Mods are not usually territorial. If we see an offense in another forum, we generally try to help out. However, the method of helping out can differ. What is a clear and obvious offense in one forum may not be in others. In particular, the Pit is an area that most of the other mods are very uncomfortable stepping into; the Pit rules are different. It’s not that the Pit mods would turn down the help, it’s that the other mods are uneasy about Pit moderation.
When I’ve seen what I think is an offense in the Pit, I usually just report it to the Pit mods to handle, so my help is behind the scenes and would be invisible to someone reading the thread.
Another aspect: as Liberal notes, we are human beings. We sometimes don’t see the offense, especially in a lonnnnng thread. Heck, a couple of weeks ago, I criticised someone in Cafe Society for what I thought was close to a personal insult; I didn’t catch the fact that there was a blatant personal insult later in the same post. I did a total d’oh :smack: when it got reported. So, sometimes, we just don’t notice. It’s not bias, it’s almost always just that there’s way too much to read. We don’t read everything thoroughly, we skim read and we can miss something.
Espesh if we are caught up in a discussion, the offense doesn’t always leap to our notice. It’s not bias, it’s just not noticing. Kind of like people who are on their cellphones while crossing the street who don’t notice the red light. I’m not saying it’s good, I’m saying it’s human nature, and it’s not deliberate. Getting caught up in a discussion and therefore missing a violation can happen. My personal experience is that this particularly can happen with mis-quoting in quote boxes. I skim read along, I see the quote text and I think I’ve already seen the quote, and I don’t read what’s in the box. Then, I find a report a few hours later that calls it to my attention, and I can go back and fix.
Then, there can be extenuating circumstances that may not be known to the public. We can be seen as overly lenient with a person who has suffered a death in the family on account of a drunk driver, and they lose their temper on the boards at some drunk-jokes. We can be seen as overly strict with a person, and readers don’t know that that person has been pushing, pushing, pushing, and has five or ten “friendly reminders” in email; readers see only the last straw that overflowed the camel’s cup. We do try to respect confidentiality, and we do not always publicize “friendly reminders.”
So, there can be lots of reasons (and this list is not meant to be exclusive) for a mod, posting in a thread as a poster, to ignore (or be thought of ignoring) an offense that occurred earlier in that thread.
Finally, there’s always going to be some inequitability in the rules enforcement. Let’s be realistic: even in the real world, with thousands of books of legal code and regulations, there are cases of inequitable enforcement of the rules. The person ahead of me was speeding, but I was the only one caught. It’s not ideal, but it happens. We do our best to minimize it, but it would be silly to argue that we can possibly reach nirvana with perfect enforcement. Frankly, with the personal insults rule, we can be less harsh if the insult is really really funny, and more harsh if it’s just “fuck you, you motherfucker.” Is that inequitable? I suppose, but it’s more saying that there are gradations and degrees of violation.
One of our guiding principles is that nothing here is irreversible. If a mod failed to notice or to take action, another mod (or the same mod) can catch it later, especially after it’s been reported. (Note that reports only go to the forum mods!)
OK, long winded answer to why mods might inadvertently ignore a rules violation, or might be perceived to be ignoring a rules violation even if they’re actively pursuing behind the scenes, or why mods might even deliberately “ignore” a rules violation.