# Are Mods allowed to ignore Rules violations? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 12, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789 "2009-09-12T03:25:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/121 "2009-09-15T13:33:32Z")
But if you _were_ to speak hypothetically, what would you say? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/122 "2009-09-15T13:43:18Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > What, hypothetical questions must be grounded on planet Mars to qualify as true hypotheticals? Describing the question as a hypothetical when it is not a hypothetical is somewhat dishonest. While this may not have been **Liberal** ’s intent, it comes off as a sneaky way to ask one moderator to criticize another without presenting all the facts of the situation upfront. It’s not that hard to link to a particular thread if he’s got one in mind, like he says he does. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/123 "2009-09-15T13:43:25Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > So, then, you’re _not_ asking a hypothetical question; you’re couching a question about a specific thread _as_ a hypothetical. No, but I can see how it might appear that way. I was actually emulating a former moderator in Great Debates who moved on many years ago to work on his reality TV site. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/124 "2009-09-15T13:47:01Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Describing the question as a hypothetical when it is not a hypothetical is somewhat dishonest. While this may not have been **Liberal** ’s intent, it comes off as a sneaky way to ask one moderator to criticize another without presenting all the facts of the situation upfront. It’s not that hard to link to a particular thread if he’s got one in mind, like he says he does. If you wouldn’t mind terribly, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me speak for myself. Yes, I did have a particular post in mind, only because it was recent. But that does not mean that the hypothetical I constructed was meant to “couch” the recent example. DavidB has not been around in years. Everyone should be familiar with the recent example, because [I opened an entire thread about it](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=531703). ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/125 "2009-09-15T14:07:41Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > it comes off as a sneaky way to ask one moderator to criticize another without presenting all the facts of the situation upfront. It’s not that hard to link to a particular thread if he’s got one in mind, like he says he does. Maybe to you it comes off like that, although I doubt it personally. To me, it came off as a sincere interest in getting information about policy and tone while remaining impersonal. Hypotheticals are threatening to the person being asked, I understand, because he or she must mentally backpedal while coming up with an answer, (Who are we talking about here?" “Is it me?” “Am I contradicting myself here?” ) deprived of the context, the previous conversation, the personalities and histories of those involved, and so are reduced to answering, simply, whether or not “this” is ok. I understand why \*\*Twix \*\*doesn’t want to field hypotheticals, but that doesn’t make them illegitimate. You’d like to keep the rules flexible, and mutable, and you don’t want to pinned down to a clear policy. That’s cool, though it explains why people sometimes have problems understanding or applying your rules–I wish you’d concede that some large part of that difficulty is due to your policy, not the rampant stubborn innate dumbness of your posters, though. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/126 "2009-09-15T14:17:40Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > If you wouldn’t mind terribly, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me speak for myself. I never doubted that you would. 😉 I hadn’t read that thread before. I don’t moderate a lot of tense arguments, most of the threads I close are duplicates or zombies, so I didn’t expect to be the subject of that complaint. I do think we’ve closed ATMB threads more often than we need to and it wouldn’t hurt to cut back on that, since a lot of the time when a thread gets closed, another one opens to ask why the thread was closed and the debate on the original subject resumes. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/127 "2009-09-15T14:22:09Z")
Why all this eagerness to close threads generally? It’s like **Tom** , to give one example, can’t be arsed to say “Veering a little off-topic here, folks,” and Shall we stick to the OP a bit closer? Thanks" a couple of times. Isn’t that the function of a mod anyway, to keep threads doing what they should be doing? You mods behave sometimes as if it’s the sworn duty of a mod to shut down any discussions that begin to bug you a little. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/128 "2009-09-15T15:50:32Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > I’m sorry if y’all are finding me evasive, but I’m not going to get drawn into some long thing of “if this person said this, would that be a problem? Okay, how about if the third word in the sixth sentence were X instead of Y, would _that_ be a problem?” > > We’d be here forever, and nothing useful would happen. > > I repeat, if you have a specific post or posts that you’re finding confusing, pls. link to them or quote them, and we can discuss them. > > I personally am not going to talk hypotheticals here. Okay, let’s talk about the post I quoted and asked about a page or so back then, shall we? Please, I’d love for _somebody_ to address it. And although **Dex** has said it ought to be discussed in another thread, I think the situation is relevant to the question asked in the OP of this one because if the things drawing warnings in this thread are insults, then it looks remarkably like there’s been a rule violation that has blatantly ignored by a mod. Here’s the quote again so you won’t have to look for it: "Why the heck did you review a cookbook when you hadn’t bothered to cook even one recipe? Why were you wasting time on such a fruitless exercise when you should have been preparing flavorless Anglo-Saxon gruel for your sick hubby? Mexican ingredients are hardly exotic here in Texas, of course. And they are pretty common in Chicago. Is your little town so isolated that no Mexicans live there–or were you just unwilling to venture out of your little suburban enclave? Couldn’t you have picked a cookbook more to your liking? " Critique of someone’s actions and motivations, rather than their words, plain as day. _Exactly_ what people are getting warned for in this thread. And it didn’t draw a warning, even though the same mod issuing those warnings quite obviously saw it. On the surface, it looks like he just chose to ignore a blatant violation of the rules. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/129 "2009-09-15T16:40:48Z")
