His statement indicates that he thought that “Loser owes the winner $x” betting was against the rules, but that “Loser owes charity $x”, which he offered, was not.
It turns out that neither was against the rules. So the warning is unreasonable and should be removed. And the right thing to do when you incorrectly punish someone is to apologize for your error. And, honestly, all the other moderators who think that the warning should stand should apologize too, for being ridiculous.
This is one large, steaming pile of bullshit. If the other moderators did, indeed, weigh in on this decision, then every one of you should be embarrassed.
This was a “Reply” to one of my posts, so it’s worth a quick review of what I’ve actually written here.
I mean, the rule will not change. It is what it is, so the argument here is purely academic.
But one reason I like explicit, falsifiable agreements is that they can help guide people to engage directly with the actual position that’s been offered, rather than hastily hitting the button in order to attack a position that literally does not appear in the post to which they are “Replying”.
This is quite possibly the single most absurd rationalization for a warning I think I’ve ever seen here.
But I don’t know. When you come out with something this ridiculous - especially since it sounds like this is some sort of mod consensus - all one can do is laugh. I don’t think you will change this, but you should.
So, you’re saying that if I make up and Board rule and then violate it I’m going to get a warning. That is crazy. The fact that the other Mods agreed with you is worse. You admit he broke no rules and you can’t even both to contort yourself into saying he broke the don’t be a jerk rule. This is really bad moderation.
Agreed. Bad call all the way around. The proper response would have been a simple note correcting UltraVires that betting with a donation to charity was still betting and therefore forbidden. Followed after that by a mea culpa when it became clear that the no-betting rule didn’t apply in that forum.
Personally I’m completely fine with a blanket ban on all betting, but this was handled poorly. Especially for such an inconsequential and basically inoffensive post.
I don’t care one way or another about whether betting is allowed on this board. I’ve always just rolled my eyes when some blowhard demanded that someone put up or shut up.
But I am wholeheartedly against these sorts or rulings that thoroughly undermine both the actual rules of the board and the trust the membership places in the mods.
Yeah, UV is UV. But if they can do this kind of crap to him, they can do it to me.
Clearing moving the goalposts. Either it’s right or its wrong; you don’t get to change the rules to fit your warning.
This didn’t happen.
Not really.
This is the most pathetic post I’ve ever seen from a mod.
@AdminModTubaDiva pls weigh in on this.
There have been many mod calls that I disagreed with, but at least I could always squint hard and see how someone else might rule that way. But I have absolutely no clue how you ever came up with this ruling. Your rationale for upholding the warning is unbelievable.
It’s even worse than that.
It’s if you make up a board rule and try to not violate it, but a moderator also doesn’t know the rules and won’t back down.
I could almost see the justification for requiring posters to abide by what they think the rules are, which is that if you think you’re breaking a rule, then you’re not posting in good faith which generally falls under being a jerk. But that’s not what happened here! To think that, you’d have to wilfully ignore everything after the first comma in UV’s post.
Ya, that’s what I was referring to when I said Chronos couldn’t even bother to contort himself into saying it was a violation of the don’t be a jerk rule. It would have involved a lot of twisting but it wouldn’t have been insane.
Who did you confer with, @Chronos? Which ones thought this is a good idea?
@Colibri? @engineer_comp_geek? @gaudere? @gfactor? @Jonathan_Chance? @loach? @miller? @Rico? @tomndebb?
Hi Mr. Chronos. Like others are saying, the warning was unjustified. And this justification is horrible and completely misleading. UltraVires wrote that betting to charity was possibly within the rules. You are the one misrepresenting the quote.
And if other mods really support this argument you’re making, the most likely explanation is that they are all sleep deprived. Get some rest, wipe the egg off your face, and move on.
Thank you for your service.
Do you mean “unfalsifiable”?
I think I mean “falsifiable”. In the sense of “capable of being tested or observed to be incorrect.”
The idea is that you’d have to make testable predictions. Something that in the future could be measured and determined to be a correct or an incorrect prediction.
This is possibly the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen on this board. If you all want to ban conservative and/or unpopular posters, then just do it instead of having these ridiculous contortions of the rules you want to apply.
Chronos, did you miss the part where I specifically said that if this was against the rules then I retract? If you saw that, then how could you possibly conclude that I “knew” it was against the rules?
And it turns out it wasn’t against the rules! It seems that I violated the “next guy who we want to ban so we will make up shit against him” rule.
Could it be that in the move, all our moderators have been replaced by their mirror universe doubles?