IIRC, lissener was not banned for merely commenting on Starship Troopers and Showgirls. He was banned because he lost his damn mind in discussions and repeatedly broke forum rules in those discussions despite repeated warnings. Same procedure as pretty much any other banning.
As for the comments, it appeared as if Weirddave was trying to start up another flame out and banning for Lissener by purposefully making remarks that Lissener was likely to go nuts about. That shows a knowledge of Lisseners history and why he was banned.
Short form: Probably should’ve known better. This is a unique situation, so the mods are going to be watching it very carefully. The safe move would be to give it a while before joking about it, and even then pile on the smileys and disclaimers.
If I’m reading this thread correctly (it took me 20 posts to understand what the hell was going on), you may be deliberately taunting lissener with this comment knowing that he can’t respond on matters such as his assolishness. Therefore, you must be warned before your ultimate banning doom because this is just like killing someone’s relative when you’re drunk.
Well, I’ll swim against the current and concede that the mods are human, and subject to the same fits of emotion that we all are. However, I am also a believer in the perks of management, and see nothing wrong with a mod going back to temper their own outburst. I don’t think that makes it all kittens and rainbows, seeing as how there always seems to be a poster, generally speaking, around to copy/paste every mod transgression into a pit thread anyway.
Well, and this is just me talking, but I really don’t know. Based on the offered explanation, and the post that prompted this very thread I would be forced to conclude that Dex is not firing on all 6 cylinders at the moment. I find myself in a strange and frightening world where the moderators are not impartial and are using the “making crap up to justify what I just randomly did” school of thought.
Kidding aside, my particular temperament simply is not suited to the “it was really bad, trust me” stance here. I think that I should be able to see for myself. I also never did very well with “because I said so” as a kid. Funny that.
Right, then they can ban the poster that did so for mis-quoting or some shit. This really just kind of proves my point. Leave the thread history the fuck alone, unless we are talking about illegal links or some such.
I think it’d be hard to do make a banning in that instance stand up with the “edited by” tag and timestamps, wouldn’t it?
And if they’d be that petty in the first place, should they even be a mod? I just have a hard time swallowing the argument that they run around abusing their power willy-nilly like you make it sound like they do.
Sure they make poor decisions, but first stones and all that.
Or maybe edit the post to add something like “Upon reflection, this post was way the fuck out of line too…” or whatever.
It’s like this: My standard approach is neutral. Given that, based on what I can see, Dex is behaving irrationally, the meter has shifted into the negative. In other words, the very sentiment that caused me to start this thread in the first place is the reason that I have not to trust this particular decision and to think that there is more than meets the eye (well, ok, we know that because the post was deleted but I do hope that you get where I am coming from).
More to the point, I guess that this whole thing really feels like someone abusing their privileges to fuck with reality. Not only does that fly in the face of what the SDMB is supposedly for, but I find it offensive personally.
I understand what you’re saying. What I don’t understand is all this concern over Dexs methods. Has he abused his power before? Did he have a reason to abuse his power now?
Why can’t he respond? There aren’t any conditions imposed upon him of which I’m aware. If there are, wouldn’t it seem reasonable to find them here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=339900 My assumption regarding Dex’s comment about lissener’s inablilty to respond in kind, is that lissener is prohibited (like everyone else) from being a dick in the thread/forum where Dex found that attack.
So I guess I, too, have a question for the mods. Is there a condition placed upon lissener’s return and continued stay which prevents him from posting here in the Pit in the same fashion accorded the rest of us? If so, then my comment about his nature are certainly out of line. I can only profess ignorance of any restrictions which may have been placed on lissener.
This here I absolutely agree with. The offending post from Weirddave should have remained - or be restored - to preserve context.
You have a point. The very instant that I am granted the power to edit and delete the posts of others, I will stop complaining about the moderators doing so.
Look, my point is that reality has been compromised here. I get that some folks don’t see this as a big deal in the same way that I do, but I say that this is a very, very bad precedent and that it should not be allowed. Period.
I understand that the moderators delete Spam, and that they must remove things like copy write violations or links that go to file sharing sites and so forth. But this is different. This is a post by a member is good standing that prompted an official warning. This should be something that we should be able to see, and I have yet to see anything that justifies its removal.
I see **Case Sensitive ** was sternly upbraided in the “Lissener has been reinstated” thread for his suggestion not to mention a certain Dutch Director – oh wait, I no I didn’t. :rolleyes:
But we’re just members, not moderators. Like I said earlier, there are some perks to management, one of which is the ability to edit posts.
Again, unless he is routinely going around abusing the ability to manipulate or delete posts, then I’m going to chalk this up to a bad moderating decision which is being discussed by the members, as is our right.
If he restores dave’s post, great. If he edits his post to remove some of the profanity and tone, great, too. Then we’ve made a difference.
If not, well, it’s not life and death, right?
Now, other than this minor edit function thing, I’m pretty much agreeing with you all the way through, I think.