@ CrazyCatLady By Merriam-Webster’s definition of insult — “to treat with insolence, indignity, or contempt” — that certainly qualifies as insulting. But where did it come from. Was it in the Pit? Cafe Society? Or where? ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/130 "2009-09-15T16:59:07Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > Okay, let’s talk about the post I quoted and asked about a page or so back then, shall we? Please, I’d love for _somebody_ to address it. And although **Dex** has said it ought to be discussed in another thread, I think the situation is relevant to the question asked in the OP of this one because if the things drawing warnings in this thread are insults, then it looks remarkably like there’s been a rule violation that has blatantly ignored by a mod. I don’t know why that remark didn’t get a response from a mod – did you report it at the time? (Although I did admonish someone on page 1 of that thread, I wasn’t yet officially a Cafe Society mod when that was all happening, so I wouldn’t’ve gotten a report if one was made.) My guess is that whatever Cafe Society mods were reading and participating in that thread skimmed over the post you’re angry about while getting a sense of what the thread was about. If no one reported that post but someone reported yours, yours would have gotten more careful scrutiny from a moderator. Human error, in other words. And, in general, we don’t go back to threads weeks after the fact and issue warnings in conversations that have died out. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/131 "2009-09-15T19:36:00Z")
No, I didn’t report it, because at the time I didn’t realize we had stretched the definition of “direct insult” as far as we apparently have. It was rude, it was snotty, it was condescending, but it was well within the limits of what has in the past been well within the boundaries or acceptable behavior, just as the comments that have drawn warnings here used to be well within the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Frankly, at the time I thought my warning for my use of the Deplorable Word and the whole “personal insult” thing was merely a fig leaf; I was rather disappointed in **Dex** for insulting my intelligence with such transparent bs because it honestly never occurred to me that interpretation of the long-held rules of this place would change so drastically. And I certainly don’t expect anyone to go back and issue a warning for that post, I was just curious about why it apparently passed muster and when **Dex** refused to acknowledge the situation in any way I naturally became curioser. If he’d just said, “Well, I was so focused on your post I honestly didn’t notice,” I’d have shut up about it then. If it’s just a simple human error, where’s the harm in saying so right off the bat? We’re all human, we all understand human error; I’m hardly likely to think less of someone for screwing up when I obviously screwed up myself, you know? But I _am_ likely to think less of someone for not being able or willing to say, “Yeah, I goofed.” When honest questions are ignored, and ignored, and then brushed aside, it just plain looks bad. When you pair that with the fact that all of the people who have gotten “personal insult” warnings from the guy who didn’t issue a warning on that post are active members of an offshoot board, it looks _really_ bad on the face of it. And you know what they say about the appearance of impropriety. I’m not saying I believe anyone is moderating Raffers more stringently than everyone else, but I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t flitted across the back of my mind. This is, I think, a microcosm of why relationships between the staff and the users have become so adversarial, and it flat-out blows. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/132 "2009-09-15T19:43:30Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > I don’t even understand this. I’ve googled ‘the Fremont’, and found nothing that, as far as I can see, could be construed as insulting. There are references to Nevada, Nebraska. Massachusetts and Seattle. I guess it must the latter, but what’s so bad about Seattle? It’s obviously something USA-centric that I, anyway, here in the UK don’t get. > > Could someone explain what brought down the wrath of the gods? > [@Liberal](#): > > It’s a very subtle and veiled insult, constructed purposefully to be obfuscatory. The key is in the term “salubrious”, and its association with Freemont (Seattle). A salubrious clime (poetic archaic for “region or climate, as in environs”) means a place where she can be healed, or made better — as though something were wrong with her as she is now. [Freemont](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont,_Seattle), often referred to as “The People’s Republic of Freemont”, is an artsy-fartsy throwback to Haight-Ashbury in 1960s San Francisco (but more eclectic). It’s extremely left-wing. It’s motto is _De Libertas Quirkas_" (“Freedom to be Weird”). > > In other words, the implication is that Carol could be straightened out if only she were immersed into a counter-culture that clashes almost violently with her political views. The fact that neither of these posters has even the vaguest clue as to what my original post refers, and that I’d wager a nickel that none of the mods do, either, as nobody has specifically said why they thought my post was insulting (even while issuing a warning for it,) says volumes about how moderation is conducted around here. I think the fact that I prefaced it with a phrase that vaguely insinuates “something insulting follows” was enough–under the “I don’t understand it, therefore it must be bad” line of reasoning so prevalent in the staff of the board. See “Greasemonkey script” for another example. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/133 "2009-09-15T20:02:25Z")
@SmartAleq “And likewise it would be wrong of me to speculate that should Carol ever elect to visit the Pacific Northwest that she might find environs of the Fremont to be an exceptionally salubrious clime for one of her disposition?” The above is what you wrote. Can you point out where my deconstruction of it erred? ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/134 "2009-09-15T20:08:30Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > I’m not saying I believe anyone is moderating Raffers more stringently than everyone else, but I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t flitted across the back of my mind. I can’t speak for any of the other mods, but I honestly don’t keep track of the other boards (skim them less than once a week) or who posts there. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_Stream](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@Carol\_Stream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_Stream)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/135 "2009-09-15T20:16:01Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > @SmartAleq > > “And likewise it would be wrong of me to speculate that should Carol ever elect to visit the Pacific Northwest that she might find environs of the Fremont to be an exceptionally salubrious clime for one of her disposition?” > > The above is what you wrote. Can you point out where my deconstruction of it erred? I believe that SmartAleq was calling me a troll. > **[Fremont Troll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Troll)** > > The Fremont Troll (also known as The Troll, or the Troll Under the Bridge) is a public sculpture in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. > The Troll is a mixed media colossal statue, located on N. 36th Street at Troll Avenue N., under the north end of the George Washington Memorial Bridge (also known as the Aurora Bridge). It is clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle, as if it had just swiped it from the roadway above. The vehicle has a California license plate. Origin... ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/136 "2009-09-15T20:20:07Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > @SmartAleq > > “And likewise it would be wrong of me to speculate that should Carol ever elect to visit the Pacific Northwest that she might find environs of the Fremont to be an exceptionally salubrious clime for one of her disposition?” > > The above is what you wrote. Can you point out where my deconstruction of it erred? Well, see, we’re just not up on the rules and don’t have a clue. :rolleyes: **Dex** had warned people in this very thread to “cool it” [post #55] with insultin the poster. **Cat Whisperer** , in post # 67, said > [@](#): > > So, it would be wrong of me to hypothetically say that this thread is some of Carol’s better work? , obviously calling **Carol** a troll. So, in the next post, #68, **SmartAleq** decides to show how dumb we are by posting a similar thing(not to call Carol a troll so much as to show us how smart he/she is). Of course, reporting **Cat Whisperer’s** post would have been pretty easy and garnered a warning for him/her. I _assume_ trolls are happiest when in the “clime” of the Pacific Northwest. **Carol** found the connection before I. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/137 "2009-09-15T20:40:21Z")
> [@Carol\_Stream](#): > > I believe that SmartAleq was calling me a troll. > > [Fremont Troll - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Troll) Oh, wow. Y’know, I know that you’re a staunch conservative, and while you and I probably agree on most economic issues — although in reality, I’m probably far right of you— we are poles apart on social issues. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all that, I believe that you deserve the same respect that we all do — especially in a forum like this. I feel so bad for you that I feel like I want to apologize, and I haven’t even said anything at all bad about you. Just, let’s leave it at this: just know that not every person who disagrees with you about things like abortion or torture or even […swallowing very hard…] President Obama, thinks badly of you. You speak your mind, just like we all do. And even though you’re wrong about a lot of things, so am I. And so is everybody. Big woop. You’re okay by me. What that might be worth is entirely up to you. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/138 "2009-09-15T20:50:38Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > @SmartAleq > > “And likewise it would be wrong of me to speculate that should Carol ever elect to visit the Pacific Northwest that she might find environs of the Fremont to be an exceptionally salubrious clime for one of her disposition?” > > The above is what you wrote. Can you point out where my deconstruction of it erred? At the usual spot–Occam’s Razor. > [@Carol\_Stream](#): > > I believe that SmartAleq was calling me a troll. > > [Fremont Troll - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Troll) **flips a nickel** Sorry, **sam,** but four minutes post pic link doesn’t get you a shiny cyber nickel! Now that we have massive mod action in this thread again, how about some of the rest of you take a swing at **Crazy Cat Lady’s** non-hypothetical example of insult ignored by mod–does she have a point, is that an insult that was quoted by a mod in another post that admonished **CCL** but not the other poster? Because it sure looks like an insult to me, but I’d like to get a clarification–since y’all are here and whatnot. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/139 "2009-09-15T21:18:46Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > I would be happy to have additional suggestions about what to do to attract attention, when prior mod comments are seemingly being ignored by the very people they were directed at. You really can’t think of what to do in this situation? You issue a mod comment, which is not an official warning to anyone, and people ignore it. And you have no idea what to do next? Come on. ---
**Author:** ![Elyanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5ac83/32.png) [@Elyanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elyanna)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789/140 "2009-09-15T22:24:15Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > And likewise it would be wrong of me to speculate that should **Carol** ever elect to visit the Pacific Northwest that she might find environs of the Fremont to be an exceptionally salubrious clime for one of her disposition? Oh, my, my. You really are a smart aleck. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mods-allowed-to-ignore-rules-violations/509789.md?page=8)